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evilkitten3 · 2 months

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Hey, thanks for the reply! Also sorry for using comments instead of reblogging, I own only a blog with goofy fancomics and I don't want to mix plot discussions into it. I hope you don't mind. If you want, you can cite this whole reply in another post, but I'm ok with anything.

When it comes to narrator reliability, I go for "reliable unless proven otherwise" approach. I agree here, that picking Obito's statements was not the best way to prove things because he had been proved to talk nonsense before. On the other hand, with how few glimpses of Madara's PoV we have, they are consistent with Hashirama's tale except for VoTE fight where Madara intentionally tricked Hashirama about his goals and the outcome. So I'm going to consider Hashi mostly reliable, also because his account is the last one we get, so if Kishimoto planned it to be false, not showing Madara's contradicting PoV (or at least hinting at it, which we don't get either) would be plain bad writing (still doesn't give 100% certainty, but I'd take this over the "God of the gaps" approach).

Even if we don't consider the info on Izuna's dying words true, Hashirama says that Madara had claimed that Izuna had been killed by Senju (also states it as a reason for not being able to trust Senju enough to make a truce), and Madara later confirms that Izuna had been in fact killed by Tobirama (the "Tobirama pin cushion" scene in War Arc). Also, we were never given an explanation for Uchihas turning their backs on Madara other than

prolonging the war

Madara allegedly stealing Izuna's eyes. Both these things trace back to Izuna's death. One can try to give other reasons, but this would be entering headcanon territory at this point, so something that the reader wants to be true rather than something that the reader has actually been given.

As for Tobirama, he plays a way bigger role in his and Madara's paranoia than Madara, and his prejudice is largely ungrounded (however understandable because of his own traumas), but here are some things Madara did that could rile him up:

refusing truce for so long, stemming from Izuna's death (according to Hashirama)

pulling off the whole "it's either me or him" stuff twice (first one is when Tobirama calls Madara a lunatic, so this had started before the founding of Konoha): this also fits thematically with Izuna's death, because having no living brothers left would have put Hashirama and Madara in the same spot

attempting to nuke Konoha with Kurama (even if we assume that Madara didn't want to do it, he intentionally made this impression to lure out Hashirama, so Tobirama can't be blamed for believing it) which had been partially caused by Uchihas rejecting Madara which had been caused by… etc. Tobirama explicitly says that his persecution of Uchihas was to avoid the rise of another Madara, but this is Tobirama we are speaking of, so take this with a grain of salt. Also, through grooming Obito, Madara played a significant indirect role in Uchiha massacre, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it intentional on his side (we can't tell to what extent Obito was guided by "Madara's will"). So in the end, his actions do bear characteristics of a self-fulfilling prophecy, although I admit that it's debatable how much Uchiha opression could have been avoided without Madara fueling every bad stereotype, because the prejudice didn't start with him. No Obito and no Kurama attack could have at least remove a convenient pretext for the massacre from the story, but it's absolutely possible that Konoha elders would have found another one.

I'm not saying all of this to prove that Madara wouldn't have pursued IT with Izuna alive (in fact, it would be interesting to see BZ sway Madara without killing Izuna). My point is that there are too many factors that more or less directly trace back to Izuna's death to confidently state the opposite.

entirely fair! and don't worry, plenty of people prefer commenting for various reasons; no offense taken

honestly, i tend to be more or less the same, although i actually think hashirama's story was probably pretty solid; he doesn't try at all to make claims for the stuff he wasn't there for. he doesn't even say "madara was definitely standing outside the window" he says "tobirama looked out the window and i found a leaf that looked like the one madara looked at the village through"

having said that, from what i remember, at some point kishimoto did end up pressed for time, and that seriously affected the quality of his work (and... let's be honest, the war arc was never naruto's best writing. the war arc wishes it had what the wave arc had)

i think the reason we never heard hashirama's take on why madara's clan distanced itself from him is bc hashirama can't really,,,, comprehend that? like madara explicitly says "no one in my family likes me :(" and hashirama goes "i don't believe that" like he has any way of knowing XD

personally, i'm fairly certain that tobirama killed izuna, and i have no reason to think otherwise (i guess it's possible that black zetsu personally snuck an infection into his wound somehow just to make sure he kicked it and madara got his eyes, but like you said that'd just be headcanon territory, and also it kinda doesn't matter since neither madara nor hashirama would have any way of knowing that, so neither would we)

frankly i personally like the idea that tobirama was just scared shitless of madara, but it's also possible that he held a grudge over the whole "kill u or ur bro" thing. probably not the other stuff tbh, since tobirama never seemed all that invested in the idea of a village before it was founded (probably just. didn't think it could happen), and madara trying to nuke the village didn't happen until after he'd left, so while it may have affected tobirama's relationship with the other uchiha, it didn't really affect his relationship with madara.

obito's role in the massacre was,,,, really badly handled tbh. and also part of why i suspect that the original concept of "tobi" (from a meta perspective) was meant to be madara's ghost possessing obito's mostly dead corpse. madara had a reason to resent the uchiha clan (although i don't think the character we meet in the war arc would've done that, even if the character we met after tobi's "reveal" might have), but obito never really got one. there were fan theories, but not a lot of solid canon evidence. it might've happened, since both obito and madara were justifying everything they did with "well they'll all be fine when the infinite tsukuyomi kicks in, so whatever"

if you keep izuna alive and don't remove black zetsu from the equation, then it's less of a "would madara still do this" question and more of a "how long until black zetsu manages to cause izuna's death and lead madara to do this" question. zetsu needed madara to get the eternal mangekyou sharingan, after all. if it was possible to do that while keeping izuna alive then that'd certainly be interesting, but it's not something zetsu would particularly care to pursue, especially when izuna dying makes it much more likely that madara will take his eyes. but black zetsu is black zetsu, so i'm sure it could figure something out.

if you take out black zetsu entirely, then it's hard to say if madara would've come up with the eye of the moon plan on his own, but i do still think he would've seen the village as a failure and left in the end. like you said, it's hard to say for sure, though.

