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wozman23 · 1 year

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2022 Game of the Year List

I didn’t quite play as many games this year. Last year I completed 58. This year, a paltry 39. With more and more AAA games like Horizon Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok requiring 60+ hours of my time, its hard to squeeze in smaller experiences. I feel like it was also a bit of an off year in terms of games that really wowed me. As a person who is always fascinated with new IP, nothing in AAA satisfied there. There were some good indies, but even there nothing really blew me away. Plus, I gave up most of my prime gaming time on Sundays, my only day off, in favor of meeting people for a run/walk most weeks. Still I had a ton of fun along the way. Here are my ten favorite games, some honorable mentions, a dozen or so advertisements for Game Pass, and the ten games I look forward to most (some of which are coming to Game Pass). 1. Onde

Much like weird indie games in past years, I found this little game thanks to browsing Steam. It’s super weird and abstract. I really doesn’t even fit in any mold and I can’t really even begin to explain it. It’s kind of a platforming game, but kind of just an interactive art experience. You really just have to see it in action. My two and a half hour playthrough was wonderfully weird and beautiful, as well as tranquil and peaceful. It’s exactly the type of thing I crave: a game unlike any other I’ve ever played.

2. Tinykin

I played the Tinykin demo on Steam early in the year and it quickly found a spot in my most anticipated list. It’s indie Pikmin. That’s it! That’s really all you need to know. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but I had a blast exploring every nook and cranny of the world. And it was basically free thanks to Game Pass!

3. Tunic

I’m a huge fan of the original Legend of Zelda. I still think it is the best entry in the series. Tunic isn’t shy about showing how Zelda-like it tried to be. The cute looking but cruel world was a joy to explore and understand. But the standout part of it for me was the manual feature. Collecting pages to assemble the game’s manual, that felt like the type you’d get in the days of the NES, and slowly discovering where to go and what to do was brilliant. The way it revealed secrets was perfect. (Full disclosure: I did look up a few of the solutions to some of the more obtuse optional puzzles at then end of the game.) This one really stand out as something special, akin to games like The Witness and Fez. Plus, again, Game Pass!

4. Stray

I’d been following Stray for a long time. It perked my ears up back in May of 2018, when it was just a few gifs and known simply as “HK Project.” As a cat lover, it was one of my most anticipated games. The world was breathtaking. Some of the animations could have been better, but perfectly creating the subtleties of a cat’s locomotion and mannerisms isn’t easy, especially considering the project was tackled by a first time, small indie developer. Still, they captured the spirit of a cat very well and created an empathic character. And how can I complain when it was another virtually free game thanks to the new PlayStation Plus structure - even if the main reason I upgrade was just for the kitty. At the end, I kind of wanted more, but was also pleased with what we got.

5. God of War: Ragnarok

Despite the widespread praise of God of War (2018), it was a mixed bag for me at the time, mainly because it strayed from the series’ roots. It was good, but it didn’t really do anything overly special for me. In a lot of ways, Ragnarok was a step forward. The story was amazing! The characters were amazing, especially Odin! There were so many cool moments and reveals. But I still have mixed opinions about the state of Sony’s AAA games. I put 60 hours into Ragnarok. So I definitely got my money’s worth in terms of time spent with it. The optional missions and bosses were challenging, mostly enjoyable, and usually worth the extra time. But a lot of the game felt like a quest to simply unlock chests instead of progressing the story. At certain points, it felt like a slog where, I was just checking off boxes to hit 100% completion and get my platinum trophy. It’s insane that the 8-10 hour experience of the original typical gamer fantasy God of War on PS2 has turned into such a massive, well written experience. But it also sucks that it takes five years to realize that vision. There were things that happened in the game, and references to the first game that perplexed me, because I have only faint recognition of the moments from five years ago. When I look back at it I remember killing trolls, opening a bunch of chests, and Kratos saying “Boy” a lot. But the finer details like who we killed, and how the characters are related escaped me. So again, I see the game for its triumphs, but also for its issues as a product of modern game development. But I seem to be in the minority on this opinion. I’m not sure where the franchise goes from here. I’m hoping for Egyptian mythology as I’ve always preferred it to Norse mythology.

6. Moss: Book II

The original Moss was one second only to AstroBot Rescue Mission when it came to PS VR games. I loved how it succeeded at making a VR game that actually felt like a traditional game, and also how it made Quill feel so lifelike. I hadn’t witnessed that sense of empathy with a character ever before. I was so invested in her journey, and super excited when the sequel was announced. Sure it was more of the same, but it gave me a great reason to dust of my PS VR. The boss battles were the high points for me. I’m not sure what the future holds for the franchise. I don’t really know if I’ll want to buy PS VR2. But a Moss: Book III could coax me into it.

7. Nobody Saves the World

I love Drinkbox. The Guacamelee! series made me a massive fan of the studio. Nobody Saves the World is just what I would expect from them: a stylist game with a lot of quirky fun. The variety of characters was impressive. The macabre look was silly. And the constant sense of progression via objectives and upgrades had me hooked from the start to my finish, over 30 hours later. I don’t go for 1000/1000 of the achievements in games all too often. Here I did, I loved every little thing I had to do to get there. And, yeppers, Game Pass once again saved me money that I’d already expected to spend.

8. Horizon Forbidden West Horizon was my favorite new IP of the last generation. Guerrilla really built something impressive with the franchise. Yet the same cons from God of War: Ragnarok are present here: a lengthy development time, padding, and so much content that it kind of got in its own way. The new beasts were impressive, as were the new weapons. But overall the world and story didn’t fascinate me as much. I’d have liked much more about Ted Faro, and the story about the red blight, which seemed important pre-release, never really went anywhere. Still, I spent 97 hours exploring the Forbidden West - my most out of any game this year - and look forward to the DLC. 9. FAR: Changing Tides

I played FAR: Lone Sails a few years back. I went in not knowing much, and left with my jaw on the floor. It was such a beautiful, enjoyable experience. Much like many sequels, Changing Tides couldn’t quite match the magic of the original. The water sections were an interesting addition, but the game also had some rough edges. Still the ending of it was well worth the brief ride. Also, Game Pass!

10. Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course

Cuphead was my GOTY back in 2017. It’s probably one of my favorite games ever! So more Cuphead is fine by me. And that’s exactly what this was. More lovingly, painstakingly handcrafted quintessential Cuphead. There wasn’t a lot to it, but it’s quality over quantity. I really can’t wait to see what’s next for Studio MDHR! Honorable Mentions: High on Life - I’m not really a fan of the Rick and Morty style of comedy these days, so the juvenile comedy and it’s weird verbose cadence was hit or miss with me, often finding itself on the “miss” side. Just the volume and way the character often talk, which seems to be prevalent in many modern cartoons, annoys me. The game also has quite a few technical issues at release and horrendous load times on Xbox One. The gameplay and shooting mechanics aren’t super polished either, and don’t feel all that satisfying. But the talking weapons themselves were really cool! And the thing that made them even cooler was the voice cast, particularly the former SNLers JB Smoove and Tim Robinson. Their silly performances, in addition to Laura Silverman’s, kept me playing. And clocking in at just 12 hours for me, it didn’t overstay its welcome. Also, ugg, its Game Pass, its a game on Xbox Game Pass, on the Xbox game console, where you have a pass where you can play g-games, and you d-d-don’t even gotta, uhhh, you don’t have to pay for them, the games on the pass, cuz they’re on the Game Pass! (End annoying Rick and Morty impression) Shadow Warrior 3 - This series is just good fun, with a freedom of gameplay reminiscent of the modern Doom games. The art style is great, and the level design really just encourages you to play around. A lot of times these days, games are trying to be like movies, or be serious and realistic. But there’s something to be said about a cheesy game that knows its place and just prioritizes fun. And this one came to PlayStation Plus fairly quickly so it was another freebie. A Plague Tale: Requiem - Thanks to info from someone, I learned that I can play Xbox Series X games on my Xbox One via the cloud, which makes me feel like I’m living in the future. It’s absurd that Microsoft would allow me to mooch off new games with my old technology. I really don’t see any reason to upgrade my console. This series is really unique. Without spoiling things, it does some really cool things with the rat plague, and is another game that just has some (mostly) fun gameplay. There were a few frustrating stealth sections for me, as well as a few combat sections. And the pacing was a bit inconsistent. It started out slow, and got a bit long in the tooth towards the end. But it occupies that sweet spot between AAA and indie that we just don’t see that often anymore. And with Game Pass, it’s well worth a look on PC, Series X, or through the wizardry of Xbox One. Disc Room (2020) - It was always on my enormous list of games to play, but with so many good looking games, I just never got around to it since there were so many games that were higher on my list of things to try. But Game Pass to the rescue! I love a good arcade style game. And this was just that: a cool concept, with a decent challenge, and a nice sense of progression. Over the course of a few hours, it presented ideas, iterated on them a bit, and wish me a lovely farewell, requiring 49 less days to experience than Horizon did. I’m glad I finally got around to it, because it really surprised me. Deathloop (2021) - This game never really interested me. I really haven’t been a fan of any of the games coming out of Arkane. But when it came to PlayStation Plus, I had nothing to play at the time, so I gave it a try. I ended up spending 23 hours with it. I really enjoyed how they incorporated the time travel ideas. And the gameplay and abilities stayed fresh nearly the whole time, although the nebulous nature of figuring out how to assassinate a target or two, and the repetitive nature that came along with it, did bring about a bit of monotony. Somerville - Somerville was one of the oldest game I was following that was still in active development, probably since around 2015. It looked like it could be the next great atmospheric platformer, the next Inside. Sadly, it is not a good game. So why is it on this list? Because despite its plethora of problems and odd design choices - unrefined mechanics, clunky animations, poor environmental readability that led to confusion on where to go, envionmental geometry to get stuck on, ladders that you had to be perfectly aligned with to climb, freezes and technical issues, an overall jankiness, a poor execution of multiple endings as well as the “good “ ending, and just an overall nebulousness that undermines practically everything it tries to do - there’s a really intriguing, mysterious world there. I would have been disappointed had I spent money on it. But giving it a look on Game Pass could be worth your time if you can see past its flaws.

That’s it for this year. I’ve still got plenty of games that came out that I want to play, and I’ll start up Rainbow Billy and the Curse of the Leviathan (now on Game Pass) soon, but most of my anticipated ones were completed. Who knows what remaining 2022 games may turn up on future GOTY lists? Lost in Play looks cool, but has eluded me so far, OlliOlli World got good reviews, I totally missed the release of The Quarry. I’ll probably eventually get around to the Nintendo games like Splatoon 3 and Kirby, and maybe try the Tiny Tina game after getting a bit burned out with Borderlands. Most Anticipated Games:

1. Alan Wake 2 - The original is one of my favorite games. I’m so glad we’re finally getting this! 2. Pepper Grinder - I been following this one on twitter for a while. The developer went silent for a while, but has been back showing things off again. It looks so friggin cool! 3. SCHiM - definitely a Joey-style indie that looks unlike anything else 4. Hades II - Hades really surprised me and consumed a lot of my time. This probably will too. I just hope it does enough to warrant a sequel and doesn’t bring on the sophomore slump that I often feel with sequels. 5. Horizon Forbidden West - Burning Shores DLC - Its more Horizon so I’m going to play it. Do I expect anything revolutionary? No. Just more fun Horizon. 6. Cocoon - When this was announced, my fascination mainly relied on one simple fact: It’s Jeppe Carlsen’s next game - the brilliant mind who brought us 140 and worked on the Playdead games, Limbo and Inside. What Cocoon exactly is is still a bit of a mystery to me. But I can’t wait to see it unfurl its wings. 7. Judas - Who wouldn’t be excited about Ken Levine’s new game, which looks to be the spiritual successor to Bioshock. I can’t wait to see more on this one! 8. Viewfinder - This was a pleasant surprise during The Game Awards. A stylized first person puzzle game! That’s so in my wheelhouse! 9. The Plucky Squire - Here’s another game that blew me away with its trailer: some 2D, some 3D, a bunch of different gameplay concepts, all with a wonderful coat of paint. I think this could easily find its way near the top of next year’s GOTY list, much like Tinykin did this year. 10. Atomic Heart - I’ve been interested in this one for a while too, since even before Stray. It’s also got some cool Bioshock-y vibes, with a really interesting looking world. The only concern is the recent news that the development has been troubled and that trailers were basically just vertical slices. But it’s on Game Pass, so the risk of paying for it is eliminated.

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ohmygoodnessgraciouss · 3 years

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Reality Check - Chapter 2

Oh my Odin! I can not thank you all enough for the love you gave Reality Check’s first chapter. Each and every comment has brought a smile to my face. Thank you so much. Seriously. And I can’t wait for you all to see where this goes. We’re only going up from here on out, so buckle up.

Summary: Y/N and Wanda were very close after returning in 2023. The two bonded over the loss of their partners. It wasn’t enough to keep Wanda grounded after she found Vision’s body though, and Wanda wants the best for her friend. Unfortunately for Y/N, this means she’s going to be thrown into a reality she wasn’t expecting.

Taglist (Let me know if you want to be a part of it!): @dpaccione

Missed the first part? Read it here!

Running through the eternal palace halls to hide from the God of Mischief seemed like an impossible task. You had to find a hiding spot soon. Unfortunately, the halls were open wide. The golden pillars were large, and wider than three men, so maybe you had a chance behind them. You could give it a try since you had nothing to lose.

With the book gripped tightly in your hands you ran behind the pillar, leaning your back against it. It wouldn’t be much longer until you could hear his footsteps approaching. As long as you run around the pillar at the right time you should be able to escape him.

His footsteps came rushing towards you and then stopped suddenly. You held in a breath, fearful that he could hear even the slightest noise right now. If there’s one thing you could remember at the palace halls, it’s that a pin dropping could echo through them. You tried it once.

You started to look to the left, taking a glance around the pillar. You didn’t even hear him approaching you from behind. His hands quickly stole the book from your hands as you jumped, turning around faster than lightning to look at him. He was smirking at you. “If you’re going to steal my book, at least don’t get caught walking out the door.”

“Well maybe I wanted to get caught. If I hadn’t, perhaps you would never come out of that library.” You huffed, causing him to laugh.

“Oh come now, I’ve only been in there for a few days. It hasn’t been that long at all.”

“Only a few days? Loki, you’ve been in there for a week. There are three hundred thousand books in that library and I guarantee if anyone has read every single one, it’s you. What are you doing in there?”

“Reading, isn’t it obvious?” You rolled your eyes at the response.

“Why are you shutting everyone out and simply reading all day every day?”

He hesitated before answering you. You knew him well enough by now, after several decades together being each other’s confidant. “It’s nothing.”

“If it were nothing you wouldn’t seem so determined to return to that library as soon as possible. Is it about the coronation?”

“In a way, yes.” He couldn’t lie about the situation to you. If anyone deserved to know the truth it would have been you. “Don’t worry about it, love. There’s nothing that can be done about it now anyway.” He said it almost as if he was trying to convince himself that it had no effect either.

“Do you promise there’s nothing on your mind?”

“I promise.”

______

“Are you sure you’re alright, Loki? I’m worried you’re going to make your fingers bleed at this rate,” You said, watching him practice a song on the guitar for the hundredth time in a row.

“I’m 100% sure that I will be fine once I’m able to perfect this song.” You raised an eyebrow at his statement as he tried to restart the song again, this time ending up with a broken string. The canned laughter you heard in the back of your head was (for once) hidden by your own stifled laughter. Loki glared playfully at you.

“This is just a talent show, you know. You don’t have to be incredible. The fact that you’re willing to do this at all is admirable.” You smiled.

“If I’m going to do it I may as well be the best one in it, darling.”

“It’s just a talent show for the children!” You exclaimed, laughing at his ability to make anything a competition.

“And the children deserve only the best.”

“Yes, well I doubt the children will care if you mess up a single note. Your wife, however, will care if you manage to hurt yourself by the end of this.” You walked up to him, slowly taking the guitar out of his hands. “How about this? I’ll go down to the store to pick up some new guitar strings for you while you focus on… Anything else.”

He pretended to contemplate it momentarily while you grew impatient. “Well considering I can’t exactly play with a missing string I suppose this will have to do.”

“Alright, Hank Williams, go work on the car or something. I’ll be back before you know it.” You kissed his cheek and walked out of the house. You spun around quickly to see Loki smiling softly at you as you closed the door. Despite the fluttery feeling you had in your chest by his reaction, a sense of dread was quickly replacing it.

