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dhwty-writes · 3 years

Note

Dialogue prompt: “you feel so deeply for everyone, let someone feel deeply for you.”

Thank you, lovely person, for this wonderful prompt! I’m sorry this took a while, it got very long. I also just realised as I was uploading this, that the prompt isn’t exactly what you asked for. I hope you like it regardless!

Warnings: None, except for utter dumbassery on these two idiots’ parts

Read on AO3

The room at their inn was infuriatingly quiet, the silence only broken by the scratch of Jaskier's quill. It drove Geralt mad. It drove him mad and yet he could do nothing but stare at the ceiling above the bed.

Not because of the obvious reasons. Not because it was annoying or too loud or anything.

No, it drove him mad, because he lacked the words to fill the silence. Two dozen times Geralt opened his mouth to say something, two dozen times he closed it again.

Then he sat up with a start. "What would you like to do this evening?" he blurted out.

The maddening scratching stopped for a moment, accompanied by a weary sigh. "Gee, Geralt, what kind of question is that?"

"Hmm." Yeah, what kind of question was that? A stupid one, that's what.

"I don't know, sleep?” The scratching started again. “I'm tired." Jaskier yawned to prove his point.

Geralt ground his teeth and turned onto his other side. He had just wanted to do something nice for his bard. But now the opportunity had passed, now he had to work up the courage again. He fell asleep, still ruminating how utterly stupid he had been.

The thing was, doing something nice for another person wasn't necessarily Geralt's forte. Melitele's tits, even being nice was not his forte! He was a witcher and witchers killed monsters. Niceties and manners had a very low priority in Kaer Morhen’s curriculum.

The other thing was, Jaskier deserved someone being nice to him. He couldn't quite say what it was, but the bard had grown on him over the years. First a slight annoyance and liability, then a reliable travel companion until he felt comfortable calling him his friend. Best friend, even. Which, given that he was his only friend, wasn’t very hard. And now—

Something had changed, something Geralt did not quite dare to name. All he knew was that whenever he looked at his bard, his cheeks and chest grew warm and his stomach and heart did funny things they weren't supposed to.

And that he wanted to do something nice for the bard.

A few weeks after the Question Incident, Geralt had finally worked up the courage to try once more. Given his previous experience, he had decided not to ask the bard again. That way at least, he didn’t run risk to ruin it with his incompetence with words again.

He did, however, hold the belief that words were the key to this tricky situation. Jaskier was a bard, a poet, a minstrel. He liked words. So, Geralt decided to by him a pretty book full of pretty words.

They had managed to arrive in town during market day, which was quite fortunate indeed. Books were pricey, and usually unattainable in the smaller towns. But here he was quick to succeed.

The book was almost comically tiny and abhorrently expensive, but the vendor assured him that it was all the rage in Cidaris at the moment. Even better than that, it was not written by hand, but rather by a very new invention called a ‘printing press’. Needless to say, Geralt was fascinated and excited to have found such a perfect gift for his bard. He slapped down a pouch of coins onto the counter and quickly returned to their inn.

The book was strategically placed onto the rickety desk in the corner and he forced himself to busy himself with his swords as he waited for his friend to return.

It did not take long until Jaskier burst into the room with the usual flurry of words and quickly discarded clothes. Normally, Geralt paid him no mind, but on that day, he was watching him like a hawk. That was how he was fortunate enough to witness the exact moment the bard spotted the book.

Jaskier froze mid-sentence and pointed at it: “What’s this?”

“’S for you,” Geralt mumbled. “I found it.”

He drew closer to the desk and flipped the cover open with two fingers, as far away from the folio as possible. And hissed. Jaskier actually hissed. “What is this?” he demanded again. “And what is it doing here, in our room?”

“A book,” he replied confused. “Poems, they said. ‘S good, they said.”

“Poems!” he exclaimed. “Those aren’t poems, Geralt, those are the uninspired rhymes by a talentless wastrel, who stole my verses! I hope you didn’t spend any money on it, I wouldn’t give a copper for any composition by Valdo Marx.”

Geralt looked at the sword in his lap. ‘Fuck.’

“I’m going to burn it,” Jaskier declared and Geralt leapt to his feet, shouting: “No!”

The rest of their stay in town was spent wrestling the book from his bard, so he couldn’t chuck it into the fireplace before Geralt had a chance to pawn it off again. Somehow, he felt even stupider than the last time.

~*~

Words were off the table, then, so he opted for a more direct-action approach. One of the many things he had learned about the bard in all those years, was that he enjoyed food. Good food, specifically.

They made camp, Geralt decided that Jaskier deserved a nice meal. He went off to hunt and forage, leaving the bard in charge of setting up the camp and caring for Roach. After his initial mistrust of his companion’s animal handling skills, Jaskier had quickly proven himself quite capable. At least more capable than looking for food in the wild.

When he returned an hour and a half later, he was quite proud with himself. He had managed to catch a fat rabbit and found a whole array of mushrooms and berries that would surely please the bard. They were brightly coloured, just as he was.

Smiling broadly and not-humming under his breath—they had talked about that, witchers didn't hum, definitely not—he set about preparing the meal while Jaskier went off to do the laundry in a nearby stream. Fair's fair, after all.

The sun had set and the stew was almost done, when he returned. "That smells—” He wrinkled his nose.

'Oh no,' Geralt thought, icy dread rushing through his veins. That wasn't good. One wasn't supposed to wrinkle their nose when smelling food. Besides, there was nothing to wrinkle one's nose about. The stew smelled delicious.

However, he appeared to have done a grievous mistake, for the displeased expression on Jaskier’s face did not fade. "Geralt," he said warily, "what are you doing?"

"Cooking," he replied, pointing at the pot simmering over the fire. This time, at least, it was Jaskier asking the stupid questions. "Mushrooms and rabbit."

"Mushrooms," Jaskier repeated and pointed at a few leftovers. "Those mushrooms?"

"Hmm." He did not like where this was going.

"Oh, Geralt," Jaskier's face fell, an absolutely revolting expression of compassion and bemusement. "Those are poisonous!"

Geralt stared at him. Stared back at the stew. Back at him. The stew. "Fuck."

~*~

Alright, so what Geralt needed was a fool-proof plan. A witcher-proof plan, rather. I plan he could absolutely not muck up, no matter how hard he tried. It took him a month and a half to come up with one.

Then, he decided it was best to put such delicate matters into someone else’s hands. Hooves, rather.

“Geralt,” Jaskier complained loudly as the heat bore down on them relentlessly. “Please, have some mercy on me. I can’t. I just can’t anymore.” This had been going on for hours. “How long’s it been, Geralt? How long’s it been since we had a rest? Since the sweat dripping from my brow wasn’t watering dried weeds on the road side? Since I had but a sip of water?”

He cast his eyes upwards. “About four hours since you took a morning bath in that stream,” he replied matter-of-factly. “And you’d have something to drink, had you not insisted on upending your water over your head.”

“You’re a cruel man, witcher,” the bard whined. Geralt could hear the pout in his voice. “The reason for my demise, even. My blisters have got blisters, I think my feet are about to fall off. And whose fault will it be? Yours, my friend yours alone—”

Geralt jerked on Roach’s reins; he had heard quite enough of those baseless accusations. The bard, however, didn’t even seem to notice. Instead, he just kept on babbling and walking—limping, really. He couldn’t help but smile. “Jaskier,” he said far too fondly as he hopped off the saddle.

He spun around, a confused look on his face. “What?”

“Come here.” He gestured at Roach. “Maybe this’ll give your feet some rest.” In the privacy of his mind, he added: ‘And my ears, as well.’

Eagerly, Jaskier hurried over to him. “Are you being serious?”

He rolled his eyes and laced his fingers together, offering to give him a boost. When Jaskier still didn’t move, he growled: “Come on, before I change my mind.”

“Alright, alright,” the bard mumbled. Shortly after, he was safely in the saddle, grinning from ear to ear, as he patted Roach’s neck. “Gotta admit it,” he said smugly, while Geralt adjusted the stirrups, “I kind of missed this. Thank you, Geralt.”

He mumbled something unintelligible and waved him to be on his way, as he got all of his friend’s useless weight situated on his back. It did not take much urging for the bard to ride ahead and leave Geralt trailing behind.

In all fairness, what happened next was only loosely his fault. Maybe he should have paid better attention to the road. Maybe he should have walked beside Roach, ready to grab her reins if anything went wrong. Maybe.

But he was, after all, only a man. Only a man who was not only confronted with the fact that his bard had a rather lovely bottom, but also that said lovely bottom was right in his line of sight, if he walked behind Roach just so. Information he’d certainly file away again for later, if his bard was dilly-dallying again.

Still, maybe he shouldn’t have let himself be distracted quite as much by the sight. And he probably should have seen the bandits waiting at the side of the road well in advance. He definitely should have realised sooner what exactly was happening and come to Jaskier’s rescue.

Alas, none of that had been the case.

A piercing scream had ripped him out of his silent contemplation and next thing he knew, Roach was gone, Jaskier was lying on the ground and he had four, admittedly not very skilled, crooks to contend with.

Once that was done, he crouched down next to his friend, fretting nervously. “Are you alright?” he asked anxiously, skimming his hands all over Jaskier’s body to check for injuries. “Did you break something? Any blood, any pain? How’s your head feeling?”

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” he insisted, batting the hands away. “Melitele’s tits, Geralt, please tell me I’m not that insufferable.”

He sat back on his haunches, unable to do anything but stare. This was nothing like he had planned.

Jaskier sighed heavily and waved his hand. “Just… go check on your horse.”

Bereft of any other options, that was exactly what he did.

~*~

Autumn was almost upon them and Geralt was running out of options. After the Question Incident, the Book Catastrophe, the Mushrooms and the Wannabe Robbers, a number of other disastrous mishaps had followed, the most prominent among those being the Tavern Brawl, the Brothel Failure, and the Library Ban.

What he had learned during all those horrifying events, was that the only way he could ever even hope to do something nice for his bard was with a town, meticulous planning, and the radical elimination of any and all possible liabilities.

The first two, he had excelled at, this time. There was a town, there was an inn, there was a room they rented for five days. The first three of them, Geralt had spent conspiring with the innkeeper and her wife, who found them and his efforts ‘absolutely adorable’ and who were more than willing to aid him in his ‘display of his undying love’. Both of those were rather weird notions, but Geralt was so close, so close, he had no time to bother with semantics.

It was the fourth day and everything was going perfect. The tub was prepared, the tavern was quiet, the bath salts and scented oils and soaps his bard loved so much bought. And the bard did not suspect a thing.

All that was left to do know was fetch Jaskier and finally, finally do something nice for him.

That last thing was easier than he had anticipated; they practically ran into each other on the way out of the tavern. “Jaskier!” Geralt said.

“Geralt!” Jaskier said.

“I’ve got something for you,” they both said.

Geralt blinked.

Jaskier blinked.

“You go first,” Geralt growled.

“Great!” The bard was bouncing on the balls of his feet. That was never a good sign. He didn’t know, however, how much of a not-good sign it was until Jaskier produced a sheet of paper from his sleeve. “Look! It’s a contract!”

‘Fuck,’ Geralt thought. ‘I should’ve gone first.’ “Shit,” he said. “I can’t take it.”

“What?!” he balked. “What are you talking about, you have to take it! That’s a hundred crowns, Geralt, that’ll last us weeks! I know you’ve been going all stir-crazy these past few days; you’re even more quiet and taciturn than usual.”

That wasn’t exactly untrue. Four days of conspiring had taken their toll. “What’s it about?”

“Oh, just a couple of drowners.”

Geralt growled and snatched the page out of his hand. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he promised and stormed off.

He wasn’t back in an hour. It wasn’t a couple of drowners, either.

Instead, he returned two hours past sundown, drenched in mud, every bone in his body hurting like fuck, the heads of a couple of drowners and a fucking water hag. He hated water hags. Not because they were specifically difficult to kill, but because they just kept lobbing mud at him and that was all he needed for a day to qualify as truly revolting.

He stomped to the house of the alderman, collected the payment and then dragged himself up to their inn room, where he was greeted by a far too cheery bard. “You’re back!” he exclaimed and almost lunged to embrace him, when he spotted the mud and guts all over him. “Eww,” he sneered. “You, my dear witcher, need a bath.”

On any other day, Geralt would have readily agreed. Maybe even on this day. But then, Jaskier declares: “Luckily, our gracious hosts have been so kind to already provide us with one.” He stepped out of the way and, to Geralt’s horror, presented a wooden bathtub with candles and rose petals and a nice embroidered linen sheet to avoid any annoying splinters. “Come here, friend, and take a bath.”

“No, you take a bath,” he blurted before he had even time to think about the words coming out of his mouth.

“Excuse me?” Jaskier wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I’m not the one smelling like he just got dunked into the swamp and then took a nap in the pigpen. You take a bath, Geralt, or you sleep with Roach tonight!”

Accepting his fat, his shoulders fell. “Fuck.”

~*~

It was almost winter, almost time to separate for months, and Geralt almost admitted defeat. Almost. But, of course, he didn’t even manage that.

Honestly, after nigh nine months of trial and error (mostly error) it shouldn’t come as a surprise to him, that even this final opportunity was a complete and utter failure in regards to his plans. How it still did was beyond him.

The door to their inn room shut behind them with a bang, Jaskier leaning against it to block any means of escape. "Geralt of Rivia," he declared boldly, probably as menacing as he could, "what are you playing at?"

"Hm?" he tried innocently.

"Oh, no,” he laughed throatily and raised an accusatory finger, drawing closer with each word. “Oh no, my friend, don't you 'hm' me. You,” the finger poked into his chest, “are acting weird."

"Hmm."

He huffed. "At least we can agree about that. So. What are you playing at? Because I tell you, this has been going on for months and I can't decide whether you are trying to mock me, insult me, or kill me!"

"None of that," Geralt was quick to assure.

"Well, then, what is it?"

His eyes darted back and forth, desperately searching for a way out of this. But Jaskier was directly in front of him, trapping him against the bed, and still blocking the way to the door. There was nowhere to run, so he decided to go for the truth: "I'm trying to do something nice for you!"

The bard gawked at him. Then, he blurted: "What on earth are you talking about?!"

He didn’t say a thing.

“Geralt!” Jaskier took another step forward and as Geralt’s calves hit the mattress, his knees buckled and he sat down involuntarily.

"I—” He threw up his hands in defeat. How on earth was he supposed to explain all of those confusing things going on inside of him. Before he could come up with a satisfying answer, his mouth started talking on his own: “You care so deeply for everyone, let someone care deeply for you."

Silence fell over the room, as Jaskier kept staring and Geralt kept avoiding his gaze. Then, the bard suddenly crouched down, with the exact same expression he had after The Mushrooms. “Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier said in that soft tone he just couldn't quite understand. 'Fond,' his mind supplied, 'adoring.'

"Please," he begged, hiding his face against the reassuring shoulder of his friend, "this has been hell. I tried everything I could think of, and it all failed. Just tell me. Tell me how I can do something nice for you. I'd do anything, anything at all."

"Anything, you say?" He laughed, a playful undertone sneaking into his voice. "Well then, heroic witcher, I would like a kiss,” he said, accompanied by a wink.

Geralt wasn't thinking. If he had been, he'd probably stopped himself. But since any cerebral activity had ceased to exist, he just leaned forward and pressed his lips to the bard's mouth in a chaste kiss.

It was over almost before it had begun, the bard spluttering with surprise: "I- You- I was joking!"

Oh. Fuck. Well, that certainly was a way to end a year of embarrassments. "I'm sorry," he blurted and backed away, frantically scooting back on the bed, only to be stopped by Jaskier's hands.

“I—umm—shit!” Jaskier cursed; now it was him who was avoiding Geralt’s gaze.

He snorted. No hunched shoulders or ducked head could hide the crimson cheeks of his bard. “You’re blushing.”

“Well, you’re an idiot!” he countered. And, well, Jaskier certainly was not prone to be a liar. “I didn't think you’d actually do it, you daft witcher,” he hissed, before his face grew soft and he smiled again, invitingly. “But I also didn't say you should stop.”

