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sarahjtv · 3 years

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BNHA Chapter 309 Spoiler Thoughts: Izuku and Inko Midoriya, and Some More Things Along The Way

The chapter leaks are here again! Thanks to all the people on Twitter and here on Tumblr for providing us with scans and translations. This chapter helps explain some things that a lot of us were wondering about. Sadly, there’s still no Bakugo, or Shoto, or any other UA kids really; they’re only in flashbacks. But, we do get to see what All Might and the Top 3 Heroes (Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist) are up to, so that’s something. Anyway, remember to take what I say with a grain of salt until the official translations come out on Sunday:

The chapter starts a few minutes after Deku beat Muscular. He’s flying through the air taking an unconscious Muscular tied up in his Black Whip. The other Ketsubusu Academy students from the Lisence Exam see him too. Thankfully the stubborn civilians from 2 chapters ago are willing to help Yo Shindo recover in exchange for not listening moving to the school shelters. Also, Shindo’s barely conscious, but he does actually remember Deku. He’s just not the same Deku as before. Not much for me to say here except that I wonder if Shindo’s going to help spread the word about Deku’s actions. Not just to his classmates, but I wonder if the words’ going to get out to the news and UA. Actually, word might not even get that far since Shindo was only one of the few people in that exam that really even interacted with Deku...

Deku hands Muscular over to the police for them to take care off. He also makes sure to cover himself up in Smokescreen to hide his identity. So, Deku really is working in the shadows here. It is best that the public doesn’t know what Deku is doing so that the LoV don’t track him down. My man’s really going down the Batman route. Oh, I also have to admire Deku’s smartphone here kept in this steel case. I was going to say it’s a burner phone, but burner phones break easily for a reason and this one clearly doesn’t. Maybe it’s a special one that can’t be tracked down.

And we finally get to see All Might again! He is actively working with Deku instead of just not knowing where his protege is. He’s wearing casual clothes (jacket, jeans, sunglasses, the works) when he meets up with Deku in an alleyway. I’m honestly glad that All Might is still supervising Deku. I mean, Deku on his own would’ve been badass, but when you’re going up against people like AFO and Shigaraki, you’re going to need some help. Especially when laying low. Even with supervision, I still think Deku counts as a vigilante b/c I don’t think his license works if he’s not at UA. I will believe this unless proven otherwise.

It’s explained that the “wrapping” on Deku’s arms are actually gauntlets called “Mid-Gauntlets”, which are what are helping hold Deku’s arms together. And they are VERY similar to the gauntlets that Melissa Shield from Two Heroes gave Deku. Deku even says that All Might ordered them from the USA before travel restrictions were put in place. I know that it’s only implied, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Deku’s new gauntlets were made by Melissa. Even if you want to doubt it, at this point, Two Heroes (and by extension Heroes Rising and probably the upcoming 3rd movie, World Heroes Mission) are canon. Honestly, I’m cool with it. I liked Melissa and I’m glad her presence is still around (she was even in a Team-Up Mission chapter with Hatsume). I do wonder if we’re ever going to see her in the main story. It would be nice to see Melissa again.

The gauntlets are test samples and are used to enhance endurance. All Might says that they can’t withstand 100% of OFA yet. Which means that Deku actually beat Muscular with less than 100% unlike their first fight where Deku had to use over 100% just to knock him out. So, does this mean that, say, Deku’s current 45% is stronger than his 100+% back in the Forest Camp? Or maybe it was just the combo of moves and strategy rather then Deku just punching his way through things.

Small detail, but All Might’s phone goes off with that “I AM HERE” ringtone we heard before and Deku comments that this particular one is from All Might’s Silver Age TV Special! It’s such a small thing, but I love that Deku still has that All Might fanboy in him despite everything 💚! Somethings truly never change.

And back to the Top 3: Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist! Endeavor and Best Jeanist are teaming up to kick a villain’s ass while Hawks is talking to All Might on the phone. It looks like Hawks got a few costume changes particularly his visor/glasses which look more boxy than they did before if that makes sense. Oh, and they’re also helping All Might work with Deku. Makes sense since all three vowed to help take down Dabi earlier and Shigaraki and AFO definitely extend from that.

Deku’s Danger Sense is going off, so he’s probably going to check out any danger he can find in case it’s the LoV. I do wonder if that harms Deku still. It was said that it felt like a stabbing in his head and it must’ve been bad enough for the 4th OFA Holder to live in the forest away from society. Man, I really hope our boy is ok (I know he’s not really, let me have this).

But yeah, Hawks (still wingless, but with a nice little undercut btw😳) explains that Deku's afraid of dragging other people in his battles like All Might. Hawks also goes on to say that it’s best to take the initiative in taking down AFO and Shigaraki rather than waiting for them to appear all powered up. He also wants All Might to keep supporting him despite the difficult position he’s in (remember that All Might’s technically Qurikless again and can’t really fight on his own). It makes sense for them to go after the Villains again while they can. If Deku fought Shigaraki while Shigaraki was at full strength, Deku would lose easily. Even at 75%, Shigaraki was able to kill and injure A LOT of people, and Deku was lucky to even make it out there alive. They need to find Shigaraki SOON!

Flashback to Central Hospital before Deku jumped UA ship! Recover Girl and Central Hospital’s high-tech were responsible for many of the patience recovering quickly and being discarged. Deku was just there a little longer than the others. So, we can assume that all our UA kids and some notable heroes made it out alive after being treated. Still don’t know what happened to some people like Tamaki and Fat Gum tho 😭.

All Might and Deku’s mom, Inko (thank god she’s ok), are by Deku’s bedside as his casts are taken off. Deku’s doctor (who looks like Super Mario/Luigi; the whole Super Mario crew must run this damn place. Where’s Bowser and Princess Peach) explains that despite his former warnings about his ligaments, Deku’s limbs are still functioning because he’s not the same as he was before. So, before, Deku’s injuries were like his limbs were exploding from the inside, but this time those “explosions” were able to escape his body. Also his Black Whip cast helped keep Deku’s arm in tact so that he wouldn’t pulverize himself. His ligimates are still degrading too, so Deku still has to be careful. I think he might have a few more small scars too, but that could just be shadows or muscle lining from Horikoshi’s pen-work.

Ok, honestly, I’m not sure how this logically works... I’m no medical professional, but I assume this means that Deku’s built his body up so much that it’s naturally able to withstand more damage than before and that’s why he’s more durable. But, I don’t know how Deku was able to let the “explosions” escape this time. I get the reverse; I get how he got injured before, but I don’t get this. Was it the Black Whip brace he made for himself? I honestly don’t really understand this. Maybe the official translations will clear this up. Or Horikoshi will in a Tweet or Volume Extra.

And Inko is finally informed of OFA thank the gods! She was in the top of my list of “People who should really, really know OFA and what’s going on with Deku because I swear...”. She’s clearly shaken up as anyone would be, but I’m glad she at least knows what’s going on with her son. Yes, she’s still worried, but at least she can stop guessing why all this is happening.

Deku announces the reason why he won’t go back to UA and it’s basically that Shigaraki can sense where Deku is and he doesn’t want to see anyone else close to him get hurt and/or die. So, basically what I thought would be the reason. Absolutely no surprise there. But, going after Shigaraki and AFO first was originally Deku’s idea, so that’s something new. Kid’s bold.

And this broke my heart 💔! Inko insists that Deku stay with her to stay safe, but Deku knows what he has to do. So, he thanks his mom, thanks her for making him happy, and tells her that he’ll be ok and that he’ll come back home with a somber smile on his face. We see a flashback to Little Deku and Inko too when they were happier. Bro, I don’t even know what to say. I am in tears just writing this 😭 I’ll just post these two panels so y’all can cry with me. I will never recover from this. I’m fucking devastated. You better come home, Deku:

*sniffs* All Might remembers what he said to Inko. He remembers how he said that he will protect Deku with his life. All Might encourages Deku to go and he says that he’ll go with him with tears in his eyes. He asks the Top 3 to help with this mission (finding Dabi) as their own mission coincides with Deku’s (finding Shigaraki and AFO). I’m so glad all these adults are staying by Deku’s side throughout this. It’s good to know that Deku still has support, though I wish it were from some of his friends too. Maybe one day.

Deku goes to see Grand Torino in his hospital room to talk to him about OFA. He mentions his friend and 7th Holder Nana Shimura. Torino thinks he was responsible for killing Shigaraki (he really wasn’t let's be real). He also tells Deku that Deku shouldn’t be so persistent in saving Shigaraki as killing can sometimes lead to salvation. Ok, few things:

1. I am surprised Grand Tarino is still alive. I mean, we don’t know what happened to him after this talk, but at least he got to hear from Deku again. It’s kind of nice to know that Tarino willingly passed down his cape to Deku too instead of Deku just taking it after his death. Also, I’ve been watching some of Jujutsu Kaisen like everyone else has and this give me some Yuji & his grandfather vibes to it. Knowing what happens there and that JJK’s magaka is good friends with Horikoshi, I have a sinking feeling I know what happened after this talk...

2. Deku looks so much older here. Like, it’s not that cute, innocent baby face we knew at the beginning. I don’t even know what it is exactly (maybe the eyes), but he just looks more mature here. Also, his uniform some buttons down looks really good on him, I’m sorry but I need to mention that too 💚.

3. “Killing is a means towards salvation”. Oh, boy... I mean, I get it. Some people just can’t be saved or captured in hopes of rehabilitation/redemption. Sometimes killing people is necessary to save others. But, Deku is not a killer. He will try to save Shigaraki no matter what. That was established again last chapter. He tried to save Muscular for god’s sake. But, I am curious if Gran Tarino’s words are going to hold any weight in the final fight. Like, will Deku have to kill Shigaraki? What will that do to Deku as a person? I’m really curious if Horikoshi is going to make Deku do this.

And finally, there’s a page showing off the Top 3, Deku, and All Might team up with the resolve to beat the LoV. I am really interested to see where this goes. Deku is working with the big Pro Heroes instead of his classmates/friends. This hasn’t really happened before. I also wonder if Shoto and Bakugo know what Deku’s doing then. Because Shoto’s going to help Endeavor and his family find Dabi. Endeavor’s activley helping Deku. Also, Endeavor and Best Jeanist are both Bakugo’s mentors. All Might too actually. Look, maybe I’m making excuses to see my Origin Trio together again, but I do have to wonder if Shoto and Bakugo are involved somehow.

Welp, that’s it. This chapter was a rollercoaster! I was excited, I was confused, I was worried, I cried my eyes out at one point because THOSE TWO PANELS I CANNOT 💔😭! I’m honestly just waiting for Horokishi to drop some major time-skip on us at some point. I don’t want him to, but I won’t be entirely surprised if he does. The end of this chapter is a good place to end if Horikoshi wants to segway into something else like, oh IDK, THE UA KIDS LET ME SEE THEM AGAIN HORIKOSHI PLS I’M BEGGING 💸

Me @ Horikoshi almost every week:

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blackberry-gingham · 3 years

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Hii I love your writing and was so happy to see your taking requests💗. If your ok with doing au’s, could I request headcannons for the lads being the reader’s guardian angel?

Aw this sweet 🥺🥺 sure, I'll see what I can do! I feel like this an established trope, but I don't know too much about it bc I haven't seen many examples 💀 Sooooo yeah, I'm just going to do my own take on this!

I'm thinking of the like typical bird people type angels, so you know, like a physical being with wings on the back and stuff, oh but a thing to note is only you can see your angel!

George

George would 10/10 be an overbearing guardian angel lol

Technically, angels aren't supposed to reveal themselves unless if their charge is in either extreme distress or a life or death situation

But George always worries for you!

Tripped and scrapped up your knee as a kid?

George is there to help you up and dry your tears

Lost your mom at the store?

George comes to help you find her

Stuck in the rain at the bus stop after work?

George let's you take cover under his wing to stay dry

Needless to say, you guys become super fast friends!!

It gets to a point where he just hangs out with you whenever and wherever, even if you're just sitting in your room

What can he say? He loves spending time with you!

Oh another thing, George loves trying human food!

If you like cooking or baking, or even if you don't mind just making an extra lunch sandwich, he really appreciates it and loves whatever you make!

Also, he loves when you touch or play with his wings

Usually this is kind of a no no with other angels since it's a big source of their power, but you and George have a special bond!

If any of his feathers fall out from preening, he lets you keep them

Once they're seperated from the wing, they lose most of their power, but enough of them together can ward off minor threats in his absence

He loves that that's a thing

It's like he can still protect you, even when he can't be there :)

John

Have you guys ever seen that meme where it's like an angel statue and it's face palming?

Then the caption is like "my guardian angel watching me, like, exist" or whatever lmao

That's John 😂

At first you're kind of just a silly little human to him tbh

Maybe even a little rascal!!

So he's there for you pretty often

I mean really, how is he supposed to stay away when you so obviously need his protection???

After all, anyone who gets John assigned as their angel probably likes getting up to mischief lol

He lets your parents handle little things, like a scraped knee or a bad day, but things that get you really hurt like a bad fall, will have him come running

Another weakness is he can be a bit overbearing and will kind of like... jedi mind trick bullies and the like away from you to keep you safe

But times where you're in emotional distress...

You can always rely on him

Like, the night before starting a new school year or a tough test?

He'll sit up and comfort you all night if he has to until you feel calm enough to sleep

Stressing for an interview or meeting?

You can bet he'll be sitting right there with you the whole time, cheering you on!