You began to walk across your lawn, taking a glance at the neighborhood. It seemed slightly different than yesterday. Newer cars? New designs for your homes? You couldn’t tell exactly, but it was just enough for you to wonder. Maybe you weren’t the most observant person in the world, but you assumed you would be able to take note of someone getting an upgrade on their house.

As you started making your way down the street and to the store, you spotted Agnes across the street with Wanda. It looked like the two were politely chit chatting about something before you saw Dottie walking closer to them. You internally groaned at the idea of having to talk to Dottie. She always seemed pompous and uptight to you. You’ve never had to deal with her face-to-face thankfully, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t hear about her from neighbors who knew her.

You decided to walk past them, waving to both Wanda and Agnes. Agnes smiled brightly towards you and it almost froze you in place. Agnes out of everyone here frightened you the most. She was too nice, too neighborly. It seemed like all she ever did was try to butt in to everyone’s lives. There was something off about the look in her eyes. She looked at Wanda with an almost kind of sadness when she said something. Wanda seemed to be amused by whatever she had said, so why did Agnes seem so disheartened?

Perhaps it wasn’t your place to ask. You had to get to the store. Talking to Wanda and Agnes could wait.

You walked into the store and were greeted by no one. At least the world was working in your favor for that one, you didn’t have to dodge people left and right just to grab a few things.

As you walked down the seemingly endless aisles of the store you could find a couple people every once in a while. They seemed to be stuck though. They would just stare at a single item as if it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. It sent chills down your spine as you passed by them, not a single word being spoken. You don’t even know who these people were. None of them looked like they wanted to be there.

Fortunately, there was no one in the music section of the store. The section had countless musical instruments including guitars, flutes, and drums. Each one was uniquely designed, with price tags on every single one of them. When you tried to read them, you couldn’t figure out what they were saying. The numbers were blurred and blended in with one another.

Maybe they were removing the tags because there was a sale going on? You looked around for any indication of that and found nothing. Maybe water got on to the tags and the ink leaked, but there was no damage or any sign of a leak anywhere around the store.

That’s when you noticed the bright red guitar pick on a shelf. It was an electric red, far brighter than anything else in the room. You walked towards it, confused by the color. When you picked it up, it slowly lost its color. The red that seemed to radiate off the pick faded until it was a dull grey.

“Excuse me, miss-”

You jumped at the sound of someone’s voice. You turned towards the man, noticing that he was the one you bumped into only yesterday. Once again his green eyes were what caught your attention. He was dressed in a suit, his hair slicked back. “Oh! I’m so sorry, you startled me.” You laughed breathlessly.

He smiled politely. “No, I apologize. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just wondering if I could ask you a question or two.”

“Of course you can! Although I believe a proper introduction may be needed beforehand, especially after I ran into you. I’m Y/N,” You held your hand out and smiled.

“I’m-” He stopped himself for a moment before shaking your hand, “I’m Scott.”

“A pleasure to meet you Scott!” You smiled. “It’s nice to know more people around here. Are you new here?”

“Well, it seems like it. I don’t really know if you could call me new to the town though. I just know that I feel out of place here. They all seem to cast me out before I can even have a chance to introduce myself,” He chuckled.

“Yeah, I understand that feeling. Right now it seems like something’s changing around here. I can hardly keep up with it!”

“It’s nice to know I’m not alone then,” He smiled.

“Agreed.” A brief moment of silence was shared before you remembered he wanted to ask something. “So, you said you had a couple questions?”

“Oh yes, but I would prefer if we talked about it outside. The walls have ears around here, you know.” He said it with such a serious tone that you were almost afraid to question him. His eyes held a level of somber that you hadn’t seen in anyone in years. Whatever he wanted to discuss, it had to be something that you wouldn’t forget.

“Who’s going to want to listen to our conversations?” You laughed, attempting to lighten the mood a little.

“You may not want to know.”

#loki laufeyson #loki odinson #thor #avengers #marvel #loki x reader #fluff #angst #wandavision #wanda maximoff #vision #wandavision spoilers #Reality Check Masterlist #scarlet witch #fanfic #fanfiction #romance

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megashadowdragon · 3 years

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fgo theory is caster cu really odin

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There is also the 10 bond CE for him being the Yggdrasil Tree, which is very Norse. (the fact he needs a bunch of Yggdrasil seeds may also be a bit of a hint.) Interestingly, the Wickerman festivals were held throughout Europe (Areas such as England and Scotland) and were regarded as a neo-pagan festivity. Chances are, if CasCu really is Odin, it is highly likely he will take action in the English Lostbelt second part. I think itd be really cool, but if that was the case itd be more likely Cu caster was a Cu-Odin fusion similar to Scathach-Skadi. We know its within Odin's ability to do a fusion like this due to how he did the same for Skadi. It also explains how caster cu retains the protection from arrows and disengage skills. It also makes more sense how he's kept his identity a secret, because it's not false that he is Cu.

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/lkw9xm/summary_of_the_caster_cu_chulainnodin_theory/

At absolutely no point does he ever give his name or makes any mention to it.

Other Servants who initially don't give their names say that they'll give it to you later. Caster does not even bring up the subject.

In the Garden of Sinners crossover event, he says "there's no Cú Chulainn here". It's treated as a gag, but...

In the Singularity F Memorial Quest, he's the only Servant referred to by his Class name instead of his True name.

In Lostbelt 6 he finally introduces himself... as Grimnir. This is an alias that Odin uses in the Grímnismál.

He's not supposed to be the Caster of the Fuyuki Grail War in the first place. In the original reality, it's Medea, while in FGO reality it's Solomon. Material states that Singularity F is the result of data colliding, and Caster resulted from that. However, in that case it should be either Solomon or Medea who appear in Singularity F, not Cú Chulainn.

One of his lines goes as following: "Isn't bit boring to play a game that never ends? For better or for worse, it's like you can't move the pieces forward, yeah?" Is he talking about Singularity F? At any rate, this sounds weird.

His Final Ascension art and animation update features two white wolves. Odin is stated to have two wolves named Geri and Freki.

His second Noble Phantasm, which he mentions in one of his My Room lines, is called "Ochd Deug Odin - Seal of the Great God". It's an exceedingly powerful Rank A Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm with potentially Game Breaking effects, but what's interesting is its description: it activates by chanting its True Name and using all 18 primordial runes granted by Scáthach at once (keep in mind she taught him the Norse ones) and it "temporarily unleashes the power of the rune possessed by the Great Odin". Aside from the weirdness of him even having that Noble Phantasm in the first place (he's not supposed to have Wickerman either, but at least we get an explanation for that), why can't he use it? (Potential Game-Breaker status not withstanding).

In the North America version of the game, his Bond Craft Essense is called "Yggdrasil Tree". That's taken from Norse Mythology, so why would a Celt have it?

In addition, the Yggdrasil tree has a particularly strong tie to Odin. The Ygg bit is another name for him, and according to legend at some point he hanged himself from one of its branches to gain wisdom.

For some reason, he's in the Nordic Fields during Boudica's 3rd Strengthening Quest.

During Valentine's Day in the return gift scene, he talks about the Human Order Incineration and the Human Order Reorganization - a.k.a. the Lostbelts. Somehow he knew about the Lostbelts before the game even got to that point.

In the 2019 Valentine's event, he's seen reading the book "Scandinavia's Beautiful Mountains".

In the FGO mats, Sigurd takes special notice of him and then has a Double Take. He also seems confused about him in his material profile. The fact that Sigurd noticed Caster is odd, but it should also be noted that Sigurd encountered Odin a number of times in his legend, thus making him one of the most likely people to recognize him.

Scáthach's Interlude brings up a LOT of questions. The regular Lancer Cú Chulainn says that his power is reduced because half his Saint Graph is missing. Mash suggests that the reduction in power may be because he was separated in numerous classes, but Lancer Cú is surprised that he can be summoned as a Caster. In addition, there are several Servants summonable in numerous classes, and none of them has this problem. There's a possibility that the other half of the Saint Graph went to Caster, and he's using an external source to stabilize it.

According to the Arcade version of FGO, it's impossible for any version of Cú Chulainn to be summoned without Gáe Bolg or the skill "Martial Arts Disciplining in the Shadow Country". Yet Caster has neither, thus making him an impossible summoning.

Not very noticeable in the English version, but he occasionally slips into using the "washi" pronoun during dialogue. For those who might not know, "washi" is actually pretty formal, and contrasts Cú Chulainn's much more casual "ore".

A lot of his official art has him looking subtly different that the other versions of Cú Chulainn.

He has lighter-coloured hair in all of his artwork, and Fate/Grand Carnival gives him wrinkles under the eyes. This trait is usually used in anime to show a character around 40-50 years old; an age that Cú Chulainn never reached.

In his card art and formal outfit card, his eyes are almost orange rather than red. In addition, one eye is always at least partially hidden.

In his April Fool's card, he has different facial features than the rest of the Cú Chulainns.

Tying to the above, Odin is known for disguising himself as an older man, usually a wizard, in a hood, and he's missing an eye. Missing eye aside, Caster fits most of that criteria, and as pointed out above, most his art hides his eye anyway. Odin gave said eye in exchange for wisdom, and there are a few remarks that Caster is getting smarter.

In the original Fate/stay night, Emiya draws a connection between Gáe Bolg and Odin's spear, Gungnir. Considering that he has picked up things like Rho Aias and Caladbolg, we can probably take him at his word. In his animation update, Caster throws his staff above the enemies heads, and then it changes tragectory to attack them from behind. While this could easily be a reference to Gáe Bolg's actual method of killing in the myth (it entered the victim through the asshole), it could also be a reference to how Odin would throw Gungnir above the heads of his enemies to declare a war.

Another detail from his animation upgrade is that his Instant Runes often take the form of a Valknut; this symbol according to some scholars is associated with Odin.

There are overall several indications that Caster will play a significant role later in the story: he's featured in the trailer of Lostbelt 6 and received his animation update during the Lostbelt 6 livestream, and Word of God has implied several times that we will be returning to Singularity F at some point.

Tying to the above, in one of My Room conversations, he say's he'll teach you how to use Runes later. Maybe it's not Blatant Lies after all.

Caster and Odin share several personality traits. Both of them are known as "the raging one", are strongly tied with the concept of war, magic, and wisdom, and both of them are The Gadfly - as Caster displays in Singularity F when he tries to get Mash to activate her Noble Phantasm. In addition, in various events Caster seems to have a gambling problem, which is also one of Odin's traits. Not to mention "summon me as a Lancer" works for Odin too.

The recent Lostbelt 6 update also adds fuel to the fire. In My Room dialogues, Scáthach tells him that his Rune magic is slightly different from what she taught him. He asks Sigurd not to look at him with the glasses, when he sees Brynhildr he muses that this must be fate/karma and specifically refers to Scáthach-Skadi as "Lostbelt Skadi."

His new battle lines from the same update are just as interesting.

"Witness the essence of the Rune magecraft taught by Scáthach... Sure, let's go with that." Along with Scáthach accusing him of his Rune magic being different, this could easily imply that he didn't learn them from her.

Another line is that "he doesn't have the noose of his neck anymore". As an above point states, this Odin did this to learn his runes. The noose bit also never happened to Cú Chulainn.

One of his victory lines references "wolves and crows" and that he has "no idea what they're talking about". The crows part could be a reference to the story of Cú Chulainn's death, which features a crow sitting on his corpse, but the whole quote seems to better reference Odin and his pets; the wolves Geri and Freki, and the crows Huginn and Muninn.

Lostbelt 6 also gives his a buff to his Disengage skill. More specifically, it's actually two buffs that activate back-to-back, with the first called "At the Fountain" and the second called "Sacrifice to the World Tree". Very specific, game.

In Lostbelt 2, it is outright stated that it was Odin who fused Skadi and Scáthach together. Who says he never did it before?

#fgo #fate grand order #fate/ grand order #fate/grand order #fgo theory #caster cu #fgo odin

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imagine-loki · 3 years

Text

Country Entertainment

TITLE: Country Entertainment

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 1 / ?

AUTHOR: brightsun-and-darkmidnight

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki wooing you at an amusement part in the game area

RATING: Teen …? I think..?

NOTES/WARNINGS: Maybe bad flirting? I am trying to make it fluffy

My Ao3: brightsun_and_darkmidnight

*FINALLY..Read the warnings. Once you agree you can handle it…

~ ~ ENJOY ~ ~

Loki felt the gentle hand of his mother on his shoulder.

Frigga smiled once Loki took his eyes off of the huge pig.

“Let’s go see the events in the arena.”

Loki nodded as the auctioneer started taking bids. Odin threw his hand up for the bid.

A few steps away and Thor caught up with Loki and Frigga.

Thor gently hugged Frigga, “my friends are here. We were going to enjoy rides and play the games.”

Frigga gave Thor a knowing look before speaking, “have fun and make sure you eat something.” Frigga pointed a finger at Thor, “make sure your FRIENDS eat too.”

Thor smiled sheepishly. “Yes mother. Enjoy the show, it is barrel racing now right?”

“It is. Now behave."

Frigga took Loki’s elbow and guided him to the entrance after Thor assured her the things she demanded would be honored. Frigga and Loki watched the riders but Frigga quickly had a favorite.

Frigga tapped Loki’s arm as she exclaimed. "Look at her! Wow!”

Loki smiled at his mother’s enthusiasm

“She has excellent position on her horse, you can tell how much she trained! She has to be first place!”

Loki looked at the score and the girl was .63 seconds away from the winner.

“That’s a load of shit. She was the best!"

Loki’s eyes widened, "mother."

"Sorry dear. Well. I better get back to your father. You go have fun.”

Loki nodded and went in search for Hela or Thor.

Seeing Hela at a ring toss game he went over.

Hela was talking to the worker and the woman smiled, making Hela turn. Hela went back to talking to the worker. Loki didn’t feel too wanted but sometimes Hela is better company than Thor at fairs. Thor and his friends always tried to hook up with whoever they could. Their flirting was absolutely terrible.

Hela shook the woman’s hand, “bet you another 50 dollars.”

“You’re on!”

Hela turned to Loki, “dad get anything good to eat?”

Loki shrugged, “mother and I watched barrel racing.”

Loki watched the women exchange looks.

Hela gave the woman money and a bucket of rings were placed in front of Loki. He rose an eyebrow and was about to ask a question.

“You are gonna need to practice. Get all of those knives for me.”

Loki quickly caught onto the game. The rings were meant to go around the knives in the center of the stand, but to make things a little more difficult the podiums spun so the knives were constantly moving. With a few practice throws Loki got the hang of it.

The woman working the stand put the 5th knife on a pile. “He is really good.”

Hela’s smile was heard in her voice as Loki got another knife. “You are gonna owe me that 50 dollars!”

The woman huffed when Loki pointed to another knife with a ring around it.

“The freaking bucket cost 20 dollars, and he is gonna take all the knives!”

Hela smirked. “Maybe you should have bet lower.”

“I didn’t know your brother is really good at throwing stuff!”

Movement caught Loki’s attention when someone moved fast to jump over the stand.

It was a girl with tangled hair pushed back away from her face. She had a tight dark green tank top with a flannel around her waist. With tight jeans and dirty boots. The odd thing about her is she was wearing a bow around her neck.

The girl wrapped her arms around the worker. “Hey big sis!”

The worker wrapped an arm around the girl then stated, “Maggi. Fix your hair."

Maggie gave her sister a cocky smile. "I did. You know its because of the spoiled princess"

Hela laughed, "Comeon Sam, your sister is a sass master.”

Maggie’s sister, Sam groaned. “Fuck off."

Maggie smiled, "life would be so dull without me.”

Loki smiled and went back to playing the game… that he might have briefly forgotten.

Sam asked nudging her, “What place babyswiss?”

She gestured towards the bow around her neck, “Second. .63 seconds.”

Loki got another knife added to the pile.

Loki glanced at the girl and the clothes were the same as Frigga’s favorite rider.

Hella held out a hand to the woman who slaps $50 in her hand.

The sister explained to Maggie’s questionable face. “Hella said you would be under a minute.”

Maggie drawled, “How nice to believe in me…”

The sister defended herself as she set a new knife in Loki’s pile, “Listen we knew you would lose because that spoiled bitch would get rid of the horse.”

Maggie shrugged her shoulders, “Now if someone beat her time before I had to go…”

Sam talked again. “You’d be able to buy a new vehicle with your winnings.”

Another knife added to Loki’s collection.

Sam grumbled, “And buy my new supply of knives.”

Hela laughed.

Maggie exclaimed, “my jeep runs great. Just got a few things that need upgraded. I dont need something fast.”

A squeaky voice made Loki want to cringe.

“My truck would beat your shit jeep anyday. I would beat you at anything anyway.”