It was a terrible line. It was a terrible line and they both knew it. Evidently, they both didn’t care. As soon as the words had left Jaskier’s mouth, they surged forward. It was surreal, really, to finally be granted permission. To finally be able to taste Jaskier’s lips, to pull him in, close, closer, until he was straddling his thighs. To finally be able to dispose of his doublet, push his hands under his shirt and up his back and—

Breathlessly, Geralt pulled away. “I love you,” he blurted.

Jaskier sighed quietly and smiled. “I know,” he whispered and pecked him on his cheek. “You show it in a thousand little ways, every day.” He pecked him on the other cheek.

“I know,” Geralt replied and kissed him on the mouth. “You tell anyone who would listen.”

He chuckled and kissed him again. “I never dared to dream you’d love me like this,” he murmured against his lips.

“But I do.”

“You know,” Jaskier said, playing with the clasps of his armour, “that was awfully nice of you. But if you’d life to do another nice thing for me, to make up for lost time, so to speak, I’ve got a couple of ideas in my mind.”

Geralt groaned and pull away, flopping backwards onto the bed. “No,” he said stubbornly, shoving at the bard who tried to kiss him again. “Nope, not in a thousand years. That was it, you ruined it. Enough nice things for you.”

“Oh, come on,” Jaskier whined. “It wasn’t that terrible. Cheesy, yes, I’ll accept even tacky, but certainly not tasteless enough to warrant such a cruel punishment.”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.

Jaskier crossed his arms and pouted. “Alright, maybe it was,” he conceded.

Geralt huffed his agreement, stretching out his hands for his bard’s hips, already tired of this game.

“Regardless,” a smug grin spread on his face as he shimmied closer, “you love me too much to deny me for long.”

“Yeah.” Geralt smirked as well and put his arms around Jaskier’s neck to pull him in for another kiss. “Yeah, I do.”

#prompt fill #kimception98 #look i've got an ask #geraskier #the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #my writing #julian alfred pankratz #geraskier fanfiction #the witcher fanfiction #geraltxjaskier #geralt/jaskier

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samsexualdeancurious · 3 years

Text

The Way He Looks (At You)

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Words: 1,602

Summary: The reader is crushing hard on the younger Winchester.

Warnings: None

Written for Belinda for her June 2020 prompt.

Betaed by me.

---

“Y/N!”

You look up from your beer in the direction of the familiar voice and can’t help a grin when you see who it is. “Dean!”

Your friend weaves his way through the crowd towards you, two beers held high to try and keep them safe. His grin is a breath of fresh air in this place as you stand to hug him.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, squeezing him around the waist.

“We’re on a hunt,” he answers and that’s when you realize he isn’t alone.

A tall man is standing behind Dean, looking confused but interested in what’s going on. Tall is an understatement, actually. Dean is tall. This man is a giant. A gorgeous giant with broad shoulders, a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and fox-tilted eyes of a color you can’t quite identify in the low light of the bar. He has long hair, floppy in a way that reminds you a bit of a puppy. The ends curl a little around his ears, on the back of his neck, and where a few locks have fallen over his forehead. You want to run your fingers through it.

What the hell? Where did that thought come from?

Dean is speaking, stepping back and gesturing to the man with one beer. “Sammy, this is Y/N, a hunter friend. Y/N, this is my brother, Sam.”

Oh.

It’s honestly shocking that you’ve known Dean for so long and never met Sam. The man is the light of his brother’s life, Dean’s whole reason for existing. You remember when you first met Dean. Sam was still away at college at the time. He’d been grumpy about Sam leaving but also so proud of him for getting a full ride to Stanford of all places.

“Hi,” you say, offering your hand for Sam to shake. “It’s nice to meet you. Dean’s told me a lot about you.”

Sam smiles and oh. My God. Just when you thought he couldn’t look better. He has dimples. “It’s nice to meet you. Dean hasn’t told me much about you but all of it was good.”

“I sure hope so.” You give Dean a playful poke, making him squawk and almost spill his beer. “Did he tell you about the many times I’ve saved his ass?”

Sam’s grin widens and Dean sputters a protest. You just laugh and hop up onto the high chair you’d occupied previously, gesturing to the seat next to you.

“Have a seat, Sam. I think we’re gonna get along great.”

Dean is pouting as he takes the third chair at the table. “I’m going to regret introducing you two, aren’t I?”

You shoot him a wink. “One hundred percent.”

Talking to Sam is easy. He’s brilliant - of course he is, the man went to Stanford on a full ride, for crying out loud - and hilarious. You could listen to him ramble about anything for hours, you’re pretty sure. You could also listen to him and Dean banter for hours. The two play off each other beautifully, a snappy back and forth that has hidden warmth at its core. It’s a treat to see.

Turns out the boys are in town for the same hunt as you. You’d figured as much and immediately suggest working together. Dean agrees without hesitation and Sam flashes you another of his brilliant smiles. Butterflies stir in your belly.

You’re in trouble with that one.

After that hunt - which went really well, having extra hands is always nice - you don’t see the Winchesters again for several months. When you do, it’s once again on a hunt. The Winchesters arrive in town just in time to join you in adventuring into the nest of a shifter that’s wreaking havoc on an upscale neighborhood. Thank god they’re there, too, because the shifter ends up being a pair of shifters and if you’d been alone, you definitely wouldn’t have escaped with only a broken leg.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Sam says as he helps you into the backseat of the Impala after you’re released front he hospital. The cast is awkward, to say the least, and Sam’s huge hands are steady on your forearms.

“Don’t be,” you assure him. “If not for you, I’d probably be dead now. I thought I was ready for that hunt but apparently not.”

“Just goes to show that even when we’re as prepared as we think we can be, things can always go wrong,” Dean says as he slides into the driver’s seat. “I’m just glad a broken leg is the worst injury any of us got.”

“You need to take it easy.” Sam settles into his place in the passenger seat and twists around to look at you. You can’t help admiring him - it’s so unfair, how beautiful he is. “You should stick with us, at least until you’re leg is healed.”

So that’s what you do, except that you never actually end up leaving even after your leg heals.

The three of you make a great team. Plus, the bunker? Is fucking awesome. You stay there for the three months it takes your leg to heal and quickly fall in love with the place. It’s been a lifetime since you had a place you could call all your own, let alone your own room. Once it becomes clear that neither you nor the brothers want you to leave, you find yourself settling in easily and filling your space with your own things.

The downside of living with the Winchesters, though, is seeing Sam all the time. Well, it’s a downside in that you’re finding yourself falling head over heels in love with him and there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do to stop your quickly-developing feelings. Sam is physically beautiful but he’s also beautiful on the inside. Despite all the horrible, traumatic experiences Sam has been through, he’s still kind and empathetic to everyone he meets. His hands are rough with gun callouses but gentle when he holds rescued victims or pets the floppy ears of the dogs you two meet on your morning runs.

On top of that, he’s wicked smart. He loves books and spends hours in the library between hunts just learning about anything and everything. He organized the whole huge room himself when they first moved in, apparently.

Something about that is incredibly hot.

You may have met Dean first but you and Sam quickly become friends. You can spend hours together, running or watching movies, or even just sitting in the silence in the library surrounded by books. Dean is a good friend for nights out at the bar or nights in with junk food and good/bad movies. Sam is a good friend for afternoons of quiet study. You like spending time with Dean. You love spending time with Sam and it’s very quickly becoming a problem.

You’d hoped Dean would stay oblivious to your feelings but no such luck. He pulls you aside about six months into living at the bunker.

“You better ask him out soon,” Dean tells you without any lead-up to the statement.

You sputter, mind racing as you try to find a way out of this conversation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Sam. Ask him out.”

Your cheeks burn. “He doesn’t like me that way. I don’t want to make things awkward between us.”

“He doesn’t like you - Y/N, are you blind? That boy is in love with you. He’s been crushing hard since I first introduced you two but ever since you started living here? He’s been falling head over heels for you. Have you seen the way he looks at you? I haven’t seen him look at anyone that way since Jess.”

Jess. Sam’s first love, the girl he wanted to marry right up until Azazel decided to use her as a pawn to get Sam back into the hunting game.

Shit.

“You’re not fucking with me, right?” you whisper, staring at Dean and hoping he understands how serious about this you are.

“Never about this,” he assures you, reaching out to give your cheek a little pat. “Go get your man.”

You bat his hand away and he chuckles, looping his arm around your shoulder instead for a hug.

“Trust me,” Dean says, giving you a squeeze.

You nod and lean into him. You have your doubts, of course, but your mind is racing with all the new possibilities that Dean’s words have created.

Sam breaks first.

“Y/N,” he says softly, words loud in the quiet library.

You look up from your book to find him watching you. “Yes?”

“Will you. Um.” His cheeks are pink and he ducks his head a little, adorably shy. “Would you like to go get dinner with me?”

Your heart leaps, your stomach flips, and your mind comes to a screeching halt.

“What?” you manage to say.

Sam blushes hard and he looks away. “It’s okay, you don’t - I understand -”

Your brain finally processes what he asked. “Yes!”

He stops talking and stares at you in awkward silence for a second. “... what?”

Now your cheeks are burning. “I would love to get dinner with you,” you say.

Sam lights up and the sight warms you at your very core. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You return his grin. “Does Friday night work for you?”

“Yeah,” he says, tone softening. Almost as if he’s in awe - like he didn’t expect you to say “yes.” “Yeah, Friday works.”

You reach across the table to weave his long fingers between your own. “It’s a date.”

---

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#sam x reader #spn fanfic #my writing

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gravelyhumerus · 4 years

Text

You ever see a UFO in these parts?

Relationship: Jemily (if you squint)

Summary: Emily Prentiss likes The X-Files. It may or may not have been the reason she joined the FBI. One Shot.

Word count: 1374

Read it on AO3

Emily Prentiss’s first thought after getting the call that she had officially been accepted into the FBI was that she could finally find out whether or not aliens were real.

Scratch that, her first thought was probably: oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I am finally employed! This is so cool! But right after her small freak out was the alien thing.

You see, Emily Prentiss spent most of the 90s extremely obsessed with The X-Files. She not only watched each and every episode live, but for Christmas she always bought herself each subsequent season on DVD. Watching two FBI agents search endlessly for the truth, despite the politics and bureaucracy was probably the best thing young, rebellious, daughter-of-a-diplomat Emily Prentiss could ever see.

Not to mention Gillian Anderson was in it. Need she say more?

Anyways, Prentiss had to start off her career at Quantico for training, where, like always, she strived to be the best in the class. She studied hard, trained hard, and stayed in line. She knew that any mention of something spooky like The X-Files would get her sent straight out of the academy, or even cause her to fail her psych evals. She didn’t want to go the way of the fictional Fox Mulder and get herself dubbed as Spooky Prentiss before she even became an agent.

Thus, like her nerdy love for literature and the likes of Kurt Vonnegut, Trainee Prentiss made sure to keep her minor obsession with aliens, cryptids and all things supernatural under wraps.

She wasn’t a true believer or anything. She didn’t identify with Mulder directly, having a heavy dose of skepticism about anything that science couldn’t explain. That being said, she knows that cover-ups, truth suppression and manipulation of reality was something that the bureaucrats the likes of her mother were well-versed in.

She would not put it past the American Government to hide something as big as aliens from the public.

Agent Emily Prentiss thought she was being smart about her clandestine motives for looking into The X Files. She waited. She waited until she was no longer a rookie, that she had earned the respect of her peers and supervisors, so they knew she was not some kook before looking into things.

At the time, files were not quite digitized yet, with cabinets of file folders strewn about record rooms throughout the field office that she was stationed in. She looked into the drawer labelled X. Hence the name: The X-Files. Nothing except a few copies of X-Rays and a few victims or perps with the last name X.

She did this in every new administrative building, in every field office, and any government building that she had clearance to enter. She was pretty sure she had gotten placed on a watch list in her third year as an Agent.

Prentiss did not risk asking around, and as long as no one asked, she did not tell.

At one office birthday, a party for her coworker, Agent Mills, she heard about a man in IT that was not as bright as her.

“I heard he lost his clearance,” was the whispered water-cooler talk she overheard. “He got unofficial desk-duty.”

“What did he do?” Prentiss asked.

“He wanted to look into a closed case,” her coworker whispered back, wide-eyed, “Teenage girls claiming to be abducted.”

“ Really ?” Prentiss, said, wide-eyed.

“No!” he replied, before the whole group burst into laughter at Prentiss’ expense. “What do you think this place is?”

The whole group burst into laughter as Prentiss’ face went hot with a blush. Emily vowed to keep her mouth shut from then on.

As time wore on, her suspicions did not fade, but the stakes got higher as she rose the ranks. A new agent might simply get canned for looking into the wrong thing, but Prentiss slowly had more to lose, more at stake. Emily Prentiss’ desire to uncover the X-Files got placed firmly on the back burner.

During her time in Interpol, Prentiss had much bigger things to worry about than monsters who may or may not be real. Monsters were in front of her and it was her job to take them down. Supernatural be damned, real horrors struck enough fear into her heart.

Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss’ first thought when she walked into the office of Penelope Garcia, FBI Technical Analyst, was that she was the kind of lady who would be able to find The X-Files. Or, whatever they were called in real life.

But, it was not the time to ask her that. The group looked at her with distrust, pretty much all of them except Agent Jareau, who was taking her on the tour of the offices and ‘showing her the ropes.’

Prentiss was new here, and growing up always being the new girl, she knew to keep her weirdness under wraps. She did not burst out into a nerdy rant when they had a case that looked suspiciously like vampires, or the time they had a case that truly seemed to have all of the markers of an alien abduction.

No, Prentiss did not say any of that, not at first, at least.

See, this team felt different somehow. After Prentiss almost quit—for the first time—after finding out she was a pawn of Erin Strauss’ vendetta against SSA Hotchner, she felt almost… welcome?

She started to be invited to things. Like girls night with JJ and Garcia, or foriegn movie night with Reid, or to drinks with Morgan after a long case. For the first time in ages, people seemed to like her, even her weird stuff.

After a few months, she found herself relaxing into this new routine and these new people. She slowly let her guard down, as far as she could reasonably manage, and revealed some of the things about herself that she normally held close to her chest.

She can only blame this, and the combination of pain pills she was taking for her recent injury she acquired in the hunt for the last unsub, for what happened.

A small knife to her side led Prentiss to needing minor surgery and a night in a small hospital in Nevada. She had awoken to JJ sleeping at her side and a bad headache that she learned was from the concussion caused by her head hitting the concrete after being stabbed.

Despite protesting, saying that she had been through worse, Prentiss was resigned to desk duty for almost two weeks after this incident. This meant that when the team was called away to Washington State for a new case, Prentiss was stuck sitting next to Garcia, sitting on her office chair that she had rolled down the hall.

Now back to the whole pain pills thing. Emily Prentiss didn’t react well to narcotics. She got a bit… loopy. And only a week after her surgery, finally back in the office after recovering at home, she was still needing quite a bit of medication to keep the throbbing of her side at bay.

So, when there was a lull in the case, with Garcia focusing on doing some more background research on their vics and herself flipping through some case files, Prentiss found herself blurting out something that she had spent her entire adult life avoiding.

“So you ever find out if aliens are real with that thing?” She said, gesturing to Garcia’s massive computer set-up.

Immediately after she had said it, she kicked herself, her own jaw dropping in surprise after hearing them fall out of her mouth. Prentiss was mortified. It was something that she thought she had been thinking not something she had any plans to actually say out loud.

See, she had noticed that Garcia could basically hack anything and anyone, and there was that whole Princess Diana thing from awhile back. She was thinking a lot about how if anyone could find the truth on the matter, it would be Penelope Garcia.

“Oh I knew I liked something about you,” Garcia said, spinning around in her chair, grinning at her. “What do you want? UFOs? Abductions? Probing? You know there’s always probing!”

Emily smiled. Maybe this was where she belonged after all.