It takes a bit of time for John to trust you, but as the years pass, you find you're able to rely on his presence pretty consistently

If you've held onto your mischievous streak and like doing thrilling type activities, like hiking, rafting, or bungee jumping, John is by your side like 24/7 lol

One the one hand he wants to participate as much as he's able

But at the same time, he watches you like a hawk, making sure you don't get hurt, or worse

And good thing too

Let's just say he's saved you from such a fate more then once lol

Paul

Honestly, Paul would be the one to follow Da Rules™ the closest

He feels just awful seeing you sad or hurt as a kid, but he knows he's really not supposed to reveal himself

Despite, John and George doing whatever the heck they want apparently

Of course, he has come to your rescue a few times as a kid tho!

One day at the lake, you waded in alone and got caught in an undertoe

You were terrified to find that you couldn't swim to the surface

And just when you thought you couldn't hold your breath any longer, a hand plunged in and snatched you up

Your parents, who were worried sick, found you on the shore side a few minutes later

You always wondered who saved you...

As you got older and started to learn about guardian angels however, that's when you started getting more acquainted with Paul

See, kids usually don't understand what's happening when they see an angel, and the angels certainly wouldn't want their kids to be afraid of them!

They also wouldn't want to risk the children getting too attached

After all, that kind of bonding should be built with caretakers and other humans

But once you're grown, it's much safer to be a little more loose with interactions between the angel and their human

Once you are older, and find yourself getting into less dangerous situations, Paul just hangs out with you like a friend would

You love having him around, especially in stressful times like school and work deadlines

He likes to sing to you when you're feeling anxious, and with you when you're having fun!

His voice is the most beautiful sound you've ever heard, and you love it more then any human music

Which is kinda funny, considering he seems quite fascinated with human instruments and songs!

Ringo

Ringo, like Paul, is also pretty big on following Da Rules™

Although, Ringo is very overprotective towards you when you're sick

Especially if you're sick a lot or have something chronic, like asthma and the like

One night, during a really bad case of phnuemonia, you had to spend a few nights in the hospital

It was awful, especially for a little kid such as yourself

Even though you were in no immediate danger, anytime your family or doctor couldn't be there, Ringo stuck by your side all the while

It was sort of your official meeting, honestly

At first you were scared that you'd died when you first saw him, but he quickly reasured you that that wasn't the case!!

He always felt a little bad for that ever since

And only showing up when you were sick didn't make things much better...

So after a while, he decided to hang around you during normal times too

You guys become fast friends, and you appreciate his good sense of humor!

Also, you especially appreciate his help when you're sick as an adult and off on your own

He's practically your personal nurse!

Plus, anything that gets you a fever, he can kind of treat for you, actually 👀

While he himself doesn't have any healing powers, he likes to fan you with one of his wings

His wings are smaller then most, so he's worried they won't do much to help you

But that's completely untrue!

The breeze coming off his feathers has the same magical properties as anyone else's :)

You feel a cooling sensation almost immediately, and your fever is sure to break soon enough

#Guardian Angel AU #. i made myself cry again with this one 💀💀😭#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #comfort

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hamliet · 3 years

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I think your blog is one of the best out there. Maybe becuase of this , maybe because of your awesome takes... I find it hard being in the fandom. And I wanted to share this very unpopular opinion. The more it goes on the more I wonder : how did Enji turned into this? Most of all in fandom tends to justify touya because he’s the result of Enji’s abuse. However Enji isn’t a natural born abuser. I’ve read and saw plenty: he has not manias of control. He accept easily his wife to leave him (he wanted to build an house for her and since Shoto’s accident he hadn’t forced himself on her). He wanted an heir, true and he was more neglecting (which is a form of abuse). But many time were found evidences in studies neglecting parents have issues of their own. Which can be found in their original family and / or society (if no mental illnesses are implied).

This made me wonder. I love Japanese culture , novels and society. And one of the most recurrent theme , especially some decades ago, is the high pressure people are exposed. It was and sometimes still is a nichilist model in which you die or fly and sometime you can’t hope to Rise once again when you fail. For example the concept of “you need to go at a go prek to get in a good university and find a good job” is often depict and put to extreme in many media. This inspire even books in which families are up for anything to push their children and they are under great pressure. Since Enji seems a not so bad man per se, has no mental illnesses , the only thing left is his immense obsession that must come from something. And the fact that in society a man must be successful... I think here it is.

The fact he can’t express his feeling correctly for the most of MHA , neither he can’t read them at the point of being perceived “with no compassion at all” comply the stereotype of the father with way too high standard , this can’t come from nothing. It’s not hard unreasonable thinking he was most likely pressured as much when younger , and that broke him at some point (which is a recursive theme in many others novels). This doesn’t justify him, but it might explain why he ended up like this.

But while everyone seems to be able to... forgive dabi , justifying his doings becuase of how he was raised while condamning 100% Enji. However the lingering theme of my hero’s villains is that they aren’t a monster , they’re turned into one; and society played a huge role. I don’t stand for Enji’s actions (who would) but ultimately? If all villains were broken by society at some point (being AFO the only exception for now) why can’t be him too? Broken by a society that demands from heroes to be perfect , to never be weak, even through total desperation? Society even made a joke of all might who gave his life entirely and part of his organs for Japan. Rather than only condemning Enji for his doings , much like is doing with Dabi, the spotlight should be society again.

He did wrong. Terribly wrong. and now everyone is ready to crucify him. But how society taught him better ? How society perceive heroes as humans , how far they can be weak and fails and not be blamed? Like father , like son. Touya is the result of his family , I think it should be considerated Enji was the product of a corrupted society. Which never correct itself , never tries to change... they just discard heroes and villains alike just for not being “perfect”.

Hi! Aw, thank you for your kind words <3

So, I’ll break this down a bit, because I think this discussion needs a lot of nuance. I agree society affected Enji, but I don’t quite think that a victim of society is remotely comparable to being a victim of parental abuse.

To start with, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that abusers are born, and hence don’t buy that Enji is somehow different (or better) because he wasn’t born that way.

To note, I talking specifically about physical/emotional/spiritual domestic abuse, not about sexual abuse (and I don’t wanna talk about that because it’s not relevant here, so no one send me asks about it, thanks).

Abuse is a description of an action and its affects. I’ll quote @linkspooky’s meta on Hawks last week: abuser is not a bad word, it’s not just something that bad people do. It’s an unhealthy relationship dynamic that even good people, even sympathetic people can participate in. It’d be great if we could just do a genetic test and determine if someone is an abuser (actually it wouldn’t be great; it’d be dystopian and terrifying), but that’s not how people work.

However, “abuser” is seen as a bad word, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (nuance/abuse is horrific and takes such a toll on people that I’m glad it is given serious weight in some respects, although imo it’s overemphasized in fandom places and underemphasized in real life) and I’m not getting into good/bad/pluses/minuses of linguistic connotations here.

Hence, I would actually categorize what Rei did to Shouto as abuse, and I do think the story indicates she was neglectful towards her other children. However, I have never labeled her an “abuser” because of the negative connotation as is clear she is not a repeat offender and Shouto doesn’t even blame her--he blames Enji, and I don’t think that’s an incorrect assessment either. It’s complicated. Abuse victims can be abusers at the same time as they are victims (ask many a kid of an abusive dad what their mom was like; at best if they didn’t intervene it’s usually neglectful and often people go no contact with both parents). People we love and care for can participate in abuse.

Mental illness is also complex in its relationship to abuse. Mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims of abuse than perpetrators, and mental illness doesn’t make someone predisposed to being a bad person. Mental illness does affect how I see Rei’s actions, because she was clearly out of her mind at the moment she burned Shouto’s face; at the same time, mental illness doesn’t erase harm done even if the person can’t be held super culpable. Enji on the other hand was not mentally ill in the same way; he was able to think logically and separate right from wrong even within society (because society clearly still views beating your kids as bad).

It’s actually not really accurate to say that Endeavor didn’t try to control Rei and just let her go--he put her in the institution to keep her away from Shouto, which may have been motivated of course by trying to protect Shouto, but was more likely “trying to protect his masterpiece.” Rei instantly regretted what she had done; Enji didn’t show regret until after Kamino. Also, Shouto himself views it as taking their mother away, not as protecting him. In fact, he sees it as removing his protector and leaving him with just the abusive dad. Plus, Rei’s doctors probably wouldn’t have let him see her. So I absolutely do think Enji is a control freak.

For Enjii, there’s no indication of prior trauma besides just not getting what he wanted. But, as you say, I do think Enji was absolutely a product of society--culturally, though I’m not qualified to comment on that, and within the manga’s own framing of that culture. However, while Enji is a product of society, he is not framed with the child framing that is present around Touya; hence, why he’s not a victim in the same sense. He was an adult when he started doing bad things, capable of reason, as far as we know and there’s no indication this isn’t the case. He was ~20 when Dabi was born, so that means he was looking for a quirk marriage at the very latest by 19. That’s like starting your career as an administrative assistant and being pissed you’re not CEO like, a year after starting! That implies that he had a sense of entitlement at a very young age, entitled to the point of believing kids were not full people but instead extensions of himself to ignore, beat up, and cast aside as he pleased. Every aspect of Enji’s personality screams of toxic masculinity as well.

Also, almost every person who has ever done something wrong (and those who haven’t!) is a product of their environment as well as of their genetics, but I wouldn’t classify everyone as a victim--even though technically I suppose they would be, but the connotations are just not particularly fitting--and I wouldn’t call Enji one. Enji might be a product of society, but his kids are victims of a deliberate choice he had to be a terrible parent. Society sucks, but we don’t choose it and it doesn’t choose us in the same sense a parent chooses to treat their kids a particular way. So, rather than saying Enji’s a victim of society, I think it’s more of society reaping what they’ve sown in terms of their #1 being revealed as a mass abuser; it’s karmic.

So to return to his character and Enji is also a representation of toxic masculinity--that is why for me personally, his crying this chapter actually resonated. Like, I think it was well-framed in that his victims didn’t feel sorry for him and he cried before he knew they were coming, and while I get that people think he has no right to cry (as Rei and Natsuo said!). I see why people interpret that as manipulative, and while I absolutely think it was self-pitying, I also personally see it as human and realistic, and perhaps as a slight chipping away of the toxic masculinity that he embodies. We’ll see. I’m still no fan but that was the first moment in his redemption arc that struck me as sincere.

#Anonymous #abuse tw #endeavor

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writingat-night · 3 years

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tagged by my lovely mutual @tauremornalome in the first line game!

rules: list the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). see if there are any patterns. choose your favourite opening line.

tagging: @plotdesigner @shuttymcshutfuck and anyone else who wants to! (feel free to let me know if you want to be tagged next time i do one of these writing tag games — i honestly just don’t know which of you write)

okay. so the thing about my writing is that i never fucking finish it, and a lot of my wips are just a jumble of unconnected scenes. technically, i have more than 20 (unfinished) stories, but i’ll only be posting the ones that a) actually Have A First Line, and b) i hope to finish at some point in the distant future.

1. blue seas to mulberry fields (the untamed, nhs-centric, the only half decent fic i’ve ever published)

Jin Guangyao is dead.

He’s dead, run through by Lan Xichen’s sword, crushed under a hundred tonnes of rubble and debris. He is gone.

Nie Huaisang knows this. He does. But one man’s death is nothing compared to a lifetime. Compared to years of shouting for Meng Yao when he needed help. Compared to years of calling him San-ge. Compared to a decade of planning revenge.

2. theon greyjoy and the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day(s) (working title) (game of thrones/asoiaf, theon-centric)

Theon doesn’t know when, exactly, his status in Winterfell changes from prisoner to ward.

The first time he is a prisoner is during the Siege of Pyke. He isn’t a prisoner of Winterfell, not yet. But a prisoner is a prisoner is a prisoner all the same, regardless of if he’s locked in a cell or trapped in his own home.

3. take a chance, remake the world (game of thrones/asoiaf, starks-centric)

Two years, four months, and seventeen days after his coronation, King Brandon Stark, Bran the Broken, first of his name, wakes with a purpose. His first true purpose in a long time. He must go today.

4. your place in the family of things (game of thrones/asoiaf, sansa and theon-centric)

Sansa has always prided herself on her composure. When she was a child, she had spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting her curtsy and her posture and her politest smile. She always says please and thank you and she knows her manners better than any of her siblings ever did. She does all her homework and raises her hand in class when she knows the answer (which is almost always) and earns A-stars in almost every test. She never loses her temper or complains about her workload. Her parents spent a lot of time and money to get her and her sister into this school. She knows that, and she’s grateful for it.

She’s certainly not the kind of girl who breaks down sobbing over her French notes. And yet.

5. untitled whisper of the heart au (the untamed, sangcheng and nie bros-centric)

Nie Huaisang would like to say, for the record, that he has the worst brother in the world.

Objectively, he is aware that worse people exist. Meng Yao, for one. Jin Guangshan definitely makes the cut. Jin Zixun– well, Huaisang hasn’t talked to him since the time he punched him in the face in junior middle school, but he’s sure he’s still an asshole. Maybe Jins just suck, like, as a rule. (Excluding Zixuan. Except, actually, he is kind of a dick. He’s working on it, though, so Huaisang will cut him some slack.)

But as a brother? Mingjue is the worst.

6. bastards anonymous (working title, obviously) (game of thrones/asoiaf, baratheon bastards-centric)

Gendry should have known that Secret Santa with Arya was a bad idea. It’s their first time including her in the present-giving, and they were very clear about the five pound limit. Not a one of them earns above minimum wage, except Arya. She doesn’t have a job, but her allowance is more than Gendry gets paid in a month.

7. the todorokis gtfo (working title) (bnha, todorokis and hawks-centric)

Fuyumi is not a good daughter.