A few laughs were heard but Loki kept his eyes on the game.

Maggie leaned on the counter with a smile, “How about we ride something between our legs Princess?”

The supposed princess laughed. “Right and what do you have in mind?”

Maggie winked, “Your boyfriend seems ready."

Hela turned, both her and Sam laughed.

Maggie laughed as well, "just kidding but I’m not kidding when I say you guys need to work on blood circulation above the shoulders. You might not use your brain often but it’s kinda important..”

Loki sees the Maggie smirk and the princess one looks confused until she looks at her boyfriend’s crotch.

A few laughed at the huff from the girl.

Maggie continued with a dramatic eye roll, “I mean something with intelligence. A HORSE.”

The cringeworthy voice held a cocky tone. “I won first place, what makes you think you can win?”

Maggie shrugged standing up tall. “You said any condition anyway you could beat me. I want to get another shot at proving you wrong.”

The girl laughed briefly. “Whatever. Cover that huge forehead of yours… is an hour too short of time to be presentable?”

Maggie was running her fingers through her tangled hair. “Can I borrow a brush? No? Okay, I figured you always have your entire beauty necessities with you.” Maggie was working on forcing a knot to come undone. “Don’t wait up for me, I’m sure you are going to need the whole time actually learning how to gear your horse.”

The other girl walked away with an eye roll and dramatic stomp.

Hella laughed. “Well. I’m looking forward to this.”

Sam cheered, “record it!”

Maggie leaned her hip against the counter, “yeah let me know her reaction when I don’t show up.” She winced as she undid the knot in her hair by pulling it.

Loki got another new knife set down in his pile.

Hela patted Loki’s shoulder. “Just a couple more Loki. Good job.”

Maggie exclaimed, “Is he getting all the knives?!”

Hela smiled, “yep. I got 50 dollars saying, my brother, Loki, is going to get me one of every knife. With only one bucket of rings.”

Maggie’s smile faltered a bit when Loki looked right at her.

He shrugged. “My sister likes knives.”

Sam huffed in annoyance, “and he is really good at this game.”

Loki seen familiar blonde hair and went back to tossing the rings.

Fandral leaned onto the counter making Maggie eye him oddly.

Fandral winked. “You are a beautiful woman and I would love to see where those tan lines end..”

Maggie’s face fell to a stoic expression. “Maybe they don’t.”

Hela rolled her eyes and Sam glared at Fandral.

Fandral continued not getting that he was unwanted. “I would love to take you on the Farris wheel. See the fair’s lights and how the moonlight makes your eyes shine.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “I don’t like heights.”

“I could hold you and keep you safe in my arms.”

“Strong arms are not going to help anyone from a fall like that.”

“Ah yes. A graceful angel Falling hard for a man like me. It must have hurt.”

“Actually to get here, I clawed my way up.”

Fandral laughed, “all the better.”

“Maybe you could kiss my hand better after sporting a black eye for the next victim of poor flirtation.” Maggie gave Fandral a sweet smile.

“Surely a woman like you can be wooed.”

“Get a ring around the blade of my favorite knife. You get as many chances as one bucket can hold.”

Fandral sees Loki’s pile of knives, “well then do me a favor my REALLY good friend and help me.”

Maggie crossed her arms and leaned back against the stand “If he does it, he gets the date. You are on your own.”

Loki looked in his bucket and had 14 rings left and had 5 more knives to get.

Hela patted Loki’s shoulder. “Get her FAVORITE knife. You need a date.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know there was more to this game than winning knives.” Loki threw a ring and got it around a butterfly knife.

Hela took it from the pile and started doing tricks with it.

Marigold got a knife out of her back pocket and was talking with Hela about tricks.

Loki had 2 more knives to get but only 5 rings.

Fandral was only able to get 3 knives in his haste and earned the laughs of Thor.

Sif offers Fandral a fry and says, “Pitty offering”

Fandral takes it and bites it with a high head as they all walk away.

Maggie groaned. “Yep totally not my type."

Maggie held her knife still and Loki wondered if that was part of the trick. Loki had one more ring and he already knew he was not going to get the two knives left. He took a chance and threw the ring at the knife in Maggie’s hand.

She looks down at her hand and back up at him.

The sister laughed. "Well then… she’s speechless for once.”

Maggie was quickly back to her social ways. “Shut up Sam.”

Hella smirks and pats Loki on the back-“Looks like you have to go on a date with my little brother.”

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #submission #brightsun-and-darkmidnight #chapter 1 #country entertainment

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razieltwelve · 4 years

Text

Simulator (The Vestige)

Akari settled into the simulator pod. There were advantages to being royalty and the daughter of two famous pilots. She’d grown up on stories of the Eidolon Program, and she’d known exactly what to expect when she’d signed up as a cadet. She’d already covered most of the material herself, and she was more than familiar with the engineering, software, and practical aspects of piloting. Had everything gone to plan, she would have graduated into piloting in near-record time. There was just one problem.

They hadn’t found her a co-pilot yet.

A low growl left her lips. It was beyond frustrating to do all of that hard work only to run into an obstacle that no level of talent and no amount of effort could overcome. Even with the advances in technology, the neural load was simply too much for a single pilot to bear.

Without a co-pilot, she’d been left with no choice but to continue practicing and studying until someone could be found. On the upside, they’d given her unrestricted access to the simulator pods, so she could run as many practice missions as she wanted. Fighting fal’Cie in the simulator wasn’t the same as fighting them in real life, but it was as close as she was going to get for the foreseeable future, and it took some of the sting out of being unable to put her skills to use.

When her parents had found out, they’d offered her advice in their own unique ways. Her father, of course, has very sensibly advised her to bide her time, to continue working as hard as ever so that she would be ready when a co-pilot was finally found. Her mother, the Queen of Wutai, had been a little less circumspect.

“It sucks, kiddo, but you’re not the first pilot who has had to wait. Even the grand marshal was sidelined until her sister finally graduated. Just keeping working. You’ll get your shot at the fal’Cie soon enough.”

Yuffie Kisaragi was many things, but subtle was not one of them. But, as usual, her mother was right. Grand Marshal Farron had set records in basically every conceivable category of the training program, and most of them still stood years later. But even she had been forced to wait for a co-pilot. Akari, therefore, could do no less. If it was good enough for the grand marshal, it was good enough for her.

As the simulator pod whirred to life, Akari smiled. Here, at least, in the heat of battle, she could let go of her worries. The future would take care of itself. She just needed to be ready for when it did.

X X X

Averia ignored the stares from the cadets as she made her way toward the simulator pods. Diana’s final exams were in a fortnight, but she had zero doubt that her sister would pass them with flying colours. Diana was more than qualified to be a pilot, a technician, a mechanic, or even part of the research and development team. And in the unlikely event that she somehow managed to fail, the honest truth was they’d probably just throw her into makeup exams until she passed.

Eidolon pilots were in short supply, and Averia was one of the best. They could not afford to leave her without a co-pilot for long, and with Claire being reassigned, that just left Diana.

Still, being out of the Conn-Pod for this long was leaving her a little... restless. It might be good to stretch her metaphorical legs in a simulation. Of course, she should have known she’d draw attention. The cadets were always eager to interact with the pilots, and Averia was only a few years older than most of them. She’d make time for a bit of interaction later, though. Right now, she just wanted to fight something.

“Damn... Kisaragi is killing everyone again.”

“She’s a machine.”

“Hey, at least Wallace actually did some damage. Hell, she might even have won if she’d guessed right at the end there.”

Averia’s brows furrowed. Kisaragi? She knew that name. Everyone did. Yuffie Kisaragi and her husband, Vincent Valentine, had served with great distinction in the First Breach War and continued to serve with great distinction in the ongoing Second Breach War. She’d been lucky enough to run a mission alongside them with Claire. The pair had been incredibly skilled, easy to work with, and simply excellent all around. Well, apart from the teasing. The queen had a tendency to tease her husband without bothering to mute her comms. Averia still wasn’t sure if that was by accident or on purpose.

This couldn’t be them. Neither Yuffie or Vincent would bother fighting against some cadets in the simulator. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be like throwing a lion in against a baby gazelle. Talented or not, there was no substitute for experience, and Yuffie and Vincent were both talented and experienced.

“You said Kisaragi,” Averia asked a nearby cadet. “Who is that?”

The cadet snapped to attention. “Ma’am!” He flashed her a quick salute. “Um... Akari Kisaragi, ma’am. She’s the daughter of Queen Yuffie and Colonel Valentine.”

“Ah.” That explained it. Averia’s gaze flicked to one of the screens showing what was happening inside the simulation. It was Eidolon vs Eidolon combat, and there was no mistaking the carnage an upgraded Chaos was wreaking against an upgraded Bahamut. “She’s good.”

The cadet nodded. “She’s top of the class in simulator performance, ma’am, and near the top in everything else too. She just doesn’t have a co-pilot yet.”

“Interesting.” Averia’s lips twitched. If the score at the bottom was accurate, Akari had won eight matches in a row. “Do you think anyone would mind if I cut in line?”

That got the attention of the other cadets.

“You’re going to fight her, ma’am?” the cadet asked.

Averia grinned mischievously. “She’s good. I’ve fought alongside her parents. I want to see how she compares.” She glanced up as the defeated Bahamut exploded in a comical burst of confetti and streams. She was fairly confident her Aunt Vanille had implemented that since nobody actually wanted to see an Eidolon explode.

X X X

Akari took a few deep breaths to steady herself. A thin sheen of sweat covered her skin, and the suit clung to her body. However, she didn’t feel tired at all. If anything, she felt more alive than she had all week. Combat was a thrill, and testing herself against the best the training program had to offer was even better. Her eight victories in a row had not all come easily. Two of those matches could easily have gone against her if her opponents had seen through the traps she’d set for them.

As the simulator began to load her next opponent, she wondered who it would be and which Eidolon they would pick. As was her custom, she usually used her parents’ Eidolon, Chaos, since she was most familiar with its weapons. The simulation’s black loading screen gave way to the more elaborate setting of a city. Visible over the ruins of some buildings was her opponent.

She smiled.

Her opponent had picked Odin.

X X X

Akari hissed as her plasma shot went just wide. The brilliant beam grazed her opponent’s shoulder, and she readied Chaos’s claws. Her opponent was fast - faster than anyone she’d ever seen using Odin. She couldn’t help but wonder who it was. Although everyone who used Odin had theoretical access to his maximum speed, actually using it required extremely high neural-kinetics because controlling the Eidolon fluently enough to move that quickly was exceedingly difficult, even in the simulator.

With a growl, she lunged forward. Chaos’s claw was capable of puncturing even the toughest of armour with ease, and once she had her opponent pinned on it, she could finish them off with her plasma cannon. The shotgun mode of the plasma cannon was perfect for close quarter combat, and even a single clean hit was enough to substantially damage or even disable another Eidolon.

She missed by a hair’s breadth again, and her opponent twisted into her blindspot. Akari had a split-second to realise how much trouble she was in before a colossal impact rocked Chaos. Whoever was using Odin must have deployed the elbow rockets. Alarms flashed throughout the simulator pod indicating the damage she’d sustained. They were soon joined by more as her staggering Eidolon was struck by another rocket-enhanced blow.

Akari tried to bring Chaos around to face her opponent, but Odin simply circled away, always keeping just out of sight and reach as blow after blow landed. She bit back a curse. It was like fighting a damn ghost. Desperately, she leapt back to try to put some distance between them only for Odin’s shoulder to ram into Chaos’s chest. Her leap back turned into an ungainly sprawl.

Looking up at her foe, she got to see the Blazefire Sabre unfurl right before it thundered down toward her. She rolled to one side, and the blade smashed through a build and carved a trench in the ground. This was her chance! With her opponent’s weapon stuck in the ground, they should be vulnerable.

Or not.

Her opponent had let go of the Blazefire Sabre and picked up a piece of the broken building. The massive lump of concrete and rebar turned into a precisely thrown projectile that struck her plasma cannon and jammed it. The weapon almost backfired before its emergency setting kicked in and shut it down before it could explode. However, that gave her opponent the time they needed to yank the Blazefire Sabre free.

“Oh crap...” Chaos’s claw was an excellent melee weapon. It was not, however, designed to fight someone using a giant sword.

X X X

Akari stumbled out of her simulator pod. It was customary amongst the cadets for the winner to stay on during sessions like these. She had lost, so it was time for her to give up her spot in the pod, but she at least wanted to know who’d beaten her. Maybe it was one of the new transfer students? She hadn’t had a chance to face any of the transfer students yet.

Indeed, she hoped it was one of them. Her defeat had been thorough, but that only motivated her. There was clearly a long way for her to go, and such journeys were always best undertaken with others. With a suitable rival, she could continue to push herself to excel.

“Not bad.”

Akari stopped and stared. The person climbing out of the other simulator pod was not one of the other students.

“You...”

Averia Yun-Farron held one hand out. “Well fought. I’m impressed you lasted as long as you did, cadet.”

“Oh.” Akari numbly reached out and shook Averia’s hand. The pink-haired young woman was one of the rising stars of the Eidolon Program. Averia had regularly been compared to both of her parents, and she had somehow not come up short in the comparison, which spoke volumes of her ability. “Thanks.”

Averia smiled faintly. “You might want to work on your subtle positioning though. Chaos is one of the most mobile Eidolons, but against a quick opponent, you’ll need to learn how to make small adjustments, taking a glancing hit here and there, instead of just trying to retreat out of range. Getting back is a good idea most of the time, and Chaos has the weapons to dominate at mid to long range, but some of your opponents will be fast enough to punish back-pedalling.”

“...” Akari nodded slowly, still a little stunned. “I’ll... I’ll work on it.”

Averia turned. “It was a good match. I know you’re still waiting for a co-pilot, and it’ll be a couple of weeks before mine graduates. Let me know if you want another match.”

“I... I will!”

That was the first time they fought in the simulator, but it would not be the last. Not by a long shot.

X. X X

Author’s Notes

Akari is a chip off the old block. Yuffie and Vincent were excellent pilots, and she’s cut of the same cloth. She just needs a co-pilot. Meanwhile, Averia is trying to keep herself occupied until she can be back on active duty.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here.

#the vestige #fanfiction #akari #averia yun farron

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occasionalfics · 5 years

Text

worth my while // prologue

main masterlist | thor masterlist | ko-fi | p. 1

Summary: After being banished from his home, Thor Odinson has stopped at nothing to prove himself worthy of his throne, title, and power.

After losing the love of your life, you turned to a power you didn’t understand.

You know you shouldn’t get involved. But how could you not?

Pairing: Thor x Reader (Hercules au...kind of...)

A/N: Alright! First fic in...like 5 months! Awesome! I’ve been working really hard on this for a while, and there are some things you’ll need to know before you dive in!

1. This is SUPER vaguely based on Disney’s Hercules. That means that the villain is super cartoonish and kind of typical. Honestly I just really love the relationship between Hercules and Meg and wanted to work with that dynamic, so this is what came out of that need.

2. I’ve played A LOT with MCU timelines. Basically, instead of going home after defeating the Destroyer (in Thor 2011), Thor is left on Earth, but he’s given his power and proved his worthiness to wield Mjölnir. He gets into what happens to him personally after that, but what you need to know is that he’s present for every Avengers event after that. This ends before Ragnarok would take place, but the idea is that, very soon after all of this, Ragnarok would take place. If anything is confusing, you can definitely send me a message and I’ll try to clear things up!

3. I am not going to include a taglist from here on out. It’s a lot of work to keep up. Maybe I can be convinced to do a story taglist, but I won’t be keeping up with a global/permanent list.

I’m excited about this one! It’s a little nerdy and a little fun, maybe not quite as personal as Sugar was for me, but definitely one I’m happy with. Let me know what you think!

Warnings: Violence, lots of angst, borderline abuse and definite manipulation, eventual smut, way too many feels, major character death (eventually).

Words: 2,027

Long ago in the far-away land of Ancient Scandinavia, there was a golden age of powerful gods and extraordinary heroes. The greatest and strongest of all of these was the Mighty Thor…

The famed God of Thunder lived a luxurious life as Prince of Asgard. He was headstrong, indestructible, powerful beyond compare, and set to inherit the nine realms to rule. But he was stubborn, selfish, and fierce in battle, unwilling to spare the lives of innocents in the name of asserting dominance.

That is, until he made one nearly fatal mistake: almost sparking a war with the Frost Giants of Jötunheimr. His father, King Odin, managed to broker a shaky truce with Laufey, King of the Jötuns, on one condition only: that Thor be stripped of his power, his immortality, and his title until he proved himself worthy of such responsibilities.