#naruto #naruto shippuden #uchiha madara #meta #long post

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dailybotany · 10 months

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you know plants and i trust your opinion; i've been struggling to find any information on how to look after bromeliads and was wondering if you had any advice?

Hey my friend! Thank you for your faith in me lol. I will answer your question to the best of my ability, but I do want to preface this with the fact that I don't do a lot of horticulture — I have a handful of houseplants and briefly worked at a garden center, but I don't have authority on the topic by any stretch of the imagination.

I am also limited by not knowing what bromeliads you are trying to care for — Bromeliaceae is a large family, with ~80 genera and ~3700 known species and species across these genera are commonly kept as houseplants. However, I will work under the assumption that you are working with the houseplants commonly referred to as bromeliads* and not, for example, a pineapple or air plant. As far as I can tell, the most commonly kept bromeliad genera are Guzmania, Aechmea, Quesnelia, and Vriesea. Guzmania seems to be far and away the most commonly sold. So let's get into it: how does one care for these buggers?

Something that I think we often forget about houseplants is that these plants belong to a specific ecology, even though they are removed from that context. Our job is to replicate (to the best of our ability) the conditions their wild relatives live under.

So, with that in mind, what does the ecological context for these bromeliads generally look like?

They are epiphytes — fancy botany word meaning that they grow on other plants, but do not derive nutrients from them, as in a parasite (epi = upon, above, over the epidermis; phyte = plant). The plant they grow on is referred to as a phorophyte (phoro = bearer, carrier; phyte = plant).

They are tropical. They are mostly native to the Neotropics (American tropics), except for one species that lives in tropical west Africa and a few in the American subtropics.

They generally are found in the subcanopy, so they receive varying levels of filtered light.

From these generalizations, we can deduce that they prefer a warm, high humidity environment with indirect sun exposure. Since they are epiphytes, their root structures aren't used to absorb nutrients and instead are primarily holdfasts, used to keep the plant firmly attached to its phorophyte. So how do they absorb nutrients and water?

Most epiphytic bromeliads have a central cup, like this:

(via The Flower Bin Gardening Center)

As illustrated in this image, the base of the leaves collects and stores water. This is where you want to water your bromeliad — wet soil won't do them much good without water in their central cup!

Now, a couple sources (1,2) I'm reading say that bromeliads are pretty picky about their water source and that tap water does not a happy bromeliad make. Instead, you want to use rain, filtered, or distilled water.

Since they like a humid environment, you can mist them or run a humidifier nearby to keep their environment within the desired humidity range. This source breaks down by taxon what that could look like.

Thats about all I've got for ya! Please check out the sources I hyperlinked, they have good advice and get more specific than I am able to with the info and expertise I have :)

*horticulture does this thing where a taxonomic name for a group is applied to a subsection within the broader group (OR EVEN species no longer in that grouping) and it is a PAIN and makes life SO MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. @ horticulturalists I'm going to kill you with laser beams from my mind if you don't stop this.

#raincoats answers #bromeliaceae #bromeliads #houseplants #plants #botany

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semitransparent-glob · 10 months

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i will ask questions on the condition that you never use the pleading meat emoji again (please). what're the motives? what's the puzzle/solution you're most proud of? do you incorporate dr traditions like a double murder in ch3 and the buff one dying in ch4? what character made you the most sad to kill off?

LMAOOO ok i promise <33

tysm for sending questions 🥰🥰🥰🥰

I think i am going to put this under a readmore bc i am going to ramble so so much

I definitely followed conventions of the 3 visual novel dr games, and studied the trials and motives to make my own motives and trials. I found as many consistencies as I could and tried to stick to them for my fangan, just to give myself a framework to work off of and I thought it would be fun :^))

For the motives: I have all of them planned out pretty well except chapter 4 and 5, which need some ironing out but i have some ideas.

Chapter 1: The motive is the idea that one among them has already killed someone, but since the person wasn't a student, there will be no trial. What actually happened was that one of the people working for the mastermind was killed by the mastermind, because that person was planning to betray the mastermind. The mastermind then staged her body in a spot where the students could find it, and claimed that one of the students had killed her in secret. But because none of the students actually killed her, they aren't able to figure out who among them did kill her, and so they just keep throwing accusations and tensions rise, leading to a killing on false suspicions.

Chapter 2: This motive is kinda specific to Shin, my Ultimate Ghost Hunter, but because the mastermind has all information on the students, she can do something like this. Basically, there's a horror movie that follows a serial killer butcher, but throughout the movie there are subliminals that activate a curse/pact Shin has with a demon that he made in the past. The deal is, he has to kill someone or else he will die horribly from the curse, and he has a time limit. So this leads to him killing someone, and then staging it like the movie to frame my ultimate Butcher character. (this follows the "revealing a serial killer" convention (even tho it's fake))

Chapter 3: The motive this time is a time limit, but its so that if they don't kill anyone, they get to go free, but they will all have their talents completely erased from their brains, and will have to live as talentless people. Junichi, who can't stand the thought of losing his talent and livelihood, ends up killing two people to keep it.

Chapter 4: for this one I have a sort of end goal in mind, where the Real goal was to create a complex murder and prolong the trial as long as possible so that one of the people working for the mastermind can work behind her back while she's distracted to slip information to the students. There needs to be something more to push for a murder, and i'm still working on that

Chapter 5: Like v3's chapter 5, the motive this time is to create an unsolvable murder in order to break the killing game. I also think that Kazuya may be getting too much info at this point, and the mastermind may cook up a motive to put a target on his head specifically, like how Junko did to Kyoko in chapter 5. I am still workshopping this one as well.

OK for puzzles, i am still working on my trial puzzles, and honestly not super confident in those, BUT i am kinda proud of some of the hints for the bigger mystery. I think the ch 3 motive is one of them, the indirect hint being that if Monokuma has the power to just. take away someone's talent, that might say something about the talents and their legitimacy. (foreshadowing for the fact that their talents are fake like in v3)

To add to that, Kazuya (my lesbian komaeda clone) starts the killing game not knowing his talent, but later finds a letter of acceptance to Hope's Peak in his room that wasn't there before, and it claims that he is the Ultimate Lucky Student. He will tell this to Emiko (main character) and say that the fact that it was clearly intentionally placed there might mean something; basically, this is information that the mastermind *wants* him to know, and he is aware of that.