#criminal minds #cm #criminal minds tv #Emily Prentiss #fanfiction #fanfic #the x files #sort of a cross over??? not really bc x files is a tv show in this #my writing #jemily #its implied bc they are in love #my post #no beta we die like men #lol i wrote this really quickly bc i couldnt stop thinking abouot it #i read my other fics over like 10 times before i publish but im just excited

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noragami-ru-manga · 4 years

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For ease of use, abuse

________________

An unnecessarily long, super biased and very spoiler-y analysis of chapter 87-1 ________________

If this isn’t Father’s motto, I don’t know what is. We’ve already seen him use it on Yato and Mizuchi; seems like it’s Hagusa’s turn.

The chapter starts with Yukine’s memories that we already saw at the trial. Except now that the truth about the mysterious “box” is out, Adachitoka aren’t trying to hide anything anymore – it’s painfully obvious that it’s an old fridge that was thrown away. Haru’s father closes the door and says the last goodbye to his son.

Haru is fixing his sleeve – his arms must be hurting. Is it because they were tied? Or is it from the shots? After all, fans have suggested that he may have been ill for a long time. His bare feet and pajamas indicate that the father probably placed a sleeping boy in the fridge. I have nothing but curse words for this man, so I’ll keep my silence.

The chapter is called “The way to darkness”. Since this month’s half-chapter is only 15 pages long, the second part should be longer; that’s where we’ll see the way to darkness in all its glory.

While nothing scary happens in the chapter, it’s still kind of creepy. Father is being very, very nice to Hagusa. We know what hides behind his smile and fake care, but Hagusa doesn’t. His calling Father “father” isn’t the scariest thing here, ‘cause it can be the effect of kotonoha. But it’s unnerving how fast they have bonded, even though there are reasons for that.

Father says that Hagusa is tired from walking all day. It’s not just the fact that the house is very far from the place where he gave the boy his new name (although that seems to be the case, too) – they must have spent the day before visiting places that Father had seen in Hagusa’s memories. Except none of them did the trick – Hagusa recalled nothing about his past life from being in those places. What’s so special about the locations is hard to tell – they seem to be a 1) café, 2) probably a school, and 3) a neighborhood where Haru used to live.

And of course, the house. The building being so run-down that it’s scheduled to be demolished is not particularly surprising – who knows when it was built. The thing that interests me is its location. A house in such a close proximity to the railway is not a nice place to live in. People settle for those when they don’t have better options. In other words, Haru’s family was poor; which is nothing new, it has already been suggested by the fans, I believe. Although Father says it’s Haru’s final place of residence. Maybe the family had to move in there from a nicer house.

Haru’s memories are fragmented because they are 35 years old. Can we trust Father’s words just like that? Of course not, it’s Father we’re talking about. But I think that’s it’s one of those cases where he wouldn’t benefit much from lying, so he tells the truth. And even if there was some other reason for Hagusa’s memories to be fragmented like that, Father probably could have bent it as he pleased. For example, if it had something to do with Hagusa being part-ayakashi, he could have said “I’m sorry, but some of your memories disappeared when you started transforming. I did everything in my power to keep as much as I could”. But turning into an ayakashi is usually accompanied (or rather, caused) by an influx of memories, not their loss. Conclusion: Father isn’t lying, and we’ll come back to this.

Some of the partial memories that Father saw are: a letter, this time addressed to the sister; a symbol on a building (school?) – a flower; Haru’s father’s face; a door handle. That’s doesn’t seem to be a lot of information, but… If you’d hoped that somehow Father didn’t get to see Haru’s last moments, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. The lighting on Haru’s father’s face seems to be similar to the one in Yukine’s memories from the trial / the beginning of the chapter, so it’s probably the same memory. Father saw it, and he’s planning to use it to his advantage.

Apparently, there’s a minor translation error on the top left frame. Hagusa’s facial expression doesn’t match the phrase, and the speech bubble isn’t coming from him. It’s Father suggesting that he plays a game of finding his real name somewhere in the house, which Hagusa happily agrees to do. What Father’s doing with this little “treasure hunting” game reflects the bigger picture: he’s nudging Hagusa to look for answers about the boy’s past without actually causing any suspicions towards his intentions. What can I say, Father loves giving his kids something to play with; ask Yato, he’ll confirm that.

Hagusa discovers his nickname from when he was alive – Haru – near some height marks that belonged to him and his older sister Yuka. The smallest number that has Haru written beside it is 3 (years). It means that even if the family moved here from a nicer house, it had happened long before the boy’s death. The names Yuka and Haru are written over semi-erased names of some other children. It isn’t at all surprising, since the house is very old.

So the name Haru was useless to Father’s plan after all, since it turned out to be a nickname. For the next three pages he’s quietly seething, trying to understand why Hagusa is so happy to learn little bits of his past. Maybe Father is comparing him to Mizuchi who (until recently) has been always so reserved (too reserved) when it came to her being dead. Or maybe it has to do something with Father thinking that all humans are monsters whose real appearance starts to show when they are nudged in the right direction. In stark contrast to that idea, Hagusa is simply happy to learn that he had a sister, and a home, and the cutest nickname.

Father’s words about giving Hagusa a little push to discover the truth on his own are pretty interesting. It means that he’d planned that by this point, the boy would start getting angry at the life he could have lived. But something went wrong, so Father has to revise the plan on the go.

Hagusa asks a reasonable question: if Yato never told him anything, why is Father being so nice to him – giving him a tour, playing “treasure hunting” with his name as the treasure? Father’s answer is… intriguing.

Father manages to tell a truth and a lie within the same sentence. Hagusa, for example, finds the answer honest and not needing any further prying, so he happily goes on a walk around his neighborhood in hopes of finding someone who knew him when he was alive. And technically, the things Father says aren’t a lie. What he’s been revealing so far can hurt Hagusa, and he does trust that the boy will be able to survive. However, he’s withholding the most important part – what is this all about. His words aren’t a lie. but his intentions are.

Hagusa recalls something while looking at the door but is distracted by the ayakashi wolf. I originally assumed that the door itself could have somehow reminded him of the dreaded fridge, but the thing that actually caught his attention is obviously the door handle. It’s the same one that appeared in the bits of memories that Father saw when naming him. I’ve already made a separate post about that door handle, but I’ll repeat it here anyway. So here are a couple of things why it could have appeared in the fragments of memories that Father’s received.

1) Haru’s father was abusive to the point where the boy would be afraid to come home. So he would just stand at the front door looking at the handle, too afraid to pull.

2) Some kind of trauma could have occurred. Haru could have fallen on the handle and got an injury, either by accident or with the help of his father.

This last page shows that Father’s intentions are very serious. He’s done being the game master; he’s going to be a full-fledged player from now on and will be actively involved in the further events – and for that, he needs Hagusa. Up until this point, despite Yato’s concerns that Father was a bit too flattering when talking about Yukine, I assumed that Father only needs Yukine as a pawn; a hostage of sorts that could be used to bring Yaboku back to his “loving family”. However, Yato made it clear that that’s out of question when he tried to kill his father in earnest. So now Father has another plan – to turn Hagusa into an unbelievably strong weapon; and the one wielding it will be him, not Yato. Except Hagusa’s buoyancy has been ruining this plan so far.

As for the fragmented memories that I’ve promised to return to, I really believe that Father wasn’t lying and has only seen bits and pieces of Haru’s life, not the whole thing. It has to do something with the boy being a sudama when he was first named and not a regular ghost, like Daikoku, for example. Nora said it in the previous chapter that when Haru’s memories were intact, he had a form of a person. It means that he either started turning into a sudama after his memories began to fade, or, conversely, started losing his memories because he began turning into a sudama.

The important thing here is that if Father only saw fragmented memories, then so did Yato. Nothing in the manga suggests that the new master gets fewer of a shinki’s memories than the previous one. When Yato named Kazune, he saw Kiotsugu’s entire life from birth to death – well, maybe not all of it, but definitely the important parts. So I assume that the information Father and Yato got was identical.

And this shows once again just how much Yato cared about Yukine from the very start. Think about it: throughout this chapter we’ve been getting more and more proof that Father initially wanted to break Hagusa as soon as possible. He dragged the boy around potentially familiar places, urged him to look for his name in the house – nothing. Only after that Father decided to change his tactics and let Hagusa discover the GGS on his own, so he allowed the boy to walk around the neighborhood looking for other clues. But if he needed an immediate result, why not take Hagusa to the place of his death, which was bound to be the best trigger?

Because Father doesn’t know where it is.

Do you see it now? Father, who needed something that would break Hagusa for sure, wasn’t able to figure out the most suiting place from the bits of memories he’d received – or didn’t bother. But Yato did everything in his power to find that damn fridge, only with completely different intentions – to keep Yukine safe from that place and everything that discovering it entails. Who knows how many bridges and dumps he had to visit before finding the right area.

Nevertheless, Hagusa is with Father now, not with Yato where he belongs. As I said, the chapter isn’t frightening – by which I meant “we haven’t been shown more horrifying things from Haru’s life yet”. It’s scary in an entirely different way, because it shows how easily Father was able to earn Hagusa’s trust. He exploited everything. He turned the kid’s natural curiosity into a game – “find your name”, “go talk to the neighbors”. When Hagusa complained that Yato never told him anything, Father didn’t say a single bad word about Yato, didn’t try to turn them against each other. Instead, he focused Hagusa’s attention on himself – how he’s ready to “help” Hagusa, even if it’s dangerous, because he “cares” for him and “trusts” him – the two things Yukine has been missing lately. And the background to all this is his terrible inner monologue: how come a dead person is enjoying his “life”? It should be rectified, and the result should be used to my advantage. For ease of use, abuse.

Get ready; we’re on a path to darkness.

#noragami #noragami manga #theories #fujisaki kouto #yukine #yato #noragami meta

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zerobotic · 3 years

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Well, you asked for it and you can’t say I didn’t warn you :3

First off, the usual disclaimer that I did enjoy DH2. I thought it had some very interesting level design ideas with the clockwork mansion and crack in the slab, the new powers were very cool and fun to use, and it polished some of the rough edges from the first game’s mechanics. It’s just the story and such that disappointed me after how much I loved the first game.

So to start off here’s some of the things I found disappointing or frustrating (and keep in mind these are all just my personal feelings on the games):

“Spoiled rich person learns a lesson from poverty tourism” is a plot that gets on my nerves in general and that’s more or less what happened here with Emily’s story

Like, not to disagree with an anti-rich-people story but the first one did a much more poignant job of highlighting greed and corruption and letting you be the one actually fighting it, rather than putting you in the position of perpetuating it. It felt like the first game showed it, while the second game just preached about it.

Boy this sure did feel out of character for both Corvo and Emily. Emily watched her mother be murdered at ten years old for the sake of political power, and then was held hostage for six months while being told her father was executed for her mother’s death. She got a firsthand view of how much the people of the empire were suffering during this time, and then when she finally got rescued she was immediately kidnapped and used as a pawn again by yet more schemers after her mother’s throne. You cannot tell me that’s a person who would grow up to be spoiled and carefree and complacent with their position, or someone who wouldn’t give a shit about their people. Yes, I know that she was a headstrong, rebellious kid with an adventurous streak, and I’m not trying to claim she wouldn’t probably still prefer, on some level or another, to escape to the rooftops with a sword rather than being stuck in court. I’m just saying that kids grow up and change and whoever wrote the second game seems to be stuck on taking ten-year-old Emily at face value for her adult self’s personality too, instead of considering how the first game’s events might have actually influenced her. She’s got more than enough firsthand experience to know to be wary of scheming nobles. (Also I definitely got the feeling, playing the first game, that at least a bit of how Emily behaved at the Hound Pits was her trying to cope with what was happening.) You also can’t tell me that Corvo, father and royal protector of the current empress, man with the most reason and justification to be paranoid out of everyone in the whole damn empire after everything he’s been through, would be so negligent in paying attention to a coup that the first mission claims pretty much everyone in Dunwall knew was happening.

Building off of that, in general it felt like the first game wasn’t allowed to have much of an impact. It pays lipservice to Jessamine’s death, and acknowledges Corvo having been a badass back then, but that’s....about it? Like I said in the other post, the first game felt so saturated in grief, both for Jessamine and for everything else going on in Dunwall, that it really influenced the overall tone of the game. The second one kinda feels like the first one never happened, or at least didn’t have any lasting influence on the characters or world, and it’s kind of jarring going from one to the other.

So with all that said, here’s my idea for a different DH2. Still using Karnaca as the setting and Delilah as the primary antagonist, just...different.

"Delilah wants to use a reality-altering painting to change the world into her vision of it” is still a plot point. Except, instead of the end of the game, it’s the beginning. It’s a logical extension of her actions and powers during the Daud DLC - the plan to use Emily’s painting to take over almost worked til it was stopped, so there’s clearly potential there. She’ll just think bigger, more direct this time.

The game starts on a ship. Emily and Corvo are en route to Karnaca for some sort of diplomatic mission. We get to know them a little bit during this opening trip: Emily isn’t an absent, complacent ruler, she's a young woman who inherited a difficult throne as a child, after a series of traumatic events, and now she's trying hard to live up to her mother's legacy and prove herself worthy to an empire that still seems to only see her as the child she was during the interregnum. She’s doing her best, but she’s insecure about all of that, and spends a lot of time frustrated with the back and forth scheming of the nobles, trying to please everyone instead of putting her foot down and getting things done. Corvo is trying to keep her safe where he failed Jessamine, but court still isn’t his preferred arena either.

The night before they’re due to arrive in Karnaca, we start getting hints that something is...off. Strange dreams, maybe?

They land in Karnaca and things are different than expected. But they don’t get time to look around, because there's guards there to arrest them, claiming they’re wanted criminals. They’ve got music boxes or something that can strip Corvo of his powers, and only one of them gets away while the other is taken. The one that gets away is stuck alone, disoriented, and hunted in an unfamiliar city - even if you play as Corvo, things are different than he remembers. More different than can be explained by just time.

They meet Meagan Foster. She takes them to meet a group of ex-whalers (the player character doesn’t know who they are). They’re a group that got back in touch with each other in Karnaca after Daud left and the whalers split, and they still do shady shit, but these days it’s generally more smuggling type stuff and they’ve put down the assassin blades. They’re the equivalent of the loyalist home base in this game. Meagan is still the Samuel stand-in, taking the player places and narrating things as necessary.

Information is shared and the player finds out that somehow, the world is changed from what they remember. Delilah is the empress, here, come by it what seemed like legitimately at some point in the 15 years between Jessamine’s death and now, and Emily and Corvo are wanted criminals. No one seems aware of the change except for the player and the whalers (who only remember it because of their experience with magic, though the player character doesn’t learn that til much later).

Clearly it’s Delilah who did something, because she has magic, and she’s the one on the throne now.

The Outsider shows up in their dreams that first night in the new world, but something is clearly wrong in the void, too, and it seems like he’s barely capable of reaching out and communicating with them. He offers the mark, but disappears before really getting a chance to explain anything.

The player goes through the game now with the goal of finding out what happened, how it happened, and how it can be fixed. DH2 and DOTO explained a lot more than I felt they should’ve, at times, and I preferred how the first game balanced worldbuilding with mystery. So, let things be explored and figured out along the way.

Things are real bad in this universe. From Emily's perspective as she goes through the game, we get commentary questioning whether or not she was doing a good job, and comparing it to how things are in Delilah's world. There’s lots of corruption and poverty and people suffering, and the question "is this just Delilah's world? How much of this going on in mine too? In trying to navigate court instead of putting my foot down, was I failing my people in the end after all? Would it have been better if my mother was still the empress?" The difference between this and what DH2 did is that she was trying, there was just a lot hindering her, including her own doubts. In this one, those questions aren’t preaching, they’re a sign that she does care and is pained by the idea of her people suffering like this again, by the mere possibility that it might not be just Delilah’s world.

Corvo and Emily have distinct perspectives, not just the same lines very slightly altered.

The bloodfly infestations are either 1) a natural thing that wasnt supposed to turn ugly like this and has been affected by Delilah’s magic, or 2) wholly the product of unnatural magic. None of this "we need them and they’re always like this, just not this bad" stuff. if you're gonna repeat the plague motif, make it actually horrifying, like the rat plague was. In fact, there’s obvious magic influence here and there in general - maybe not quite as thorough as at Brigmore Manor, but it’s present enough to give you the creeping feeling that things aren’t right, here, visual confirmation of Delilah’s influence, that things have been changed and twisted from their normal state of things. Hell, maybe this is where the hollows from DOTO come in, the original world and Delilah’s altered version of it trying to bleed through each other in some spaces. Maybe that’s a different explanation for the crack in the slab mission, even.