Odin was forced to cast out his son - his golden child and heir - to another of the nine realms.

Midgard.

After sending Thor through the Bifrost to the mortal-ridden planet, Odin gripped Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, tightly and chanted to it, “Whoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”

Then he sent the hammer, too.

“No!” you yelled.

But it was too late. Rick had stepped out into the street at exactly the wrong time.

Later, you would think that the worst part of the accident wasn’t that the driver was drunk. It wasn’t that they ran a red light and killed Rick on impact.

It was that nothing went in slow motion. You didn’t get a chance to call his name, to make him turn around and look at you one last time. You weren’t given the time to keep Rick alive. That was worse than sitting through court hearing after court hearing, testifying time and time again.

The fact that Rick had died because you were angry over something so...trivial. The fact that you hadn’t gotten the chance to make things better, to apologize for blowing up, to save him. That would come to eat at you more than anything else.

But in the moment, it happened so quickly, there was no stopping it. Time did not slow down, and neither did that driver.

Well, they did, eventually. After Rick was already dead.

A year later, you were sitting in a pew, staring at the empty pulpit as if it might bring some answer to you this time. But it never did.

Rick’s church had become a source of peace for you - not necessarily for religion, but community. Everyone here, when there were people here, loved Rick. He was handsome, charming, warm. He was infuriating, too, but really only you knew that.

Even in your worst moments, you loved him.

That was why it was so hard to move on, even a year later.

You fell forward, forehead slumping against your knuckles that rested on the pew in front of you. Tears fell, like they always did, while you sat around in the church Rick had sometimes mentioned marrying you in.

There was a ring in his sock drawer. Two months ago, you’d returned it. The jeweler didn’t want to take it back, stating that it was out of the return period, but the moment you told him that Rick had died, he took it without question.

You’d found a pamphlet for the local botanical gardens with some of the wedding booking information underlined and circled.

Because, like always, Rick had a plan.

And now you had nothing except an empty cage where your heart used to beat whenever he smiled at you. Whenever he woke you up on Sunday mornings, offered to take you to church with him, and either kissed your forehead and went off alone or smiled even wider when you agreed. He’d never forced his religion on you, but occasionally, you went to support his choices.

Now he had no choices. He was dead.

“Why did you take him?” you whisper, eyes straining to stay open between the building headache and the tears. You force yourself to look up at the pulpit again, see the symbols and the prophet and the artistry all around.

But it feels hollow now.

“Why?!” you yelled, voice catching as your throat threatened to close. “I needed him! Why?!”

You felt a presence behind you, but ignored it.

A hiccup resounded around the room as your shoulders shook.

“I love him! I need him!”

Rick’s sunshine-y smile filled your thoughts, brought on even more tears and snot and pain, as if you hadn’t already felt enough over the past year. Footsteps clicked along the aisle behind you, but still, you ignored them.

“I’d do...give...anything...to have him back.”

Two black-clad legs stopped beside you. The person never bent down, never even looked at you. Kept his hands in his pockets as he stared ahead.

“Anything?”

You thought him a Necromancer at first, but that wasn’t right. He’d corrected you almost as quickly as your own brain had.

“Name’s Hades,” he said when you’d met him outside of the church. “Lord of the Dead. How ya doin’?”

Eyes like glaciers stared at you, but a smirk as dangerous as venom offset the chill. Only a bit, but enough for you step forward and ignore his outstretched hand.

“Lord...of the…” You scowled. “You’re crazy.”

You sidestepped him, attempting to get around and walk back to your car, but he was quick. Too quick. Like fog, he disappeared, then reappeared directly in your path.

“Says the girl crying, alone, in a church she doesn’t belong in.”

You paused. Rick’s denomination wasn’t the one you were raised with. But how could this stranger know that?

He cocked an eyebrow at you, smirk still gleaming in the dim, foggy morning. “The girl who’d do and-or give anything to see her would-be fiance.”

The ice around your heart spread to your fingers. To your toes.

“He misses you, you know,” the man said. Hades. He tilted his head, and even in the overcast day, his hair seemed to shine dark blue. “Drives the other souls nuts with how much he talks about you.”

“Stop it,” you muttered, trying again to get to your car. You didn’t want to hear that. It was impossible for him to know, impossible to have happened at all. Rick was dead. That was that.

“I can take you to him,” Hades offered. When that didn’t make you stop, his heels clicked along the pavement after you. “I can bring him back.”

The ice filled your entire body. Hot and cold at the same time, somehow.

The Underworld didn’t look anything like you thought it would.

You imagined a vast, empty space. Blackness all around, maybe a few blue lights to match the eyes of its ruler. Pits of souls here and there, guarded by the three-headed Cerberus, all confined within the Styx like a moat.

But Hades had upgraded over the last few thousand years. The entrance to the Underworld was a mansion, larger than any home you’d ever seen before. Three separated but identical Dobermans greeted Hades upon entry. One by one, they turned their attention to you to sniff and suss you out, but Hades kept them calm with endearing words of your plight.

He made it easy to trust that he was on your side. That he was doing you a favor, extending a hand first simply because it was the nice thing to do.

Later on, you would break a glass tabletop over how stupid you were to believe such a show.

He told you and Cerberus to stay in the living room, then disappeared into a room off the main entryway. His place was furnished well - every inch of space exuded luxury and wealth. Marble counters and floors lined the room, with a huge fireplace along one wall and a gigantic flat screen TV along another.

He had no pictures, though. No human artifacts. Geodes and gemstones, sure, but nothing that signified life.

One of the Dobermans rested beside you on the plush, velvet couch. It put its heavy head in your lap and expected pets, and you obliged.

This one must’ve sensed how nervous you were. The second you gave it your attention, you felt much, much better.

But only a few minutes later, Hades returned.

With Rick.

You kept him a secret. How could you tell his family, his friends, everyone that had come to the funeral, that he was alive again?

He agreed.

For two months, you and Rick resumed life as if nothing had happened. He was alive again, and you were so apologetic about what had happened that he simply ate up all of the attention. You cried every time you made love, because he was back. He was yours, and you’d given your very soul up for him.

But the thing about keeping him a secret meant that you couldn’t marry him. He was legally dead, after all. And you’d returned his ring.

That no longer mattered to you. It mattered to Rick, though.

Crawling into the third month, he became resentful. You’d returned his ring! You’d given up on him, and it was your fault he’d died in the first place!

He stopped making love with you. He’d go to sleep early, stay as far away from your side of the bed as he could, and wake up to shower before you did, locking the door to the bathroom so you couldn’t join him even if you wanted to.

One night, as he pushed his dinner around his plate, you called his name. He didn’t look up at you.

“Would you rather be dead?” you asked softly, afraid of his answer. The question had been rumbling around in your head for weeks, ever since he’d started taking your decision to return his ring personally. “Would you rather I have left you in the Underworld, Rick? Would you rather I’d not given you a second chance at life-”

“What does being alive matter if we can’t have what we wanted before I died?” he asked back, teeth gritted at you for the first time. Ever.

You sighed and put your fork down. “We’re together, Rick,” you said. “That’s what matters. That’s why I did it.”

“You sold your soul,” he seethed. “And we can’t even get married!”

“Who cares-”

His fist came down on the table, hard enough to break one of the legs. “I do! That’s who, (Y/N)! I care!”

Silence settled over dinner. It stayed, even as you cleared the dishes, cleaned the mess, ran the garbage disposal. Even as you went off to shower before bed. All night, all the next morning, and all the rest of that week.

Silence.

You’d sold your soul for silence.

You came home on the exact day of four months of Rick being back and found your home to be empty. Devoid of feeling, of warmth, of life.

Rick was gone. No note, no message left on the answering machine. No text from his new phone number - which you were paying for.

Nothing.

Because he wasn’t gone.

You crept along the house, wondering why it was so silent still. You made it to the master bedroom, turned the knob, and felt what was left of the icicle in your chest fall through your body, through the floor, and into the Underworld.

Rick was already asleep, his shaggy hair falling over his face in what should’ve been adorable curls. But the naked woman on top of him, also sound asleep, made everything about him look dark, dead, disgusting.

“I can bring him back,” Hades said again. Only this time, he meant he could bring Rick back to the Underworld.

You shook your head.

You’d brought Rick back to make you happy. It wasn’t fair to him in the first place.

But now he was happy. And you couldn’t bear the guilt of being responsible for his death twice. So, unless he asked to be taken back to the Land of the Dead, he would remain, according to you.

“In that case, we’ve got work to do.”

Thank you for reading! No tags for the moment, but please reply and reblog to let me know what you think!

#thor x reader #thor odinson x reader #thor au #worth my while fic

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everythinggodofwar · 5 years

Text

The Treasure of Koninsgard (part 5)

Their first stop was the dwarves’ shop on the realm travel bridge.

“You’re gonna love Brok and Sindri!” Atreus declared to Sigyn as they stepped out of the realm between realms. “They’re the best crafters in all the nine realms!”

“Ah, stop. I’ll blush!” Sindri exclaimed from where he was sitting and eating an apple.

“Quiet!” Brok yelled. “Can’t you see I’m focusing?”

“But you’re..” Atreus began with the intention of pointing out that Brok was just watching water boil, but decided against it. “Brok and Sindri, this is Sigyn!”

“Hello, Sigyn!” Sindri greeted.

“Hello..” Sigyn kind of hung towards the back, allowing Kratos and Atreus to go ahead and, once again, subconsciously playing with her hair.

“The girl needs a weapon.” Kratos told Sindri as they both came up to the wooden table where they usually made their exchanges. “What do you have?”

“Well! We have a fine selection of bows!” He reached in his bag and pulled out a simple wooden bow and a quiver full of arrows. “And by ‘fine selection’ I mean.. one bow.. that I can upgrade for you.”

“I already have a weapon!” Sigyn interjected; she pulled her dagger out and held it to where Kratos could see it. “See?”

“A dagger requires you to get close enough to your enemies to hit them..” He set some hacksilver down on the counter and grabbed the bow and quiver. He turned to Sigyn. “Keep your distance. And only fire.. if I tell you to fire.”

“Okay..” With a frown, she took the bow and quiver. She told herself she should be grateful, but she had no idea how to shoot.

“I can show you.” Atreus offered, almost if he had read her mind.

She gazed at him in surprise. After a moment she nodded. “Okay.”

“Well look who’s up and around!” Brok finally acknowledged Sigyn.

She just smiled, both of her hands having been occupied with strapping the quiver on.

“This is Sigyn.” Atreus said.

“I heard ya the first time!”

“Oh..”

“So you’re that ‘treasure of Koninsgard’ Huh? Not what I expected.. but we’re - uh- glad to have ya!”

Sigyn gave him a questioning look. “What’s Koninsgard?”

Brok gave Kratos a surprised glance, then looked back at Sigyn. She didn’t know about Koninsgard? “King Motsognir?”

“Who?”

“Where’d you come from?”

She froze for a moment and turned her head away ever so slightly to avoid looking at Brok. “No- Nowhere important.”

“Huh.” He studied her for a moment- he, like everybody else, had no idea what to make of her- then grabbed a box from under a table. “Here. I got something for ya.”

Sigyn glanced nervously at Atreus, then Kratos, who nodded as to say go ahead. She cautiously approached the table where the dwarf dug around in an old crate.

“Gah- I know it’s here somewh- aha!” He pulled out a small set of simple armor and dropped it on the table. “Oughta help keep ya safe from any stray arrows and such.”

“Hm.” Sigyn studied the armor carefully. “My coat is warm; this looks cold.”

“Then put the coat on over it! Yeesh.”

“Okay.” With a shrug, she took her coat that she’d technically been wearing for at least few centuries off, uncovering her tattered, long sleeved shirt underneath and revealing a few blue colored tattoos peeking out from beneath her sleeve. Atreus could see a few runes but he didn’t have enough time to make anything out of it. Sigyn put the flexible, lightly metal plated vest on and tied the red rope around her waist to keep it in place. It was a little long on her -actually it was very long- as it nearly reached the middle of her thighs, but at least it would help protect her more. Not that it mattered, she didn’t plan on needing it for much longer.

“So?”

She threw her coat back on over it and shrugged. “Adequate for now.”

Mimir laughed louder than he meant to. Kratos almost smiled.

“‘Adequate?!’” Brok exclaimed and turned to glare at Kratos. “You sure she ain’t yours?”

Atreus laughed. “I think I’d know if I had a sister!”

Kratos gave the boy a questioning glance, then turned to leave, now done with the conversation. “Come. We are leaving.”

“In any case she’ll fit right in!” With that, Brok marched back to finish whatever he was cooking.

Atreus and Sigyn followed after Kratos. Atreus was a excited that he got to hunt with a new friend; Kratos, however, found it rather inconvenient that he now had to make sure the girl didn’t get herself killed. He could guarantee that they would be attacked by one thing or another on their trip; though he knew Atreus could handle himself to some extent, it it didn’t look like the girl had had much experience in combat if any at all.

Kratos forced the large stone door open and held it for the children to go through, then allowed it to slam shut behind them once they were all outside on the bridge.

Sigyn’s eyes grew wide as she took everything in. “Wow,” was all she could say as she looked around at the bridge and the lake surrounding them. When she turned around to face the building they were just in her attention was grabbed by the massive statue and the overall grandeur of the temple. “What is this place?”

“It’s the realm travel bridge; this is the lake of nine that we’re in the middle of.” Atreus explained as he gestured to the lake and then to the temple. “In the middle of that temple there’s a room that lets people travel to different realms!”

“Different realms?” She grew thoughtful. “Like Asgard?”

He gave her a slightly confused look. “Well, Yeah.. but why would you want to go to Asgard?”

“I don’t. I’m just curious.”

“I’m afraid travel to any realm without the proper travel rune is impossible, and Odin made sure that no one could go to and from Asgard unless he wants them too; so, Asgard is off limits to us.” Mimir pointed out. “.. Not that I would suggest it either way.”

“I don’t want to go to Asgard.”

“Good. Let us go then.” Kratos rushed, growing weary of standing around. He made his way down the stair case as Atreus and Sigyn followed.

Once they reached the boat dock, Kratos handed the head to Atreus, and the two climbed in just like they always did. Atreus frowned when he saw Sigyn still standing on the boat dock awkwardly waiting and realized there was no seat for her on the boat.

“Here.” He swiflty moved to sit on the floor of the boat and sat Mimir on the side opposite to him. “You can sit there!”

“Oh that’s-”

“Its okay! Trust me!”

Sigyn hesitated at first, but she agreed and carefully climbed into the boat and sat in the spot Atreus usually was.

Once everyone was situated, Atreus sitting in what small space their was on the floor with Mimir and Sigyn sitting across from Kratos, Kratos pushed off from the pier and began to row towards a dock he knew led a to a decent hunting area near the foot of the mountain.

Atreus noticed Sigyn playing with her hair again. She seemed to do that whenever she was nervous. Maybe he could do something to make her feel better? “Mimir!”

“Aye lad?”

“Do you have a story? Maybe Sigyn would like to hear one?”

“I just might! How about it, lass?”

Sigyn let go of her hair, but her hands still fidgeted in her lap. “Sure.”

“Very well! How about a familiar one? It begins with a father and son on a journey to scatter the ashes of the woman they both loved.”

Kratos groaned, but he did not object to Mimir telling her their story.

“Before she died, the boy’s mother and his father’s beloved wife had made the very specific request that her ashes be taken to the highest peak in all the realms and scattered there.”

“This sounds familiar.” Atreus pointed out with a hint of sarcasm.

“Their journey was long and grueling, but alas they made it to the highest peak! ... in Midgard.. Once they fought their way to the very top of the mountain they met a clever, rather dashing, gentleman who informed them that they, though they had worked so hard to get there, were sadly not at the highest peak in all the realms. For the highest peak in all the realms was not here in Midgard, but Jotunheim.”

“Jotunheim?”

“Aye. Jotunheim.. Though they were disappointed, they were in luck! For that gentleman they met was none other than the smartest man alive! And he knew just how to get them to where they needed to go. All they had to do was free him from his binds to a tree where his former Master had trapped him.. by cutting off his head and bringing it to a witch that could reanimate him, who turned out to be none other than the goddess Freya herself.”

“Mmhmm.” Sigyn has caught on that the story was about them at that point, and she was interested.

“The journey was even longer and more grueling after that. First, to carve the rune they needed to open the gate to Jotunheim, convieniently placed on top of the very mountain they had originally gone to, they needed a piece of a magic chisel wielded by Thamur the stonemason giant.”

As Kratos neared the boat dock, Mimir realized he would not finish his story this time, so he decided to start wrapping this bit up.