She is not like Shouto. She is not the prodigy, the golden child, the future hero. She doesn’t have a quirk so strong it nearly burnt down the house when it first manifested, a quirk so perfectly balanced that even his appearance reflects it. She doesn’t have a destiny laid out in front of her, ready to be followed like a gold-paved road.

She isn’t a bad child, either, she hopes. Not like Natsuo. They might both be the middle children, in a way (although she’s technically tied for eldest with Touya, she is six minutes younger than him), both the failures, both invisible, but she’s content with that. Natsuo isn’t. She tries to balance out his anger at their father, to get him to just keep his head down and do as he’s told, but the more time he spends with Touya, the more rebellious he becomes.

But, then, she supposes it makes sense, given his circumstances. After all, Fuyumi might not have the unbeatable quirk their father dreamed of, but at least she has one.

8. show me where my armour ends (bnha, dabihawks, because i refuse to let go of this ship and i hate canon)

If there’s a better end to a day of hero work than a shower hot enough to turn his skin as bright red as his wings, Hawks hasn’t found it yet. Being a hero might be hard, but it’s damn worth it for the feeling of washing away grit and blood under scalding water, if for nothing else. After the day he’s had, he’s more than earned it.

9. untitled modern au (game of thrones/asoiaf, theon and the starks centric)

For all that his children seem to believe otherwise, Ned Stark is not an idiot. He has five kids, a sixth on the way, and he has learned something about being a parent in the past eight years.

He is not fooled when Robb comes down for dinner five minutes early, smiling brightly, and says, “Hi, Daddy! Do you want me to set the table?”

Robb had stopped calling him and Cat Mummy and Daddy at the start of the school year, because no-one calls their parents that anymore, Dad, come on, I’m in Primary Four now. He only uses it now when he wants something. And he never offers to set the table.

10. houses out of cardboard boxes (voltron (i know, i know, i’m sorry), adashi)

Adam isn’t nervous, per se. Adam Wadekar doesn’t do nervous. It’s just that this is his first time at a new school since he started teaching, so he may be a little out of practise

(Also, he’s back in California for the first time in years, after vowing to never return. But, whatever. Not the point.)

11. untitled character study (pjo, will solace-centric)

As a rule, Will is nonviolent. Between a staunchly pacifist mom, a complete lack of athletic ability, and a pathological urge to please people, he doesn’t think he could hurt another person if he tried.

But when you walk into your kitchen to see a man with goat legs and two teenagers holding swords, all common sense sort of goes out the window.

hmm. i feel like all of them have a similar.... vibe, but i can’t pin down a pattern, per se. i tend to open with a fact about a character and then some kind of contradiction, a lot of the time. i think my favourites are probably blue seas to mulberry fields, your place in the family of things, the todorokis gtfo, and the will solace one. (mainly blue seas, though. i will fucking finish that fic if it Kills Me)

#athena talks #tag game #my writing #the untamed #game of thrones #bnha #voltron #pjo #again: no pressure to do it if you don’t want to!

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northstarfan · 4 years

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Mag7 AU: Dead Man Banging

So, @lazaefair and I did a thing.

Spinning out of this post, the fandom now has a Mag7/24 Hours To Live not-fic. (24 Hours to Live is currently on Netflix. It is... a lot of not great, but Ethan Hawke gets to be a shirtless, beaten-down human disaster with soulful eyes. That's plot bunny Viagra right there.)

Also, the name of this particular AU is by @hellolittleogre, and it's just too perfect. Thank you, hon! <3

Third twist: Travis’s hallucinations of his wife and kid start getting intercut with hallucinations of Billy.

Fourth twist: The Company decides to test just how long Doc Helen's refined procedure works. They turn off the kill switch and just put Billy and Travis in a room together to see how long it takes before Travis just up and dies.

(None of them - Billy and Travis included - have put two and two together that love-related hormones have been fucking with the revivication cycle; Billy's just allowed on because the presence of his fuck buddy/partner keeps Travis more tractable.)

Travis is ready to chew rocks and spit sand because he assumes Billy's been strong-armed into this. Billy shrugs and says he volunteered.

Yes, Billy started fucking Travis after he found out Travis is technically dead. It’s against his better judgment; the association with necrophilia is unavoidable, and people in their line of work who have or develop anything that messes with their impulse control - like strong sexual fetishes - end up dead very fast. So he successfully ignores his attraction for a couple missions.

And then after yet another narrow escape Goodnight spouts off something about how "You make me feel alive again" only phrased much more stupidly poetically while they're squashed together into a very small hiding place and he— Billy can feel the warmth of Goodnight's body seeping into his side, can hear and feel his chest moving as he breathes, can smell the tang of his sweat and blood, knows if he touched Goodnight's skin his hand would come away slick with that sweat. Absolutely nothing about him suggests that he'll be a corpse in half a day, everything about him says that he's alive. And his whisky-hoarse voice brushes so softly at Billy's ear...

Travis has his own hesitancies about getting emotionally involved too - his wife and kid were killed by his old outfit, and his best friend was in on it. They made it look like a revenge killing, but it was really all about trying to keep Travis in the game when he was thinking about getting out of it for his family. (Had the opposite effect, hence the human disaster period.)

But in the end... fuck, what does he have to lose? (Or so he tells himself. He knows the answer.)

Extra points if Billy is Travis’s first time with a guy.

But it's Billy. Billy is his soulmate across the fandom multiverse, so their first time is surprisingly easy, for all that it's in some dank bolthole of a safe house and neither of them can ever forget the clock that's always ticking down. But Billy's plastered all along his front, intense, ferocious, dragging Goodnight with him into passionate pleasure with the same uncompromising focus he brings to his work, and hey wow, dead or not, apparently Goodnight is really into that.

All tangled up in each other on a narrow mattress, nerves humming with the kind of contentment touch-starved Billy hasn't felt in a long time, and Travis hadn't figured he'd ever feel again. The bruises Billy's left on his biceps are almost as satisfying as his first tattoos. Even if no one ever gives the order to wake him up again, at least he had a choice in that much.

After that day, and after a few more missions where he revives to Billy's voice and Billy's face, his hallucinations start coming on later and later in the cycle. He's winding down much later and more slowly. Until there's one mission where - of course you can't say anything with absolute, 100% scientific certainty - but that's the mission where it looks an awful lot like the only reason Travis dies at the end is because of the kill switch, not because of the drugs metabolizing.

(I am 100% here for "Death itself is held at bay by true love" in this ridic wannabe-John Wick setting. XD)

But regardless, that curiosity as to why the treatments are lasting longer is how he and Billy end up in a glass-fronted room, watching garbage TV on the overhead, shooting the shit, and playing cards to pass the time. Until the hallucinations start. The Boss wants to pull Billy out then; even unarmed, Travis is dangerous. Doc Helen wants to wait and see how it plays out. First round of brainfuckery ends with Travis' face hidden against Billy's shoulder, shuddering as he uses the familiarity of his partner's scent to try and ground himself in the here and now.

(The penny doesn’t drop for anyone even then; no one in the business is at all body-shy - can’t afford to have hang-ups in life-and-death situations - especially if they work with a partner.)

Second round is quieter - Travis goes into a fugue and stares into space for a while, before he abruptly jolts out of it. Doesn't say a damn thing, just joins Billy on the cot and goes back to watching Blue Planet. He's a little wobbly, even seated. Billy's shoulder picks up the slack again.

Billy is controlling himself to a degree even he rarely has to reach for; he desperately wants to curl around Goody and kiss him and touch him the way lovers touch each other, make Goody feel at least a little more protected. But he can’t do that, obviously. And then at the same time he still has to stay relaxed and comforting for Goody's sake, minimize the stress Goody might sense in him. Without going outside the bounds of platonic affection. While watching Goody die in front of him. More slowly than usual, sure, but he recognizes the same progression.

He's seen his partner dead. He's never had to stand by and watch him take that last breath. Sometimes the hand-off to the doc - Helen - has been with minutes to spare, with Goodnight barely on his feet. Not this time. He's here for the duration. He doesn't know how many times Goodnight has been through this. He can be there for him this once. He'll hold it together, for Goody's sake.

Goody shudders against him, a quiet spasm. Billy squeezes his shoulder, resists the urge to stroke his face.

"It's all right. Don't think about it."

“Doubt it’s a walk in the park for you, either,” Goody mumbles quietly into Billy’s shoulder. “Just feels like passin’ out on my end, these days. But you’re gonna feel my heart stop.”

Billy contemplates him for a long moment, thinking all the things he can’t say, not in front of the cameras and mics, not in front of the blank stretch of two-way glass.

He finally settles on a deliberate, exaggeratedly dismissive, “Eh. I’ll live.”

Goody shakes against him again, but from laughter this time. “Jesus H. Christ, Rocks, that’s cold, even for you. Didn’t know you had it in you,” and Billy snickers with him. Neither of them mention the faint whistle in Goody’s voice or the fainter rattle in his lungs.

"Son of a bitch," Goodnight mutters, lingering laughter twisting the curse into affection. "No wonder the fish don't like you."

Billy blinks. This is new. "What?"

"Something my father-in-law told me once. Explaining why I was so shit at fishing. Animals are drawn to the light of men's souls or some shit. And I don't have a soul, so I never could catch a fucking fish."

"Gee, thanks." Goodnight's fully resting against him now; Billy shrugs hard enough to jostle him in retaliation. "Asshole."

"Two of a kind..." He sits up with a jolt. His tired eyes are wide and confused as he glances around the room. "Shit. Shit. Rocks, what are you doing here?" He tries to stand and somehow manages it.

"Hey. Goodnight." Billy can see his partner's pulse hammering stubbornly away in his throat. "Hey. Sit back down. I'm supposed to stay with you, remember?"

"They're going to be home soon... you can't be here. Shit."

Billy almost asks, but the answer comes to him. The wife and kid. Goody never even says their names, but he's told Billy what happened to them. He's hallucinating a memory. It's on the tip of his tongue to tell Goodnight that they're dead. But there's no point. He'll remember soon enough.

"You're right. I'm not here," he murmurs. "I'm your fucked up mind playing tricks on you. So just relax and wait until your family gets in, all right?"

He’s expecting a repeat of the first round of hallucinations, braces himself against it. Instead, he gets an uncertain look and a long exhale, and then the line of Goody’s shoulders smooths out and he smiles all wry and lopsided at Billy. Billy ignores his heart flopping over in his chest and looks back up at him, steady and waiting.

“Well,” Goody says, almost to himself, “I’ve had uglier hallucinations show up on my couch, I guess. And you...” he reaches out suddenly, rests the tips of his fingers on the side of Billy’s neck with a tiny caress that sends arousal quicksilvering through Billy’s veins, bright and shocking. Like he’s a fucking teenager again. He manages to keep his eyes open, but it’s a close call. “You feel near enough to real it almost don’t make a difference. Wish we could...”

His eyes are fucking gorgeous even under the shitty fluorescent lighting. Blue and vital. Billy holds himself ruthlessly still. “Could what?”

(Have we stumbled on this fandom’s very first fuck or die scenario?)

(I think we may have created a whole new one - fuck and die. On repeat. XD)

"I wish we could have known each other out in the world, man," Goodnight sighs. "Before everything went to shit. When I could still stand the sound of my own fucking name. You ever seen the Keys?"

His hand is still on Billy's neck; he can feel his own pulse against Goody's fingers, the subtle electricity running between the two of them.

"I never got that far south," he manages. He wants to take Goody out of this fucking room and let him have some kind of dignity. He wants to curl up around him and keep him safe while the clock ticks down. He doesn't want to think of how he's thrown his heart for dogs to tear, falling for this ghost of a man. They just... need to get through this.

"You should go. Fishing's shit, but... sunlight and sand and wide, blue ocean. You'd like it." He quiets for a time. "Kate and Adam aren't coming. I know that."

"All right, Goody." He squeezes Goodnight's wrist. The kill switch embedded in Goody's flesh is cold, even under a layer of skin. He commits the names of the dead to memory. "Sorry. Thought it'd be good for you to forget a while."

"I don't. Not really." Another span of quiet, longer this time. "How long's it been?"

"I don't know. Longer than a day, I guess. You're doing all right. I haven't had to carry your ass anywhere, at least." Billy grins when Goodnight snorts a laugh. "Tell The Boss to send you along with a suitcase next time, just in case." Because he's not leaving Goody behind again now that he knows, not ever.

#mag7 #billy rocks #goodnight robicheaux #goodnight x billy #dead man banging au

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irlaimsaaralath · 4 years

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Lockdown Questions

I guess mine are technically quarantine questions. I’m starting my third week out of work sick. The first two, I was a potential COVID case, but my test came back negative. Work won’t let me come back yet, though, because I’m still coughing.

Tagged by @elveny. And I’ll tag @savvylittleminx, @ket-mofo, @kierarutherford, @monstersandmaw, and anyone else who wants in.

Are you staying home from work/school?

From work, yep. Been sick. But my job is in an essential industry, so once the cough goes away, I’m back at it.

If you’re staying home, who’s there with you?

My boys, my cats Bastien and Finley. We take lots of naps. I’m officially a cat now. Meow.

Are you a homebody?

Oh, yeah. I’m not big on crowds or lots of noise or crowds that make lots of noise, so I tend to be a work and home kind of girl.

What movies have you watched recently? What shows are you watching?

Amazingly, I haven’t watched many movies in the past two weeks. One night, I watched Cabin in the Woods, which I’d seen before, but it tickles me, so *smashes mug on the floor* again! Then I turned right around and fucked up my happy by watching We Need to Talk About Kevin. Please don’t ask me why. I’d already seen that one, too, but...apparently my jovial turn with the first movie had to be balanced out by the despair of the second?