Actually, if you’re gonna repeat the plague motif, lean into the similarities between the rat plague era and now. Have them be reminded here and there by things they see, recount what happened and how terrible it was, compare it to now. Give NPCs lines about the comparison and how some of them left Dunwall only to be stuck living through something like this a second time. Let the first game have happened and had an impact, folks, cmon.

On a similar note, if you’re gonna keep Delilah's backstory the same when we finally learn it, let Emily and Corvo get mad about it. They lived through the first game - what right does Delilah have to talk like she's got a monopoly on suffering and that's why she should have the throne?

Delilah's mistake was assuming Emily was a sheltered child who wouldn’t come for her, rather than someone who's already been through a lot and come out on top. That was almost a satisfying thing about the second game but they messed up the execution of the whole concept and I want it to actually pay off.

I’m not sure if the targets in this one should be the same or how much should change there. Honestly, except for Breanna, the targets in DH2 felt a lot less relevant to what was going on than the DH1 targets did, like...why are half these people even at this ritual? But for simplicity’s sake let’s keep it as close as we can, while also adjusting for the fact that this reality has been tailor-made for Delilah and her buddies. Perhaps the Duke is only the Duke here because things were rewritten to put one of Delilah’s allies in charge, and it was supposed to still be his father. Hypatia isn’t the crown killer (what even was that plot point honestly), she’s the doctor they found to help Delilah recover after her time in the void, and now they’ve rewritten things to imprison her in the institute to keep her quiet and out of the way, and you get wind of it and go to see what she knows. Etc. Is Sokolov involved in this version of things? I dunno! But speaking of Sokolov I want some sort of explanation for where the other surviving loyalists are, damnit.

Delilah did something in and to the void, just like in canon, but it actually has a visible impact here (beyond just a total aesthetic redesign of the void between games that never gets commented on). The void is struggling under her influence when you find shrines, and you never know what you're gonna find at one of them, or what the Outsider is gonna be like, if he even shows up. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the way DH2 gave him a human backstory, because I liked the mystery there behind what he was and what the void was, but this is open to go either way, either with Delilah finding his death site like in canon, or some other way she found to influence it. I’m not sure how the progression would go of how the void changes over the course of the game, but it would be cool to get to help/save the Outsider in some kinda way.

Finding Corvo's childhood home should have more impact. Let it be like when you find the saferoom in Dunwall tower, in the first game. A temporary refuge in a dangerous place, full of obvious memory and grief - not so much for the time spent here since that's so long in the past, but for all that's been lost, everything they've been through and are in the middle of going through. Especially if you're playing Emily - this is the home of the father she just lost.

Let the heart be vague and ominous again, and let our interactions with it be sad, especially as Emily! I’m still messed up about the first time I heard "the doom of Pandyssia has come to the city" in DH1, and the lines about the floodwaters and the plague victims, give me stuff like that! Especially in a world that isn’t meant to exist the way it currently is, where things have been twisted almost beyond recognition. And give me lines that remind Emily of the mother she lost and how this is the first time she's heard her voice since she was a child!

Give us more on citizens and how they're suffering in this world, the way the first game showed us plague victims who died in each other's arms, journals from the desperate and dying, living people sent to the flooded district. Let it be a reminder to Emily why it's worth it, why she has to change the world back and what she wants to be fighting for when she gets her throne back. Another reason to question - has she been doing all she can? (Alternatively, a source of righteous fury for high chaos Emily.)

This is a journey of self discovery for Emily, either low or high chaos. It's about realizing she hasn’t been doing all she could, despite her intentions, because she's been trying to please everyone and in the end it still wasn’t good enough. She needs to stop living under her mother's shadow and come into her own (and the heart plays a role in this epiphany, probably. This might actually come to a head when she has to let her mother's spirit go, if we're gonna keep that plot point.)

High chaos Emily is similar but in a more "alright no more nice empress" kinda way whereas low chaos is more about conviction to put her foot down to do what's right.

You meet people during the game who in a good ending become part of her new council. Common people, who are more in touch with what needs to be done. It pisses nobles off but she's determined to do better, after everything. It helps both her and Corvo come to terms with the whole safety thing, because you can't ever make sure you're totally safe but you can try to make sure the empire can keep going should something happen to its ruler.

In fact, part of Corvo's perspective on this game probably would involve him still wanting to keep Emily out of things for safety's sake, and wondering if sheltering her from knowledge of magic and such contributed to this situation.

When it's revealed who the whalers are, it's late in the game after we've already come to like them a lot. They don't betray you like the loyalists did, but it should still feel like a punch to the gut for Emily and Corvo.

They don’t know where Daud is, haven’t seen him since the whalers disbanded .

Billie talks about that whole thing, and it's complicated. She decides maybe she should try to find him, after all. Cue DLC, which is about finding Daud, and helping/saving him, and the two reconciling and Billie finding some kind of...if not redemption, then absolution. A parallel to the first game’s DLC, Billie getting an arc like that in Emily’s game the way Daud got that arc in Corvo’s game. Y’know, instead of DOTO going and undoing all of Daud’s character growth.

I know I’m kind of handwaving the actual mechanics of who the targets are and how you actually go about uncovering what happened and how you can fix it and take down Delilah in the end, but this is all just. Concepts. If I were to try to write this as a fic or something I’d have to actually sit down and work out all those details, but for now this is something that’s just been living in my head since like an hour after I finished DH2 for the first time a couple years ago.

(I did warn you it was gonna be long lmao)

#turnabout rambles #mvtk42

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kyogre-blue · 3 years

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Anonymous asked:

// inazuma newest archon quests spoilers + rant (please delete if it makes you uncomfortable ^^)

hhhhh had so much expectations for inazuma plot, even with your warning I lowered my standards and hoped for an acceptable at least ending... and I mean the gameplay was just superb, but in terms of plot? there was? so many holes??? Feeling quite disappointed since there was so much hype... mihoyo pls we cna actually wait some more if it means for a better quality game :(((

tbh I’m surprised you say that the gameplay is superb. I didn’t feel it was above the usual, and the usual for story quests is passable at best (and is often not at its best). Of course, it’s debatable whether I’d be happy if the gameplay was more involved. I’d be stuck on the main story longer, in that case, and I am currently deeply unwilling to spend time on that.

(Now, the exploration for 2.0 was great, and I am hoping 2.1 is good too, but this is completely and utterly detached from the storyline. You don’t even go to Seirai once in Act 3.)

I’m also NOT willing to wait longer because they’ve already had a full year to come out with Chapter 2. Two!! They literally took a year from launch to release the next proper story update! And it sucks! It’s short, basic and poorly constructed! This is not a time issue. This is just flat out an issue with their writing team being completely incompetent.

They just need to hire Actual Writers.

not just about the obvious things like why was the vision hunt started, and what about all the damage that it brought to the island, scaramouche's appearance, baal's puppet (that felt very out of the blue like :///)

it all just felt pretty rushed, like... you know from the beginning it's okay to give us more quests to show how inazuma is currently affected, how the war took a toll on everyone even resistance soldiers, the delusions and teppei dying... like they could have made it more emotional??

Genshin dropping plot points out of nowhere seems to be the norm, because their writing team doesn’t understand writing.

I mean, the puppet thing is sudden and out of nowhere in particular and also poorly handled because this “puppet” has her own will, but we treat it as her not having one? People were assuming it would be a possession situation, which would imply some drama there, but we literally have no idea how the “puppet” feels about any of this or what she’s even aware of.

But then, was the twin sister thing foreshadowed? That was even MORE out of nowhere! And Scaramouche’s connection to all this is just straight up irrelevant. How do you say “oh yeah, this villain that appears in this chapter was actually created by the final boss!” and then never have them interact at all or express any opinion on this. Why would you use Signora here and not Scaramouche?!

However, I feel that they already gave us plenty on how much Inazuma is affected?

This is handled in Act 1, 2, and in a huge number of side quests. Like, Act 1 is all about how much NPCs are suffering, which actually had way more emotional weight than any of the playable characters, ironically. And Act 2 was about the resistance and their struggles to stand against the Shogunate. There are also loads and loads of sidequests about soldiers dying in the war, soldiers traumatized by the war (notably, “Masanori” and Inaba Kyuuzou), civilians caught up in the fighting, the shogunate’s brutal and merciless treatment of anyone who didn’t bow down immediately, etc.

The bigger issue is that we get All This about how much Inazuma has suffered because of the Shogun’s poor leadership and tyranny, and then the main story turns around and goes “you trashed Ei and now she’s opened up her heart and it’s all good :)”

Genshin’s treatment of human characters is ridiculous.

most of all just thinking about la signora's death makes me go all '?????' because I felt like it was rushed and for absolutely no reason at all... like... we barely even saw her or interacted with her as the main villain of the story (and in mondstat, she only came to take venti's gnosis at the end, nothing else and the same for liyue too whose while events was planned by zhongli) in inazuma (save for that one time in ritou). we knew the fatui had to be involved somehow because they're collecting gnoses and they've had plots with every city we came upon so far, but like... ???

makes me :/// because childe literally orchestrated osial's revival and zhongli let him and its all fine they're all fine and good but like... she died just like that...................... I expected so much more too considering ahe literally had a whole artifact set about her and seemed to be quite important like???

I mean... I’m not sure why you’re bringing up Childe? Zhongli BETTER let him since it’s all Zhongli’s idea. Zhongli WANTED this. If he had the balls to complain, that would be absolutely wild. He straight up says that Childe was just a pawn on the grand stage he arranged, and Signora was a co-conspirator.

Signora dying here (if she’s really dead) is massively disappointing and actually probably some of the worst writing Genshin has put out.

Her role and also her death lacking build up is... Genshin typical. But it seems to have been done purely to hype Baal? Like, oh, Baal has been too passive, time to show that she’s a badass... except it’s pointless.

I don’t even know what to say, but Genshin did manage to lower my opinion yet again, so there’s that.

maybe I'm just being biased but yeah, I felt let down by the update. at least there's baal and sara to pull for ;w;

I hope you get them!

Personally I think both their designs are dumb, so I’m hard pass on rolling for them.

#playing genshin

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wof-reworked · 5 years

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Icewing Headcanons

I know I said I’d do Sandwings next but inspiration struck me for these guys so here we are, with Icewing headcanons!

-Icewings have rich sounding voices that are uniquely suited for singing, as well as mimicking voices and noises! They can do scarily good impressions.

-There’s an intricate code of animal sounds (fox yips and barks, wolf calls, and bear grunts to name a few) that Icewings use to communicate across the flat ice

-Icewing traditional music is divided into a few categories: orchestra, traditional singing, and drum/chanting music

-Orchestra music is exactly what you’d expect, almost string orchestra (think standard classical music)

-Because of the wood for the instruments, it must be played in very specific, warmer rooms and is considered the most sophisticated form of music by Icewings

-It also effectively safeguards middle class Icewings from learning to play, as instruments are hard to acquire, and harder to learn to play without the right practice space.

-Traditional singing originates closer to the middle/bottom of the Ice kingdom, and is seen as the “acceptable” piece of music to preserve

-It’s in the style of Northern European (Lithuanian in the example I use) singing groups, being overlapping harmonies sung by multiple women typically, and often in duets (an example I found for a duet is here! look into more music like it if the song appeals to you)

-Music is a big part of Icewing tradition, and as such it’s expected any future queen knows her stuff.

-As such younger princes/princesses put on shows for the other royal icewings, meaning Winter/Icicle/Hailstorm were forced into a lot of concerts together, with Icicle as the main show, while Winter and Hailstorm provided singing and musical accompaniment respectively

-Winter is actually better at singing than hailstorm, and was made to do the harmony to Icicle for years due to the lack of other princesses

-Winter can still play violin very well though, he’s just a little insecure about it (Hailstorm can drum and play cello)

-The two other pieces of Icewing music are work songs and drumming, which come from the shores of the Ice Kingdom. They’re thought of as being particularly lower class, and aren’t as well documented as the other two forms, though no less impressive

-Drums are made in part with seal skin, it involves a circle of Icewings with drums, each playing a specific part. This is accompanied by call-and-response chants (don’t have a good example for this right now, sorry!! I’ll edit it in if I find any)

-Icewing music and art techniques are a very closely guarded secret though, and almost never taught outside of the Ice kingdom

~~We’ve already seen a lot of how Icewing royalty is, so this is mostly going to be around “common” Icewings~~

-A large portion of the Icewing diet and livelihood is fish and whales. Much of this is also traded with the Sea, Mud, and Sky Kingdom.

-The Ice Kingdom is pretty merciless to dragons without the ability to fly, and dragonets who might not know how are guarded relentlessly by the village until they can safely fly.

-Most towns and villages are build up relatively high as a result, on spires or along cliffs or just tall points in the snow and ice- both to provide safety, and a good vantage point

-A common superstition is Icewings stranded/left for dead or otherwise downed on the sea ice eventually become polar bears.

-Some Icewings refuse to eat polar bear because of that, and leave out fish for them at shrines for those lost at sea or on the ice.

-There was one Icewing though with malformed wings who became famous for her ability to hunt under the sea ice, holding her breath for long periods of time and memorizing where breathing spots were. Aptly, she was recognized mostly under the name Polar Bear, though her original name is unknown

-Icewings are stereotyped as grumpy and unfriendly, and while that’s not entirely untrue, it comes from a misunderstanding about how Icewings show affection.

-The icewing attitude is very much one of “protect your own”, which covers your immediate neighbors and, when out of the kingdom, any other Icewing.

-However, outright asking for help is considered a weakness or a sign of desperation/slipping on the asker’s part.

-This leads to really intense communities where every Icewing is hyper-aware of each other, for better or for worse.

-If one family is down on their luck, other dragons will chip in to provide adequate food and supplies as gifts.

-There’s also specific rituals for given gifts to other dragons, where the recipient denies the gift around three times, and the giver explains what their gift is for and attempts to convince them to take it.

-Accepting a gift when first given is considered desperate and/or greedy, and pushing back too much is considered proud and/or spoiled.

-This makes the scene where Moon tries to offer to cook meat for Winter especially funny, c’mon Moon he’s just being polite by Icewing standards why’d you have to actually take him on his word.

-Gifts from family members/partners don’t need to follow this pattern super strictly though, it’s mostly for people outside your immediate family but still in your social circle.

-Genuinely not accepting a gift is completely unheard of, no matter how unwanted the gift is or any personal feelings between the gift-giver and the recipient.

-It’s beyond rude, especially with how harsh Icewing life is, gifts are given with a very specific weight of “I am sparing what I might not have to give to you for free.”

-There is one major exception, that being gifts given to a dragon above your circle or your class. They can choose whether or not to accept or decline gifts.

-Similarly to earlier, pawning your trash off on another Icewing under the guise of a gift is extremely trashy and rude, and a good way to sink your reputation.

-The expectation isn’t that you’ll pay these gifts back in equal weight, but rather that if then that family is down on their luck, you’ll chip in to help them like they did for you.

-Icewings show their affection in quality time too, an Icewing’s attention isn’t given lightly and it’s expected that you’ll always make time for your loved ones

-By Icewing standards here Winter is basically whipped for his winglet (Qibli especially), which is hella funny to me

-Icewing communities are very insular though, and newcomers are viewed with a healthy mixture of wariness and suspicion from afar.

-This doesn’t extend to dragonets though, no matter where the dragonet comes from, or even the tribe, all Icewings watch out for younger dragons and make sure they stay safe and protected.

That’s all I got so far, I hope I did these dumb spiky boys justice. I think this is the longest I’ve made one of these lol, what can I say the inspiration hit hard. As always, feel free to add your own headcanons/pitch in your thoughts in the comments or reblogs ^^.