“After ever-so-subtly breaking through a thick layer of ice to get to the chisel by knocking Thamur’s old hammer over, the pair had to fight off the sons of Thor themselves! Magni and Modi.. The battle was difficult, but the father managed to overcome Magni and kill him, overcoming his coward brother Modi with fear and causing him to flee - which would later on cause trouble.”

Just as he finished his sentence, Kratos pulled up on the dock and stopped the boat next to it.

“And we’ll finish this later!”

Atreus handed his father the head and followed him in jumping out of the boat. Once, the others were off, Sigyn stood up and jumped off too. “Are stories only for the boat?”

“Strictly.”

“Okay.”

“Draugr!” Atreus yelled as a couple draugr jumped out from behind the rocks.

“Ready yourself!”

Sigyn pulled out her bow, but took a few steps back and let the other two do the fighting. She pulled an arrow out and placed it on the string like she ready to shoot, even though she knew she wouldn’t. She remembered Kratos’ command to not fire unless he told her to.. and she knew he wouldn’t tell her too.. so she obeyed. She just watched as Kratos mercilessly struck the enemies down one by one with his axe and Atreus shot his arrows from a small distance, yelling to warn Kratos about incoming fire and occasionally running to whack or choke one of the enemies.

Finally, they finished off the last draugr. Sigyn relaxed and put the bow away and stuck the arrow back in the quiver. Kratos just hung his axe back on its hook on his back, grabbed whatever the enemies had dropped, and continued on like it was nothing. Atreus followed, looking back to make sure Sigyn was coming; she hurried along after them when Atreus waved her on.

“What are we hunting?” Atreus asked his father.

“That is for you to decide.”

“Oh.. deer?”

“Is that a question?”

“Deer.” He looked back at Sigyn, who was following a little ways behind. “Do you hunt, Sigyn?”

She shook her head.

“Oh.. well.. maybe I can show you a little!” His attention was grabbed by a set of tracks in a mud puddle he was about to step in. “Look!” He waved Sigyn over; hesitantly, she came over and examined the tracks with him. “They’re from a deer. See how the tips come to a point? If the tips were a little wider that would mean they might have come from a mountain goat.”

“You can really tell that by their feet?”

“Yeah! And look; see how the mud hasn’t had time to move around them yet? That means their fresh, so it must be close!” He stood up and started off in the direction of the deer.

Sigyn followed close behind; Kratos kept a bit of a distance, but stayed close enough to keep an eye on them.

Atreus stopped to examine some more tracks. “They’re fresh too, but.. they’re not deer. Looks like a boar.”

“Good.” Kratos said as he bent down to look at the tracks with him. Sigyn stood to the side and watched.

“Should I keep looking for the deer? Or go after the boar?”

“I trust you to decide that.”

“Oh! Well.. the deer is bigger. And easier to-”

“Easier?”

“Well.. Yeah. I think they’re easier to kill than boars.”

“Hmph.” Kratos stood up. “Then you will hunt the boar.”

“But you said-”

“I know what I said. Hunt the boar.”

“Rrrnnn.” Atreus groaned. He stood up and started to head in the direction of the boar’s tracks. He was disappointed to have to start over, but at least he knew the animal was close.

As she followed along quietly, Sigyn noticed a certain bush with a purple petal flower her mother had showed her how to crush into a fine powder that could be used for a multitude of different things. Quickly, she plucked all the flowers off the plant and gently placed them in an empty pouch she had tied to her belt. When she was done, she glanced up to see Kratos glaring down at her -not necessarily angrily but grimly enough that Sigyn worried she had done something wrong.

After a moment of awkwardly staring at him, Sigyn held out one of the flowers for him and smiled.

He looked down at the delicate little flower in her hand with narrowed eyes. He would never say it, but she reminded him so much of Calliope. That sweet, soft tempered spirit paired with a strong will and a big heart.. He imagined that if Calliope had been a little older she would have been just like this girl. Perhaps that’s why he had pretty much already decided she could not stay.

“Rrn.” He broke his gaze at the girl’s offering and turned to continue on with Atreus, who was now studying a new set of tracks, completely oblivious to the exchange between Sigyn and his father.

“I think the boar went this way.”

“Good.”

Atreus pulled his bow out and placed an arrow on the string when he heard the sound of a boar’s snorting nearby. “I hear it!”

“Careful, boy.”

“I know.”

Atreus crept up a flight of ruined stone steps and peaked over the top to see the animal grazing obliviously. He drew the bow back and steadied his breaths.

Feet firm.

Hand steady.

Exhale.

Release.

He loosed the arrow, hitting it directly between its ribs and striking it in the heart. The boar jumped a little, fell over on its side, took a few strained breaths, and died. Atreus sighed, relieved that it had died almost instantly and that he wouldn’t have to finish it off with his dagger.

“I did good. Yeah?”

“Be more silent next time. It is easy to frighten an animal. You must not let it get it’s guard up.”

“Yes sir... I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Mm.” Fully aware that the boy wasn’t strong enough to lift it, Kratos made his way over to pick the animal up and carry it home.

Sigyn watched with intrigue as Kratos casually picked up the rather large animal and just threw it over his shoulder. She was impressed -though not surprised- but she didn’t know the half of it.

They began to make their way back to the boat. Unfortunately there were no world tree gates nearby to use to get back home faster, but Kratos at least was perfectly content with walking.

As they made their way down the convenient path that led by an ancient looking circle of pillars, Sigyn’s attention was once again pulled away by a familiar plant growing next to one of the pillars. Hurrying to keep Kratos from noticing, she quickly ran over and plucked some of the leaves off and stuck them in her satchel. As she studied the contents of the bag she considered what kinds of things she could do with these ingredients; the two that she had already collected would be enough to make a few strength enhancing potions. Certainly the others would appreciate that.

She found herself losing herself in thought as she considered what other ingredients she would have to find to do a tracking spell on her mother.

“Girl..” Kratos pulled Sigyn out of her daze.

She looked up to see that Kratos and Atreus were waiting for her a little ways ahead. “Sorry..” A little embarrassed, she held her head down and carefully closed the satchel. She internally kicked herself for getting distracted again.

“It’s-” Atreus’ eyes went wide and he pointed at something behind Sigyn. “Watch out!!”

Before she could react, a massive hand grabbed Sigyn from behind and tossed her tiny, limp body to the side like nothing.

Sigyn scrambled to get back up, but the furious troll pounded the ground with the huge totem in his hand, sending a surge of energy that knocked her back to the ground.

Atreus rushed at the troll in a yelling rage while Kratos yelled for him to calm himself. Kratos’ warning seemed to fall on deaf ears as Atreus furiously charged in and fired electrified arrows at the monster.

“Calm down, boy!”

“Die damn it!” Atreus screamed at the monster, not hearing -or just ignoring- his father’s commands.

“Atreus!”

The arrows mostly seemed to aggravate the unusually large troll. With each arrow that struck him, it grew more and more angry until it let out a roar and swung its totem furiously at the boy.

Since Atreus was letting himself become so overcome by emotion and therefore wasn’t being attentive enough, the swing hit him head on and knocked him on his back.

Kratos charged at the monster as it raised its weapon high up in the air with the intention of bringing it down on Atreus -who was on the ground and trying to scoot out of the way but was a bit too dazed from being hit so hard. Kratos jumped in front of Atreus and braced himself to stop that totem from hitting his son.

With all its might, the monster swung its weapon.

Before it could even touch Kratos or Atreus a huge ball of fire flew through the air and struck the troll, causing him to stumble to the side and have to regain his composure.

Kratos’ first instinct was to check on Atreus. He turned and knelt down to make make sure he was not injured; he was not, but his eyes were wide with both amazement and terror as he stared past Kratos. “Father..”

Kratos stood up and spun around, ready to destroy whatever it was Atreus was staring at.

Much to his surprise, instead of another enemy, he saw Sigyn, now standing in the middle of a circle of white fire swirling around the ground, the same surreal flames engulfing her clenched fists and her eyes now bright yellow rather than the usual green. Almost as if she were in a trance, she turned her head to Kratos and Atreus and just stared for a moment.

Kratos held his arm out in front of Atreus in an instinct to protect him.. but Sigyn did not come towards them. She didn’t even move. After a moment of her just looking at them, her attention was pulled away by the troll getting back up and charging at her.

“Father!” Atreus jumped up and tried to push past his father to go help Sigyn, but Kratos grabbed his arm and held him back.

“No, boy!”

“We have to help!”

Suddenly Sigyn seemed to break out of her motionless trance and summoned another massive ball of fire around her fist and threw it at the troll. It seemed to work; the attack seemed to stun the monster as it knelt down on the ground and breathed heavily... Kratos saw the opportunity and took it; he jumped up and charged the beast. He jumped on its head and pulled it back by its horns, and, as it tried to take a swing at him, he grabbed the extremely heavy weapon and used it to smash the trolls head once he had knocked it on the ground.

After the troll was good and dead, he turned around to see Sigyn lying unconscious on the ground, blood dripping from her nose and her skin even paler than usual. Atreus sat next to her with his hand on her shoulder gently but urgently shaking her to wake her up.

“Father!” He called out desperately. “Father, she’s sick. She’s-” Kratos came over and knelt down next to her and placed his hand on her forehead.

“She has a fever.”

“Is it what I had?”

“No..” Kratos observed her bleeding nose; Atreus had never had that. “This is something else.”

“Did.. did you know?”

“.. no. I did not know.”

“Mimir?”

“Sorry, little brother.. I’m afraid not.”

“She’s..” Atreus shook his head, still trying to fully comprehend what he had just seen. “She’s a god?”

#atreus #god of war #god of war 4 #kratos #mimir #atreus and sigyn #sigyn #little sigyn #atreus and kratos #atreus and mimir #gow #gow 4 #gow4 #sigyn gow #god of war sigyn #the treasure of koninsgard #the treasure of koninsgard 5

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fessilee · 2 years

Text

Week 2 & 3

I reluctantly gave up on catching up after more than a week of my brain stalling whenever I thought about doing so. Fortunately, Eir said I could switch to a weekly assessment of not only things I like about myself, but also things I have accomplished across between Thorapy appointments. That said, my goal for next week is to not be playing catch up an hour before our latest appointment.

Three Things I Like About Myself:

1. I am able to evaluate and change my behavior for the better when presented with a lesson that encourages me to do so; said lessons aren't always fun to learn, but I recognize their importance and am fairly adept at mollifying my ego when it pushes back.

2. I've embraced the occasionally uncanny tendency for people to seek me out to help them in ways that very few others can.

3. I'm noticeably growing in my wiggly woo magical/spiritual abilities. My latest upgrade came on the heels of a humbling experience wherein I unwittingly affected many others with my sickly energy for a good couple of days before realizing it (in part thanks to an intervention from Odin, no less), and it has been a very nice consolation prize, among other things.

Things I've Accomplished This Week:

- I've informally counseled at least 3-4 close friends in matters of love, learning, and spiritual limitations;

- I began compiling a spell book of self-designed bindrunes to fill a need I see within the spiritual community at large, though some of them were inspired by specific people;

- I published a significant amount of website content, including a report assessing Sigyn's pop culture significance; an etiquette and ethics guide for spiritual practitioners, complete with a friend's personal account of issues experienced during their Awakening; a 2021 retrospective based on Jack Donaghy (30 Rock)'s Six Sigma Wheel of Domination; a birthday gift for my wife; and a friend's World Tree, for which I get paid, as well as a handful of one-off genealogy research bits (huzzah!);

- I've received valuable insight from fellow spiritual practitioners regarding ongoing situations for which clarity has been difficult to come by;

- I took a shower!

#thorapy homework #hail eir

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ivars-snowflake · 6 years

Text

The little Witch of Kattegat, part II.

You light the spark in my bonfire heart

Pairing: Ivar & OC Ase

Timeline: Starting when everyone was still alive…

Wordcount: 1230

Warnings: None, yet.

Summary: Ase is a girl living in the Kattegat’s woods with her mother. Due to their life of isolation, and the mystery surrounding them, townsfolk calls them witches. After her mother dies, Ase starts to visit the market more often, and when she meets Ivar, her life starts to turn upside down.

*The lyrics I’m using in intro are from Bonfire heart by James Blunt.

Feedback is always welcome and highly appreciated!

tags: @red608, @onjacks-blog @romanchronicles, @oddsnendsfanfics

***

This world is getting colder, strangers passing by No one offers you a shoulder, no one looks you in the eye But I’ve been looking at you for a long, long time Just trying to break through, trying to make you mine

Ivar was often lurking when Ase would come to the market, along with his brothers, making sure she doesn’t notice. She was a mystery, a beautiful one at that, and he found her intriguing. He knew the stories that were circulating about her, and he felt even more drawn to her for them.

He watched her daily, how she’d spread fear across the market, with nothing but a smile, and she was impressive. He knew his brothers wanted her, but this time he wouldn’t allow them to take what he wanted too.

So that was his reason for visiting Ase, not the balsam he demanded her to make, though that sure was a good excuse.

When he saw her the day after, with the product being ready, he couldn’t come up with yet another excuse to stick around, but he would be back for more, and he will be ready then.

-Prince Ivar! Ase said, more talkative this time, for she was expecting her visitor.

-I have your balm ready, I’ve made some changes to it, upgrades in fact, it should work even better now.

-Thank you, Ase. If it helps, I will be back for more. He answered, a pained expression written on his face, and she didn’t miss it.

-You’re in pain, prince Ivar. Let me try and ease it before you go back, if that’s okay with you?

He nodded, pleased because this time she gave him an excuse to stay around and get to know her.

He followed her to the inside of her tiny hut, where she helped him settle on the furs. He examined the surroundings carefully, his eyes wandering through her four walls, shelves filled with herbs and their smells mixing in the air, making it thick and sticky, bitersweet, refreshing and sickly sweet all the same, making his head spin. His nerves went wild as her hands reached to untie his pants. She noticed the startled expression on his face, and hers reddened, obviously embarrassed for her lack of experience with people in general, and even more embarrassed for trying to undress him without asking. Pulling her hands back to her side quickly, she muttered an apology.

-Oh, um…excuse my stupidity, my prince! If you allow, I would need to take your pants off, to help you with your leg pain.

-Sure. He muttered back, trying to seem confident, but inside he was terrified that the sight she was about to see would scare her, and be the end of their encounters before they even started. But she didn’t react with anything but a tender touch below his knees. The refreshing mixture began to cool and relax the muscles bringing him instant relief, as Ase tenderly massaged his legs. At first, Ivar watched her every move cautiously, looking for any sign of disgust her face might show, but none came, so eventually he too relaxed, closing his eyes and humming in pleasure.

-There, it should feel better soon. Her words woke him from his trance, and he saw her smile at him, reaching for his pants behind him, bringing her face closer to his. Unintentionally, he found himself counting the freckles on her nose, and then his gaze shifted to her lips. They were pale pink, a shade fitting perfectly with her pale skin. They looked so soft, he wanted to check if they’re deceiving him, or they truly are as soft as they looked. He will one day, soon enough, he thought. As soon as he gets the experience required not to make a fool of himself.

As she helped him get dressed, he thought about how he really doesn’t know much about her, and to distract his mind and keep it from wondering how soft her lips are, he asked.

-Ase, do you remember your home? She shrugged, and her expression changed from smiling to a more serious, pensive one.

-Kattegat is my home, I have no other home to go to, prince Ivar. I barely have any memories of the place I came from. All my knowledge of it is based on a few blurry memories and my mother’s stories…but this here is my home.

He chuckled softly, remembering the messy bundle of red hair that came through their door that one day, many years ago. She still was a bundle of fiery red hair, un-obedient, wild and messy, and he wondered if this is who she truly was, if her hair represented her soul, the sweet, untamed mess that looked so lovely while spreading fear across the streets of Kattegat with nothing but a smile.

-Of course, sometimes I forget how small you were when you came. I remember that day, though.

It surprised her, a prince remembering the day she came, her little insignificant self. Fatherless girl, little Ase, seen as a witch in eyes of many. In eyes of Ivar, she was anything but insignificant. He felt she was a walking, breathing, embodiment of contradiction. She seemed so naive, trusting, almost childlike, treating him the way no one else ever did, gently and with no holding back, almost as if his reputation didn’t concern her one bit. On the other hand, she somehow managed to make people fear her, without even moving her finger. She would smile, and everyone would just lower their heads. She was godly, impressive, bold. Maybe she was just a stupid little girl, playing around, testing her luck, but for some reason he kept seeing more to her.