In the end, it will be revealed that Kazuya was originally supposed to be the Ultimate Character Designer, and that is foreshadowed by his drawing gloves >:^) (that was an idea from a friend hehe <3)

HONESTLY i was sad to make any of em die, but i think the one that's gonna hurt me the most to write is Rokurou's death, not only because I am very attached to his character but because he's a killer and is gonna get executed </3. I wanted his death to mirror Gonta's in a way, and dear god that trial Hurted me.

but also just look at him. He's a sad cowboy who does math.

ALSO KAZUYA. like i knew the moment i made him he had to die but also like. I like him so much ...

#TY!!!!!#my ocs

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kaishun · 2 years

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Xenoblade 3 Questing

I'm around 130 hours, and I think I've finished just about every sidequest? Only thing still pending is Info gathering on Aionios's dangerous monsters or whatever, and I don't think that even has a quest marker on it.

Most* colonies are at 5 stars or 4.9 stars after doing the quests, so just need to slap some more collectopedias at them.

There could also be a few quests that are level-locked? As my experience lands me around LV94, which is not LV99.

I'm not much of a Unique Monster hunter and I've only gotten 3 of the "Treasures of the Seven" or whatever items (the Attack, Agility, and Aggro ones) not sure if there's more? But I'll probably grab some guide for the Unique Monsters so I can plan a path accordingly.

That said, Xenoblade 3's side quests have felt good. Very involved, interesting, and impactful. My girlfriend complained about them being sidequests, even, as there's so much lore and character developed, giving them the extra polish of being voiced would've really helped. When your main complaint is "so good it deserved to be better", you know it's great!

However, since I'm wrapping things up now, the hours I put in are ending with it being much shorter than other Xenoblade games as far as my speed of questing-- I have well over 200 hours clocked on Xenoblade 2, and I'm still not done with all the side quests nor at max level. (I can't remember how far I got in Xenoblade 1. Playing it both for the Wii and Switch has muddled a lot of the quests for me. Don't think I hit max level though.) But Xenoblade 2's combat is... pretty painfully slow at times, so I'm not sure if that time stamp is a reflection of the actual amount of content.

My only real beef with the XB3 side quests outside of that was picking them up in the first place. The Info Gathering things are good in theory, but in practice they can be a bit awkward. They don't show up on the overworld map, and the characters often don't even exist (as little green dots) on the minimap. Just giving them a quest indicator would've helped a lot. I've even seen it take 2 in-game hours for two people to spawn in and start talking, pending on how the Switch is feeling about loading-- so even if I check every inch of a Colony, sometimes what I need is where I started searching, just it hadn't loaded in, yet. (And no, not a "time of day" sort of issue-- time of day seems a lot less important in XB3.)

Other minor complaints, the levels are also REALLY fucked up, like, prerequisite quests will sometimes have higher levels than their indirect follow-up quests, and it bounces up down and all around. It feels like at some point, they went back and rebalanced the quests levels to spread things out better, but didn't quite catch them all. The number of LV30-50 quests that send me to LV75 areas was rough. As I was doing this post-game, it was fine, just every once in awhile I'd run into a LV70 when I'm scaled down to LV50, or a LV30 when I'm sitting at LV70.

As a potentially game-breaking issue, there was also one quest (Side Story: Lanz I believe) that I was underprepared for, so tried to leave; but literally couldn't. I couldn't teleport, couldn't take the boat out, nothing. My quick saves were both on this quest, and my last manual save was over 6 hours previous. No way to abandon the quest, deactivating didn't do anything. There weren't really any enemies to grind on. I'm not sure if that happens on any other quests-- being locked into them like that-- as I didn't run into stuff "too hard, I'll come back later" very often. So I just had to slam my face into Consul H until she died, mostly via boring turtle method (I think 3 healers, 3 tanks, 1 attacker; I can't remember if I was able to bring a Hero to that fight).

*Colony Mu is weirdly behind on reputation-- more like 4.7? Which makes me wonder if the dangerous monsters info thing is for Colony Mu, especially since the Armu quest originally stated it could attract Rare monsters-- though after getting my golden boy, there's no more feeding to be done, so that feels like its done? Regardless, I'll need to shove my lil nose everywhere to find the remaining Infos for the Dangerous Monsters thing.

#xenoblade 3 #xenoblade 3 spoilers #just me rambling about XB3 quests

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itmightneverbetherighttime · 4 years

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i think my investigation has come to an end...

#i'm-#i was literally about to give up this morning #but i was able to get as much indirect info as i could #everything i came up with last night and all i thought i had was so far off lmao #thanks mom for your help even tho you don't even know #the thing is...#now what am i supposed to do with this information?#i'm like 99% sure it's him #all the facts match #he looks a little different because i guess his long hair is recent but still #the profile makes sense #i'm just a little tiny bit surprised he's actually over two full years younger like damn #when i saw him i was like well he's either my age or older #ha ha ha #that's a bit crazy tbh #he's cute regardless #but i guess it makes sense if i think about how the whole fire thing went down last week lmao #i mean if i wouldn't have known what to do it makes sense for someone younger to freak out as well #i sound like an old lady rip what am i even saying #it's just two years #and it's not like i'm going to do anything #as if #i'm not even able of doing the simply dumb thing of following him on insta because i am too anxious over everything #plus i'd feel dumb #on one hand i'm satisfied because my investigation was successful #on the other hand i'm just like #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#because i did all of this for nothing #anyway #today's been rough & i'm just pouring my energy over this

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daaziscoolbesties · 3 years

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[REPOST] MY 2K WORD COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS OF RANBOO’S LORE STREAM

‼️‼️This post contains lore spoilers from Ranboo’s 4/23 stream, “The Enderwalk Saga. Chapter 1: The Lessons”. If you haven’t seen that stream don’t read ahead unless you want spoilers‼️‼️

disclaimer: this isnt really an analysis as much as a bunch of commentary and half-baked theories.