#wings of fire #wof #wings of fire headcanons #icewings #icewings wof #icewing headcanons #wof headcanons #winter turning #winter #qinter #hailstorm wof #icicle wof #sorry for all of you who were hoping for Sandwings :(#they're next I swear!#it's even in my drafts #I should stop publishing these things at night

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davalynbaker · 4 years

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insecure as f*ck (se01-ep01)

As all seven of you know (thank you for the add!), I set out on revisiting Issa’s past relationships to see how her and Molly got to where they are now. It’s actually kind of funny to see the way Issa and Molly’s lives have done a bit of a switch over the past four seasons. The best way this show can be revisited is through an abridged timeline so let’s get to the chaos.

Episode one is written by Issa Rae & Larry Wilmore, while being directed by Melina Matsoukas. Music used in this episode.

Our protagonist, Issa (Issa Rae) introduces us to her story through the form of narration. (an homage to the youtube series, Awkward Black Girl) We learn that it’s her birthday, she’s at a job she hates, and in a relationship she hates even more. She laments about not being as successful or well-liked as her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji). All these things are true with the exception of her love life which is pretty much in the pits.

After having a not so great day at work, Issa’s high school crush, Daniel (Y’lan Noel), hits her up and tells her happy birthday and the simple gesture has her fantasizing about dating him instead of her current boyfriend. It doesn’t play out like this but you can definitely see it in the eyes.

Molly treats Issa to a birthday dinner but it’s really just an outing where she complains about her relationship problems. Though Issa didn’t mind because Molly catches herself and realizes what she’s doing, it really has to suck spending your birthday consoling everyone around you.

Molly complains that she’s having a hard time dating and Issa jokes that maybe she has a “broken pussy.” These scenes are my favorite in the series, where it’s best friends sitting around talking shit and getting full of liquor. When their dinner is over, Issa confesses that she wants to break up with Lawrence and gets heavy criticism from her friend. Molly has issues projecting her own feelings onto other people’s situations. Let your best friend complain, damn. It’s her birthday! Also, what is it with people telling you not to break up with someone not romantically compatible with you just to avoid living the single life. Molly was so heavily obsessed with being in a relationship from the very beginning that she was willing to try and talk her friend out of breaking up with a partner that was pretty much dead weight at this point.

Y’all, if you’re reading this: don’t do that to your friends. Let them get their feelings out and give them sound advice, if you can*. A sound piece of advice from me to you is that it isn’t always about you.

We’re then introduced to Lawrence (Jay Ellis), who is supposed to spend the rest of the evening with Issa for her birthday. He gives her what I like to call a dry as hell “happy birthday” and when she realizes he’s not dressed to go out, he begins to talk about how he failed his job interview and just isn’t in the mood to celebrate. So what does she do? She sits on the couch with this grown man and spends the rest of the birthday comforting him.

We meet this couple five years into their relationship and nothing has happened to show Issa that it’s headed anywhere. Imagine spending five years of your life with someone and feeling like you wasted most of them. Let’s do some quick math here: If Issa is turning twenty-nine and she’s been with Lawrence for five years now, it’s safe to say that she met him either near the end of college or right when she was out of it. He’s possibly been jobless the majority of that time and been taking a job interview here and there while Issa carries the load of this relationship the entire time.

Now does that add up?

Earlier in the episode, Issa lets the audience know that she’s “aggressively passive” which, in short, means that she does not know how to effectively communicate when she has a problem. Knowing this, I can see why Lawrence feels comfortable lying on the couch complaining about one job interview and not taking his girlfriend out on her birthday. But Issa, you need to speak up. You can’t be miserable at both work and home - a home that you’re solely paying the rent and utilities for.

It’s MY opinion that Lawrence is sticking around because he’s comfortable and essentially, has no other place to go. He has no job, he has no motivation, and he really has nothing much to offer. He doesn't even offer Issa emotional support. He didn’t ask her how her day was, if her birthday was good, if her coworkers even did anything for her…

Issa and Lawrence are both depressed but it’s doubly frustrating when there’s an imbalance in support. Job hunting is stressful, trust me. And considering that in the real world, we’re currently smack dab in the middle of a pandemic it’s oh so much worse. However, I think we can agree that not doing something for your girlfriend’s birthday because you failed a job interview is pretty shitty. If I were Issa I’d be happy that my high school crush is sending me DMS too. Lawrence’s inability to give Issa the things she feels she needs out of a relationship pushes her closer to Daniel.

Molly has a rough day at work after finding out her coworker is engaged while she’s being paid dust by men in her life so Issa uses that as an excuse to go to a club because Daniel is producing one of the acts. Later as Issa prepares to go out with Molly in an attempt to cheer her up, Lawrence makes a joke that Molly’s standards are far too high to get a boyfriend. And Issa says, “yeah, maybe she should lower them like I did.”

It takes him a minute but he catches the snark and Issa runs off before they can talk more about it but not before she passive aggressively suggests that they should break up. Molly figures out that it’s a scam once she sees that Issa and Daniel link up at the bar but she doesn’t have too much of a fit about it because she meets Jered (Langston Kerman) and they hit it off really well.

As Issa and Daniel reminisce on their high school days, she learns there’s an open mic night and Daniel encourages her to participate.

Now, if you’ve watched the show you can’t forget something as wild as “Broken Pussy” but if you need your memory refreshed here you go. This song was inspired entirely by the conversation Issa and Molly had in the restaurant where Issa told her that her pussy was “broken.”

Molly is rightfully upset despite Issa’s aloofness to her anger, happy that she took a risk and received a good reception for it. And it doesn’t matter that nobody in the crowd knew who she was rapping about, Molly knew! And really, it's about the principle. Molly emotionally goes off on Issa about making a very serious issue she’s dealing with the butt of a joke and Issa is super dismissive. Issa, girl, what the hell?

During Molly’s rant about how obviously utterly messed up all this is, Daniel is texting Issa telling her to swing by. And even worse, Issa replies during Molly’s breakdown. Knowing that she was merely a pawn in Issa’s attempt to hang out with Daniel, Molly tells her that if she cheats on Lawrence with Daniel then she’s just as dumb a bitch as she [Molly] is. Issa feels bad that she upsets her friend but not upset enough to go and visit Daniel.

What is this thing that people do where they put potential romantic partners before friends? Selfishness? It’s not that Issa doesn’t care about Molly but she was determined to rekindle something with Daniel that she literally left her best friend upset to go hang with a guy. I can’t speak for anyone but myself but I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to have a good night’s sleep without having resolved that. When Daniel does not give Issa what she wants, who is she going to turn to complain about it?

But alas, Issa and Daniel’s meet-up is not met with the expectations Issa set. For the first time in this episode, she speaks up after Daniel kisses her and tells him how she’s going through a break-up and does not want her next relationship to go sour the way it did with Lawrence. The gag? Daniel tells her that he’s not looking for anything serious and feeling humbled and possibly a little betrayed at her own self for projecting something that wasn’t there, Issa goes back to Molly to set things right.

Final Thoughts: Listen to your friends. Care for your friends. And let yourselves be cared for by your friends. And dump that dude if you feel like it’s headed nowhere.

*Give them advice IF you can. If you can’t, just listen and hug them and don’t make it about you. You don’t need to be Iyanla Vanzant when it comes to a friendship. Effie, we all got pains!

See y’all next Sunday!

#insecure #issa rae #yvonne orji #y'lan noel #jay ellis #hbo: insecure #tv: insecure #issa dee #molly carter #lawrence walker #ylan noel #langston kerman #melina matsoukas #larry wilmore

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dotthings · 4 years

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Heavily cluttered, as many Bucklemming eps are, but worth the trip. There was a lot of goodness in 15.08 and there were two moments where I shrieked out loud.

My two out loud-shriek moments, let’s get that out of the way:

Queen Rowena. Caaaaalled it.

Dean and Cas are going back??? To???? Purgatory???? Together?????? And Bobo???? Is???? Writing the episode???????????? *SHRIEKING AND FLAILING*

Okay more orderly and sedate now. Eileen is so damn fierce. She’s a very physical fighter, she’s smart but seems to use a blunt fighting skill. She can punch HARD. I love watching that so so much. I would enjoy female characters on SPN like this regardless, but the fact that this is a hero character with a disability and it’s never a big deal is deeply refreshing and SPN did something really really right bringing her back, amen.

Protective Sam shows up and Eileen is happy to see him but literally pushes him aside so she can make the kill. She doesn’t need his protection, but she also values him as a hunting partner as the ep shows. Also they’re trying to build a relationship here. Eileen seems used to hunting solo and Sam wants to offer backup, and he got worried.

So the plan is to lock up Chuck like Chuck locked up Amara. The sweet irony of this delights me. He tried to shut away the divine feminine rather than actually stepping up to deal with his sister as, well, a person (well, a divine deity, but still, a being with feelings and thoughts and complexities). Chuck, the arrogant and narcissistic toxic masculinity God, maybe to be locked up now instead as his hubris and his lack of empathy and his petulance is exposed. What if Amara was the more competent deity all along?

There is no way Dean doesn’t know what an Achilles’ heel is. The random WTF of this is so much it’s not even angering it’s just so bizarre. LOL what even. Look I am really enjoying S15 but I hope the butterfly net tightens on stopping this kind of thing because honestly. I’ll just pretend that scene isn’t there. Luckily I enjoyed the episode overall a lot.

Team Free Will in research mode together in the bunker just really makes me happy. Cas is where he belongs.

Donatello!Chuck threatening Jody, Donna, Eileen, “pretty much everyone on your speed dial” as a deterrent to Sam and Dean is bearing out again my impressions of how Chuck views these characters. I’m still not 100% sure what he thinks of Cas who is right in the room but Chuck doesn’t seem to acknowledge him, except as some sort of right arm to Sam and Dean, as I’ve said in other posts, I think Chuck regards him as a nuisance now, and a deterrent to his miserable endings, and a pawn. Just like Donna, Jody, and Eileen, to him, they’re just pawns. They’re all people Sam and Dean care about, and Chuck will use them to keep his two favorites in line.

See what I did there?

Yeah. Chuck doesn’t care about the characters as people. Everyone except Sam and Dean are expendable and tools to be used so he can control Sam and Dean and that’s it. He’ll destroy them with a snap of his fingers and won’t care. Look at that. Familiar attitude, isn’t it. How interesting.

“If you want to stay here, stay here.” Dean’s gone back to not!listening to Cas I see. While Cas is Dean-avoidant and trying not to look at him throughout the episode. But both of them are thawing just a little.

Like when Cas heals Dean’s cut palm and the way it’s staged looks like he’s going to take Dean’s hand to do it which I don’t think is an accident. That moment was meant to be soft. Dean didn’t ask. Cas offered. And Dean didn’t jerk his hand away or say no. Then there’s the fact that Cas is going to go with Sam and Dean into Hell despite all his misgivings about Michael and this entire plan.

Team Free Will, getting all researchy together, and then getting all BAMFY together with their angel blades going into Hell.

We didn’t get any kind of nod back to Dean and Cas’s last visit together to Hell and that’s the second time they have been back to Hell (well the last time was some sort of Hell ante-room, the cage was brought up iirc) and SPN failed to nod to it, WHY AM I CONTINUALLY DENIED THIS.

“Hello, boys.” There it is. My actual shriek of delight. I hope it didn’t alarm the neighbors.

“I took it.” Yes you did, my red-headed goddess queen of the underworld. You sure did. GET IT ROWENA. Rowena won the game of thrones. Boom.

She’s a little flirty with Sam, still has a soft spot for him I think.

And then starts playing marriage counselor for Dean and Cas. “What am I picking up with you two? A wee tiff?....So fix it.” Someone called this, I’m fairly certain, that if Rowena saw Dean and Cas again during their divorce she’d size that situation up and down and comment on it. FIX IT. So say we all.

“Family sucks.” Jake Abel did such a fantastic job in this. tbh I didn’t give much thought to Adam all these years, it seemed like SPN was never going back there. I liked Jake’s performances in S5, but it just seemed like a story that was over. But Jake Abel, man. He comes back after all this time and owns the dual roles and made me care. With a performance that was alternately fearsome and vulnerable.

“That’s adorable.” Dean is SO happy about Sam and Eileen, he looked so soft, and still a bit not okay because his chosen other half is barely looking at him, but mostly Dean’s rooting for Sam to have some happiness. “If it was to work, she gets it, she gets us, she gets the life.” It’s a retreated on Sam’s speech back during “Baby” about someone...something...who understands the life. And Sam has found that with Eileen.

Meanwhile Cas is right there, with Dean, with this great big chasm still open between them but...he’s there. And all the arrows point towards him for Dean.

Dean and Cas are being magnets again. Not like in S14 where every time there is a crisis they stand very close together and are drawn together, now they’re like magnets that are trying not to feel the pull but they cannot escape each other’s pull nor do they really want to, but they can’t quite figure out how to cross the distance.

There’s more than one scene where Dean or Cas is out of focus and the other in focus, as if to emphasize how they’re both there but not in phase with each other. Not yet.

I so enjoyed the Cas and Michael stuff. Cas’s prayer to Michael, Michael’s mad on for Cas. “Oh, I didn’t come to beg.” And there’s the ruthless strategic angel.

There’s also something really...fitting about Sam and Dean and Cas all being the ones standing outside the ring of holy fire together to trap an archangel who they effectively hope to bring in from the cold, to their side, in a post S6 era of the show.

“To paraphrase a friend you had an entire oak tree shoved up your ass.” I see Cas is still quoting Dean, having Dean as a compass point or a North star. Even if he can barely look at Dean right now.

Cas telling Michael his unimportance to God and keeping the upper hand is just...so satisfying. Cas has grown so much. I keep thinking about S5 Cas and how despite how powerful Cas was back then, radiating power in ways he doesn’t quite do the same way now, Cas always seemed so...smol next to the archangels. Punching above his weight class. But now he faces down Michael and tells Michael rawly how it is with their dad Chuck. And when Michael tries to choke him, he fights past it and goes into Michael’s mind to show him everything, to help him see the truth. Cas has grown so much, this felt a lot like a little brother constantly picked on leaves home, grows, and comes back to find big, big brother isn’t quite as big and intimidating as he remembers.

Which in fact he isn’t, because Michael is capable of insight and change and feelings too. He’s not his father. Despite being the favorite. Despite clinging still to his hero-worship. But Cas worked past that with Chuck long ago.

When Eileen’s friend needs help on a hunt, and Eileen goes to Sam, Sam goes with her, no doubts. Tells Dean he’s going, as Dean recounts to Cas, and Dean seems cool with it.

Sam and Eileen seem to be growing closer and closer, and while there is something tentative about Sam, he definitely is drawn to her and cares. That tentativeness is from past hurt and loss and maybe he’s scared to enter into this kind of relationship. But they’ve got their own magnetic pull together, they fit.

Dean and Cas facing each other in that bunker kitchen, the lighting darker and colder than usual. They’re facing each other, and each shift in and out of camera focus, not looking at each other much. Cas can’t look at Dean at all in this scene, while Dean keeps sneaking glances at Cas. In other scenes, Cas does sneak looks at Dean. They are ridiculous and my heart hurts. The blocking here is them facing each other only not--they are a few feet off, so looking past each other.

Cas sitting at that table, hands folded, staring straight ahead and working very hard obviously to Not Look at Dean.

Dean’s reaction on Cas reporting the words Michael said, “I want you dead, get out.” The things Dean has said to Cas are coming back to haunt him, coming from the words of their once mortal enemy, that’s gotta sting.

Both Dean and Cas have some work to do here, but Dean definitely is already very aware his own words went too far, and has been for a while.

“God lied to me. I loved him.” Oh wow that hurt, I didn’t expect these feelings.

A thing about Adam and Michael, both feeling so abandoned by their families, and losing everyone. They offered support to each other. They worked out a time-share in Adam’s body. We’ve seen genuine vessel and angel bonds form before (in Lily Sunder). There’s also a S7 episode by Ben Edlund about the bond between a human and the demon who possessed him. Not sure how healthy Adam and Michael are, but they seem weirdly functional, and don’t despise each other and I kind of have some feelings about Adam and Michael bonding the way they did in The Cage. Perhaps Michael shielded Adam from the worst of it. It’s how Adam is coherent after being down there for so long. Maybe Adam made Michael less lonely. Did I ASK for feelings about Adam and Michael, no I did nOT and yet here we are.