As Ivar kept visiting, the two became friends fast. The more she knew Ivar, the more relaxed she was around him, also giving him a hint of how sharp her mind was. Sometimes he felt like she was bad for him, for she made him feel, made him more human. But he loved her company, couldn’t get enough of her, always wanted more of her. He loved her silliness and he couldn’t quite understand how people can fear a girl as goofy and clumsy as Ase. Every now and then, he would find her with bloody knees or elbows, even chin this one time, and he witnessed her clumsiness once or twice, wondering how in the name of Odin is this girl still in one piece. He loved those pale pink lips, round and full, calling out to him. He loved the way she would say his name. He trusted her above all others. He wanted her, more than any other.

It infuriated him when he noticed that his brothers started to talk to her, every time she would come to the market. He would watch them flirt with her, touching her hair, making her smile the same way she smiled at him. The fact that she accepted their flirtation and was going along with it, made him angry at her too. He was aware that she had no reason to hold back, he was just an ill boy coming to her for a remedy to ease his pains, she didn’t belong to him. He was just a friend to her, if he could even call himself that.

Who knows how long he would have waited, if one day he didn’t see Hvitserk’s attempt to kiss her. She moved her head to the side, so that his brothers mouth would land on her cheek, instead of her lips. She didn’t want Hvitserk’s kiss for some reason, and Ivar needed to know if she would want his, so he decided it was time to make a move.

#ivar fanfic #ivar the boneless #ivar ragnarsson #vikings ivar #vikings fanfic #ivar x oc #ivar x ase #the little witch of kattegat #ivar's heathen army

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anavantgardener · 3 years

Text

Frost and Mischief Ch. 3

Summary: In this, the third chapter of Frost and Mischief, Elska settles into her new role as Lady in Waiting.

Pairing: OC x Loki Laufeyson

Warnings: fluff???

Word Count: 2,700, a short one!

-----

An Apology Overdue

Prince Loki burst out laughing as King Odin's face reddened. Poor Prince Thor had no clue as to how to respond to his mother's statement. Elska herself nearly dropped to her knees in pure delight.

Me, a lady in waiting for the queen of the Nine Realms, she was overjoyed.

"My queen," the All-father stuttered out. "What benefits could this possibly bring to the royal family, to the city of Asgard as a whole? She does not even bear Asgardian blood!"

"First of all, she is clearly quite gifted with magic," Queen Frigga waved her hand towards Elska, who was finally coming back to reality. "With training, who knows what she could do. She has the potential to be one of the greatest Masters of Magic the Nine Realms have ever seen."

"Mastery of magic is not all one needs to be a productive member of society, let alone the palace" the king huffed.

"Technically," Prince Thor gave a large, oblivious smile to his father. "She has been a productive member of the palace. She knows just how I like my tea. None of the palace staff get that right."

The queen gave a happy nod to her oldest.

Two members of the royal family on my side, very nice indeed. Elska raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, but as a lady in waiting she would not be waiting on you anymore, boy," King Odin glowered. His face was becoming rather like a strawberry.

"Additionally," the queen began again. "Dear Elska is quite learned in the history of the Nine Realms, courtesy of myself."

The king's brow furrowed before Queen Frigga continued.

"She's trained in magic, she has already proven her dedication to both the palace and the royal family, and she knows the history of our entire kingdom like the back of her hand," the queen stated. "A bit of etiquette training and she will be a perfect member of the Asgardian court."

It was getting harder and harder for the king to say no. He loved his wife, and as much as he truly despised Elska's heritage, he knew the queen was fond of her. She was a valued companion, and very practically a daughter to his wife.

"My king, if I may," Elska knew how she needed to play this. She curtsied, head bowed. "I know this palace better than any of the other servants and palace staff. I can train them, even train someone to take my place before I would fully take the position of the queen's lady in waiting. If it be your will, I may spend the remainder of the week training a servant to fill my position while also preparing myself for my new role."

Looking to his wife and then back to the girl standing before him, King Odin began shaking his head. His decision was made.

"I would not even know who to choose to take your place," he said, rubbing his temples before continuing. "Perhaps you have an idea?"

Elska's face lit up. She knew just the girl for the job.

"Indeed I do," she smiled. "Eira Bjorndotter."

*****

Heading back to the dwelling that night, Elska could hardly contain her excitement. She had never been so happy in all her life. She decided she would take the long way home so as to enjoy the moment as long as she could.

As she was walking through the palace gardens, Prince Loki suddenly seemed to materialize out of the rose bushes Elska was passing.

"Hello, there," he greeted her with a smile as she jumped.

"My prince," she curtsied, catching her breath. "Do you often walk the gardens at night, appearing out of thin air and scaring passers by?"

"Only for a special few," Prince Loki held his hands behind his back as he fell in step with her. "I wanted to congratulate you on your new position."

"Thank you, my prince, but first there is something that I believe is overdue," Elska stopped to face him. She curtsied again. "I must apologize to you. What I said to you upon our last meeting was cruel and inappropriate. I am forever grateful to you for keeping the incident from your father."

As the words left her mouth, it was like a final weight had lifted off her chest, and now, everything was right with the world.

With a pensive look, Prince Loki gestured to a bench nearby. The two sat down, looking out at the beautiful view. From their seat, they could see where the clear night sky met the tops of the houses in the upper district. Below the horizon, flower bushes dotted their view like constellations of their own.

"In all honesty, there is nothing to apologize for," he said, turning to look at her. "Each word you spoke was true. I could not understand what it is like to come from that area of life."

He paused, and in his thoughtfulness was a sort of beauty. Elska admired the peace that his features took on when the young prince sat in pondering silence.

"In the moment, I was quite flustered," Prince Loki continued. "I felt angry, but I was also puzzled by the point you had made. I spend so much time sulking in my studies, surrounded by knowledge and vast education that I continuously soak up, yet never once have I thought that anyone might not be privy to that sort of learning."

"I think it only natural for people to find themselves honed in on their own way of life," Elska said after a moment. "In time, each person comes to realize that there is an infinite number of other ways people live that must be accounted for. What matters is what we do with that information. We can sit, denying or even resenting it, maybe both. Or, we can embrace it and open our minds to the idea that we can always help, no matter who we are and what we can do."

Elska leaned back and closed her eyes, soaking in the moonlight, and for the first time, Prince Loki gazed upon the beauty she truly was. Snowy, pale skin sharply contrasted by her curled auburn locks. Her curved figure was aglow in the light from the starry sky. The corners of her pink lips turned up in delight at the cool evening air blowing through the garden.

"You are quite different from the other servants, my friend," he noted, looking back to the sky.

"Oh?" Elska giggled. "How so?"

"You are thoughtful, smart," he said. "You seem to know the truth of the world before anyone else does."

"I do not think that makes me so different from the rest of the servants," she replied, earning a quizzical look from the prince. "I think you simply know me better than you know the rest of the servants."

"A fair point," he smirked.

"So," Elska glanced over to Prince Loki. "We are friends?"

He stood, looking down at the mischievous woman.

"For the time being, I suppose," he said before vanishing into thin air.

*****

When Eira heard the news, she could hardly believe it. Her best friend had been made lady in waiting for Queen Frigga, and she herself would be getting a promotion of sorts, as well.

"Are you quite sure you didn't dream the whole thing?" she asked, a look of bewilderment decorating her face.

"I am quite sure, indeed, my dear friend," Elska laughed. "You and I will both be in the palace."

"When do you move to the palace? Shall we start packing your things tomorrow?" Eira sat on the small cot next to her friend.

"Why would I be packing my things?" Elska looked confused. "I'm not leaving the dwelling."

"Past ladies in waiting have stayed in the palace," she looked as if the idea were the most normal thing in the Nine Realms.

Elska had not really paid much mind to any past ladies in waiting. Generally they didn't stay very long; the queen did better on her own, just having the general palace servants and staff tend to her when she needed it.

"I suppose," Elska stuttered, a sudden wave of anxiety settling over her. "I suppose I will have to ask tomorrow."

"Why does it bother you so?" It was Eira's turn to be confused. "It's quite the upgrade from this place."

"This is my home," Elska began. "It has been for almost a millennia. These people have watched me grow, they've accepted me from the start. Moving into the palace, it's a different way of life entirely. They're going to train me to act differently, to be proper in front of the Asgardian court." She almost scoffed. "What fun is that?"

The two friends shared a laugh before Eira placed her hand on Elska's.

"My advice to you, never forget from where you came," she smiled at the nervous girl. "Besides, I will be there everyday to keep you in check. And you will come visit, I am sure."

This will be good, Elska thought to herself. Living in the palace will be good, right?

*****

Elska had seemingly been constantly busy the past four days. From tending to her duties, to Eira shadowing her every movement, to small training sessions with the entirety of the servants, to her own lady in waiting training, her days felt like years. She found herself trudging home, eating only some bread and cheese, and falling to her bed, face in the pillow.

She had yet to even start packing, and the anxiety of getting it all done was moving closer and closer to the forefront of her mind. Thor (he refused to allow her to call him "prince" now that she was officially working with the family so closely) had shown her to her new chambers on her first day of training. Elska could barely believe that she'd be living here. Having her own bathing chambers amazed her, not to mention the size of the bed. Queen Frigga had even seen to it that Elska had her own fully-stocked bookshelf.

Funnily, Elska had yet to see the queen since the day she named her lady in waiting. Thor believed she was working hard to ready Elska's formal lessons.

Day five of preparation was the last; tomorrow morning, Elska would be moving into the palace and officially relinquishing her position to Eira.

She will do well, Elska thought to herself. Likely even better than I ever did. She smiled to herself as she made her way to the Royal Library to meet Eira and begin their morning cleaning. As she turned a corner, she nearly ran into the queen.

"Elska!" Queen Frigga exclaimed, a surprised smile on her face.

"Good morning, my queen," Elska curtsied, excited to finally see the matronly figure again. "How do you fare this morning?"

"Quite well indeed, my dear," the queen replied. "Your speech is changing. It is more formal."

"Yes, my etiquette teachers have informed me that it is the way the Asgardian Court speaks," Elska blushed a bit, embarrassed. "They say I will need to speak as such, also, if I plan to be a successful lady in waiting."

"Well," Queen Frigga placed a gentle hand on the young woman's face. "I look forward to gracing the Asgardian Court with you by my side."

"Always the voice of encouragement," Elska grinned. "I have been meaning to thank you, my queen, for the bookshelf in my chambers."

"I do believe that was Prince Loki's idea," she held a sly grin. "My son seems to have noticed which books you tended to borrow."

Wiggling her eyebrows, the queen began walking away, leaving Elska in a strange silence. The new lady in waiting resumed her short trip to the library, feeling slightly giddy now. Perhaps Prince Loki would be there, and she could thank him.

As she entered, she found herself alone, not even Eira had arrived yet. Looking around the room, she found the sundial.

I suppose I am a tad bit earlier than usual, Elska realized, slightly disappointed. She began tidying up, straightening things up. Moving from desk to desk, she picked up various books and returned them to their home shelves. She always wondered how books ended up out and about when the only soul who seemed to venture into the Royal Library was Prince Loki. Hopefully, she'd be able to add her name to the room's list of visitors soon.

Walking over to the prince's study desk, Elska picked up notes that had fallen and tried to set them on the desk so they wouldn't interrupt whatever process he had spread across the table at the moment. It was always a continuous stream of notes and open books, quills and ink scattered in between. Every now and again, a crumb-covered plate sat atop one of Prince Loki's book stacks.

"I am so sorry, Elska," Eira marched into the room, looking a bit flustered. "I got distracted preparing breakfast for the children in the dwelling."

Pulled from her thoughts, Elska looked over to her best friend.

"It's quite alright, I had barely begun cleaning," she laughed at Eira. "Here, I will show you what books go where."

As she reached for Prince Loki's discard pile, Eira reached for one of the prince's in-use piles. Elska reached out, just about to say something when another voice beat her to it.

"Not those," for what seemed like the hundredth time, Prince Loki appeared out of nowhere. "Books on this desk are currently in use." He held a tight-lipped, fake smile; hiding his frustration never seemed to be something the prince excelled at.

"The prince puts his discard pile on this desk," Elska said gently, struggling to gesture toward the desk next to her while holding a pile of books in her arms.

"Of course, my apologies," Eira's face turned beet red as Elska smiled at the new palace servant, trying to reassure her. "It will not happen again, my prince."

Elska, hoping to keep Eira away from the same wrath she had once earned from Prince Loki, moved the conversation forward and away from the situation.

"Shall we take your plates to the kitchen, my prince?" Elska curtsied, sending a sideways glance at Eira to do the same.

As the two women awaited his reply, Prince Loki kept his focus on Elska. She looked tired, overwhelmed, and even scared. He thought back upon the day all those years ago when he had shouted at her for completely cleaning off his desk. He had thrown a book at her, but even then she was too swift for him. Now, he felt a strange regret for that moment, and seeing her in this moment, he even worried for how she was feeling.

Noticing he was extending the silence, Prince Loki washed the look of confusion from his face.

"Yes, please," he nodded, allowing the women to rise from their curtsy.

Elska motioned for Eira to pick up the plates as she quickly returned the books. For a brief second, Elska and Prince Loki's eyes met, and a quick agreement to speak later was made.

The two women gave a short, final curtsy to the prince before leaving the Royal Library.

Watching them go, the prince sat at his desk, placing his head in his hands. Feeling another twinge of guilt run through him, the confusion toward his feelings settled in once again.

*****

"There isn't even that much to pack, Elska," Eira threw one of her aprons at her pouting friend.

"I do not care," she crossed her arms and dramatically fell onto her bed. "It is effort and I have no more effort to give."

Eira scoffed, placing a hand over her heart and feigning sympathy.

"That is quite rude, you know," Elska giggled.

"Everything is going to be okay," Eira walked over and sat next to her friend, wrapping her in a hug. "We will finish packing tonight and break open that bottle of wine you took from the palace those months ago."

Elska gave an appreciative glance to Eira.

"That does sound quite wonderful," she said, standing and throwing her few belongings into her two bags.

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brightsun-and-darkmidnight · 3 years

Text

Country Entertainment

TITLE: Country Entertainment

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 1 / ?

AUTHOR: brightsun-and-darkmidnight

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki wooing you at an amusement part in the game area

RATING: Teen …? I think..?

NOTES/WARNINGS: Maybe bad flirting? I am trying to make it fluffy

My Ao3: brightsun_and_darkmidnight

*FINALLY..Read the warnings. Once you agree you can handle it...

~ ~ ENJOY ~ ~

Loki felt the gentle hand of his mother on his shoulder.

Frigga smiled once Loki took his eyes off of the huge pig.

"Let's go see the events in the arena."

Loki nodded as the auctioneer started taking bids. Odin threw his hand up for the bid.

A few steps away and Thor caught up with Loki and Frigga.

Thor gently hugged Frigga, "my friends are here. We were going to enjoy rides and play the games."

Frigga gave Thor a knowing look before speaking, "have fun and make sure you eat something." Frigga pointed a finger at Thor, "make sure your FRIENDS eat too."

Thor smiled sheepishly. "Yes mother. Enjoy the show, it is barrel racing now right?"

"It is. Now behave."

Frigga took Loki's elbow and guided him to the entrance after Thor assured her the things she demanded would be honored. Frigga and Loki watched the riders but Frigga quickly had a favorite.

Frigga tapped Loki's arm as she exclaimed. "Look at her! Wow!"

Loki smiled at his mother's enthusiasm

"She has excellent position on her horse, you can tell how much she trained! She has to be first place!"

Loki looked at the score and the girl was .63 seconds away from the winner.

"That's a load of shit. She was the best!"

Loki's eyes widened, "mother."

"Sorry dear. Well. I better get back to your father. You go have fun."

Loki nodded and went in search for Hela or Thor.

Seeing Hela at a ring toss game he went over.

Hela was talking to the worker and the woman smiled, making Hela turn. Hela went back to talking to the worker. Loki didn't feel too wanted but sometimes Hela is better company than Thor at fairs. Thor and his friends always tried to hook up with whoever they could. Their flirting was absolutely terrible.

Hela shook the woman's hand, "bet you another 50 dollars."

"You're on!"

Hela turned to Loki, "dad get anything good to eat?"

Loki shrugged, "mother and I watched barrel racing."

Loki watched the women exchange looks.

Hela gave the woman money and a bucket of rings were placed in front of Loki. He rose an eyebrow and was about to ask a question.

"You are gonna need to practice. Get all of those knives for me."

The woman working the stand put the 5th knife on a pile. "He is really good."

Hela's smile was heard in her voice as Loki got another knife. "You are gonna owe me that 50 dollars!"

The woman huffed when Loki pointed to another knife with a ring around it.