-on the way to the mansion he was sort of talking to himself saying stuff like "i'm good i'm good" which m a y be a normal thing but also maybe it's not and it flew over our heads cause he talks to chats and donos like that so often

-again, this one may just be a normal thing but when he was climbing up the stairs in the mansion looking for foolish, he repeats some of his words like down to the exact same tone of voice and everything. 12:42, "this mansion is way too big actually. this mansion is way too big actually." (why the repeated actually? seems odd to me but again it might just be a normal thing that i haven't picked up on). (right after) "okay okay lemme find him lemme find him" again repeated words in the e x a c t same tone.

-does everyone know about ranboo's silk touch hands ability thing? or was that just a techno and ranboo main character moment. bc if it was, how would foolish know that ranboo could pick up the full cake after it'd been partially eaten. unless everyone on the sever knows about that in which case this means nothing. but if they d o n t know... how would foolish know? ranboo wrote about it in the do not read book so maybe if it's not a publicly known thing maybe foolish got his hands on the book and read it??

-14:53-ish, they're talking about the war room and how it was for tubbo or whatever and ranboo says, and i quote "he prepares for lore but he's never gonna do it." now funny thing is at first i couldn't tell if he said "war" like in reference to the war room or "lore". but after playing the clip over and over i can say with ALMOST 100% certainty that he said lore. there is a definite L sound at the beginning of the word. which either means a) this was a slip up (doubtful bc he said later that there were no mistakes), b) he broke the fourth wall because they were supposed to be rping at that point, or c) i'm completely wrong and he said "war" which leads down an entire other road of possibilities

-15:17 "are you a book reader?" "*checks inventory for do not read book* uh yeah i'd say i'm a book reader-" dunno how i didn't catch this the first time I HATE THAT DAMN BOOK

-15:18 there's blue in his hotbar. where did he get the blue.

-16:40 "it's like a metaphor- i have two minds: i have my normal self, my normal little shift-dancing self, and then the builder one. the builder one is demanding. it's a very demanding mind." ranboo then lets out a weird sigh after this. i feel like what foolish was talking about was an indirect(?) parallel to ranboo in and out of enderwalk, there's how he normally is, trying to do best for others, and then there's enderwalk, meeting up with bad guys and "demanding" things (its very late as i write this i really don't know what i'm talking about)

-17:11 "you have your panic closet" i'm sorry his what now 😀 no but seriously how the hell did i miss some of these

-18:04 "you're asking me if i remember?" very funny ranboo thank you for making jokes in these trying times

-18:25 WHY DID HE GET OUT THE AXE WHEN STARING AT THE BEE

-19:38 why did foolish hold the grass block- most of these observations probably mean nothing but- h u h - is that- i'm too tired for this

-19:54 "i never properly thanked you for the deal you made with me" so foolish got something out of this deal, we're not sure if ranboo did. "the green cardboard box" again do you mean dream's house- but seriously the only people i can think of on the server that are associated with green are dream and sam. and i have no idea what cardboard box could be referring to. foolish got a lime colored shulker from drista

-20:30 "we're supposed to only talk about it at a certain location" hmm now where would that be? panic room maybe? cause like usually after doing a big thing in the enderwalk state ranboo wakes up in the panic room so maybe? the deal was that they only talk about it in his house

-21:52 how does ranboo receive(?) the lessons? like are they whispered to him in his mind or is he seeing them as words in front of him like we see? hmm

-"Lesson 14: If you have the opportunity to gain a favor, take it." "gain a favor" don't you usually ask people for favors though? how does one "gain a favor"? anyways i'm pretty sure lesson 14 has to do with the deal foolish was talking about. (the deal explained because i now have info: at some point a bit ago foolish met up with ranboo and asked to make a deal, he'd gotten a shulker box from drista. the deal was that ranboo would have ownership of the box, it would be under his name but foolish rents/borrows it indefinitely. ranboo negotiated that if he took ownership of the box he would get a "war favor" from foolish where if something happens that creates sides, ranboo can ask him a favor that could change his side. but why would foolish want ranboo to have ownership of the shulker you may ask? well i have an answer for you. a theory actually but still. basically since drista technically isn't supposed to give out shit on the server if someone where to have that stuff then they may get in trouble. foolish wants to be able to use the shulker but if it gets found he doesn't want to get in trouble, so he can blame it on ranboo seeing as it's under his name.)

-22:16-ish "i still have this from when you *can't understand whats said here*" well i guess that sort of explains why he had the grass block? idk man (info update: he had the grass block from when ranboo threw it at him telling him to calm down like what ghostbur does with blue)

-31:35 "i figured out how to cause it" how to cause the enderwalk state

-38:30 "ninety three lessons" I STILL DONT KNOW WHY HE KEPT SAYING NINETY THREE AND NOT NINETY FOUR AND ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY LMAO

-39:01 "it's all for the greater good" okay well when are you gonna start thinking about yourself and not everyone else for once huh. self care bitch.

-40:31 he started holding the axe when he was looking at sam- gonna say it i really don't like that axe ahahah- WAIT A DAMN MINUTE THE AXE IS NAMED "axe of ender" I DONT LIKE THAT I DONT LIKE THAT AT ALL

-41:53 is there something?? physically keeping him from telling sam??? or maybe it's sort of like his enderwalk state taking control to make him shut the fuck up??? so many questions and approximately zero answers

-43:18 ranboo raising his voice legitimately scares me 😀👍

-"Lesson 27: Do not reminisce on what you have lost for it will weigh you down." showed up when he was thinking about and REMINISCING about the community house 👀👀

-"Lesson 53: Never fully trust anyone." showed up literally after he said that he thinks he can trust the other people on the server enough to tell them about what he did

-"Lesson 67: Leave no evidence of what you have helped with." this is different from the others because there doesn't seem to be at least a semi-direct connection to it? unless maybe at the time ranboo was near something he may have "helped with"? not sure about this one