I’ve been more so watching YouTube. I’ll be honest. Watching old Jenna Marbles videos is kinda my happy place. I’ve been watching her for years, she makes me laugh, and she’s kinda...me in the sense that if I had gobs of money, I would stay home and do fun shit with my cats. I’d build them an indoor playground and make them fun toys and you know. It might be nice to have fun with life, you know, professionally.

I also discovered the TRY channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCabq3No3wXbs6Ut-Pux6SzA). Irish folks trying fun things like alcohol and food and stuff. Very funny. Makes me laugh. I’m in love with Leather Jacket Guy. I totally agree with one of the video comments that says, “I just feel like this guy is an ancient Irish god of mischief and is just fucking around to have a good time.” I dig it. (Please, ask me about my fascination with ancient gods fucking around in the world. All my Solavellan Hell peeps know. Wink wink.)

An event that you were looking forward to that got cancelled?

Not really? I’ve got tickets for a concert in June that I’m hoping doesn’t get canceled, but my hopes aren’t high.

What music are you listening to?

Eh. A wide variety of things. Nothing really new, mostly just old favorites. Matt Duke, Vienna Teng, Paramore, 30 Seconds to Mars, Lorena McKennitt, Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, some instrumental stuff like soundtracks. I kinda of listen to a bit of everything.

What are you reading?

I’m still working on Tevinter Nights. I read the last story when I got it, and I’ve read three in order from the start.

I’ve also been reading some new and old favorites on AO3.

I just finished rereading Somewhere Between Pride and Sorrow. A smutty, smutty F/M/M fic with Solas and Abelas.

Also, Sunshine in the Dark. By @kauriart. It’s an Alistair and Bethany Hawke fic. So good.

What are you doing for self-care?

Uhm...ordered more origami paper for to make more stars. Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Lots of fucking Mountain Dew. I don’t usually drink much soda. Mindlessly playing a male crusader in Diablo 3 so I can listen to Gideon Emery’s voice non-stop.

#personal stuff #lockdown questions #quarantine questions

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thereinafter · 4 years

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Letter for Chocolate Box 2020 (cut for major wall of text; fandoms I requested are Dragon Age, Tortall, Darkest Dungeon, Original Work)

Hello, dear chocolatier, thanks for creating something for me! I’m thereinafter (isyche) on AO3.

I like both fic (any rating you want to write) and art (gen or romance or implied sex fine, no explicit porn), Prompts below are copied from my signup, followed by a long general likes list and then DNWs.

Dragon Age

Cassandra/Leliana: I love them and their long history/intimidating outsides/romantic insides/right hand-left hand balance a lot. some prompt ideas: a) on a mission pre-DAI and some forced-intimacy or h/c trope pushes them to admit/act on feelings b) escalating personal notes attached to official reports c) sneaked moments away from Skyhold d) fighting back to back e) either one convincing the other to take a break and do something fun, in her own way. Or anything from my likes list you find inspiring, get-together or established. For art: I’d love them being romantic or formidable together however you want to draw it.

Leliana/Josephine: I also love their history and friendship, and how Josephine can potentially light up Leliana’s tendency to darkness, and also how Leliana is playful with/protective of her. There are a lot of established-relationship missing-scene type scenarios I’d like for them, e.g., an excursion to Val Royeaux from Skyhold, a dance together at Halamshiral, Josie waiting up for Leliana to finish spy business, distracting each other from frustrating work, managing difficult guests. Or being drawn back together when Josie comes to the Inquisition after having been in the past. Or, again, anything else from my likes you’re into. I’d be delighted by art of them as well, if you want to illustrate any of these ideas or just draw them being cute.

and some gen ideas I’ve thought about recently and would like to read:

Cassandra & Vivienne: Since Vivienne is a knight-enchanter and thus technically a melee fighter, I’m curious about how and where she trains or has in the past for that, and I’d be interested to see her and Cassandra bond in some way through testing themselves against each other.

Female Hawke & Leliana & Morrigan: These three could have all potentially met in Lothering before the Blight, so write me something about that? Maybe they all get into a scrape together and have to cooperate? Maybe it was caused by Hawke’s or Morrigan’s magic?

Morrigan & Sera: I once drew Morrigan being amused by Sera stealing templar breeches and ever since I’ve kind of wanted that fic. Morrigan is entertained by Sera’s pranks on targets she dislikes and offers to help? Sera is suspicious/scared of her but eventually decides she’s all right? (Sera makes friends with Kieran?)

Tortall

Keladry of Mindelan & Baby Griffin: Having recently read the Kel books, I was really charmed by her heroic efforts to care for the griffin baby until its parents are found, and I’d like a little fic exploring that more, or maybe it coming back to find her later on? Daine and/or Alanna could be involved too if you like. I also am pretty sure this would make for adorable art.

Darkest Dungeon

I feel like there are potential stories around a lot of the mechanics in this game: the quirks and stress and breakdowns and need to recover through drinking or sex or gambling or religion, the weird trinkets and cultist groups, why new adventurers keep showing up to get fed into the dungeon. So, with this fandom I’m interested in fic playing with those things and building on what’s implied in the game (or art along those lines illustrating some offscreen scene, or creating a shippy moment).

I picked these three pairings because I thought they made for interesting dynamics, but if you want to include other characters or enemies, go for it (and use whatever names you want).

Antiquarian/Grave Robber: bonding over an interest in treasure and desire to stay alive and out of the melee? Getting lost on an unadvised side trip in the ruins?

Arbalest/Shieldbreaker: Arbalest takes Shieldbreaker under her wing and tries to cover her in combat/patch her up/help with her nightmares?

Hellion/Vestal: opposites attract, Vestal has impure thoughts about Hellion, and/or healer/fighter h/c?

Original Work

I pictured all of these in fantasy settings when nominating them, but some could also work as SF/space opera or historical.

Female Adventurer Lost in the Snow/Female Fire Spirit: Obviously she needs warming up, however you want to take that (does the spirit warm her and let her go like a grateful one night stand? Or a darker take where the woman lets the spirit consume her and make her one of them? or both at different times in her life?)

Female Armorsmith/Female Warrior Who Needs Frequent Repairs: This could go in either a funny “why do you come in here so much” or an angsty “why do you get hurt so often” direction and I’d like either (or both).

Female Knight/Female Bath Attendant with a Crush: I like knights and requited crushes and the sort of caretaking involved in baths, and would be happy with any cute/romantic or comfort/solace or sexy take on this combination.

Female Court Painter/Impatient Princess Sitting for a Painting: Maybe the princess is a flirty rake and the painter is a serious type with no time for her nonsense but secretly charmed, or vice versa? Or they keep falling out over how the portrait should go and then making up? Or they're in a secret relationship and the impatience is because it's the only time they can see each other?

Grumpy Lonely Sorceress/Female Courtesan She Hires for a Ritual: I pictured this as a lighthearted story where the situation starts awkward and ends more fun than expected for them. Why does the sorceress need to try this particular ritual/spell? (unexpectedly necessary for something she’s researching?) does it succeed? do they decide to collaborate again? up to you.

Anchoress/Woman Outside Her Cell: I’d be happy with either a historical medieval setting or a fantasy/SF invented religion. Here for the pining and inability to touch that the premise suggests; would prefer a hopeful ending to a super bleak one.

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General likes (mainly a fic-oriented list, but if you do art for me and want to incorporate something here, great):

In case you want more inspiration in addition to the above. Take from it as you wish, all these things are good alone or combined

for both gen and shipfic: Lighthearted (romantic or friendship) fluff and humor Glimpses of how the characters manage everyday life stuff in canons where the focus is more on big dramatic events Canon divergence AUs in the “what if x event in canon turned out differently” sense Casefic if the characters do cases or missions or short adventures Epistolary or “found documents” stories, and other unconventional story structures Time loop stories, Rashomon-style stories, and other kinds of variations on a theme (including “five times” fic) Worldbuilding/exploration of the canon world and backstory, especially parts unexplored in the canon; also, in-universe stories, songs, mythologies, histories, etc. Holidays and celebrations and balls, masquerade or not, and dancing, romantic or not Characters doing things in disguise, whether they’re good or bad at it Heists and rescues/jailbreaks Court plotting, intrigue, spying Road or sea trips/wilderness survival situations Swordfights, duels, tournaments, sparring, training for all kinds of fighting Characters making things for others, whether it’s art or music or crafting or food or magic or whatever, and giving gifts Artists (in any art form), artistic rivalries, artist/muse dynamics, artists inspiring each other Competence and being very good at what they do (but perhaps awkward or lost in other contexts); relatedly, learning/practicing new skills

additionally for shipfic: Angst with happy endings Pining, preferably requited in the end Repressed feelings and extended UST, especially between working partners who are busy with something more important Loyalty/dedication/faithfulness/devotion, us against the world, knight/queen dynamics (either one-way or where both consider themselves the knight to the other), bodyguarding, love conflicting with other loyalties, noble self-denial and sacrifice, courtly love Stoicism and hidden feelings/bad at feelings but has a lot, or good at feelings and good at hiding them Secret/forbidden relationships as a source of angst and/or for the excitement of sneaking around Hurt/comfort, rescuing each other, fighting beside each other Snuggling/bathing/dressing/playing with hair/other caretaking Forced intimacy tropes like bedsharing, huddling for warmth, fake dating, marriage of convenience, handcuffed together, dreamsharing/psychic bonds, bodyswap Longtime friends to lovers, old friends meeting again, old enemies who aren’t really anymore and have to admit they like each other, rivals who respect each other Ascetic/hedonist or repressed/libertine or inexperienced/more experienced pairings

for sex scenes: cuddling, kissing, laughing, eroticized hands and voices, clothed/semi-clothed sex, complicated undressing, talking whether emotional or joking or dirty, curiosity/discovery, playfulness/inventiveness, eagerness/desperation, being overwhelmed by feelings, having to keep silent or hold still, interruptions and delayed gratification and intentional teasing/drawing things out, body worship, sex against walls, informal mild kink (e.g., tying up, holding down, blindfolding, taking direction, scratching/marking, tearing clothes, mutual roughness), sexy letter writing, one fantasizing about the other, decadence, voyeurism/exhibitionism, writing/painting on skin, sex pollen, magical or magic-enhanced sex

------------------------

DNWs: unrequested setting AUs (like high school or coffee shop), non-canonical/unrequested polyamory, non-canonical/unrequested pregnancy and kids, non-canonical nicknames infidelity (unless it’s something like escaping a forced or political marriage) sexual violence/rape (eroticized/described in detail; I’m OK with, e.g., a character being a survivor or hunting down a rapist) a/b/o, formalized bdsm, daddy/mommy kink, underage, incest, shit/urine/vomit/spitting

#chocolate box exchange

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kat-hawke · 5 years

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Opportune Moments

The constant barrage of medical exams and evaluations began tiresome. Now more of an annoyance, repeating some tests, as if they were searching for a reason to keep her from fully returning to active duty. Growing restless in the waiting after the most recent set of tests, the Director waits until the sun touches the horizon before making her move. Tucking the large envelope into the inner coat pocket she takes to the lower levels of Boralus, finding the waterways easier to navigate than the cobblestone streets above, along with less foot traffic to impede her.

The boardwalk rounded a corner, the faint sounds of water lapping against timeworn posts competing with the sound of her boots agains the boards. A sudden halt brought on by a folded note, carefully placed on the planks in her direct path. Ambers scanned the immediate area, knowing it was intentional and know aware she was being watched. With lips pursed in a scowl, knees bent to lower her body, fingers quickly snatching the paper and folding it open.

‘Hope you’re enjoying Boralus. Plenty of places to push a girl into the water, after all. Talk soon?’

No signature, none was needed. “Sure, luv’. Soon.” The page was quickly folded over in her fingers before it was discarded into the water with a flick of the wrist. Continuing on her way, the pace starting out slow and cautious before picking up again. How she managed to get into the City was one question, why was another. The elf either here to settle up on the bounty the Director’s head carried, or an attempt to lure her into something else. More concerning was just how the assassin tracked her down, having never disclosed her identity in their brief meeting before the war.

I didn’t take long before the lithe figure slipped from the shadows behind the Director, watching her reaction from finding the letter with a sly smirk. Trailing behind at a respectable distance, aware that it wouldn’t take long for Kat to realize she wasn’t alone, Vynette called out, folding her arms across the chest.

"You could really teach a class on dropping off the radar, you know. I almost started to believe the rumors of your demise, Miss Hawke."

Freezing mid step, Kat cast her gaze back over the shoulder with a brow arched inquisitively. The voice was unfamiliar and to her surprise she found no Sin’dorei, but a blonde haired Quel’dorei. Equal parts skeptical and paranoid the conclusion that it was either an illusion or an associate of who she was expecting. Inquiring further before taking any action.

"Hard to teach a class on gettin' held prisoner at sea." The words fell cold, features displaying the full level at which she was unamused. "Do I know ya'?"

"I suppose I'm drier thank you remember. Oh, and my eyes are blue now, so I suppose I should forgive you for forgetting me. Though it was a good kiss," Vyn pointed out, tossing the flat stone she palmed across the surface of the water. "Now that I think about it, I think I technically have a contract to kill you. Damnedest thing though; there seems to be no trace of my employer, so I suppose you luck out there."

That was the confirmation needed, the Quel’dorei merely an illusion.

Without missing a beat the Director had blinked through the shadows and had the elven woman pinned to the wall along the other side of the boardwalk. A dagger drawn within a second from the shadows and the blade pressed firmly against the woman's throat. Kat's left eye glazed over in a void-purple hue, a clear indication that the unnatural speed of her reflexes had a magical aid. Her gaze narrowed harshly and her tone dropped low, nearly a primal growl. "Ya' have thirty seconds to explain yer business here before I open yer throat like a gutted fish. Whether or no' I believe ya' will be seen. I lost friends in both Teldrassil and Lordaeron, ya' monsters don' deserve any mercy after that."