"The freaking bucket cost 20 dollars, and he is gonna take all the knives!"

Hela smirked. "Maybe you should have bet lower."

"I didn't know your brother is really good at throwing stuff!"

Movement caught Loki's attention when someone moved fast to jump over the stand.

The girl wrapped her arms around the worker. "Hey big sis!"

The worker wrapped an arm around the girl then stated, "Maggi. Fix your hair."

Maggie gave her sister a cocky smile. "I did. You know its because of the spoiled princess"

Hela laughed, "Comeon Sam, your sister is a sass master."

Maggie's sister, Sam groaned. "Fuck off."

Maggie smiled, "life would be so dull without me."

Loki smiled and went back to playing the game… that he might have briefly forgotten.

Sam asked nudging her, "What place babyswiss?"

She gestured towards the bow around her neck, "Second. .63 seconds."

Loki got another knife added to the pile.

Loki glanced at the girl and the clothes were the same as Frigga's favorite rider.

Hella held out a hand to the woman who slaps $50 in her hand.

The sister explained to Maggie's questionable face. "Hella said you would be under a minute."

Maggie drawled, "How nice to believe in me…"

The sister defended herself as she set a new knife in Loki's pile, "Listen we knew you would lose because that spoiled bitch would get rid of the horse."

Maggie shrugged her shoulders, "Now if someone beat her time before I had to go..."

Sam talked again. "You'd be able to buy a new vehicle with your winnings."

Another knife added to Loki's collection.

Sam grumbled, "And buy my new supply of knives."

Hela laughed.

Maggie exclaimed, "my jeep runs great. Just got a few things that need upgraded. I dont need something fast."

A squeaky voice made Loki want to cringe.

"My truck would beat your shit jeep anyday. I would beat you at anything anyway."

A few laughs were heard but Loki kept his eyes on the game.

Maggie leaned on the counter with a smile, "How about we ride something between our legs Princess?"

The supposed princess laughed. "Right and what do you have in mind?"

Maggie winked, "Your boyfriend seems ready."

Hela turned, both her and Sam laughed.

Maggie laughed as well, "just kidding but I'm not kidding when I say you guys need to work on blood circulation above the shoulders. You might not use your brain often but it's kinda important.."

Loki sees the Maggie smirk and the princess one looks confused until she looks at her boyfriend's crotch.

A few laughed at the huff from the girl.

Maggie continued with a dramatic eye roll, "I mean something with intelligence. A HORSE."

The cringeworthy voice held a cocky tone. "I won first place, what makes you think you can win?"

Maggie shrugged standing up tall. "You said any condition anyway you could beat me. I want to get another shot at proving you wrong."

The girl laughed briefly. "Whatever. Cover that huge forehead of yours... is an hour too short of time to be presentable?"

Maggie was running her fingers through her tangled hair. "Can I borrow a brush? No? Okay, I figured you always have your entire beauty necessities with you." Maggie was working on forcing a knot to come undone. "Don't wait up for me, I'm sure you are going to need the whole time actually learning how to gear your horse."

The other girl walked away with an eye roll and dramatic stomp.

Hella laughed. "Well. I'm looking forward to this."

Sam cheered, "record it!"

Maggie leaned her hip against the counter, "yeah let me know her reaction when I don't show up." She winced as she undid the knot in her hair by pulling it.

Loki got another new knife set down in his pile.

Hela patted Loki's shoulder. "Just a couple more Loki. Good job."

Maggie exclaimed, "Is he getting all the knives?!"

Hela smiled, "yep. I got 50 dollars saying, my brother, Loki, is going to get me one of every knife. With only one bucket of rings."

Maggie's smile faltered a bit when Loki looked right at her.

He shrugged. "My sister likes knives."

Sam huffed in annoyance, "and he is really good at this game."

Loki seen familiar blonde hair and went back to tossing the rings.

Fandral leaned onto the counter making Maggie eye him oddly.

Fandral winked. "You are a beautiful woman and I would love to see where those tan lines end.."

Maggie's face fell to a stoic expression. "Maybe they don't."

Hela rolled her eyes and Sam glared at Fandral.

Fandral continued not getting that he was unwanted. "I would love to take you on the Farris wheel. See the fair's lights and how the moonlight makes your eyes shine."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "I don't like heights."

"I could hold you and keep you safe in my arms."

"Strong arms are not going to help anyone from a fall like that."

"Ah yes. A graceful angel Falling hard for a man like me. It must have hurt."

"Actually to get here, I clawed my way up."

Fandral laughed, "all the better."

"Maybe you could kiss my hand better after sporting a black eye for the next victim of poor flirtation." Maggie gave Fandral a sweet smile.

"Surely a woman like you can be wooed."

"Get a ring around the blade of my favorite knife. You get as many chances as one bucket can hold."

Fandral sees Loki's pile of knives, "well then do me a favor my REALLY good friend and help me."

Maggie crossed her arms and leaned back against the stand "If he does it, he gets the date. You are on your own."

Loki looked in his bucket and had 14 rings left and had 5 more knives to get.

Hela patted Loki's shoulder. "Get her FAVORITE knife. You need a date."

Loki rolled his eyes. "I didn't know there was more to this game than winning knives." Loki threw a ring and got it around a butterfly knife.

Hela took it from the pile and started doing tricks with it.

Marigold got a knife out of her back pocket and was talking with Hela about tricks.

Loki had 2 more knives to get but only 5 rings.

Fandral was only able to get 3 knives in his haste and earned the laughs of Thor.

Sif offers Fandral a fry and says, "Pitty offering"

Fandral takes it and bites it with a high head as they all walk away.

Maggie groaned. "Yep totally not my type."

She looks down at her hand and back up at him.

The sister laughed. "Well then… she's speechless for once."

Maggie was quickly back to her social ways. "Shut up Sam."

Hella smirks and pats Loki on the back-"Looks like you have to go on a date with my little brother."

#brightsun-and-darkmidnight #loki #Country Entertainment #chapter 1

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how-important-is-coding-blog · 5 years

Text

How important is coding?

Coding is and has always been the most futuristic job. It will remain relevant until the end of technology because apparently without coding you cannot design a program or give a new shape to A.I (Artificial Intelligence).

Coding, also known as programming, basically implies writing codes for computer programming or building web pages and applications. HTML/CSS, PHP, Javascript, C+, and Dot Net are few of the examples of most adopted programming languages. Whatever we see inside a computer, on the internet, or machines with a graphical interface such as a smartphone is basically made from coding.

Coding as a Tech Job

8 out of 25 jobs posted are Tech Jobs. With the rising demand of developers, coding has become an essential skill in almost every resume.

The essence and importance of programming cannot be denied in today’s world where almost everything built by human runs on arrays of codes.

Large conglomerates such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft who house thousands of employees demand expert programmers. Although an exceptional case, a programmer made as much as $3million a year in salary and stock at Google. This makes coding the most sought after job in the world.

The most sought after Tech jobs in the world are as follows;

· Information Technology (IT) worker

· Data Analysts

· Artists and designers

· Engineers

· Scientists

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012, the average salary for an application software developer was $93,000, with only 10 percent of such developers making more than $139,000 in salary.

10x Engineer

10x Engineer implies that the computer engineer can code 10 times faster any average coder or he can do 10 times more than any coder. They are the highest-paid tech workers in the world. Although a popular concept, there are likely only 1% 10x Engineers in the world.

Along with the coding, testing the application, debugging, and designing (UI/X) are equally important job descriptions. However, the demand for a coder exceeds any other tech jobs.

Importance of Coding

Developing a program through coding involves a series of steps where a programmer will define a problem, plans a solution, code, test the code, and finally document the program. The importance of coding can be simplified through the following points.

Systems Knowledge

Coding helps a programmer to gain a full understanding of the how and why of computer systems, including system limitations. They can work around those limitations to fully maximize the use of the equipment and its accessories.

Creativity Platform

Coding has always been a platform to showcase creativity, especially for entertainment. With the help of coding, the game develops can create new video games, graphics, and animations to showcase new business ideas or to resolve a particular problem.

Interactive Education

Coding helps in interactive education by offering interactive web applications. Used on online learning platforms, these applications have allowed distance-learning programs to take off. Today, almost all major learning institutions have some form of online learning implementation, thanks to computer programming such as cloud computing.

Defining the Future

Every major futuristic accomplishment has been done by programming. Future-technology such as voice-recognition, artificial intelligence, and touch-simulation in devices keep evolving and getting better with the advent of new coding. The rise in online shopping gave way to eCommerce and easy online payment systems. A.I. in smartphone and websites can offer suggestions, advice, or solutions at ago.

Machine Language

Since computers work with numbers, programming allows a person to represent machine-language in a human-readable format. This reduces the chances of introducing errors and wasted time in debugging and correcting mistakes

Different Programming Languages

A programming language is known as a vocabulary with a set of grammatical rules instructing a computer or computing device to perform specific tasks.

Although the term programming language usually referred to high-level languages, such as BASIC, C, C++, COBOL, Java, FORTRAN, Ada, and Pascal, today it is used for almost every set of a programming languages such as PHP, Javascript, Python, Dot Net, and C+.

Some of the most implemented programming languages are as follows;

PHP

More than 80% of the internet is powered by PHP. Everything ranging from website, applications, to portals are designed in PHP. Since its inception, PHP developers have always been in high demand. Due to the availability of open-source content management systems, frameworks and a good compromise of speed, code quality, and development PHP are chosen as the developer’s tool for years.

Laravel remains one of the most adopted PHP frameworks that is used to develop dynamic web pages.

C++

C++ is an all-purpose object-oriented programming (OOP) language. C and C+ were its predecessors. The main highlight of C++ is a collection of predefined classes, which are data types that can be instantiated multiple times

Dot Net

The advent of Dot Net improved development experience and relieved engineers from security operations, active memory management, and other low-level efforts that C/C++ developers had to bother with.

.NET is a language-independent framework that provides programming guidelines to develop a wide range of applications for web, mobile, and Windows-based applications. The .NET framework can work with several programming languages such as C#, VB.NET, C++, and F#.

Javascript

JavaScript (JS) is a lightweight, interpreted, or just-in-time compiled programming language with first-class functions. While it is most well-known as the scripting language for Web pages, many non-browser environments also use it, such as Node.js, Apache CouchDB and Adobe Acrobat.

AngularJS

AngularJS was developed to tackle the growing needs of developers. It is a structural framework for dynamic web apps and uses HTML as the template language. It is a JavaScript-based open-source framework used for building a front-end web application.

NodeJS

Node JS relies on Javascript and uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient. It remains perfect for data-intensive real-time applications running across distributed devices.

ReactJS

React JS is an open-source JavaScript library designed by Facebook. It is used for building user interfaces or front-end framework specifically for single-page applications. It is used for handling the view layer for web and mobile apps.

Most Demanded Programming Language

Here are the Top 7 programming languages with the most job postings on Indeed as of January 2019.

· Java – 65,986 jobs

· Python – 61,818 jobs

· Javascript – 38,018 jobs

· C++ – 36,798 jobs

· C# – 27,521 jobs

· PHP – 16,890 jobs

· PERL – 13, 727 jobs

How can I learn to code?

It is easy to learn coding if you can invest few hours of your day learning the basics of programming, such as language (PHP for dynamic web page, Swift or C for iOS mobile apps, and Java for Android apps), code implementation, toolset, framework, testing, and developing applications or web pages.

Online Courses

Online courses offer you a flexible schedule. You can learn the coding at the comfort of your home. Most online courses offer classes and conduct exams in return for a small fee.

The Odin Project is one of the sites offering an online course on programming for solo practitioners.

Subscription-model certification courses from Udacity or Treehouse offer an opportunity to ask a tutor.

You can get free practical JavaScript course from Watch and Code, which revolves around a single project that you continually iterate.

Watching videos and tutorials, reading e-books, and practicing your own project can help you gain programming knowledge quicker than you can think.

The ability to code comes with greater benefits. You can find a high-paying job at almost any Tech company. With the rising demand for programmers, you are less likely to be returned from job interviews.

The important thing to keep in mind to keep yourself updated. With the changing face of technology comes bigger challenges such as keeping yourself updated, learning the additional language for larger outreach, and collaborating with like-minded personnel’s. The GitHub offers a large resource of knowledge, codes, and an opportunity to collaborate with programmers around the world.

Searchable Design llc

Searchable Design in an it company located in Des Monies, Urbandale. Searchable Design is an enthusiastic group of IT professionals in Des Moines working to provide endless web,mobile solutions in des moines for businesses and individuals alike. From a niche website to varieties of online business tool, we design, manage and upgrade everything according to your need and requirement.

#importanceofcoding #differenttypesofprogramminglanguage #searchabledesign #itsolutionindesmoines #itcompanyindesmoines #itcompanyinurbandale #onlinecourseforprogramminglanguage #mostdemandedprogramminglanguage #webdevelopmentindesmoines

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imagine-loki · 6 years

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The Witch's Familiar

TITLE: The Witch’s Familiar CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 36/? AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine getting so attached to Lokitty early on that you insist on carrying him just about everywhere. RATING: T (so far) NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3 Click here

The team decided to celebrate Christmas together on Christmas Adam, since everyone was leaving Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with their other friends and families. You and the Asgaridans were going back to Asgard in the morning to spend Yule there. You were still giving the boys their presents tonight with the rest of the team’s.

You spent the morning making cookies with the ‘help’ of Sera and Lokitty. Neither of them were helpful. At all. Until you gave them a batch of brownie batter to share and leave you alone while they ate it. They thought that was very helpful. At least they were out of your way after that. They others came through and added their own cookie recipes and soon the entire common floor of the tower was filled with cookies. Clint made homemade hot chocolate for his contribution and had both a cat-dragon and a Loki bothering him the entire time he made it, both wanting to know what it was and why it smelled so good and begging him to let them taste it.

“Y/N, save me!” Clint begged you.

You just laughed. “Not a chance. They were bothering me all morning. It’s your turn,” you teased him in reply. He rolled his eyes and dealt with his annoying ‘help’. Loki promised he could help. Clint almost lost the entire batch of hot chocolate by taking the god up on his offer. It was only through quick thinking and recalculation that it was saved.

After all the snacks were made, the entire team sat around the tree in their pajamas with plated piled high with cookies and mugs of hot chocolate. It was silly and ridiculous and perfect. You passed out your squashy presents to everyone and lit up when they pulled out their handmade scarves and cooed over them and received lots of comments about how awesome the scarves were. Nat got everyone her, apparently, traditional scrapbooks of pictures of the team throughout the year. The rule was no one was allowed to ask here whereshe had gotten the pictures. Stark upgraded everyone’s phones for the year. Thor gave everyone weapons; he gave you a slim blade that apparently the noble ladies on Asgard carried. Loki cooed over the dagger’s quality and if Loki approved of a dagger you could be sure it was of excellent quality. You gave Sera a green ribbon that tied into a bow at the back. It would stay with her as a necklace when she changed forms. She cooed over it and nuzzled you in thanks for the gift.

Loki gave you a beautiful black stoned necklace in a gold setting. It matched the magical gem in the handflower on the back of your hand perfectly. “It’s beautiful,” you told Loki as he clasped it around your neck. You leaned over at kissed his cheek.

“Not nearly as beautiful as you, my love,” he told you and kissed you to the cheers of the rest of the team. They were getting silly, even though the hot chocolate wasn’t spiked. That you knew of.

After the presents were opened, you spent the rest of the evening curled up with Loki in the company of the team watching Christmas movies together until you all had to go to bed.

You spent a couple weeks in Asgard visiting. There were dances every night and a huge Yule celebration. Frigga was as happy to see Loki as ever and she and Odin both loved you. Odin had taken awhile to come around, but he had. You had weapons training with Sif in the mornings and she showed you some tricks for the blade Thor had gifted you for Christmas. Loki helped too. He wanted to make sure you were well prepared to defend yourself with more than magic if necessary.

You also spent a few afternoons flying with Sera. She hated not being able to fly as often as she liked on Midgard and was taking the opportunity to fly across Asgard with you and a very unhappy Loki on her back.

Before you left Asgard, Frigga passed Loki a small box and kissed his cheek. “I have a feeling that will come in handy as some point in the near future, my son,” she told him brightly.

He flushed when he opened the box and shut it quickly without letting you see what was inside. Especially as you weren’t really supposed to see the interaction. You and Thor were already at the entrance to the Bifrost and just waiting for Loki to finish his goodbyes to Frigga.

Things remained quiet back on Earth. Hydra and the witch hunters had seemed to have given up in the face of a dragon.

Or so you thought.