-"Lesson 94: DO NOT LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE" yeah yeah i get it i get it he's fucked up some shit in enderwalk i don't feel like analyzing this thanks

-OH OH NOTICE HOW HE SAYS "REMEMBERING" WHEN THE LESSONS SHOW UP. IMPLYING THAT THIS ISNT A NEW THING, ITS HAPPENED BEFORE AND NOW HES REMEMBERING IT. MAYBE HE WROTE DOWN THE LESSONS WHEN HE WAS IN ENDERWALK AND NOW THAT HES BEEN EXPERIMENTING ITS BEEN EASIER FOR HIM TO REMEMBER THOSE ENDERWALK MEMORIES

-okokok the experiments are that he's been e x p e r i m e n t i n g on how to purposefully induce the enderwalk state. and we know now that it wasn't from the pain of the water because on the stream afterwords he said that it's caused by the intense fear of something happening. and so the "side effects" of the experiments is that since he's in enderwalk more often(?) he starts remembering more things from it

-OH MY GOD WAIT "there is a reason sam, there's so many reasons, theres ninety three of them" (44:47) WHAT IF EVERY LESSON IS TIED TO A QUOTE UNQUOTE "reason" THAT RANBOO THINKS HES A BAD PERSON/NEEDS TO BE LOCKED UP BUT HE SAYS NINETY THREE INSTEAD OF NINETY FOUR BECAUSE THE NINETY FOURTH LESSON DOESNT HAVE A REASON YET/HE DOESNT REMEMBER IT HAVING A REASON

-dude honestly the whole sam part hurts so much this man is scarily good at acting

-46:46 "i cant put you in the prison you wouldn't be able to see michael anymore" bestie that's the point he doesn't want to accidentally hurt michael or tubbo in the enderwalk state—

-okay but there's no way that sam couldn't tell that ranboo was at least TRYING to confess to something- i feel like he definitely knows more than he's letting on because usually like when people do bad shit or admit to doing bad shit he's like in Prison Guard Mode™️ (he literally cut off ponk's arm because he stole some keycards or something) and whatever and idk what he knows but he definitely knows something and is trying to protect ranboo. or he's trying to manipulate him or smth either one works—

-50:38 "you are a good person" "i am?" you can hear my heart shatter. "yes you are" "i don't think so sam" "i do, even if you don't" "i really don't think so" and there it goes again

-51:25 hello badboyhalo i see you to the left of ranboo

-52:44 "but then my curiosity got the best of me" curiosity killed the cat, bitch

-52:54 "there's ninety three, ninety four, ninety- theres so many reasons!" SEE!! NOT ONLY ARE THERE THAT MANY LESSONS THERE ARE REASONS THAT CORRESPOND IM S O SMART—

-52:56 "i don't want to remember anymore!" *quietly brings forth my theory that when ranboo loses a canon life his memory gets wiped*

-53:13 "ive opened pandora's box" isn't the prison?? literally called pandora's VAULT??? so this m a y be a stretch but i'm thinking that maybe this could be taken in the literal sense that he "opened" the prison and let dream out (the sirens at the end of quackity's stream confirm that dream is indeed out)

-53:42 mans just straight up walked through a ghost i—

-55:37 so are we just gonna ignore the eleventh page of the book? "he's alive, but hopefully soon dream won't be"??? alright nevermind it's most likely bc when tommy came back he recruited ranboo in his plan to kill dream

-55:47 notice how he writes "what am i?" as opposed to "who am i?" no elaboration here idk what it could be

-56:08 just so it's clear for anyone who doesn't know- he's wearing armor at this point, and i'm like 90% sure that when he wears his armor water can't hurt him. and i saw someone say somewhere that like with splash potions when thrown it turns into a gas-like thing? so again, it didn't hurt him, he didn't get hurt. he said in the chill stream that he wasn't comfortable making it where his character had to hurt himself to do that. the thing that causes the enderwalk isn't pain, it's intense and sudden emotions like fear and stress. thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

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fakecrfan · 3 years

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Ok. So Martin has to figure out what the Eye is at some point before the Goggles Incident or else he wouldnt know to blind himself to escape, right? So. When and how did he figure that out? And like, I get that he cant accept what the Eye offers as real love but wouldn't he try bargaining to, idk, date elias or smthg if the other 3 are released kind of like in aoye? Why would the Eye not go for that in this scenario?

Okay so--yes. Martin does discover what’s going on before the goggles incident. And of course, he discovers you can quit by gouging your eyes out. But it happens in phases.

Phase 1: he gets into the tunnels sometime after the Jane Prentiss threat blows over (but Martin’s been evicted and he’s weirdly having trouble finding a new place.) He gets information on the entities in general from Leitner.

Martin still promises he’ll come back and they’ll exchange more info. When he does come back, he finds Leitner completely fucking dead, so that’s how that goes.

(There is also some drama with the polycule and how they react to the tunnels--but I got another ask on that so I will expound on that Later :) )

Phase 2: Martin, after so much running around and trying to find out what eye monster is doing this and trying to wheedle information from people, gets straight up told by Elias that the Eye is in love with him. Martin does not accept this at first.

Phase 3: Melanie quits.

And you see, this is quite an accomplishment. Jon does now tell her how to quit in this AU, because Jon simply does not find Eric’s tape. Melanie follows Eric’s path in a more--indirect way. She goes through the process trial and error herself.

Of course her first instinct is to simply murder Elias. This prompts consternation from the rest of the polycule. Even Martin objects, also worried about all of them dying, to which Melanie throws something at him and screams not everything is about what you want!

She does feel bad about it afterwards, but she decides that bad feeling must be more Eye brainwashing, so she smothers it intentionally and does not apologize.

The attempts on Elias’s life before standard procedure. The others stop getting riled up about them. It even becomes an integral part of the team atmosphere. Exchanges like: “Ah, sorry Tim, seems like Melanie poisoned everything in the fridge just in case Elias eats any of it” become an ordinary and accepted part of life at the Archives.

The murder attempts distract everyone from all her other attempts to free herself.