Teeth bared in a grunt, yet Vynette managed to forced herself to remain composed, despite the steel pressed against her throat.

"Okay, okay. No foreplay, straight to business," She grumbled, Kat’s gaze narrowing and the blade twisting just enough to shave the top layer of skin. "Alright! You're not the only one who's suffered an upheaval lately. I'm still looking into the who and how, but I was framed for being an Alliance spy. Every source I have says I'm kill on sight."

Vyn considered trying to slip away from Kat or get herself out of her compromising position, but showing her competency seemed less important at the moment than proving she was not a threat or an enemy. "It's a dangerous world to be in the Horde's crosshairs right now without protection. I've never been a Horde loyalist. I'm a pragmatist. If I'm already accused of being an Alliance spy, it seems smarter to find a role as one. The only place more dangerous than being on one side is being between both."

Meeting the Director’s gaze, Vyn did not shy away from the deep void hue that stared back at her. She was an assassin; she knew the shadows well enough not to fear them. "In my research for the previously mentioned hit job, you seemed like the kind of woman who could value a useful resource. Also, sun and stars, you're strong."

"Get kicked to the curb fer no' bein' loyal, so try yer luck on the other side an' hope the same doesn' happen. No' loyal before, why would ya' be now?" Kat stepped further in, applying pressure against the woman pinned to the masonry. "Keep jumpin' the fence an' ya'll eventually get impaled upon it. Perhaps it's better fer ya' that ya' didn' fully pursue said contract, wouldn' have ended well."

"It was a suspicious contract anyway," Vyn dismissed, her breathing controlled to minimize any contact with Kat's blade. "I'm not loyal to factions, that's fair enough. I can be loyal to people."

That seemed to catch the Director’s attention, loyalty to people over a cause or faction.

Vyn's blue eyes dropped, meeting the planks below their feet. "I am my work. I had two lives and one of those is fucked now. All I am now is an asset looking for use. I don't question orders and I don't have qualms with what I'm told to do. You could kill me and the world has one less elf, and good for you. Your files suggest you're more practical than that. It's an offer worth at least considering, isn't it?"

The Director's gaze searched the blue hues of the illusioned woman, remaining narrowed in both suspicion and caution, refusing to move or let Vynette free. "Ya' claim to be loyal to people, yet where is the evidence of such?"

"My employers," Vyn replied immediately, shifting her gaze upward to lock with Kat’s. "I've never given them up. I've never turned on them. I've never compromised my ability to perform a job. I had people I worked with consistently. I'm never going to bite the hand that feeds me."

"And wot of them now?"

"One wants me dead. One I'm amicable with. I have no intentions of giving up either; that's part of my own contract I keep til I die." The assassin sighed, feel a rare and raw sense of loss.

A low hum rolled in the back of the Director's throat as she considered Vynette's words and proposition. "Consider them all dead, fer yer own sake." The words were spoken dry as the finger around the hilt of the dagger released, the weapon vanishing in a dark and thick cloud of shadows. Backing away, she freeing the woman from the vice like pin against the wall, arms crossing beneath her bust as weight was shifted to one leg. The left eye returned to it's amber tone but the death like glare remained. "I'll need a reason to trust ya', yer only gettin' one chance. Don' fuck it up." Turning as she spoke, the Kat carried on in her initial path.

Vyn let out a breath of relief, glad to have finished her conversation without a new battle wound. She raised a hand to the faint slice on her throat with a nod. "Don't intend to, ma'am." She assumed she'd get more details eventually; for now, she would not press the issue.

Amber hues glanced back over her shoulder. "Ya' were intended to follow..." Her tone indicating clear annoyance, though gait remained unchanged.

"Oh. Duh. Right." Vyn took hastened steps to fall back in line with Kat as she walked.

"Hopefully ya' read a target better than a situation." She mumbled. "Just so happens a have yer one chance now." A bare hand slipped down to retrieve the envelope from pocket within the coat, holding it up between two fingers at the woman. "Don' read it, don' open it."

Taking the offered item in one hand Vynette further inquired. "Not reading it, not opening it. What do you need me to do with it, ma'am?"

"Switch it out." She stated, bluntly. Stopping their path at the bottom of a flight of stairs, Kat nodded upward. "Second buildin' on the right. One yet switchin' with will be on the third floor, either on or in a desk of the main physicians office."

Ambers quickly returned, pinning the elf beneath her gaze. "Don' fuck it up."

Vyn glanced at the envelope, carefully storing it so it remained unbent. “On it, boss.”

Second building on the right, third floor, unless Vyn misheard due to the director’s accent. She would have to get used to that. After assessing the buildings, she slipped into the alleyway between the third and fourth buildings to the left. The area around her target building was too well lit and visible for her liking. The alleyway she chose was dark, dank, and the wall fixtures on the third building were better for climbing.

And climb she did, carefully moving from handhold to foothold until she made it to the shingled roof of the building, looking out at her target. She pulled up her hood and the mask she liked to wear beneath it, scanning the windows. One open window on the fourth floor. Not ideal, but it would do. Taking a steadying breath, Vyn got a running start on the roof, leaping and vanishing into a puff of smoke as she slipped into the shadows. Given her namesake, it only made sense she was familiar with the shadow magic of her craft.

With a quiet tumble, Vyn was in an abandoned office on the fourth floor. She moved to the door and pressed her ear to it. No sounds from the hallway and nothing causing the floorboards to shake. Silently, she opened the door and slipped into the hall, looking for a staircase.

Vyn left the stairwell and entered the third floor just in time to hear footsteps approaching. Jumping up, she braced herself against the walls of the narrow hallway to remain overhead, slipping into stealth, holding her breath as guards walked through the hall, under her, and into the stairwell. When she was certain the coast was clear, she fell silently to the floor and made a beeline for the room Kat directed her to find.

Sure enough, when she determined which room was the office of the main physician, there was an envelope sitting squarely on the desk in front of the chair. Nothing seemed to be a trap, but she still handled the envelope cautiously as she replaced it. With the swap complete and with the faint reverberations of footfalls returning to the floor, Vyn opened the window and slipped out. Hanging from the ledge, she closed the window, just as she found it, and fell to the ground below.

Vyn gave herself three minutes to ensure there was no alarm sounded or ruckus caused by her appearance, and once she was clear, she found Kat and handed her the physician’s envelope. She had no clue what was in the envelope, but that did not matter. “Done and done, ma’am.”

With a deep hum of moderate approval, the Director took the envelope from the woman, quickly stashing it away into the lining of her pocket after ensuring it had remained sealed.

"Well done. I'll be in touch. Don' go far." She spoke flat, with the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. Pivoting on one leg Kat took her leave towards to center of Boralus, her gait quick and with purpose.

[ @lovelydeadlysocialite ]

#ic #plotlines #Returning from the Dead #Operative Mistcaller #blades & button-ups #slight revisions from discord

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tales-from-llynadell · 5 years

Text

In which many ears are pierced...

Dungeon Master’s Field Notes - Session Zero

2nd Day of The Bounty, Year 112 of the Cassian Era

The party has been tasked by Magistrate Bundy with ridding the town of Timberville of a River Troll that has been spotted too close for comfort.

The party began in Berry Woods and discussed the problem, this was their first adventure together so they are all anxious to get started.

They carefully begin scouting the area when they are alerted to a sound coming from the North.

Night Hawk and Hermionizard investigate by heading towards the noise and discover two wolves passively hunting.

The wolves move parallel to the group and the party Druid (Hermionizard) speaks to them to ascertain their intentions. The wolves tell the Druid they are hunting and that the "Big Man" scares them (the Wolves were referring to Night Hawk the nearly seven foot Barbarian). The rest of the wolves arrived making a total of four and after failing miserably to convince the wolves that "The Big Man" was not a threat the party experienced their first combat.

Combat: The party rolled well and each got to have a go before the wolves, except for the Gnome for fear that hurting wolves was against her Druidic nature. The Rogue ( Fairë Esse) pierced the Alpha wolfs ear with a wayward arrow, and the rest of the party traded blows with the wolves doing little damage.

After two rounds of combat the party decided that their best bet was to reason with their foe.To do that they had to best the Alpha in a test of strength.

Enter Night Hawk who successfully wrestled and pinned the Alpha to the floor in an improvised head lock, during this time Grizelda created the illusion of a whining pup which distracted two out of four of the wolves who ran towards the illusion.

The Druid once again tried to convince the wolves to help them. The Alpha was furious he screamed "Let Me Go!".

After careful discussion the group decided to let the wolves go and they stood nervously opposite the small pack. "You hurt my friends, and we're hungry, you hurt my friends!" screams the Alpha at the Druid. The party set about healing the wolves, the Cleric using healing energy and the Barbarian forcing a Potion of Lesser Healing down the Alpha's throat! After the Rogue and Barbarian caught some salmon and fed the wolves the party had luckily regained the packs trust. Unfortunately, two of the Wolves went back into the forest to search for the whining pup! But the other two wolves (Alpha and Dorethea) agreed to help the party find the River Troll.

The party explored the northern woodland and asked each other what exactly they knew about River Trolls. Fairë Esse told them many tales of River Trolls, their strength, their ability to regenerate, their supreme sense of smell and their aversion to fire.

The party was very pleased with their new found knowledge and explored further north. They came across a pungent smelling berry of which there was enough to cover themselves and the wolves. The group decided that if Trolls hunted by smell then the berries were the perfect camouflage!

A few Dryad appeared as if from nowhere and began acting strangely towards the now empty berry bush. Hermionizard the Druid explained that Dryad were like woodland janitors and were simply cleaning up after the party.

After a short rest the party headed towards the river and spotted a figure leaning up against a tree on a small island across the first river. A discussion ensued until the Rogue took action, the crafty hooded half-elf sneaked silently across the river and checked the pulse of the figure, believing he was dead.

The Rogue’s instincts were right, the archer was dead, wolves had torn into him and a clean cut to the throat had finished him off. Fairë Esse searched the Archer, finding a meagre amount of silver, some arrows, and a longbow, which he equipped.

The Rogue skilfully detected another figure and managed to silently climb the tree before being seen. From the tree Fairë Esse spotted not only the River Troll but that it was already captive. Five City Guard including a Captain were keeping it in a cage on the other side of the river, though their intention wasn't clear.

The rest of the party clumsily crossed the river and alerted the Archer to their presence.

Darkness was on their side, the Archer could only hear them "Who's out there?!" he shouted "Show yourself!".

Night Hawk was the first to reveal himself from the darkness and with good reason, his massive presence immediately intimidated the archer into dropping his guard and putting his hands up.

"What are doing out here?" the giant man demanded.

The Archer fumbled for his words. "N-N-Nothing! Just taking a piss," he said, confused and alarmed as two wolves, a dwarf and a gnome come into view.

"What do you know about the dead man by the tree?!" Night Hawk yelled.

"D-D-Dead Man? He's Dead?!" the Archer replied, going white as a ghost.

The conversation was awkward from there on not only because the Archer was evidently crestfallen, but also because the Archer hadn't managed to put his genitals back in his trousers.

The wolves snapped around the area hungrily, forcing the man to finish urinating.

The Archer disappointingly implied something racist to Night Hawk by questioning the company he kept, eyeing the Cleric and mistaking the Gnome for a child. Upon hearing this Grizelda, the Dwarven Cleric, impatiently attempted to knock the man out. He dodged the pommel of her waraxe with ease and made a run for it across the river.

The Rogue, from his vantage point in the tree, pierced the man's ear as he was running away! Alpha and Dorethea chased the archer down and ripped into his ankles holding him in place. Then Night Hawk finished the archer off with a strong swing of his warhammer.

Upon searching the man they found a Longbow and a short note which reads...

"I'll keep meeting you by our tree. I'm sorry we have to keep meeting this way but it's the only way we can be together until my father understands. All my love -K-"

Night Hawk felt a bit ill but the party assured him the course of action they'd taken had been for the greater good. The Barbarian carried the dead archers body with him.

The adventurers regrouped on the small island and spotted the Dryad surrounding the dead archer leaning up against the tree. The fae creatures began entangling the body, growing around it and surrounding it. After watching and waiting the Druid pointed out that the Dryad had turned the corpse into a new berry bush! The Dryad swiftly disappeared across the second river to a large tree near the Troll.

After a lengthy discussion about the action they should take, which included abandoning the mission because "technically the Troll isn't a problem for Timberville if it's in a cage", Nighthawk dropped the second body quietly across the river, prompting the Dryad to head towards it and commence their bush making.

Fairë Esse had enough and improvised his plan of "let the Troll out and see what happens"!

The Half-Elf fired a silent arrow from his vantage point in the tree. The arrow silently skimmed across the river catching an updraft and struck the Trolls cage moving the door ajar but not the lock. The Troll seized it's opportunity and broke free!

Combat: The Troll sized up the men that surrounded him making short work of the first guard by smashing him into a bloody stain on the woodland floor. The guards fumbled in their attempts to recapture the Troll barely damaging the creature in the first round.

The second round consisted of the Troll making two more guard shaped pizzas and receiving little damage itself, regenerating most of damage it was dealt.

The party chose at this point to intervene, knowing full well that the guards weren't being as useful in their roll as cannon fodder than previously thought.

The Druid set the Troll ablaze impairing it's ability to regenerate. The Rogue continued his trend of piercing by giving the Troll and arrow shaped earring and the Barbarian misses with his mighty Javelin.