It was the middle of summer before anything happened. You had to go out to the store and decided to go after you got out of classes for the day. You had left your Loki at home that day. The heat was killing him and he couldn’t be outside very long without a huge drain on his magic. Frost Giants didn’t do well in the heat, and Loki was no exception to that. So you left him in the nice air conditioned tower and promised to be home soon. You left Sera at home to keep an eye on Loki. You didn’t trust him in this heat wave, even in the air conditioning and Sera would look after him and call you if she needed help with your frost giant. He swore up and down that he’d be ok, but he was lethargic even in the air conditioning and you were worried about him.

You rode your broom from the school to the store to get some specialty potion ingredients they didn’t keep at the school. You’d found an old spell book with a cooling potion and thought it might help. You just had to find the ingredients, which is what led you to the wizardry shop.

“Greetings, Sister,” one of the shopkeepers greeted you at the door. You didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t terribly surprising. You didn’t come here often since you could get most of your supplies at the school. “Would you care for a lavender cookie?” he asked, which is when you noticed the basket of cookies he was carrying. That was one of the perks to coming to this particular store. The lavender cookies were to die for.

You couldn’t help lighting up in delight. “I would, thank you!” you replied brightly. He gave you a warm smile and handed over one of the cookies in a napkin. You noticed that he had a tattoo on his hand, but couldn’t make out what it was since he was hiding it under an illusion. Once you realized it was an illusion you pointedly stopped looking at it. It was rude to try to see through his illusion and he probably just had to hide it for his job.

You ate your cookie as you wandered the store and made a note to yourself to buy some for Loki. You hadn’t been able to get him to eat more than ice cream in the last two days. Maybe you could bribe him with cookies to eat something. Your Lokitty loved his sweets. You tracked down all the potion ingredients and a dozen lavender cookies to take home to Loki.

You found yourself yawning as you wandered the store and nothing sounded as nice as a nap cuddled up with your dragon and your Lokitty. You wondered where that came from; you’d slept the previous night and hadn’t even done a lot of magic recently. You made your purchases and touched the jewel on the back of your hand with your mind, tapping the reservoir of power there. And noticing it was empty. It shouldn’t be empty. You shouldn’t be running low on power.

Something was wrong.

You had to get home now.

You tried to teleport, but just didn’t have the power for it.

You tried to contact Loki or Sera, but couldn’t even manage that little spell.

You had to get home.

Now.

You weren’t even thinking clearly enough to call home with your phone.

Instead you walked out of the shop, and directly into a pair of Witch Hunters. You could tell by their formal official robes and the tattoos on their hands. The man in the shop, he was working for them. The cookie must’ve been laced. They grabbed you by your arms and cuffed your hands in front of you before you could do anything. “You are under arrest for corruption of magic and breaking the statute of secrecy. You will come with us to present yourself before the Witch’s Council,” they told you formally.

You couldn’t form words to protest before they disappeared with you to who knows where.

#Loki #Lover #Imagine #Submitted fic #submission #the witch's familiar #chapter 36 #nekoamamori

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kingofbluebell · 7 years

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Video Game Forecast 2017

Due to some computer trouble and my lack of time to edit this week, I'm pushing the first anime review on this blog to next week. I want this review to be a good first impression for the greater anime community, and besides, if I rushed it out I'd be letting myself down. Instead, I'm going to ramble on at length about the upcoming games for 2017 that I'm excited to play because people sure love making lists on this topic. Yes, I touched on most of these games in post two weeks ago, but I didn't flesh out exactly why I was excited for them. As always this list reflects my personal taste which is sure to be different from anyone else who reads it. I'm trying to square away some other projects before the first load of games comes knocking at my door so let's finish this quickly. Just like with my other list posts I'll include a table of contents at the start for easier browsing.

Dragon Quest VIII

Gravity Rush 2

Yakuza 0

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Persona 5

Nier Automata

Super Mario Odyssey

Yooka-Laylee/A Hat in Time

Etrian Odyssey V

Kingdom Hearts 3

Dragon Quest VIII 3DS: Unlike the feelings of disappointment that grew as I reached the end of Dragon Quest VII, there is a precedent for me to enjoy this game a whole lot more. Dragon Quest VIII is one of my favorite games of all time, and the ability to easily play it anywhere is always a boon in my book. Sure the lack of the orchestral score, decreased resolution, and a voice actress change are making me hesitant to play it, but at its core, it's still Dragon Quest VIII: the pinnacle of the classic JRPG. I'll get used to the new voice for Jessica as I did for Chie and Teddie in Persona 4 when Golden came out and like that enhanced release, I'm excited to test out all the new features chief among them being the lack of random encounters. To me, this was the major thing holding back the original Dragon Quest VIII, even if the encounter rate was relatively unobtrusive, and with Akira Toriyama's iconic monster designs seeing those slimes scuttle across the world map is going to be a delight. I'm also curious to see how they've extended the story, especially with the inclusion of the two bonus characters. Plus I want to see what outfits I can put on my favorite guy Yangus. Unless another game appearing later on this list gets localized this year, or I muster up the will to plow through the Shin Megami Tensei IV duology I can't see another game vying for time in my 3DS this year.

Gravity Rush 2: Sure the dream to have this sequel be another defining title for the PS Vita is long since dead, but the combination of this game existing at all and the befuddling presence of the Vita in 2017 is more than enough to satisfy me. The original Gravity Rush translated very well to the PS4, and demo proves the controls have been refined even further. Being built from the ground up for the PS4 has not only improved the controls, but the brief glimpse of the vistas we'll be able to float through are anything to go by the developers certainly know how to make use of the rest of the PS4's hardware. I hesitate to classify Gravity Rush as a sandbox series, but that's mainly due to my reticence to play many of them now. Most of these games are heavily padded with additional objectives and exist on a playfield so large they become overwhelming. Gravity Rush also contains the myriad of collectibles and repetitive side missions of increasing difficulty however it doesn't immediately hit me that I've done this all before. The series' unique movement options and that said movement options only improve with every digression from the main plot certainly aid in this feeling, yet there is clearly something more. The original Gravity Rush's world, possibly stemming from the fact it was originally a portable game, felt compact and that translated into a more focused experience. I can't wait to see how I can mess around with the sequel's settings, but I hope the developers give me more ways to interact rather than more ground to cover.

Yakuza 0: If there were any franchise that exemplified the tenets I mentioned above it's Yakuza. The way folks over at Sega have gone about expanding the fictional city of Kamurocho, not by expanding the map but instead increasing the number of locations the player can explore in the same space is nothing short of genius game design that reflects actual urban development. This cost saving measure has not only allowed longtime fans to become familiar with the city as they would their real-life neighborhoods but also for the developers to make it come alive by including dozens of unique side activities on top of the already expanding and satisfying combat mechanics. While I'm still relatively new to the Yakuza franchise, my time playing the PS2 entries of the franchise make me excited to play more. I have no reticence jumping into a game further down the development timeline because I don't mind going back to older eras of 3D action games with their relatively stiffer controls. From what little I remember Yakuza 3 is a large step up from the PS2 era titles, and besides the story, design and charm of the franchise are more than enough to get me going back to older games even after playing the most refined game the series has to offer (in English). I'm just happy Sony and Sega are giving this franchise another chance outside of Japan. Even though prequels tend to get a bad rap in most media the Yakuza series storytelling pedigree has me excited to see how Kazuma and Majima turned into the men we've grown to love. In fact, the game being prequel has also given me the opportunity to sell the concept of this game to as many of my long-time GTA, martial arts, and crime-fiction loving friends as I can. The two-year localization wait for this game is almost at an end, and I can't wait to delve into the opulent world of 80's Japanese crime.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age: I've been a fan of the way Yasumi Matsuno crafts RPGs since before I could easily pronounce his name. His approach to story and characters are as nuanced as the game mechanics that encapsulate them. In my opinion, they're some of the few RPGs that have a real balance between their gameplay and narrative aspects which is saying a lot given the tendency for Japanese RPGs to rely more heavily on the latter for player engagement. The world(s) of Ivalice is one of the most intriguing fantasy settings ever created in any medium and while it saddens me to say we may never get another chapter in its story I'm more than happy to return to its grandest one. Final Fantasy XII was already a huge game within the constraints of a PS2 title, and I'm sure this PS4 upgrade will do its sweeping landscapes justice. More importantly, I'm excited to experience the Zodiac Job system after all these years. The original's license board being fully open for each character, while certainly gave multitudes of customization options, felt almost too broad to the point it became unwieldy to manage. Having a more focus skill set for each playable character will go a long way into making the fights more strategic. After playing Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir I'm curious if this collection will give us the opportunity to use either system for character progression though I'm doubtful it will. What I don't doubt is this title coming out in 2017. With news of more delays on Kingdom Hearts 3 and the Final Fantasy VII remake not to mention the impossibility of any localized version of Dragon Quest XI so soon, this HD remaster will be a solid stop-gap title for Square's RPG market.

Persona 5: The changing tides of Japanese game development, as well as the maturation of my taste, has made the (Shin) Megami Tensei series overtaking such giants as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest my favorite JRPG meta-franchise. Even almost succumbing to "Persona 4 Fatigue" and being let-down by Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE are not enough to change my mind. Persona 5 has a lot to live up to and from what little I've allowed myself to hear and see it has certainly impressed those who've played it. I'm grateful to have not been spoiled on any of the major plot developments and even many of the finalized game mechanics in the extended wait between the Japanese and global localization. I'm not normally the type of person to care about spoilers, but I've managed to hold back my excitement this long so why throw it all away at the eleventh hour? I haven't seen a new trailer for the game in at least a year, and I've gone so far as to avoid the English VA introduction videos for fear some of their characters are introduced too far into the story. I expect to either set up a myriad of blacklist programs or just take a sabbatical from most online interaction until I beat the game once so as not to be "tainted" by even the most benign meme. Sure I might become a hermit for a few weeks once the game arrives, but it'll be worth it to finally get to enjoy another full-fledged JRPG from masters of the craft.

Nier Automata: Rather than a screenshot I'm starting off this section by showcasing a very telling tweet from Drakengard/Nier creator Taro Yoko. There seems to be an unexplainable amount of pressure for this game to be amazing, and I'm still trying to break down how exactly we got to this point when at E3 2015 there were so many people confused about "the weird guy in the creepy mask". It's not like after the reveal of Nier Automata the rest of the franchise was made more readily available to a wider audience to get them acclimated to the franchise. The first two Drakengard games weren't released on the PS3 or PS4, and I don't believe Nier is eligible through streaming on PS Now or is backward-compatible with the Xbox One. You would think after the unfortunate state Drakengard 3 released in, being plagued with slowdown and having a third of the content locked away as DLC that cost as much as the base game, that the series would have stopped there. In fact, most fans were shocked Drakengard 3 came out at all. Despite the odds, it seems some folks at Square Enix must enjoy Taro's work and want let him continue to lead projects, which for people like myself is a delightful aberration in this industry. I wouldn't say I'm the most knowledgeable Drakengard/Nier fan, I haven't spent much time looking at the fan-translated supplementary materials, but Nier is still one of my favorite games of all time, so that's why I have high hopes for its sequel. Outside of folks like myself, I believe everyone else's hopes lie are with the developer of Nier Automata: Platinium Games. Despite some recent disappointments, which can partially be blamed on rushed development cycles for licensed products, Platinum Games have been responsible for some of the most mechanically complex and energetic games of all time. Their reputation certainly precedes them at this point, and I think a lot of people believe they'll bring a similar flair and finesse to the combat in Automata. However, after playing the demo it's clear that Nier Automata is going to play a lot closer to the original Nier than Bayonetta. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but that means that 2B isn't the next evolution of cyborg Raiden. Combat in the original Nier was a simple hack and slash with some interesting magic mechanics, and I believe Platinum's involvement with Automata will go a long way in smoothing out the combat in ways Taro's previous team at Cavia was just not capable of doing. From what the demo provided it's clear that Platinum succeeded at this without sapping a lot of the particular flavor people look to get from Taro's games. Personally, I'm ecstatic Taro gets to work with a team known for massive and intricate boss encounters because I can only imagine how much they'll be improved compared to those found in the original Nier. My biggest wish for 2017 would be for Nier Automata to be a resounding critical and financial success not only for Taro but also for Platinum. After the cancellation of Scalebound and Activision pulling out of licensed game development it'll be a rough time for them to find another project so soon and they could certainly use a big win.

Super Mario Odyssey: While everyone else seems blown away by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the game that piqued my interest more at the Nintendo Switch presentation was Super Mario Odyssey. Seeing Mario in a more sandbox oriented platformer for the first time in over a decade immediately grabbed my attention, and the idea of Mario going on a globe-hopping adventure will aid in making the cliche level tropes you see in most platformers have some distinctive flair. I must admit seeing one of the areas called "New Donk City" made me giggle more than the realization that a lot of the elements in the trailer mimic the original Sonic Adventure. More important to my potential enjoyment of the game was seeing all the additional movement abilities Mario as acquired for this new title. Mario can now swing as if he's performing an uneven bar routine and his hat, that is somehow sentient, can be thrown to act as an additional platform to reach greater distances. I'm unsure if the fan favorite "long jump" has made the transition to this title but it would surprise me if it didn't. Despite all of this I don't think Super Mario Odyssey, despite coming after a collection of solid titles, will be enough for me to purchase a Switch. My infatuation with portable consoles will have me buying the console eventually, but I'll be waiting until I hear more about that new Shin Megami Tensei game.

Yooka-Laylee/A Hat in Time: I'm putting both of these in the same paragraph because my thoughts on each of them are the same. Before Super Mario Odyssey got announced, these were the only 3D sandbox oriented platformers (have to find a better name for that before I take a deeper look at these games) on the horizon after the genre died out just at the start of the 7th console generation. I may not be the biggest fan of Banjo-Kazooie (certainly not its sequel), but I played and still replay on occasion the hell out of Insomniac developed Spyro the Dragon games. I adore the freedom you get roaming large levels and using your platforming prowess combined with your ever expanding move set and power-ups to tackle the various challenges put before you. I even like collecting a ridiculous amount of different collectibles, which is why I'm one of the few people who still emphatically enjoy Donkey Kong 64 outside of the memes. All these factors, as well as a majority of the original Banjo-Kazooie team involved with the project, convinced me and many others to heavily back Yooka-Laylee. The pedigree of the developers and constant updates have put a lot of our fears to rest after some rather large Kickstarter kerfuffles soured plenty on crowdfunding. I can't say I know as much about A Hat in Time though its smaller, inexperienced team and more meager funding explains its near four-year development cycle. Still, I've heard plenty of positive things from those who've backed the project and got to try out the demos. My fondness for the subgenre will have me giving this a shot as well if it reaches its promised release date this year.

Etrian Odyssey V: Last year I fell deeply in love with the plodding and challenging dungeons of the Etrian Odyssey franchise, completing two games. As arduous as they were I enjoyed (almost) every second of my hundred hour journeys, and I anxiously awaited the next title to be localized. I can understand Atlus wanting to make sure their global launch of Persona 5 to go smoothly before announcing any concrete release dates for games, but the wait for any news of Etrian Odyssey V's English localization is making me worry. Now with the Switch the next big thing from Nintendo resources from all companies, including Atlus, shifting to support it. It concerns me that a more niche title like Etriany Odyssey will be forgotten as we move to new hardware. Still the overwhelming success of Pokémon Sun & Moon, the lack of any announcement of a Switch Pokémon RPG, and the fact that Atlus USA tends to localize games for older hardware more often than other companies has me hopeful. Will we see Etrian Odyssey V in 2017? It's possible, and if it turns out to be true this year will be an even better year for games. Until then I should probably take the time to brave Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl to make sure I'm not too rusty.

Kingdom Hearts 3: I know anything can happen now than Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian and Owlboy came out last year, but I'm not holding my breath for Kingdom Hearts 3. I can guarantee to be there day one, but until then I'm not even touching 2.8 until the "third" entry in this franchise gets an actual release day. Just because I still harbor deep feelings for this hot mess of a series doesn't mean I need to be beholden to its whims. I'm not fifteen anymore.

So that's all the games I'm interested in checking out this year. I've chosen a lot of safe bets this year, but a lot of that has to do with me wanting to play a lot of highly rated Japanese games that have taken a while to localize. If any of the heavy hitters on other peoples' lists turn out to be great, I'll try to squeeze them in if I have the time and cash. In addition, every year there are a handful of smaller titles that blow everyone away that few initially knew about and when those inevitably rear their popularity onto the gaming landscape, I'll try to check them out too. I'd love to hear what games the people that read this post are looking forward to in 2017 so either leave a comment here or on my Twitter.

See you next week.

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