Melanie reads every single statement she can get her hands on, trying to find any mention of someone fighting successfully against an Entity’s influence. She finds the story of Agnes Montague freeing someone from the web-induced mind control with a kiss on the cheeks.

That gives Melanie an idea, and sets her on a path. The first stop on that path is Jude Perry.

(CW: self harm, serious self-injury, and self destructive behavior bordering on suicidal.)

Jude laughs at Melanie’s dilemma (she always did find other people’s misery funny) and laughs even more at her hypothesis. Still, when Melanie grits her teeth and explains what she wants from Jude, Jude grins.

“Well,” Jude says. “I can practically guarantee you won’t get anything out of it that you’re hoping for. But you are pretty, so how could I say no?”

Georgie, as Melanie’s emergency contact, is the one who gets called by the hospital and gets to see her bandaged up from the burns Jude left on one side of her face.

Georgie is also there when Melanie gets to wake up and find out it didn’t work--that the same intense pressure for her to return to the Institute is still there. Melanie sobs a bit over it, squeezing Georgie’s hand, but--she’s not done, either. Not remotely.

If it’s not that the Desolation gives some sort of protection from mind control, Melanie decides, it must be that different Entities cancel each other out. And if the Desolation cancels out the Web, then--there has to be one that cancels out the Eye.

And so Melanie’s path continues.

She tracks down Manuela Domingeuz, and then Helen.

Melanie gets locked in the dark box (willingly) for days, and spends some indeterminate amount of time stumbling in Helen’s corridors, listening to Helen’s giggles echo around the corner and wondering if she’ll ever get let out. In each of these it--Melanie can feel the Eye subside for a moment. Can feel her thoughts become her own again.

But once she’s out, the pressure is always back. Pushing her back to the Institute. Letting her know Martin is worried.

She has so, so many fights with Georgie throughout all of this. Because Georgie both disagrees with Melanie keeping everything to herself, and disagrees with everything Melanie is doing when Melanie actually explains any of it.

“This isn’t helping anything, Melanie! I can’t just sit by and watch you slowly kill yourself.”

“Where were you? Please tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re just as bad as Jon.”

They stop talking. They start talking again. Melanie gets increasingly more erratic and hostile in her interactions with everyone. Jon tells her a supernatural bullet is causing this but, “It’s fine, we’ll make sure you stay one of Us enough to keep clear headed.”

She throws something at him, and screams.

Georgie wants her to stop trying. Wants her to focus on self-preservation, and stop self destructing for no foreseeable gain.

“And just let them keep controlling me?” Melanie mumbles, pressed up against Georgie’s shoulder.

“You’d still be alive, though,” Georgie says. “That has to be worth something.”

Melanie almost gives in, then. Only for a second, though. The problem is that Georgie’s words have the exact opposite of the effect Georgie intends. Because Melanie hears that and feels her heart melt and something in her goes: oh, this is what real love is.

She compares it to the foreign obsession that grips her at the worst of times, and she makes a choice.

Next week, Melanie locks herself in her own apartment. She knows she’ll get sick if she doesn’t go back to the Institute. It’s time to see if it will really kill her--or else, call her bluff.

Her phone blows up. She shuts it off and throws it out the window. Over the next few days, it becomes impossible to sleep. She paces, vomits, and scratches at herself. She gets furious, breaks things, kicks things, and cries through it all. She feels an ache in her leg, and thinks about what Jon told her about the bullet.

“Well,” she says, through the haze of lost sleep. “Maybe I can stop one thing from controlling me, at least.”

She cuts up her own leg. Messily, bloodily, not having enough foresight to sterilize the knife or have sutures or gauze ready to go. It’s pure luck that she doesn’t hit a major artery in the process, and that she gets it out.

Then, she hears knocking at the door.

“Fuck off!” she yells.

“Melanie?”

The voice makes her blood run cold. Martin. Her eyes move towards the door without her permission.

“Sasha said you were--you were doing--” Martin swallows. “Melanie, please. You don’t have to--”

Her head spins. She stands up, and heads for the door. She shakily unlocks it as though in a trance, and when she sees Martin on the other side she knows exactly why. The sight of him makes that alien thing at the back of head light up like fireworks.

She also knows, instantly, that Martin came himself because he knew that he’d be able to get her to stop. Because the second he thought hard enough about not wanting her to hurt herself, she wouldn’t be able to. That he's started to believe in the Eye's “love” enough to use it, in this case.

“You,” she tells him, still light-headed, “are a fucker, Martin.”

He doesn’t even defend himself. She hates him for that.

“What did you---your leg. Okay, shit, we need to get you to a--let me call--”

Melanie tries to move her head away. She can’t. She tries to at least blink. She can’t. She’s locked in eye contact with him, and those same fireworks are going off in her head.

Does Melanie work it out, at that moment?

She does think, briefly, of Manuela’s darkness. How that darkness blotted out the Eye’s influence, if only for a moment. About how Manuela ritualistically scratched out photographs of eyes, while Melanie was there. But maybe Melanie still doesn’t really make the intellectual connection.

Maybe it’s just spite.

She can’t move her own goddamn eyes. If it’s gonna be that way, then at the very least the Beholding shouldn’t get them either. And so, Melanie takes the knife she’d just used on her legs, and turns it on her own eyes.

The last thing she sees is Martin’s shrieking face--but the first thing she feels when she wakes up is Georgie’s hand holding hers, and that makes it worth it.

#and now Martin learns (viscerally) how someone can quit #martin + tapes #now with the culmination of Melanie's time in the polycule!

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tunakaslana · 3 years

Text

Aftermath fanfic after Hua's awakening

Kiana and Doodoo thing I wanted to do for a while now.

——————————

It was afternoon, most Schicksal staffs and Valkyrie are busy on carrying out their assigned tasks and missions. The hallways are almost empty if you exclude those doctors and researchers going around doing their things.

Kiana has been strolling around Schicksal, there really isn't anything she could do. Ever since she became the acting Overseer after she was met by Durandal when they got back Fu hua in Taixuan, her dull days just became duller.