The third round resulted the Captain being mortally wounded and subsequently torn asunder in the Trolls mighty jaws. As long as the Troll was on fire it couldn't regenerate, and a larger amount of damage was done by the remaining guards and the party.

The fourth round made shirt work of the remaining guards who joined their friends in become a forest themed pizza party! This prompted the Troll to head across the river towards the tree that was shooting arrows at it!

The Druid misses setting the Troll on fire, temporarily putting the party on the back foot. The Troll waded across the river and swiped unsuccessfully at the tree.

Alpha saw this going on and on Night Hawk's instruction headed towards the Troll giving it a strong bite to the knee. The Troll retaliated by launching the wolf leader into the tree... wounded but still alive Alpha recoiled but faced up to the Troll once more.

Fairë Esse damaged the Troll with more arrows, and a javelin from Night Hawk struck true into the Trolls neck. Bloodied the Troll continued its assault on our brave heroes, it once again threw Alpha fatally wounding the brave wolf, this prompted Dorethea into running and biting the Troll in the same knee. With its remaining attacks the Troll missed.

The Cleric and the Druid organised between themselves and continued by setting the tree with Fairë Esse in it on fire! He reluctantly agreed, however failed miserably on backflipping out of the tree... The Rogue lost his remaining hit points and was knocked unconscious falling to the ground on the other side of the tree.

The large tree went up in flames for the remainder of the combat and set the Troll on fire too.

The Troll, too stupid to move away, finished off Dorothea which angered the party.Their wolf friends died protecting them and they were filled with hatred and the desire for revenge.

Night Hawk’s javelin struck the Troll once more as Grizelda picked up Fairë Esse from the ground. The Troll charged towards the fallen Half-Elf and the Dwarf as Night Hawk fired an arrow into the Trolls ear, which prompted a confused glance from the Troll as the arrow disappeared never to be seen again!

The level patience snapped inside Grizelda as years of buried Dwarven instinct took over. She calmly gripped her waraxe and hacked the River Trolls leg from its knee. The Troll collapsed on its back in front of Grizelda nearly landing on the distressed Fairë Esse. Grizelda yelled triumphantly and hacked over and over at the creatures neck until its head was separated from its body.

The party collected it's rewarded and swapped tales about their first victory together.

Party MVP: Hermionizard the gnome druid, for providing fire at a crucial time.

The Cleric’s Journal | Session Photographs

#session zero #dungeons and dragons #field notes

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valen-but-not-tine · 5 years

Note

tezz, blake, agura, and mermista for that ask meme pls?

Fair warning a lot more of the questions have to deal with shipping than I thought when I first reblogged the ask meme this is for a /while/ ago, and I’m not really a big romance person (except one of these is in a HUGE ship of mine and I’m certain that was intentional ave.

got long, it was a long meme, and 4 characters

Tezz Volitov

What I like about them

well. that’s really hard to answer. to quote you, avery when I mentioned having trouble w this question, “I like him because he’s Tezz”

He’s everything that normally annoys me but done well to where it doesn’t?

cocky arrogant tech savvy bastard. but he has extremely strong sense of morals. Like boy took one look at the red sentients and was immediately ready to fight a war by himself and dedicated himself to being a one man rebellion.

What I dislike about them

how long it took me to answer the first question, he’s not my normal type, like for real I think his archetype normally annoys me, but for some reason the exact way he’s written gets around that.

Favourite moment

the entirety of the episode “Lord of the Kharamanos” Tezz making friends with tromp and once again showing his strong sense of morals with his absolute refusal to leave the kharamanos alone to fight the Vandals. I think this ties into why I love him so much, normally his archetype would have been the one willing to leave them to fend for themselves, helping them is a risk, but Tezz doesn’t even consider leaving, and is insulted by Vert considering it for even a moment.

Least favourite moment

The best quality version of his introductory episode on youtube is cut into 2 parts and the uploader split it /right/ in the middle of dialogue.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

BACK! STORY! what’s his family life like? what did he eat when he was stranded?

An interesting AU for this character

This is pretty general for bf5 as a show, but in the the bf5 fused webisode “Cold Fusion” Sage is shown making an instruction type video for if they lose, somebody else could potentially take up the fight, and she deletes it at the end as Vert tells her the war will end with them. But what if she hadn’t. And then. what if they had lost? Tezz wasn’t part of the team yet, if the bf5 lost before he joined, but someone else (Grace?) found the video and picked up the fight, and then he joined? I don’t have much thought (well actually I have more than I’d like to admit) put into this idea, but ever since seeing that 50 second webisode, I’ve had that hmm what if idea in my head, and the only way I can really “see” it happening is if there was a similar situation to the shadowzone episode, where our bf5 meet the group that took up the fight when they died, team led by grace, with tezz, zen, and the rest of the group is ocs, but if this were a plotline I’d love for one of the team to be one of Agura’s brothers who came looking for her when she dropped off the face of the planet.

A crossover

umm I was really into storm hawks at the same time as I was into bf5, tho bf5 has withstood the test of time, so combining the 2 is something I’ve put some thought into before, but really w bf5′s setup of being able to go to different dimensions battlezones writing a crossover for really any show wouldn’t be hard.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I don’t have a lot of ships for bf5 as a whole, if I had to say one Tezz/Sherman, I love the interaction where someone asks if tezz is the brains of the operation and sherman says tezz is the left brain and he (sherman) is the right

Other ships?

Tezz/AJ I guess, in the finale when they sent the og team in bc “they started it, you should be the ones to end it” they had some cute interactions

BROTP

Tezz and Tromp, lord of the kharamanos gave us so much good tezz content.

NOTP

bf5 didn’t have a lot of romance, so there was never a set up that made me go NO but anyone with zoom is a full stop for me, there’s no canonical ages, but zoom reads as 16 to me, and most of the other cast as young adults, but adults.

An assortment of headcanons!

He’s Autistic!

Boy had a Bad Home Life, the boy was like 9 when he got himself stranded in a battlezone, and wanted to get back to earth because it’s where he’s from, but he /never/ mentions getting back to people. like it’s one thing if his parents just let him do whatever and he was experimenting in his free time, but he didn’t try to find anyone when he got back. and he immediately was ride or die for the bf5. the show probably just didn’t have time to touch on it, but with what we were given I can not see him having a good relationship with his family.

Blake (asuming Belladonna)

What I like about them

Listen I love revolutionaries. love me some characters fighting for a cause. Blake don’t back down.

What I dislike about them

how much Sun is tolerated lol

Favourite moment

When she stared her abusive ex in the eyes after he asked “what made her think she could win this time” and said “I don’t have a choice, I have people who actually care about me, and I promised I’d never leave them agian. So I’m not dying now!”

you tell him blake

Least favourite moment

90% of the scenes she shares w sun lol. why couldn’t we get more time with her parents? oh right sun took up any time they could have had lol.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

fambly.

An interesting AU for this character

au where Adam never touched her.

A crossover

She-ra and the princesses of power, blake/yang and catra/adora, blonde jock and their cat gfs interacting

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

Uh Bumbleby without a doubt. they’re the slow burn we never get with queer couples, and while they’re not “canon” yet, that’s because they’re a slow burn, and they’re getting proper developement, but even so, them having feelings for each other is canon, to a point where Arryn Zech, Blake’s va got a motherfucking bee tattoo. like they’re /the/ main couple of rwby, Arryn mentioned Yang as someone who was in love with blake at a panel and had to be reminded to mention Sun. that’s cast tho, their interactions in show?

Yin/yang symbolism where they’re both both at different times, beauty and the beast allusions, character with abandonment issues/character who has a tendency to run, excellent fighting synergy? I could literally talk about how much this ship means to me for hours (you’ve heard a lot of it sporadically ave) and it truly means a lot to me, I’m not normally a romancey person, but something about a show I was into before knowing (or really admitting to myself) that I was queer giving me that rep? in 2 of my favorite characters? I’m used to seeing shows w queer rep bc I heard there was rep and decided to check it out, but Bumbleby seemingly happened around me already here. they’re not a queer bait. one of them isn’t going to die. and they love each other so much.

Other ships?

Listen. no other possible ship for blake (or yang) holds a candle (ha sweet burning the candle reference) to bumbleby. I’m not gonna go into it explicitly, bc the person who sent this ask isn’t there yet >:) but (as much as irl, friendship is just as important as romantic relationships, and I hate the idea of romance being “more”) the show has built up yang and blake in such a way that if anyone else wanted to be even considered they’d have to compete with the other. if you’re considering getting into rwby, Heroes and Monsters was the ep that a lot of the fan base realized that hey, they’re actually doing bees? and that’s bc there’s a scene that is so powerful with the 2 of them. from a storytelling perspective no other ship has the substance to compete with the bees.

BROTP

Blacksun. Blake and Sun work better as friends than they ever could as romantic partners, Sun has feelings for Blake, but they’ve always been one sided, and the only time he’s been on screen that didn’t have me rolling my eyes or wishing he’d leave blake alone so her parents who she hasn’t seen in years could maybe get some of the screentime he’s hogging was when he was recovering from being injured and blake is all “this is why I had to leave, my friends get hurt bc of me” and he was like “that’s our decision to make, I’d do it again, and I know Yang would do the same” like yeah he continues to flirt while in menagerie (sp?), but as soon as he realizes that she didn’t run off to fight the white fang alone he spends his time trying to get her to go back to her team.

NOTP

Tauradonna. I’ve also seen the “ship” called Animal Abuse and ouch if that doesn’t just hit the nail on it’s head.

An assortment of headcanons!

when blake and yang kiss for the first time her ears are going to twitch.

Agura Ibaden

What I like about them

listen the second thing she does in the show is tear a robots head off do I need to give more words than that?

What I dislike about them

I mean one of my only complaints w bf5 is I want more girls, does that count? I wanted to know more about her backstory in general too, like 5 brothers? at least one nephew? warrior princess? give me

Favourite moment

The first time Vert isn’t there and Stanford challenges her right to be second in command and she just shuts him down hard and takes charge.

Least favourite moment

uhhhhh. idk whatever made agura/stanford a bigish ship in the fandom

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

Listen. The toy line, which technically yeah sure not technically canon, but the toyline. calls her a warrior princess. was this just to sell toys? yeah probably. am I still intrigued. most definitely. Is Agura a motherfucking princess!!??

An interesting AU for this character

I can’t use the au I used for tezz, cause she’d be dead in that one. hmm. I just had a galaxy brain idea but what if everyone on the team got weapons with their vehicles and not just vert.

Give Agura a big sword.

OH SHIT I forgot about an idea I’ve had in the past but I don’t want to erase the give sword idea, one of those swapped aus shows have, agura and tezz are swapped tezz is on the team since the begining, is a little better w people, not by much he’s still but he didn’t spend his childhood alone fighting robots and sentients, and Agura got stuck on Vandal and becomes warlord within a year. Basically, trapped on alien planet--> I run this now. by time bf5 meet the vandals they’re allies not conquerors.

A crossover

yeah really just read what I wrote for tezz’s, the only way agura’s would change is if she’s a warrior princess like xena that could be fun, but cars and bf5′s whole thing would be super out of place.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

don’t really have any, Agura/Grace if I have to

Other ships?

Agura/Sage

BROTP

Agura and the Cortez brothers!

NOTP

any straight ship with her is lame

An assortment of headcanons!

I know I’m not over the toyline but like. what if she was just a princess the entire fucking time. and was just way chill about it. imagine the shutdown

Stanford: ~I’m 189th in line for the throne~

Agura: cool I’m 2nd, but if it becomes relevant before my nephew is an adult I’ll be acting monarch until he’s old enough for the responsibility.

Stanford.exe has stopped responding

Mermista

What I like about them

I like swimming, she’s a mermaid

What I dislike about them

she’s vaguely got rude older sister in a sit com where the younger brother is the main character written by people who don’t have siblings, but like not really?

Favourite moment

“mermista will swim through the sewer system” “I’m sorry mermista will what?” but she still does it.

Least favourite moment

hhmmm not sure, she was in 5 episodes and I liked her, I guess early on when I saw her and sea hawk interact before I knew what their relationship was like and I thought she genuinely didn’t like him her intro scene was kinda :/

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

well I’m expecting a princess with fire powers eventually (I haven’t seen original she-ra so I don’t know if that’s an accurate assumption) and fire/ water powers are always cool to see interacting.

An interesting AU for this character

maybe I’ve been reading too much of that she-ra dnd blog but she’s an eldritch knight with the control water cantrip and that’s gud

A crossover

it’d be neat to see her and Lapis Lazuli interact

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

Mermista/Sea Hawk. It’s a twist on what we normally see where the guy in a het relationship is emotionally distant and the girl does all the emotional labor, but even then mermista obviously cares about sea hawk a lot, she is just not comfortable expressing affection, and he respects her boundaries and absolutely adores her.

Other ships?

did you see how she looked at adora after she transformed into she-ra? I don’t actually ship them but every princess is gay for she-ra

BROTP

With what we have so far I’d like to say frosta, just cause water/ice powers.

NOTP

I don’t think I’ve seen anything with her that I had a negative reaction too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean I guess frosta, we don’t have confirmed ages for any of them except for forsta who is decidedly way younger than the other princesses.

An assortment of headcanons!

the girl is bi

she had the mermaid tail before the people legs, and the tail is the default setting

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ben-j-man · 5 years

Text

Secret War- Chapter 1

Gunfire. Las and solid projectile alike ripped down the corridor, stray rounds punching holes through the wooden walls, showering us in pouts of exploding dust, which engulfed much of the hallway in a thick, white haze. Forcing my colleagues and me into cover. Two of whom, Jarvus and Callague, never made it. A Las round burned through the side of Jarvus' skull as the ex-guardsman desperately dived. Callague was dead before he could even move, the poor bastard almost cut apart by the intense fire.