Then there’s Adam. It was interesting that scene where Sam acknowledges maybe they gave up too easily. Because Sam and Dean refuse to accept it when it’s each other they lose, and have gone way over the line to get the other one back. Here Sam is admitting that it shouldn’t be just for them. That Adam was worth saving. Even though they don’t know him well, he still didn’t deserve what happened (as Dean acknowledges at the end of the ep). And Sam and Dean never mentioning him again or giving him another thought apparently, all these seasons...well, that kind of made me assume that was that. Just because someone is blood, doesn’t make you family and they barely knew Adam.

But if it’s someone who could potentially earn that? Someone basically good? And they just...forgot about him and left him to his torment in Hell? So this did need addressing. There’s not much time to develop a relationship with Adam and TFW this late in the game but there was a start here.

Dean likewise offers his apology to Adam at the end. “You’re a good man. You didn’t deserve that.”

Right when I was thinking, so many of them don’t get what they deserve, they just keep getting Hell heaped on their heads, Adam says “Since when do we get what we deserve.”

There’s a subtle thing there where Adam looks at Cas, Cas very pointedly still tries to be not looking at Dean, and after Adam leaves Dean turns to Cas looking so...sorrowful for a moment. I keep saying, Dean and Cas deserve each other, and right now they can’t figure how to have each other.

But Michael left them a strange gift. The Leviathan flower, to seal away Chuck, but the gift has a double meaning (unintentionally on Michael’s part). It’s not just the tool to shut away the villain, Michael opens a door to Purgatory and boom just like that, opens up a whole doorway on Dean and Cas’s story because of the emotional significance of Purgatory for them. What they had there. What happened there. The way that place broke loose some of their feelings. I’m not sure what’s going to happen now, if they both go, as the promo glimpses seem to suggest, does one return and the other gets trapped? Is Dean’s prayer to Cas going to be inside Purgatory, is Cas also still in Purgatory and they get separated? Is being thrown together back into that environment going to help them heal? Or will they be torn apart again but that provides another route to reconciliation?

#spn #supernatural #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Castiel #team free will #rowena macleod #Adam Milligan #Eileen Leahy #Saileen #Destiel #meta #Michael

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teamlarl · 4 years

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“So this girl and I meet at Beacon. We hit it off pretty damn quickly. We grow close, real close. I actually trust her with the knowledge that I’m actually there to help fuck up the Vytal Festival. She tells me that she doesn't care and that this doesn't change how she feels about me. I take this to mean that she is on my side and won't interfere. Which... kinda? At least to the non-interference part. But you know how that song and dance goes. Her ex is a bitch like that. Won't take no for an answer.

So Beacon goes to shit. I tag along with her whole runaway thing for a bit when... things between us rapidly start to break down. She wants me to just run away with her. I want the revenge I was promised. We can't reconcile that, so we split. I take this as her going back on her word, lying and betraying me.

Fast forward a little bit. So she’s having her journey of self discovery back home, you know, in Menagerie. I’m rapidly tumbling down the path towards my revenge. You know, doing all of Lionheart's dirty work. Lionheart sends huntsmen into a web, and I’m the spider waiting. All the while I’m getting more and more disillusioned about being Watts' pawn. The Attack on Haven goes down. She’s there. I’m away. I’m LIVID that I wasn't informed about the plan, given that it happened on my own home turf and because I feel that she could have pointed out SEVERAL crucial flaws in it. This is the moment where I has her Thanos moment and is just like, "Fine, I'll do it myself."

She does not go with Team RWBY to Argus. She stays behind in Mistral to help clean up things in the aftermath of the Haven attack. All this time, I’m plotting and getting things ready for my crescendo. I track down Cinder. Enlisted her help in exchange for helping Cinder once the dirty deed is done. Very pointedly avoiding my ex. Then... shit goes down.

Riots that I spark in my guise of Astraea, the revolutionary, begin. I murder the entire Mistrali Council over a live broadcast. Previously set up explosions wrack the city. Everything is on fire. The people are freaking out. The Grimm naturally come in swarms, except due to Lionheart and my very thorough culling of Mistral's huntsmen population... There's no stopping them. Everything goes to shit. It's hell on earth...

And my ex’s ex takes this opportunity to confront my ex. Woops. You know how that song and dance goes. She and her stalker ex do the whole 1v1 thing for a while, but needless to say that it does NOT go well. Concussions everywhere. Except, this time, there's no teammate to come to the rescue. Her teammate is in Argus. My ex is in Mistral. Well fuck.

Then in comes me to save the day. Crazy, right? I was just on the telly brutally fucking murdering the entire Mistrali government, including my father figures, and now I’m here swooping in to save my ex.

And you know what? It goes really fucking well. My ex and me are double teaming her stalker ex. He can't keep up against the sheer might of how gay we are for each other. Truly, it's a beautiful thing. Double penetration. So her stalker ex kicks the bucket. About damn time, really. She’s relieved. And distraught. But still relieved. It's hard, killing an abuser. They damaged you so much, but taking a life... Especially one so connected to you... That shit's rough. But, hey, at least she managed to reconnect with the woman she still loves- oh wait, oh fuck, I’m suddenly attacking her, oh shit, um-

Yeah, that's the tragedy there. I was only there, only helped, to stop her stalker ex from killing her... because I needed to be the one to kill her. Ouch. She kinda just traded in one crazy ex for another. Thing is, my ex is fucking exhausted. Her aura is already broken. The fight with her own ex was brutal... And I’m still pretty fresh. It... does not go well for her. She's caught on the back foot, and I only have one thing in mind: murder. And I very nearly succeed. Stabbed her right through the leg. Cuts open an important artery. She legit almost dies. That leg still ain't right to this day. The only reason she doesn't die is because I get interrupted before she can land the final blow.

You know how I can be. Trying to savor the moment and then it bites me in the ass. Renatus finally arrives on the scene to draw my attention.

So my ex is fucking out of it by this point. Me and Ren have our climatic confrontation that's kind of the centerpiece of the entire ordeal. But that's not important in this case. This is my ex and mine story. So I got driven off and I escape the burning hellscape collapsing right behind me. Renatus rescues my ex and gets her immediate medical attention. You know, outside the city, because Mistral is fucking GONE.

My ex goes to Atlas as soon as she's relatively stable. My ex is... pretty down and out. Like, she puts up a good front... But the girl is kind of broken inside. Thing is... I’m in Atlas too. Or Mantle, more specifically. Remember that deal I made with Cinder? Well, Cinder kept her end of the deal, so now it's my turn to return the favor. I’m helping her with her hunt for Ruby Rose and the Lamp and the Maiden Powers. It's a stacked list. But my ex and me being in the same place at the same time...? It's not long until we run into each other... not long at all. At first, I’m furious. The mere notion that she survived... And then the existential dread sets in. She is once more standing in my way, however unintentionally. We fight. That fight very quickly turns into fucking. Neither of us are over the other in any way. And we’re... both in such a bad place. It very quickly turns codependent. We make the promise to stay together... but by the end, we think the other is dead. We’re both heartbroken...”

“...What do you call this story?”

“The Aristocat.”

#;adrastia #;special guest star: sienna khan #;crack #v; civil war (84 to 88 PW)#i am so sorry #but i had to

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aswithasunbeam · 5 years

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March 1807

A fork clattered onto the floor as Hamilton’s morning coffee splattered across the clean, white tablecloth. His newspaper had a smear of syrup streaked across an advertisement on the back page from where he’d slammed it onto his plate, his eyes wide as he read the latest news of Burr’s supposed plot to make himself an emperor. “Burr’s been arrested!”

“Alexander,” Eliza sighed. She adjusted the inkwell he’d upset on the table, moving it further away from the ledger she’d been scratching in all morning. “Was that really necessary?”

“Here, Papa,” James said, reaching down to retrieve the fork from the floor.

“Look at this!” He scanned the front page again, taking in more of the details around the arrest. “Burr was discovered in the Mississippi territory. Nicholas Perkins took a detachment of men to Major Hinson’s home, after giving instructions to two mysterious men. One of the men ‘had on a white hat with a brim rather broad than otherwise, a long beard, a checkered Hankerchief around his neck, and a great coat belted around him to which as hanging a tin cup on one side and butchers knife on the other.’ This reads like a scene from a damn novel.”1

“Alexander,” Eliza’s voice turned sharp as she glanced pointedly at William, who was watching him with rapt attention.

His eyes continued to scan over the accounts of the arrest and Burr’s subsequent escape. “They have him in disguise, fleeing from Federal forces. They’re already laying the groundwork for a treason charge. This is outrageous.”

“Is it?” Eliza asked coolly.

“Ugh, and this: ‘Burr was a great rascal when he attempted to kill Hamilton.’ Ha! As if they cared. But now the Federalists believe that as Burr seeks ‘to divide the Union, destroy the Constitution, turn Congress out of doors, assassinate Jefferson, and establish a monarchy – he is a pretty clever fellow again!’”2

“Did Mr. Burr plan to assassinate President Jefferson as part of his plot?” James asked, craning his neck to look at the paper for himself. “I hadn’t heard that.”

“Nobody’s heard it. Jefferson’s lost his mind. He’s descended into paranoid delusions. There’s no way he can actually believe any of this, can he?”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Eliza removed her spectacles and set down her quill. “Burr’s proven himself plenty dangerous when provoked. And he hasn’t distinguished himself as a paragon of loyalty or virtue recently, either, has he?”

“That was different. Burr didn’t hide in the bushes to attack me from the side of the road like an assassin. He called me out as a gentleman. It was my own folly that I answered him.” He looked at James as he spoke, hoping to instill with words the example he’d so spectacularly failed to set with his actions.

“I don’t know anything, except I watched you almost die because that fiend had his feelings hurt over a newspaper article. Perhaps Jefferson isn’t so far off the mark on this.”

“It’s the beginning of our very own reign of terror, Eliza. Don’t you see? No better than a witch hunt.”

“You’re so certain Burr’s not a witch?” she asked, seizing the metaphor.

“That’s the sort of thinking that leads to mass hysteria.”

“He’s ambitious. Viciously so. He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. I, for one, don’t think the charges against him are so outrageous.”

“Only because you’re still angry with him.”

“Yes.” She looked hard at him, unrepentant of her position.

“That’s a reason to let him hang for a crime that lives almost entirely in Jefferson’s imagination?”

“You don’t know that. You’ve been as quick to judgment as everyone else. You’re so set against Jefferson, that you’re willing to believe the best in a man who tried to kill you not so long ago. Burr’s committed crimes enough to justify me believing the worst.”

He stared at her for a long moment, unused to disagreeing with her so vehemently about politics. It’s not that she blindly took his side on things typically, but even where their opinions diverged, she wasn’t usually so concerned that she’d spend much time arguing with him over it. Not unless he asked her to, of course, so that he might better craft his own arguments.

She was hard set against Burr, though, uninterested in any view that set him as a pawn in Jefferson’s bid to take power for himself. Which made the idea formulating in his head even more problematic.

So much was happening in the wider world, while he stayed ensconced in New York, taking on paltry insurance cases and coming home to his family each evening. He’d needed that while he recovered: the predicable schedule, the short hours, the cocoon of his loving home. But he was starting to chafe at the restriction now. Burr was being chased across the continent like a desperado while he sat safe in his country retreat.

“The trial will be in Richmond over the summer,” he observed.

Her mouth drew into a tight line.

“That’s not such a great distance away, really. Especially considering I’ll be going to Philadelphia for work already—”

“No.” She doesn’t raise her voice, but her nostrils have flared, anger boiling behind her dark eyes. The refusal left no room for argument.

He fought not to bristle at the abrupt interruption. “We could take the little ones with us. And time away would give me a chance to focus more on my new project. You know how hard it is for me to research and write with visitors and business on the doorstep at all hours.”

“No, Alexander.”

“Betsey—”

She shook her head, pushed back from the table, and snapped her ledger book shut.

She avoided him for much of the rest of the day.

It wasn’t hard for her, exactly. She’d already been spending most of her time at the New York Orphan Asylum, after having been named Second Directress of the new organization. Her nose was constantly in her ledger book, tracking donations, paying bills, keeping the whole charity afloat as they housed, fed, and educated the most vulnerable and unfortunate children in the city.

It was well past dark when he finally heard the front door open. He was sitting in the parlor with little Eliza and Phil, an assortment of books laid out on the table before him as he scribbled notes down. His planned essay series on governments throughout history had been too long delayed by his injury, but with Gouverneur Morris and James Kent’s assistance, it was finally underway.

“Like this,” his younger daughter was explaining, holding her palms face out to her little brother. “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man, bake me a cake—no Phil, you clap my hands there. Watch again.”

Hamilton smiled at the children, though his shoulders were tense as he heard Eliza approaching. She paused in the entryway, watching their two youngest at play for a long moment before entering. Then he felt her gaze land on him. She regarded him silently, sighed, then came around to stand behind his chair. Her arms slid around him, her nose nuzzling his neck affectionately.

“Hello, my love,” she whispered. All traces of anger had gone.

“Hello,” he said, wary, but welcoming. “Are you done saving the world for the day?”

“Saving the world is a bit of a strong description for a day of balancing a budget and singing nursery rhymes.”

“I disagree.”

She laughed, soft and low, her breath a warm puff against his skin. “Of course you do.”

Relaxing back into her arms, he reached back to brush his hand over her cheek. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” Her lips ghosted over his ear lobe. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“The children?”

“We all managed to feed and water ourselves in your absence. Much as I depend on you, I’m not as useless as that.” He made sure to keep the tone of his voice light. The work she had undertaken was as wonderful as it was important, but he knew it bothered her that it took her away from her own family for long stretches of the day.

“I know, sweetheart,” she assured him. “But it’s my prerogative to worry over you.”

Phil clapped as he finished the rhyme with his sister, their hands having moved perfectly in unison for the first time. “Again!”

“Faster, this time,” little Eliza said.

He and Eliza both laughed as they watched their two youngest flail their hands about, creating a flurry of little fingers. Phil, in his excitement, missed his sister’s hands completely and nearly sent her toppling backwards on the last clap. “Phil,” she whined.

“Again,” the little boy demanded.

“Maybe we should do it slower again.”

Eliza sighed behind him. “Are you ready to talk about our disagreement this morning?”

“If you are.” He hadn’t been the one to lose his temper and stalk out, after all.

She grasped at the back of his chair and wheeled him from the parlor to his office, clicking the door closed behind them. When she had him settled in front of the desk, facing the interior of the room, she sat down in the armchair before him, and waited. Apparently, this talk wasn’t going to begin with an apology, or an admission that she’d seen the error of her ways.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” he said.

Her jaw clenched.

“I want to go. I need to go. I’m tired of reading about momentous events in the papers, Betsey. If I’m not going to act, I might as well have died on the field that morning with Burr.”

“Don’t say that,” she snapped, pained.

“It’s true.”

“It’s not. You have me, our family, your law practice, your health, mostly. Why can’t that be enough? Why do you have to go meddle in business that has nothing to do with you?”

“It has everything to do with me. I live in this country. I spilled my blood to see it free. I’ll be damned if I let Jefferson drive us into a dictatorship, like the Napoleon of North America. For all he says about Burr, he’s the one in the prime position to seize power. I can see now why he felt so warmly towards the French Revolution.”

“Alexander.” No heat remained in the interjection, only a weary note of caution.

“This is important to me. Very important. This trial will go down in the history books one way or another, and I need to be a part of it. I can make a difference. I can ensure things turn out right. But I can’t do it without you. I need you with me. Please?”

She tilted her head slightly, then sighed again. “For you. And only for you.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t forgive Burr, when you forgave me so freely.”

“I’m not in love with Burr,” she answered immediately.

He laughed, then sobered, unsure how felt about that being the sole ground for his own pardon. “So, if you weren’t in love with me, you would still be nursing a grudge?”

“If I weren’t in love with you,” she echoed, seeming to turn the words over on her tongue. Her eyes closed for a long moment. “You know, I can’t begin to imagine such a world.”