Ever since Otto's "death" or disappearance, the higher council of Schicksal is in shambles. They need an Overseer, or an acting Overseer, to keep thing in path until Otto comes back. Theresa, the only Apocalype existing beside from Otto (even though it's only by name), is already considered as traitors of Schicksal and was already exiled from it. A Schariac would be a rather lesser choice than Theresa since to the eyes of most, they are nothing but guinea pigs to the Apocalypse family if not given credit for the "Holy blood" their house possess.

Don't even get me started with the Kaslanas, Schicksal looks at them like Schariacs, but a bit more. Main thing is because of Kaslanas' strong Honkai adaptability. They fear Kaslanas due to it and you caould trace it back during Kallen's era.

Durandal, not being able to bare seeing the disarray in Schicksal anymore, decided to sought for the best possible candidate as Overseer. Schicksal is a very traditional organization and would only choose candidates as Overseer within the three Houses.

Kiana Kaslana, or K-423, would be it. Even as a clone, she still holds relations between the Houses of Schariac and Kaslana, also the indirect connection between her and the Apocalypse after being regarded as Otto's creation. She more or less represent the 3 families on her own.

As Durandal was in the HQ database, looking for information on Anti-Entropy bases and possible locations for Kiana Kaslana, a large spike of Honkai Energy, roughly reaching 6000 HW was recorded in Eastern Asia within the Eurasian Plate. That amount of Honkai Energy released is similar to a Honkai Eruption taking place.

As much as the leadership issues in Schicksal is important, they can't ignore the possible birth of a new Herrscher.

Durandal assigned the other Immortal Blades that can still be deployed to her team that is going to go to the location of the spike. Rita and the other Immortal Blades that are severly injured during the Honkai Eruption in Coral City are still healing.

When they got to the location of the spike, which is located in the northeastern part of Shenzhou, what they saw is simply not what they expected.

In the coordinates they went, they saw the former Schicksal Agent that should be dead, a former Schicksal Valkyrie, and the person Durandal is looking for, Kiana Kaslana.

Eyes were thoroughly inspecting the surrounding, wondering what caused such spike and where it is now. Durandal speculated that it is from the person she fought in Schicksal that has a similar appearance with Fu hua. She asked Kiana and those present, aside from her squad, where is the Herrscher.

"The Herrscher is contained, it's now a hostless consciousness. It won't cause anymore damage. Her location is also unknown to us."

Judging from Fu hua's words, she ordered the Immortal blades to clear the Honkai Beasts around the area and return immediately to Schicksal to assist on damage control in the HQ.

She looked back to the group and it seems that the girl with a robotic phantom is now fine. She approached Kiana.

"May I have a word with you Ms. Kaslana? Private if possible."

"What is it about now? Fu hua and Bronya deserves a hear on whatever discussion we'll have.."

Durandal expected as much, but still decided to go on.

"It's about Schicksal's leadership... Overseer Otto is still missing, we're conducting a search operation within all of Schicksal's branches and other possible locations. As of now, no traces has been found on where he could have went or an act of kidnapping was done."

"I still don't see the reason why I'm concerned with this matter.."

A long silence ensued the group before Durandal decided to speak up.

"You are to act as an Acting Overseer until Overseer Otto is found. Feudal order in Schicksal will disarray if none will lead them."

The three were shocked by what Durandal had delivered. Fu hua decided spoke up.

"Even so, Otto has a council with enough capabilities to lead Schicksal even if he was gone, don't tell me they had fallen too?"

"Sadly... That seems to be the case."

Kiana pulled Fu hua and Bronya out of Durandal's earshot and conversed in whispers.

"Hey, don't you think this is a good a offer? I mean, surely, being an Overseer grants them access on all files and data around Schicksal and--"

"And you plan to fish out information in them while acting as Overseer?"

"Bingo!"

"Never knew Kiana Idiotka could think of that."

"Hey!"

"Anyway, that's also an advantage for our side. Otto still has many things hidden in the shadow, it would be good if we were to uncover even some of it."

"Da, Bronya will go back to AE to tell them and Theresa what happened here, I assume both of you will head to Schicksal?"

"Uh huh, tell aunt Teri that Kiana will be fine, she has Fu hua with her."

"Da, I will tell the rest of the details to Theresa. You should talk to Durandal now, I'll be heading to the Helios."

Bronya got better thanks to Kiana healing her. She then went to Helios to go back to AE.

Fu hua and Kiana walked to Durandal to discuss about the rest of the matter. Kiana agreed on becoming Overseer until Otto is found under the condition Fu hua will be with her. Durandal accepted her conditions and the three of them headed to Schicksal HQ to ready Kiana with the other things she needed to learn.

——————————

Kiana continued to wander around the base. She eventually found herself in the garden. There are benches in the garden, she's already walking too much for 1 day so she settled on one of them.

Fu hua is normally with her but she has things to take care of, something about keeping something away from human sight. It's been 2 weeks and still no signs of Otto.

Waaaah-- is there even anything left to do? I already signed off the paperworks Amber gave me

The white haired knight looked up to the clouds that are moving far too close in her vision. Maybe it's because of boredom? She got far too distracted in the clouds to even notice someone approaching her.

"Thought I could found you here."

The sudden rise of volume behind Kiana made her jump from her position. She looked up to see the owner of the said voice.

"Ah Durandal, you're already back, how did the mission went?"

"Smooth as ever, the Honkai in that area has been contained. We also managed to get some piece of info on what might be the cause of it."

"Is that so? I'll look into it later."

Kiana moved to side a bit and patted the space beside her. Durandal eventually occupied the seat beside Kiana.

Both of them sat in silence, staring at the sky above their heads.

"Sometimes, I wonder why you chose me as an acting Overseer, you never really told me anything aside from it being a wise choice and such."

The blond pondered a bit on the words of the woman beside her.

"Hmn, because you could make a wise decision. Our conversation back then when you where held by Schicksal when I captured you is enough. It's rare to see something bright in a world full of gray.."

"Mmmhm"

"Did that answer your question?" Durandal looked at the eyes of the person beside her as if seeking for her approval.