Cursing, I blindly fired my auto gun from the corner, Into the dust obscured corridor. "Spray and pray" is the technical term and wondered for the hundredth time why I had joined this line of work. No way in hell could I get a clean shot; my only hope was to pin the assailants.

With a quick-fire signal to Garrakson behind me. I slipped back, and the ex-guardsman took my position.

"Fire in the hole!" he sang out in his oddly melodic voice, and with a grunt, the middle-aged man hefted a tube-charge down the hall.

The explosion's deafening roar preceded by the hefty clatter of falling debris.

Without hesitation, Elandria and I slid into the corridor. Side by side we sprinted through the dust and debris, firing our auto guns from the hip. Two unfortunate gangers buckled and collapsed under our withering fire. A pair of darkened figures stunned by the grenade's force.

At the last moment, we dropped our weapons and fell upon our enemies. Elandria drawing twin monomolecular enhanced blades from the sheaths on her back. I drew my mono-sword from its hip scabbard. Elandria let out a spine-chilling cackle and dodged a ganger's clumsy blow then countered with a deft slice, relieving him of his head.

Not in such humour. I parried a ganger's stabbing knife and kicked my boot's knife into his shin. The man's agonised scream became gurgling as I stabbed through his chest and I kicked the convulsing idiot off my blade. Immediately, I was forced to duck the next Hammer's wild swing of the butt of his Las gun. My blade arced into his left hip and through to his right shoulder. The man gurgled blood then fell onto his back.

Beside me, Elandria also finished her last attacker, disembowelling the ganger with a quick slice of Setsukia then decapitated him with Katrina.

She and I worked well together, but our combat styles could not have been more different. I was taught the way of the combat pragmatist: to do anything and everything to win, to fight with quick, brutal and practical techniques.

She fought like a gymnast, with acrobatic and fanciful techniques I found at first contemptuous. But I could not deny that she was skilled, very skilled.

She had yet to reveal what school of assassins she was taught in, but I could hazard a guess.

Elandria enjoyed killing. To such heights, it disturbed me and her obsession with decapitating her victims, unnatural. Hence why she wielded twin blades: Setsukia, for blocking and wounding. Katrina, specifically to decapitate. She fought while amped on combat drugs, which I was taught to do too, but detested. If you relied on enhancements, what good would you be without them? I supposed that was why her fanciful style was so effective.

I do not enjoy killing; I do it because needs must, in a professional manner and pride in my work. I am Attelus Xanthis Kaltos, I am a mercenary, and that is that.

Despite her ruthless, bloodthirsty nature, Elandria was an attractive young woman. At times her beauty held me in awe. Her skin, deathly pale and her straight brunette hair, jaw length. But I was wise enough to know a girl like her was only to be looked at, not chased being so indoctrinated by her cult, all she would ever know was the mindless urge to kill. It was quite depressing really.

The four that fell to our blades were the last; another three had taken the brunt of the blast.

'Good work you two' said Garrakson, his heavy boots crunching on the debris as he approached our backs.

Elandria and I turned to our colleague. Elandria was tense, shaking and as she spun she almost toppled over. Fortunately, Garrakson was smart enough to stand out of range of Elandria's blades; she was hugely unpredictable when in such a state.

I shrugged. "All in a day's work," I said, trying to sound nonchalant. "We must be getting back before the local Magistratum arrive."

Garrakson grimaced slightly, "or the damnable Arbites."

"C-cut the chit chat s-shall we?" said Elandria her voice was painful, needy. "Our master will be wanting, to hear of our exploits.' She was twitching madly now, another reason I kept off stimms; the withdrawal was intense.

"What?" said Garrakson. "Our exploits being that we lost even more good men chasing yet another dead end?"

I sighed, Garrakson's words rang true. I had been part of Taryst's personal army for half a year now, and so far this had to be the most horrible, thankless job I've ever had.

Taryst, a famous Rogue trader, well known throughout the Calixis sector as a master of trade and business. Who, for an unknown reason, was waging war against the gangs of this Hive world: Omnartus. So secret this struggle was any mercenary who joined had their mind blocked from psyker intrusion. That was over two thousand men and women. Emperor only knows how even he could afford it.

"What are we to do about Callague and Jarvus?" I said; starting down the corridor and past Garrakson, although already knowing the answer.

Garrakson sniffed causing his scarred, square-jawed face to contort. "Do what we always do," he said, shaking his head. "Leave 'em; we don't have the time, kid."

"Just for a change huh?" I sighed. "Poor bastards. I hope that the Magistratum treat them well."

"Why does it matter?" asked Elandria, despite a drug-induced withdrawal approached she with such feline grace she seemed to float. "The dead are dead; it does not matter how well you treat them."

I sighed again. No matter how many times I explained it, she still didn't understand.

Garrakson sniffed again but this time he hawked up a wad of phlegm he unceremoniously spat to the floor. "Okay kiddies, we split up," he said, "Elandria go south-west-"

"Yeah, yeah," I interrupted. "We know the drill: I go southeast, and you go south, meet at the base at eighteen hundred, we know."

Garrakson shook his head with a bemused smile, "how long has it been now?"

"One hellish half of one hellish year," I answered, though I was not sure either.

"Hellish? Hellish?" said Garrakson. "Now that's the damned understatement of the damned century. Alright then, just move out now, if you know the bloody drill so frigging well."

And we did it, yet again.

I ran out of the building and into the polluted, darkened streets. My black flak jacket is whipping and snapping in my wake.

I did not need to check my wrist chronometre's compass to know I ran south-east. Ever since I was a child, I had an innate sense of direction. I could find my way through the thickest of bush on my homeworld, Elbyra with only my wits.

As I silently moved, my thoughts wandered. Half a year ago our squad numbered ten, but with the losses of Callague and Jarvus, now we're reduced to four.

The fourth was Torris, an ex-Arbitrator. He was wounded in our last incursion; the poor bastard lost an eye then got knifed in the guts. His condition was still uncertain. I was not into praying, but I was tempted to for Torris.

It was quite depressing really; seeing your colleagues killed off, one by one. Was it like this to serve in the Imperial Guard? Perhaps I should ask Garrakson one day if I ever remember to.

Better do it sooner rather than later, Garrakson maybe the next. Or perhaps me.

I shook away the morbid thought. The morale of Taryst's personal army was on an all-time low. We maybe mercenaries, throne gelts were a good incentive for us. But Taryst expected us to give up our lives without ever telling us why.

We were human as well if we had a cause, a meaning! It could make us fight all the harder.

Anger started to well, my jaw clenched. What was the point of implanting us with psychic blocks if you don't give us any of any information to protect?

But I was no stranger to secrets and sabotage. Everyone has an ulterior motive. I had learnt my of lesson "trust" from my dear old dad, my dear old frigging father.

I sighed, too many memories suddenly flooded back. I shook it away, now was not the time for sentiment.

There was never any time for sentiment.

I turned a sharp corner, out of the alleyways and into the main streets.

We were meant to meet at the base at 1800 hours, but I intended to get there sooner. I felt I needed to speak with the employer; a mother-figure to us and was more of a mother than my own ever was. Her name was Glaitis; she saved me after my first, futile, assassination attempt. Glaitis taught me the way of the assassin in more detail than my father ever would. And she knew my father, my real father.

My brow furrowed and I sped up my already fast pace.

She never looked up, and she never seemed to need to as I entered her office.

"Ah! Attelus Xanthis Kaltos. What is it that brings you to my humble abode, my apprentice?" said Glaitis. She was a tall, harshly beautiful woman and I couldn't help my gaze gliding over her. Glaitis sat at her desk, long legs crossed. Her cold blue eyes studied a data slate intently.

My jaw clenched. I hated it when Glaitis used my last name, and she was well aware of it. It was part of her constant testing which drove me nuts. It was to anger me so I could learn to control my anger- I almost always failed.

I swallowed the anger, and nervousness replaced it. A nervousness that overtook me when in her presence.

'I-I am here to advise you of-.'

The sharp snap of the data slate suddenly shutting interrupted me and she fixed me with her piercing gaze.

"No stuttering young one, unless it is an act! You are to be confident! Precise in your words and your demeanour and stand up straight! Your posture is utterly horrendous!"

I did as told, holding back an annoyed sigh.

"Now, Young Attelus, you may start again."

"I am here to advise you that we have lost two more members of our squad."

"And who were they?" she said, her gaze falling to her data slate, uninterested.

'Callague and Javus.'

'They are of Taryst's ilk,' she stated.

I nodded, already knowing what she was about to say.

"If they are not part of our own organisation. I do not care, and you know this as well as I. come out with it then. I know you, child, tell me the actual reason you are here."

I let out a heavy sigh, hoping that it didn't sound too fake, right now I was testing myself to see if I could hide the exact reason why I was here, 'the men are losing morale-'

"I am well aware of the state of the morale, my apprentice," she interrupted. "You are just here to seek guidance for your own melancholy. Am I correct in my assumption?"

I hissed air through clenched teeth, hesitating my response. Damn it, outwitted yet again!

'Yes...'

She smiled a steady and starkly rare expression.

"At least you have learnt from my teachings the value of deception young Attelus but yet not the proper technique. As I told you when we first began your training your father had taught you well in the basics; close quarters combat, swordsmanship, ranged weaponry. But he had neglected the more subtle arts of an assassin's trade."

My jaw set at the mention of my father.

"Do not do that!' she hissed. "That is one of your many tells young one. You do when you are annoyed or angered. Remember, I have taught you time and time again: 'give nothing to your enemies or your allies.' That proverb was handed down to me by my master, and now I hand it down to you. Do you understand what it means, child?"

"Yes." I barely said rather than sighed. I started regretting coming here.

"Good!" she sat back in her chair. "Now, tell me. What troubles you young Attelus."

Her voice softened; she seemed legitimately interested. That had always taken me back, how she could change from harsh, berating teacher, to tender and kind-hearted motherly figure in the blink of an eye.

My heart skipped and suddenly found words hard to form; when she changed like that, it would always give me a strange tightness in my chest. I had no idea why.

"I- I hate this!" I managed to blurt. "We have been here for six months, and we have nothing! Nothing! Just more corpses and questions! It's hard every frigging day is the same! A new lead we are sent to track down and- and! We are only to find a new dead end!"

"I know," she said softly. "I know it is hard."

"But you know what else?" I snarled. "I get the suspicion that frigger Taryst knows more than he lets on! That he could give us information that would allow us to do our jobs but for some, idiotic, selfish reason, he holds it back! I don't know why but I have my ideas!"

Glaitis placed her elbow on her desk and cupped her jaw in her smooth, tender hand. A slight smile played over her full purple lips. "Really, young one?' she cooed. "And pray tell, what are these 'ideas'?"

I stiffened, I said more than I should have. But I did not stutter. I looked her straight in the eye and said: "That the information would damn him, that he is desperate to keep it secret so much, that if it was even slightly leaked out, his life would be jeopardised. That he could be branded as a heretic and a traitor." I sighed. "That's why."

My attention dropped to the carpet and waited for her response.

After what seemed an eternity, she finally said: "I have to say my young one, I am impressed."

"What?" I said, looking back up. Of all the responses that were the last, I had guessed.

"Yes, that you would have at least a little tact to figure out makes me believe that finally, my lessons seem to be getting through to you. I, myself, had come to suspect Taryst for quite some time but for you to figure it out all alone," she laughed.

I stood, seemingly frozen to the floor. Never had Glaitis complimented me like that before.

"Th-thanks?"

"That, young one. Is the true key to survival in our...line of work," she said. "The first rule, 'know your enemy'. It is a very simple and obvious statement, but you have learnt it's true meaning."

I winced with a curse, finally realising...

"You have it, child."

Her smile turned cruel.

"Everyone is your enemy."

I Leant on the wall of the dirty, smoggy alleyway and smoked a lho stick. My colleagues were yet to arrive, but I did not mind. I was early, and it allowed me time to do what I do best; think.

It was frigging typical of Glaitis to retract a compliment. After her words filtered through my numbed mind, pride started to well within me. My posture straightened, so straight, I stood taller than ever before, but then she said.

"But do not let it go to your head young Attelus, Xanthis Kaltos. For though I am not sure when you began to suspect Taryst. In all likelihood, it would be far too late."

"What?" and I was back to being hunched again.

She stood and approached me from around her desk; I could not help my eyes running up her lithe, full figured body.

Glaitis shook her head, she knew, she always frigging knew, "by now Attelus if you were alone, working out in the field and it took you this long to suspect your employer? You would be dead; you did well young one in this endeavour but next time..."

"Frig!," I snarled and sighed: "Try doing it a little quicker.".

"Indeed, and remember this piece of advice, young one and remember it well: 'trust nothing, suspect everything.'"

I nodded, wide-eyed.

"I will," was all I could manage.

"And Attelus, as much as I try to encourage you to try...think a little less. Do think on my words now," her face turned dark. "Think on them long and hard, now leave. I have much work to do."

I took the Lho stick with index finger and thumb.

"Trust nothing, suspect everything," I said. The irony was Glaitis meant herself too.

Is this what it meant to be an Assassin? Being some paranoid, psychotic, schizophrenic, trusting no one; not even yourself?

I sighed out smoke; it reminded me of my father. How he would act when some slightly suspicious stranger walked past our home. How he reacted when anyone but me came close. For the first time in a long time; I felt something other than anger at my father. I felt sorry for Serghar Kaltos.

Was he the product of this 'training'? No, I was beginning to think it was brainwashing. Was this why my father neglected to teach me the 'subtle arts?' He did not want me to be a lonesome monster like him?