He smiled at that. They were so tangled up with each other, their lives so tightly entwined, he hadn’t the first notion of what life would be like without Eliza’s love. “I hope I never live to see it.”

She rose, leaned in, and pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. “You never will.”

“So, you’ll come with me to Richmond?”

“Yes,” she agreed at last. “I’ll come with you. But I make no promise of cordiality towards Burr.”

“Just so long as you’re with me,” he said.

#hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #eliza hamilton #life hereafter #hamliza

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tippitv · 5 years

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Supernatural TippiTV Recap: 14-13 “Lebanon”

Okay before we get started. This is a long one and while I think it's pretty funny if I do say so myself, there's also a lot of me just... frickin ranting about John Winchester and rushed plots. If you loved this episode and don't want to see someone snarking about it, this might not be the recap for you.

On the other hand if you're like me and come from the TWoP tradition of snarking about the things we love most, then come on in!

THEN!

Two children talk about how their dad is on a hunting trip and hasn't been home in a while.

Oh wait... holy crap it's Sam and Dean. It took a sec to recognize them without the gravelly voices and almost 14 years of soul-crushing despair.

We also get a reminder of very recent episodes, including the one where Mary learns about the time John threw young Dean's food away because it reminded him of her. It's important to remember what an abusive, hardened asshole John Winchester was... so that we can forget it! Forget it all!

[insert video of recapper letting out a Klingon scream]

NOW!

Sam and Dean mosey on into a pawn shop that I'm positive is in the US because they never leave the US but there's a sign that says the shop buys "jewellery" which is how they spell it in places that also spell "flavor" with a u. Dean flashes a big wad of cash to get the broker to show them "the good stuff."

By this, he means the magical goods, although the secret room looks like a high school drama department prop closet.

Dean says they're looking for the skull of a woman who was executed during the Salem witch trials. While the broker goes looking for it, Sam picks up a teddy bear from, you know, a shelf full of cursed and magical items because it's not as if stuffed animals have ever been dangerous. <cue ironic flashback>

Luckily he's warned away from it before he can unleash some kind of... Pooh demon... probably.

Anyway, it turns out having the skull proves that the broker killed a friend of theirs or something... Honestly, very little of this is going to have any bearing on anything. Long story short, fisticuffs ensue and Dean shoots the broker while he's expositing to Sam. "They always talk too much," Dean says.

Sam and Dean decide to take a bunch of magical items home with them. Although... what if they rightfully belong to other peop---ah screw it.

Okay now... here comes a long, boring subplot about teenagers back in Lebanon, Kansas. The main thing that's pertinent to the show is that Sam and Dean have a certain reputation around town. And no wonder! They park right in front these teenagers and start talking about shit they would never want anyone to hear.

They head into the world's skimpiest liquor store and the owner addresses them as "the Campbell brothers." Say whaaaat? Have they been using their mom's maiden name for a while and I just missed it? I mean, I guess it makes sense because... Actually, I don't remember how much stuff is still in their world about the infamous Winchesters. Like I legit can't remember if Charlie or someone erased their FBI/police records or if it was just some fanon someone told me about.

Also, nothing says "real liquor store" like shelves of bottles turned so that their name brands don't show.

Anyway, Sam stage-whispers to Dean about an ancient Chinese pearl that grants "what your heart desires."

The plan is to get Michael out of his head, but they notice someone is driving off with the Impala. They run out to confront one of the teenagers about it. He confesses that a girl named Max is the culprit, so that we can spend several minutes on this subplot instead of the much more emotional and important main plot.

I mean, we go from the post office to a pizza joint to an old house on the edge of town to catch up to the Impala. Max has apparently brought all that lethal “secret” stuff inside for a party. The camera lingers on that teddy bear again as if it's going to be important to the plot later.

Max, the car thief, has a crush on a girl and ISTG I was prepared to be mad if she died. Like I don't even want this whole subplot at all but I'd be puh-hissed if they had queer characters on just to kill one. Luckily I was wrong and neither of them die. However, the dialog is killing me. "I'm sooo excited for pizza." Tell me you can't imagine Lumpy Space Princess saying that.

Apparently the ghost of John Wayne Gacy (sigh) was waiting for the kids to go in search of pizza before oozing out of a cigar box the Winchesters brought from the pawn shop.

Why is his ghost dressed as a clown? I mean yes I know Gacy was a children's party clown, but it's not like he died in that outfit. Aren't ghosts supposed to be wearing what they died in? OH GOD WHY DO I CARE.

The Winchesters show up and scoot everyone out of the house, but not before at least one kid sees the ghost. Sam zeroes in on the cigar box and Dean points out how Sam's love of serial killers and hatred of clowns are in conflict.

Of course, some of the kids come back in just as the ghost goes up in flames. Sam and Dean decide to just... tell them the whole truth instead of just lying. Like..."Yo, one of the things you stole was secret holographic tech and you could face prison time if you talk about it." See? Easy peasy. Instead, they just trust the kids to never talk about ghosts being real and meeting actual ghost hunters.

I briefly wondered if this was some kind of back door pilot for teen hunters, but I haven't heard anything about that. Granted I didn't actually look that hard.

Once back at the bunker, Sam finds the magic pearl but it's kinda... chalky and medicinal looking. It looks like something Goop would sell to stick up your hoohaw.

Dean decides there's no time to wait because we've already spent too long on teenagers playing hooky. Like, even Sam doesn't really know how to use it. "I guess you just concentrate on what your heart desires," he says, scrunching his face uncertainly. I mean what if this had happened

The music swells dramatically. The lights flicker off dramatically. A shadowy figure approaches... dramatically. Fisticuffs ensue! It's a nice callback to Dean and Sam fighting in the dark in the pilot episode because ta da! It's actually John Winchester! Which we all knew because this was foretold in promotions.

The lights come up, showing... just a whole lot of things for me to process.

Now, at first, things don't seem that weird. We've seen people come back from the dead so many times, it's basically as surprising as buying socks at this point. Except! John isn't back from the dead at all! He's traveled through time! He eventually tells us he's from the year TWO THOUSAND AND THREE. TWO ZERO ZERO THREE.

He's both three years younger than the last time the bros saw him AND 13 years older, because for Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and all the rest of us mortals, time has marched on. Consequently, John Winchester looks like he got stuck in a wormhole for a good while.

Now, kudos to John for recognizing his sons, especially Sam, who looked a little something like this the last time they saw each other.

"Aren't you supposed to be in Palo Alto?" he asks Sam. "And also not a middle-aged man?" he doesn't ask, but I bet he was thinkin' it.

It's just... sigh. I might as well get it all out now. I get what they were going for here. It's the 300th episode and they wanted to have John show up. But because everything is so rushed, they just gloss over anything remotely realistic to the characters. John is all softness and awe the instant the lights go up, instead of bristling and suspicious. Why wouldn't he think it was a djinn or some other creature's doing? "Well we don't have time for him to be as flinty and wary as John would have been in 2003, because we need to get to the part where he spends quality time with his family!" YES EXACTLY. The show is three hundred episodes old now and it deserves more than this speedy treatment put together seemingly for the concomitant promotional opportunity.

Anyway they have a Sit-n-Chat to catch John up on what they've been doing, including the living situation there at the bunker which includes an angel and the son of Lucifer. Goodness only knows what John is picturing.

Now that I think about it, the brothers should be hella wary too. I mean, what if the pearl is cursed? What if John is actually some shambling interdimensional beast masquerading as John? What if the whole thing is just a hallucination brought on by nefarious moon herbs in Paltrow's pookie pearl? They just uncharacteristically seem to rely on the pawn broker's ledger.

Fine! Fine! I’ll drop it.

They talk about how they met John's dad via time travel, too, but don't mention that's why John never saw him again after childhood. They talk about the Men of Letters, finally killing old Yellow Eyes, saving the world... Then just when they're about to tell him that Mary's back from the dead, she actually shows up and starts calling to her sons. What a coincidence! John is pained.

It seems like they didn't tell her, either? Did they just tell her to come over for a surprise or did she just happen to be on her way there anyway? Anyway John and Mary start in on a smoochy reunion so Sam and Dean quietly leave the room.

Sam's like, "How'd this happen?" And Dean's like, "We spent too much time on the teenager subplot instead of looking into this potentially dangerous thing, is how!"

For some reason, John is perusing the library alone instead of... um... making up for lost time with his hot wife. Sam goes to talk to him and finds out Mary's off writing a shopping list for Dean so she can make that emotionally important casserole again. This leads John to admit he fucked up with his kids. Sam is reluctant to blame John because he's had almost 13 years to get over it.

I hate that everyone's acting their little hearts out and all I can think is how painfully contrived the episode is. Whatever problems I have with the writing and the premise, I don't have a problem with the job the actors are doing. Okay, okay, I'm really letting go of it this time.

John rubs Sam's shoulder and tearfully says, "Son, I am so sorry." The cellos of sadness play sadly. "I'm sorry, too," says Sam. "You did your best, Dad. You fought for us, you loved us... that's enough."

It's one thing to decide you're going to move past the shitty, shitty things someone did because you're in the midst of the enormity of what's going on RIGHT NOW. But it's another thing for the show to minimize the past. John did NOT do his best. For fuck's sake, he left a little boy in charge of an even littler boy! Dean knew his Dad was possessed because his REAL dad would never be proud of him! When Dean stole food to feed Sam, John abandoned him to face the consequences!

God damn it I guess I'm not going to let it go, after all!

Anyway, Sam and Dean head into town for groceries and time paradoxes. The liquor store owner no longer recognizes Dean, which is the surest sign that something is Very Wrong. Dean is flabbergasted. "It's me! Dean Campbell! I come in here like... always!"

As Sam heads back to the car, he sees a wanted poster for his bro. It's the old Blue Steel one except I think Sam used to be on it too? He's not anymore. He heads back to the car to tell Dean, but Dean's already been a-googlin' on his phone.

He plays back a video of Sam as a turtleneck-wearing lawyer espousing a raw food diet with plenty of kale. Good lord how much raw food does someone the size of Sam have to eat to fulfill his daily caloric needs?

They kind of hand-wave how these new versions of themselves exist at the same time as the OG versions. "Our timeline is changing to this new one!" Sam says. He says they need to put things back the way they were or they'll be stuck. It's nice of the timeline to work slowly enough that they can figure this out.

Somewhere nearby, the angel Zachariah appears. Castiel moseys up beside him and he's brought some old friends.

They decide to head into the nearest pizza place. The teenagers are there because not even a paradox will get rid of this subplot. "Can I help you?" asks the waitress. I think the usual question would be, "Can I get you a table for two?" but whatever. Zachariah asks her who's been messing with time. "We sensed a disturbance in the, well, let's call it the Force," he says. Naturally, she's very confused, and even more confused when he says they're from Heaven.

He says he'll have Castiel murder everyone if they don't tell him what's going on. To emphasize this, Castiel whips out his angel mojo.

Sam and Dean see the bright light from across the street and come running in. Sam's like, "Zachariah?!" and Dean's like, "Cas?!" and Cas is like, "Is that with one S or two, and also who are you?"

Zachariah exposits that Heaven had big plans for the Winchesters but then their dad suddenly disappeared in 2003. Why wouldn't the angels assume the disappearance and the time event are connected? Why'd they have to just start asking questions in a random pizzeria? Fisticuffs ensue!

Zachariah force-chokes Sam while asking him for an explanation. Why do villains always try to make people talk while they're choking? Pick one or the other! But this gives Sam a chance to surprise Zachariah with an angel blade in the heart. Oh, Zachariah. Destined to die by Winchester in every version.

Meanwhile, Dean and Castiel are still tussling even though I'm pretty sure Castiel could kill them both pretty quick. Sam joins in for a bit, but gets flung into a table. If there's a table around, someone's getting flung into it. Then he goes back to strangling Dean instead of finishing off Sam, giving Sam a chance to make one of those angel-vanquishing sigils with his own blood.

They go back home. Dean explains the whole paradox thing to John. If he doesn't return to 2003, Dean will live the same life but alone, Mary will never have come back to life, and Sam will devastate kale crops like a moose-sized locust.

John agrees to go back. "Me versus your mom, that's not even a choice." That's... a weird way to phrase that dilemma. At the same time, Sam is delivering the news to Mary. He says "the lore is pretty clear" that if they destroy the pearl, everything goes back the way it was. What lore? They knew jack squat about it before they used it. Mary has some questions.

John tells Dean he's proud of him and I slightly expect Dean to whip a gun out on him. "I never meant for this.... I guess I hoped that eventually you get yourself a normal life..a family..."

WHAT.

WHAAAAAT.

He did nothing to prepare them for a normal life! Leaving your kids in motel rooms, never letting them settle down in one school, issuing ultimatums when Sam wanted to go to college? Man, Dean should've been like, "Nah, that was your other son, Adam, who got to live a normal life... at least until a ghoul ate him and his body was used by an archangel." But Dean is nicer than me, I guess. "I have a family," he says.

They decide to eat dinner even though who knows when the timeline is going to snap into place permanently. Oh my God they even take the time to wash the dishes after. They have a nice chat and again, everyone's acting their little hearts out and I'm trying not to be distracted. Dean tells Sam he doesn't want to change the past. "I'm good with who I am. I'm good with who you are." Please let that stick with no reversions to self-loathing and I'll retroactively like this episode more.

They cut to this shot and for a second I thought it was Sam and Dean holding hands at the sink.

Of course it's John and Mary. Sad piano plays sadly. John's not going to remember anything, but the rest of them will. Oh man what if John got Mary pregnant during his visit. Sam and Dean were out shopping for a while. I wish I hadn't thought that, but now that I have, you all have to be witness to my horrible brain's meanderings.

John reiterates that he's proud of them. So this time Sam pulls a gun on him! No, he doesn't. They all hug and cry genuine tears before John goes back to holding hands with Mary. Sam reluctantly smashes the pearl to bits. Seems like Dean would have to be the one to smash it since he's the one who made the wish, but it works and John slowly fades out of the present.

Everything goes back to normal, including the teenagers remembering and loudly discussing the existence of monsters in public.

Castiel returns to the bunker in his newer, homelier coat and less erotically tousled hair. "What happened?" he asks. The response in my brain:

Back in 2003, John wakes up in the Impala to the sound of his flip phone ringing. Smart phones are great and all but man I miss the battery life of my flip. It's the Dean of the day calling to check on him. John, although he's not supposed to remember anything from the future, seems to have experienced it as some kind of dream. He seems nicer, too. This will probably have no bearing on the timeline, though... right?

I mean, is that 2019 casserole still in his stomach? Did the wine turn back into grapes? Probably not but these are the kinds of things I think about.

Sigh.

I feel the episode does a disservice to its main characters. I've already ranted more than enough so I'll just pick one example:

If Sam had gone on to live a normal life, he would've become a cold-hearted douchebag who tells people that hobbies and families are a waste of time. Like, ha ha yes it's amusing that Sam is the leaf-munching Steve Jobs of law, but what's the meaning here? Are we saying that wanting to get an education for himself means he's a selfish asshole? Like this is the alternative to the codependent relationship with Dean that formed because of their father? Argh.

The John apologia is just so clunky and unnecessary. John could've said, "I should've done more than teach you to hunt monsters... prepared you for a normal life so you could have a family." Then Dean ccould say, "Being able to kill monsters kept us alive long enough so that we figured out things for ourselves. And we do have a family." Bam! It lets John be rueful without rewriting the past or having Dean swallow all the years of hurt and it even acknowledges that knowing how to hunt isn't a bad thing.

Thank you for sticking with the recap to the end! I do still intend to recap past episodes but things have been kind of stressful. Just staying afloat has been a chore some days.

For updates and info you can check here: https://www.gofundme.com/winter-rent-and-dog-care

I also have a virtual tip jar of sorts here: https://www.paypal.me/tippiblevins

#spn snark #supernatural #spn recap #tippitv #recaps #lebanon

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8bitsupervillain · 6 years

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The Disappointments of 2017: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Ha ha, wow this was a massive disappointment let me tell you. It is so very rare that I encounter the latest installment in a series that completely, and utterly retroactively kills a series for me. The last thing that did that was Burial At Sea part 2, but wow I did not expect it was going to be this game that made me re-experience that sheer gut-wrenching awfulness. Please be warned, there are spoilers after the break.