I took the Lho stick and eyed it; I used to be a chain smoker. They helped me in my darker days. At Galitis' instruction I had quit (which seemed hypocritical as she encouraged the use of potentially deadly combat drugs) but since we came under Taryst's employ, I drifted back to the dirty habit, a coping mechanism indeed.

Was the life of an Assassin what I truly wanted?

I tapped ash off the Lho stick and put it back in my mouth.

I didn't know what I wanted anymore.

I inhaled the sweet smoke, took the dying smoke between index finger and thumb. Exhaled and flicked the stub onto the rockcrete ground.

I kept leaning against the wall, not moving to step it out. Elandria did it as she emerged from the shadows.

"Lost in your little world once more, eh?" she said.

"Not lost enough to miss your clumsy approach."

I could not see the expression on her face behind that cold, featureless mask but I could hazard a guess.

Elandria was many things, but socially intelligent was not one of them.

She stood for a few seconds; trying to make a coherent comeback and the best she came up with was: "why is the son of Serghar Kaltos smoking Lho? Does he think himself too good for the rules?"

My jaw set. I tried to keep my father's identity a secret, but Glaitis had to go and tell Elandria. Perhaps it was yet another "test" but what that bloody woman wanted to test exactly was a mystery; was it my patience? Or my skill at combat when I lost my patience?

I sighed contemptuously, and that riled her up.

"What does that mean?"

"It means what it means," my tone insultingly melancholic.

"Yeah!" she snarled. "Well let us see what it truly "means" when I separate your head from your shoulders!"

And she reached for her blades.

I grinned then in a blink, slid into a combat stance and drew my sword.

Then Garrakson suddenly seemed to appear between us.

Elandria and I yelped in fright and leapt back.

"That's enough kiddies," he said. "I think that we've had enough violence for today."

Then he turned to me, "and kid if you want to sheath your blade in her may I suggest using your "other" blade instead."

I felt my face go hot.

"What?" demanded Elandria, her wide, beautiful green eyes switching back and forth between Garrakson and I. "What is this 'other blade' you speak of, Garrakson? Attelus Kaltos only wields one. Is-is it the knife in his boot?"

"Try a little higher missy," said Garrakson and I blushed even worse.

But she still didn't get it.

Garrackson sighed, "alright let's get moving, kiddies. We've got exploits to report."

My face still seeming on fire and Elandria still confused. We slipped south, toward the "back way." The entrance designated to us dirty dogs of war. We were not good enough for the public entry.

Elandria and I walked on Garrakson's flanks; into the dirty, barely six-metre wide alleyway. We were aware of the cameras watching us. Thirteen of them, perched about five metres up on the grim, grey walls. I reminded myself of them every time; just in case.

We came to the entrance, a well-hidden set of double doors. Garrakson tugged open the panel hiding the keypad, and typed the access code.

Elandria and I kept watch. Which was fine with me. My back was to the gorgeous assassin. In my immature embarrassment, I could barely at look her and counted myself lucky. Her indoctrination had given her a naiveté of such personal matters.

Actually, on second thought, I was not lucky at all. Luck had abandoned me long ago.

I hissed a curse. Then could not help grin and shake my head.

Abruptly, I was brought into reality by the slight hissing of the opening doors and we silently slipped in.

We walked into what was once a maintenance entrance, now was a highly secure, fortified maintenance entrance.

If there was a literal embodiment of Taryst's paranoia: this was it. Mercenaries crawled throughout the ten metre wide, hundred metre long walkway. At every three metres: were waist high rockcrete walls. It was on a sharp incline, so each wall overlooked the last and twelve small balconies jutted from the walls: ten metres overhead. A sniper crouched in each; their Long Las rifles tracked us as we walked.

I hated the place. I would always try to find some way to sneak or fight through without getting evaporated by billions of las, solid projectile and high-velocity hot shot rounds; besides stealing a uniform or complete camouflage. I came up nil; it was as close to impregnable as I knew. It would take hundreds, perhaps thousands of Imperial Guardsmen to storm it and their casualties would be horrendous but it would work...eventually. That or an entire company of Space Marines but even they would suffer: a high yield hotshot round punches through power armour with ease.

Elandria and I silently walked through the crowd of highly armed and armoured mercenaries. But Garrakson seemed to greet each frigger in frigging turn. He knew them by name and stopped for idiotic small talk with them. I was almost glad at Callague's and Jarvus' demise; the walk would have been even longer with them.

After twenty long minutes, we arrived at the end. Here two servitors both with an autocannon for arms stood constant vigil at the doors.

They slid open, and Colonel Barhurst walked out. The grizzled old bastard approached with a warm grin and outstretched arms. But he was contradicted by the ten grim, faceless Storm Troopers escorting him.

"Ahh! Garrakson my good friend!" Barhurst exclaimed. He was well into his two hundred but the use of extensive and expensive rejuvenate treatments kept him looking in his mid-thirties. Though a heavily scarred and beaten man in his mid-thirties. According to my research, he was one of Taryst's longest-serving allies. He abandoned his duties as colonel in the Tamarsk 30th to join the rogue trader; so was wanted by the commissariat and the Inquisition for dereliction of duty. But thanks to Taryst's goodwill and huge influence he eluded justice so far.

I never liked Barhurst, the man was sycophancy incarnate. Taryst was the true commander, all Barhurst did was carry on the Rogue Trader's commands and when asked to do anything himself, he would pass it onto others. He was charismatic, friendly, but it was an obvious facade. How Taryst couldn't see the incompetence of his second was quite beyond me.

"How goes the hunt?"

"Another dead end," said Garrakson, the contempt in our squad leader's voice was well hidden, but not from me. "And we lost Callague and Jarvus."

Barhurst made an exaggerated frown; it was like an alien making a sick parody of human emotion. 'Sorry to hear my friend. Master Taryst is up in his grotto waiting for you."

Then Barhurst turned to Elandria and I, smiling smugly, "and you two know the drill."

I sighed, yes I frigging know, do you need to remind me every single time? I thought and my teeth clenched.

Hesitantly, I unstrapped my sheathed sword, placed it on the nearby table and slipped off my wrist mounted throwing knife compartments. Took my auto pistol from my shoulder holster then lastly and most hesitantly: my right boot which contained the hidden knife.

Elandria did it with even more aversion than I: letting go of her twin swords, her auto pistol and knife.

"Good!" said Barhurst. "You can head on up now."

And just to make sure, we had to file through a metal detector.

Every single damn day for six months we went through this shit. Saying it was quite depressing was a frigging understatement.

I might have to start on Obscura just to get over this monotony.

I shook away the thought. I have seen the damage that the drug can do. I have been through the damage it could do, and I will never go through that again.

Never.

In silence, we rode the up elevator the three hundred stories of Taryst's tower. On a hive world like Omnartus, buildings of such excessive calibre were almost a given. I was from an Agri world, though it was not without great cities of its own. Varander the capital of my home country: Velrosia was a bustling, beautiful metropolis. Varander sat on the north coast of lake Varander. A lake was so large it could be classed as a sea. I spent the majority of my teenage years living there.

I missed Varander. The last I had seen the city, it was reduced to rubble.

Then there was Varanier, the capital of Elbyra's largest nation: Maranger. That was a fantastic city, harsh and sparse. It was a metropolis of granite and grit an embodiment of its people.

Neither city was on terms with even the smallest of hives. Many packing ten times the population of Elbyra into an area the size of a Varanderian suburb.

Omnartus was dead. Millennia of intense colonisation, mining and pollution had destroyed its ecosystem. But when we rode this elevator, it would make my dreary days worth it. As we rose high enough to emerge from the pollution, I would glimpse the might of nature. That despite humanity's wanton destruction here still held a beauty of its own. The sun dominated and in the distance, the peaks of Omnartus' many mountains broke through to the clear air; like icy white islands in a sea of black and brown. But despite everything each mountaintop contained life: a one in a million plant, had the sheer power and audacity to survive in below zero temperatures. That it thrived despite the odds, was a testament.

Of course, I kept this romanticism private; no self-serving mercenary should be like this. Despite having seen so much death and grim darkness, I still held onto slight aspects of my sixteen-year-old self. The foolish, naive me before being forced to find out how horrible it is to live in this galaxy. That was why I was having second thoughts; I was beginning to doubt whether I could handle the damage this life could cause; physical and mental.

No, the damage it will cause.

I sighed, attention stapled to the world outside; hoping like hell my back facing to Elandria and Garrakson was enough to hide my emotions.

Then it happened, what I dreaded most: the end of the journey.

"300th story; Master Taryst's living quarters," said the elevator's pre-programmed, monotone voice as the ascent abruptly stopped. "Restricted access, retinal scan required."

My jaw clenched, and I looked up, seeing the three cameras crowding the elevator with their damnable presence.

Surely Taryst was watching the feed? Surely over the dozens of times, we have been up here, the rogue trader could discern who the hell we were?

I could tell Garrakson shared my teeth grinding frustration; the ex-guardsman stood and waited for about half a minute. Then with a heavy sigh, he pushed his face into the scanner.

"Employee 568; identified as Jeurat Garrakson," said the computer. "Access granted."

The doors slid open, and we filed out.

We entered Taryst's lavish living quarters. Elandria in the middle; Garrakson and I on her flanks. Red dominated Taryst's little world a deep, bloody crimson.

The windowless corridor was five metres wide and about fifteen in length. At the end was a thick crimson and gold curtain. I had never been through those curtains. Taryst would always meet us out here. I knew Garrakson had and I was sorely tempted to ask the ex-guardsman but could not pluck up the courage. Well him and Glaitis.

Two straight-backed guards stood in front of the curtains. They were in golden, ostentatiously emblazoned carapace armour,. They held equally fancy hell guns. I had never seen their faces nor talked to them, but I could not help admire their discipline and stoicism.

Curiosity ate at me. What was beyond the curtains? It could be anything: a secret shrine dedicated to the Ruinous Powers? Or perhaps a den of sin and hedonism? (That could be a shrine to one god, but I would rather keep from uttering its name)

But I was not sure if I wanted to know. No, I wanted to see, but whether I should was an entirely different question.

I was finding Ignorance was very much bliss, in this galaxy (which is ironically against Glaitis' teachings)

I sighed. It was far too late for that; I had long passed that event horizon. Short of having myself lobotomised, there was no going back.

Just like my dear old damnable dad.

"GREETINGS MY DEAR FRIENDS!" The deep voice abruptly boomed, and the boss himself flourished out of the curtains.

I winced; not in fright but contempt. Every time he would greet us this way. And it every single time it smacked of utterly forced, fake enthusiasm.

In all honesty, I had come to suspect Taryst of withholding secrets right from my first week of employment and how could I bloody not? Even if I had told Glaitis' then, it would have been too late in her lofty opinion.

"My friends!' he echoed as he approached us, "my friends!"

Taryst stood over two metres tall. Was big boned and corded with muscle; he cut an intimidating figure.

His strong-jawed face was plain. His tanned skinned, complemented by a finely maintained black moustache and goatee. His smile glaringly bright and like his greeting, fake.

During the months, I noticed Taryst had aged; now there were bags under his eyes and a wrinkle here and there. Being utterly paranoid all the time would do that.

I wouldn't trust him as far as I could frigging throw him.

"Attelus, Jeurat!" Taryst cried as he came close, his two guards in tow. He paused at Elandria and with surprising dexterity eclipsed her hand in his, then lightly kissed the back it. "Mamzel Elandria, what news have you brought me today?"

My jaw set as I saw Elandria's pale skin blushing like mad.

Garrakson cleared his throat; he was the only one used to the Rogue Traders over the top extroversion. "My lord, we have arrived at yet another dead end."

Almost violently, Taryst let go of Elandria's hand. Stood and turned on his heels, so his back faced us. "And Callague, Javus?"

"I am not sure sir."

Taryst spun on Garrakson, "and what does, 'I am not sure,' mean?"

Garrakson shrugged, "I don't know sir, meaning that they are either still lying in the pools of blood we left them in or in a Magistratum mortuary either/or."

His dead tone shocked me so much my jaw dropped.

Taryst grimaced slightly and for a second, looked his three hundred years.

"I-I am sorry to hear that."

Garrakson stayed stoic, kept his gaze locked to Taryst's.

Taryst flinched away, "and as well as no news on your target?"

"Zilch," answered Garrakson. "No sign of this Brutis "Bones" yet sir he is quite the enigma."

Now that is the frigging understatement of the millennia, I thought.

"Then what exactly happened?"

Garrakson sniffed, "they went immediately hostile sir. Ambushing us as we entered their base of operations, even with our cover. We managed to fight our way to their cogitator bank but found the memory all wiped. I haven't seen such ferocity since I fought in the guard sir. From what I gathered if we captured and tried to interrogate one of the hammers we would be wasting our time. They were like cultists, sir. This Brutis "bones" must be getting very influential in the local gangs if they will fight for him like that. The crazy bastards."

Taryst looked desperately at Elandria and I.

"And you two agree?"

Elandria nodded and blushed to the floor. My jaw set again and said simply: "yes."

I could not bother with more detail; I just wanted to get away from Taryst.

Taryst grimaced disapprovingly.

"Alright another dead end it is then!" he exclaimed with forced humour. "And quite literally too!"

The only one laughing was Elandria, both Garrakson and I, not so amused.

"Okay then and I thank you all for the update, and I apologise for Callague and Jarvus, they were good men." Then he turned away and began back to his curtains. "Dismissed, all."

"Oh, and young Attelus," he said, suddenly stopping his tracks and making me halt in mine. "Come! I very much wish to speak to you!"

That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

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