Before I get into my complaints I will now list for you the things I like about Danganronpa V3. The music is great, I adore just about every song that is in this game, Let's Killing is one of my favorite tracks with the Scrum Debate being a close second. I liked the twist when Kaede Akamatsu was revealed to be the killer in Case 1, it was effective. That's it.

Let me get this out of the way first, it is not entirely because of the plot twists of Trial 6 that caused this. It is but a major, major, MAJOR factor that led to this being such a vile and loathsome letdown. I started having some doubts about how this game was going to stick the landing as early as Case 3. Shinguji killing Yonaga, and Chabashira just so his dead sister he was in love with could have friends started to strain credibility.

Case 4 when Iruma gets killed with toilet paper in a virtual world and then it transpires that the "school" was in fact a rocket ship meant to take these sixteen kids AND ONLY these sixteen kids to a new world, added to the strain. Although I kind of took the notion of there being a virus from meteors to be a nice little nod to the Zero Escape series, even if it wasn't actually a reference.

Case 5 when Oma is somehow able to write a script for how to act like him for Momota, even down to how THE REST OF THE CAST WOULD RESPOND TO HIS STATEMENTS was what tipped this over the edge. It was fucking ridiculous and I hated damn near every aspect of this fucking case and EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS IT. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's rewind my complaints to when it transpires that Oma is in fact a secret traitor whose betraying everyone because of the notion that Earth is uninhabitable. Fine, whatever, people can be pointless dickheads at the best of times. Maybe he got his personality re-written with the flashback light, fine, that's fine. Why would the people of Earth go out of their way to hunt down the Ultimates when it's suggested that they're what would fundamentally save mankind? Why would they try to hunt them down to kill them? Why is this plot-point just a rehash of Hellstar Remina (a fascinating manga, it's worth checking out)? Did Oma somehow find out about the fact they're on the fifty-third Danganronpa season?

I hate it when stories try to pull the "everyone loves this character so you do as well" card. Despite everything the game tries to do I just cannot bring myself to care about Kirumi Tojo. She was a flat, uninteresting character, her being the secret prime minister really doesn't add much to her character because it's brought up roughly ten seconds before she dies anyway, and never gets into the ramifications of this plot development. I also felt that the game tried a bit too hard to get me to care about the fact that Yumeno and Chabishira were going through a rough patch and Yumeno was spending time with Yonaga. With the exception of the pivotal characters every other character felt flat and really underdeveloped. Amami could've been a decent character had he not died in the opening hours of the game, he could have been a decent posthumous character. Gokuhara was uninteresting and ridiculously one-note, and Hoshi was just an utter black hole of a character.

Even a fair amount of the characters who make to chapter five are uninteresting. K1-B0, despite being the hero of this story has pretty much no character until he becomes a danger to the rest of the cast in chapter 6. His plot reveal that he's basically the cameraman for the events adds nothing to his character. Harukawa is perhaps the single worst character in the entire game however, they basically play her as a Kirigiri type of character with absolutely none of the redeeming characteristics of such a character. It would've been more interesting if she actually did deal the fatal blow to Oma, but I guess she had to live for reasons.

Then of course we arrive at Chapter 6, the denouement to everything this game has been building up to. The interesting characters are dead, and we're left with what we have left. Saihara, Yumeno, Harukawa, K1-B0 and Shirogane. And of course Monokuma and the Monokubs. The chapter starts, and K1-B0 has started using his upgraded weapons that Iruma gave him (or had in her lab) and is now set to tear down the Ultimate's Academy. Fair enough, a final thing to drive forth the fact that the cast is in a bad-way and they'll all die unless they can solve the mystery. This is also unfortunately where the game decides to dive into batshit lunacy. As you're investigating to find out the truth about the Academy you find several clues about the whole "the class was shot off into space to save humanity" thing. You find the room where "the cryo-stasis pods for their journey are," and you find a document that puts forth the notion that Akamatsu has a near-identical twin sister who might be roaming the halls. This is all a smokescreen of course, because when it comes time for the trial it comes to light that his has all been an elaborate con.

The class was never shot into space, there was no viral outbreak, the Ultimates Academy was simply the latest group of teenagers for Danganronpa season number 53. Everything that has transpired has simply been a televised event and none of what happened was real. There's some revelations that the personalities of every single person taking part in the show has had their actual personalities over-written by the flashback lights that the cast has been routinely subjected to over the course of the game to "give them back their memories." Which is a lie, the personalites are apparently just something that Team Danganronpa have cooked up prior to the events of the game.

On the face of it I don't have a problem with the notion that the game was all a big ruse. It's the way the game conveys the twist and everything that happens in this trial that I find to be a huge slap in the face. There's a point around the end of chapter five where the game cuts away to some random person named Makoto. Makoto, you see is a bit of a lonely boy, he has seemingly no friends, his school life is in pieces, and it all seems gray and grim for him. But he has one thing that makes himself feel better: Danganronpa, the one thing that gives his life meaning. And this is you, the audience who buy and play these games, and it illustrates just how little they care about their actual audience who buy these games and play them.

The whole entire ending, the last two hours or so of this trash fire is more or less a prolonged "you need to get a life, Danganronpa is shit and bad and you're just as bad for liking it. Fuck you." The ending is a complete slap in the face and just utterly ruins and destroys everything this whole franchise had built up until now. It is a complete and utter insult, and frankly it killed this series for me. It rates up there in the pantheon of abysmal and shitty endings. For all the shit people like to throw at Bioware for Mass Effect 3's ending at least it never outright insulted you for liking the games up until that point.

The fact the game goes out of its way to invalidate the previous entries in the series is just disgusting. See Danganronpa 1, 2, Ultra Despair Girls, never actually happened in the universe of Danganronpa; they were merely seasons in the “Danganronpa show.” Any stakes the series could have been building up to is null and void after this revelation, and as such any investment on your part is simply a waste of time. Then there’s the fact that the game deliberately goes out of its way to point out several plot points that it will never bring up again is just a cherry on top for wasting everyone’s time.

It mentions the notion that the personalities everyone has is in fact fake. Including Shirogane’s personality, the person the game assures you is the mastermind behind this particular game. It’s never elaborated on that she is in fact just a pawn in the greater scheme of things. Ha, whoops she’s dead now, smashed by a rock, oh well! It’s implied at the very start of the game that the kids used in the game were in fact actually kidnapped to be in Danganronpa V3. Whoops, the plot point’s been lost and will never be revisited.

This is all while the game is just throwing out its arm patting itself on the back for how brilliant and great the writing is. It’s annoying, and loathsome and a complete and utter insult to everyone who gave a shit about this series.

"It wasn't their intention, Kodaka said so." I don't care, I'm quits with this series after this game. What a shame.

#Danganronpa V3

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necromite · 7 years

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*slams fists down*

OK NECROMITES!

MY DF GAVE THE OK TO INFO DUMP ABOUT THEM TO THEM AND SIIIINCCEEE I DON’T WANT TO SPAM THEIR MESSAGES HERE’S INFO HERE:

Firstly…. I know some of this is gonna sound mEH but this little demon species I made means the goddamn world to meeeee and my lil traumatized ass so don’t b mean™

Now originally I only made a few. Like as a coping mechanism. That was back around middle school because that is definitely where depression™ started. I love demons so much and I was like…. yes demons I’m make them….

Originally, and this still pretty much holds up, they are always themed off of something. And whatever they are themed off of determines their main power.

Now in my original drafts, all of them had a tattoo of the symbol of their power. It was black everytime. Now that does not hold up anymore, instead I gave them what I call “insulators”. They act as a container for their magic and they cannot perform their magic without it on. The insulator is also capable of keeping their physical forms together. If you apply enough force to their forms they will uhhh explode and immediately go back into regeneration within their insulators. So essentially their souls are in their insulators. This is symbolic of going through a traumatic experience and then shutting down and going into recovery. Due to what this is based on, the recovery times vary extremely dependent on what happens to the Necromite at hand. Sometimes it takes more force to break one Necromite than it does with others. It really depends on their level of power and mental endurance to keep themselves together. Once they reform, they come back and are generally ok after that until some fucker hurts them again. While it’s based off of physical force, it COULD also be mental trauma to them too. So physcologically tortuing one has about the same effect as physically dependent on the Necromite, and they will pop and go back into regeneration. However sometimes instead of going back into regeneration, they lash out and go into a “beast form” of sorts. Except….the beast form is what they look like anyway. Necromites are a species that wants to blend in, because what they generally look like scares things that don’t understand their somewhat horrific appearance. They project a form of the predominate species of their area. Most of the time, it’s probably humans tbh. So human/humanoid forms 9 times outta 10 most likely. However they can shift into anything so long as they see it in action. They are not perfect at this, however, and no matter what form they’re in they will always have: horns (any amount, but has to be at least one), long ears, and their insulators. Now insulators can practically be anything but once they choose one they have to stick with it forever. The way it works is that the (probably child?) chooses an item they like and choose to put themselves in that essentially. Until then the parents/guardians help them keep their forms stable if they’re projecting. If they have no one to help them do that, they cannot disguise themselves without an insulator. Generally, insulators are accessories like jewelry or something (not necessary, can be anything within reason that they can have on their person.). Just so they don’t look out of place. They’re extremely sensitive to people touching their insulators and mostly do not allow it. There’s a good reason for this of course. Because, as you can probably guess, if you destroy the insulator you kill them. Destroying an insulator is actually extremely hard though. There’s no specific way to do it but they’re just extremely durable to the point of which someone who is not magic probably cannot achieve breaking it. Regardless though yes they are paranoid so do not touch it unless you want an ass kicking. Now they mostly live in villages with a bunch of other Necromites. Very, very rarely do they live in a place that does not have at least one other of their kind, and if they do it probably involves a significant other of another species. (tHAT IS THE SAME of their projected species so no weird shit….) Speaking of….since it’s relevant, yes they can reproduce with different species if they wanted to, but since they’re immortal they don’t really have to. But y’know sometimes people want kids or whatever so. Yeah.

Now generally, Necromites are under rule of their Queen. Who resides in their dimension of origin. She gathers up incredibly powerful Necromites and raises them to do what she says, and what she wants them to do is colonize other places all around different dimensions. There are 5 classes to those who live under her rule: Citizen->Servant->Solider->Commander->Elder

Citizen lives there and does general citizen shit. I mean…y’know whatever the fuck people do when they live somewhere.

Servant is a servant. That’s pretty straight forward. They do shit for her and reside in her palace or whatever I haven’t decided wtf she actually lives in yet bc I’m soooo good at this.

Soldiers are the fighters. They are essentially…yeah?? They’re soldiers man they fight battles and take out opposition.

Commanders train the soldiers and protect the Elders.

Elders are the most powerful and are exceedingly gifted when it comes to magic, charisma, and cruelty. They are the ones sent out to colonize. Sometimes it’s a matter of convincing the people of the area they go to colonize bc they’re stupid….hence the charisma aspect.

Most of the time though, people don’t want to be under a new rule, especially if they didn’t have one in the first place. If they do, the Elders kill the leader. If they don’t, the Elders kill a couple of the people in example of what will happen should there be anymore opposition. This has been going on as long as the species has been existent. Queen is the literal God to the demons and she can spawn demons from thin air if she wanted to, but she much prefers to just let them grow from a baby. Some things to keep in mind are that she is a cruel tyrant and she really only cares about expanding her influence and nothing else. She is about 40 feet tall. She has the ability to control any demon of the Necromite species so long as they are pure Necromite. Meaning that if a Necromite bred with a human the baby would be half human, in which case she only has half control. She’s evil as evil gets and also insanely powerful, there has never been opposition to her…. EXCEPT….. until a Necromite named Gin came around. He was used by her since birth and is arguably the second most powerful Necromite alive behind Queen herself. For a long while, until about his late teens, he worked for her without question. He was not capable of emoting or understanding emotions all that well. Some would say he was even apathetic but that really was not true. One day one of the commanders he was assigned to started picking on him while the other 6 Elders he associated with were not paying attention. This commander is named Luciana. (She belongs my best friend) She was raised from birth to die for her cause if need be and that was all that mattered, except….. she’s pretty quirky and silly. And she saw something different in Gin than she did any other Elders. She had the hunch he could be a much better person than he was raised to be. And she was right. She also fell in love with him. He didn’t really know this at the time, and therefore he came off as rather insensitive to her feelings and hints that she dropped at him. Eventually, he ultimately decided he was done being a pawn to Queen. He was going to rebel. He told Luciana and a few citizens who shared his views of wanting to be free and he put his plan…. well actually he did not have anything planned he just did it. He was successful, and he took Luciana and the citizens to a world that the Necromites had never been before and sealed off the portal and any traces of energy that would have helped in tracking them down. He was injured, of course. He had to fight Queen before he was able to leave after all. He did not succeed in killing her though, only fazing for a short amount of time. And well? Gin and Luciana’s group of people were free now. It was the first time anyone had done that and so they had to work together to make their village, which still stands to this day. And if you’re wondering…. yes Gin and Luciana are married and they are cute as fuck. Gin is now dead though but there’s a lot more to things than that. To keep this post from getting any longer though I’m going to summarize: Gin instated six other Elders to work with him and lead the village and they weren’t really that nice. He also recruited 7 more potential Elders and trained them and raised them, acting as their fatherly figure and treating them as more than their ability to destroy. The local species of angels that happened to live there…. I forgot the name I gave them….. were like….. “hey what the fuck you can’t be here you’re demons” and all that racist shit djdjdjsjsj. And eventually they got into fights and then war broke out and Gin and the other six Elders were killed as well as the leader of the angels and ofc tons more of casualties. So the kids Gin had raised to take their place did exactly that. They are grown now and are currently the leaders of the village. They’re good at what they do but they hold resentment for what had happened. So there are two kinds of Necromites, ones that are aligned with Queen and the ones that are not. It’s dangerous to not be aligned with her because you know her petty ass is trying to hunt down the rebel village. She hasn’t been successful just yet though. And that is the history behind that shit in the shortest possible summary. Now more about the species in general is that there are regular ones and there are gifted ones. The gifted ones are born with a huge amount of power and those are generally the ones that are made into Elders. Elders are protectors of those they lead and if you try to mess with their village they will fuck you up. The way villages generally go is that there are 7 Elders to run it and the rest are citizens. They’re generally peaceful unless provoked. If you were to kiss one for some reason, their saliva would taste like your favorite sweet thing, and if you taste it while they are aroused, it turns into an aphrodisiac. Honestly though like… they don’t take advantage of this or anything. You shouldn’t really be kissing them like that unless you like… love them or something anyway. Necromites with tails are somewhat scarce for some reason, no one really knows why. There’s two Necromites that canonly have tails and that’s about it. There are currently none with wings but it isn’t impossible. Any other features are pretty common though. Like clawed hands, multiple limbs, unnatural skin colors, etc. Females generally have notched ears whereas males do not but who gives a fuck about gender tbh I give the men notched ears all the time. And ofc just for the record they also do not give a fuck about gender and there are trans and nonbinary Necromites all the time. They don’t tolerate people who discriminate and the punishment is either exile or death. The person gets to choose. Most choose exile. As said earlier, they look really strange when they aren’t disguised. I don’t have a visual reference of this yet but: lanky bodies, elongated limbs, large jaws and needle like teeth, they generally can only stand on four legs because of their large limbs but standing on two legs is totally possible. Standing upright they’re about 6 feet tall at the shortest in most cases. Some are smaller or larger though. Their eyes are narrow and their pupils are slitted. All in all they have the sentience of humans mentality wise and generally stick together. They’re social but mostly only towards each other. Sometimes outsiders aren’t even allowed near their villages and sometimes they don’t give a heck. It really all depends. They have their own language, but they adapt and pick up ones that are spoken around them often. Uhhhhhhh I can’t really think of anything else right now sO RANT OVER

#info dump #necromite #necromites #shh #writing

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