Kiana stood up and patted Durandal's head.

"Mah, mostly, anyway, that's enough deep talk for today, we should head back, the sun is already setting"

Kiana flashed Durandal a smile as she held her hand out to the blond. Durandal accepts it as she stood up.

Durandal then remember something.

"Oh right"

"Eh? Something wrong?"

"Not something like that. Rita asked me to invite both you and Fu hua for dinner tonight. Will you be available tonight?"

"If it's me, I am.. I don't know about Fu hua since she's still taking care of some things, but expect me to come later! What time should I go?" Kiana then brought a finger to her chin.

Durandal smiled a bit on Kiana's acceptance, "Around 7 would be sufficient."

"Alrighty, we should head back now, it's already 5:39."

This hand... Felt so familiar.. yet why can't I remember a thing?

Both of them left the garden, walking side by side with Kiana still holding Durandal's hand....

#honkai impact #durandal #bianka ataegina #kiana kaslana #K423

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shy-magpie · 3 years

Text

RQG 156

live blog under the cut

Heads up about half way through I realized I go a bit further into analysis on where Zolf & the Kobolds are mentally than some people might be comfortable with. Just as they trust us to back off if the episode gets to real, I am trusting you to close the tab if my little live blog is hitting you wrong. If it makes a difference I have years between me and the reason I relate to this stuff.

"In Memorium" they are trying to kill us Ah they lampshaded the speed intros Yes Alex it is rather Paris Right to Azu & Zolf. Oh he's jumping right in. And there's my first pause of the episode. No “better” isn't a magic finish line you pass then never find yourself in that place again. No, knowing that doesn't mean you don't wonder if your back at square one every time you realize You Are In A Bad Place and Not Handling it Well. Gosh Azu is good at this. Yeah learning to walk away is hard. Learning to ignore the part of yourself that says "and never come back for their sake" is harder. Symbolic much Alex (Zolf is too small for the room, Azu is too large) Yeah it would be easier to not blame Zolf for last episode if I related to him a bit less. Okay they are talking about Hamid and their concerns for him directly. Yeah Hamid's relationship with power & privilege is an arc; and without the Doylist level of trusting Bryn & Alex, I can see where even if you trust/like him you'd be worried about it. With the best of intentions people misuse power. Azu quoted Grizzop at Zolf. Didn't name him, wonder if Zolf is ever going ask directly about his replacement in canon or if its best left to fic. Its easy to dismiss one's own successes. Okay fair and OW, Zolf isn't up to talking about Sasha; which is the part of this I was most prepared for. Hell yeah! He is coming down but not going to be attempting to lead so as to relieve pressure on himself. Maybe if he can let Hamid step up without making a Kew Garden thing he'll see how much he's grown. Hopefully without that setting off a "Hamid does better without me" thing. Yeah intellectual knowledge and it feeling real on an emotional level are very different things. Alex, why does it matter what order they are in? ALEX? The necklace? The Heart of Aphrodite shaped necklace? Azu got a Sign from Aphrodite approving of her reaching out to Zolf as an act of love. Yes! Blue Black no take backs! Yeah those two (players) know exactly what they are doing: breaking my heart in the best ways and not skipping over the actual work those two (characters) need to put into their relationship with OOC "its all fine now"s. Ok that settles the timeline, Azu went up same night, the device isn't made yet. Yeah Zolf wouldn't, probably best to back off while things are tender while being present enough to assure he isn't planning on leaving. Seriously bless Azu, this has to be at least as hard on her as Helen but she is letting the boys have room to work it out for themselves instead of "trying to help". The last thing either of them need right now is pressure especially on this point. Aw the Kobolds teach Cel draconic. Oh smart kid, not only is it just logical for the Kobolds to work with Cel directly, it might help them get over the "looking to see if the boss approves of how you breathe" stage. Especially if he is clear about not being threatened by them having advantage over him in this area. Heck of a relief this isn't hitting my rank issues. Ooh all the Kobolds are amazing engineers, wonder if its a Kobold thing or if Skraak recruited people with similar interests. Nice rework of the "Kobolds build traps" thing from pathfinder. I genuinely love how instead of pitching the original description of Kobolds out the window, Alex has backwards engineered it. Reputation for traps isn't a dishonorable approach to fighting, its a sign of their skill. They aren't minions, their trauma is interacting with a cultural attitude about rank in weird ways. Oh Cel! Cel is amazing. Under Shoin's orders they: made Magic Steroids, did maintenance (more towards the end as Shoin wasn't taking care of things), built the place initially, sourced ingredients, other Kobolds built the Mechkraken. Damn Shoin, they can't even be proud of all they were able to do in adverse circumstances because he tainted it. If they weren't forced to do it and have it used for ill ends, building the kraken would be impressive. A lot of that sounds like difficult work. Hamid stuff: yeah it is from a place of fear; and they would be hypersensitive and need to try to "defend him" so he doesn't react. Terrified of his anger? Handle anything that even annoys him to cut it off at the pass. And being a good person who doesn't like scaring them, Hamid is going to over do the very "Mary Sunshine" routine that makes Zolf think he doesn't appreciate the gravity of the situation. You'd think Mr "do a grief later" would get that Hamid doesn't have to walk the halls wailing to be aware of the end of the world. Not that the kid can win, if he cried and threw up it would be proof he hasn't grown from season one. Hopefully by taking a back seat Zolf will have a chance to see Hamid's actions and realize being chipper & wholesome doesn't mean stupid. Oh Alex has thought this through, one of these days I'll quit being surprised he actually gets this stuff. Not being able to read the person whose emotions feel like life & death is a Bad Thing. Thank Alex for Skraak. Weird seeing this stuff from this side, of course learning to focus on my end instead of being preoccupied with what was going on in the heads of people who were on Hamid's end of it was rather the point. Perfect balance, Hamid gives them enough space to realize he isn’t going to explode, Skraak "translates" into something clear enough not to stress them out. Like when Zolf snapped at Skraak when he pledged to Hamid; might not be pretty but not knowing what The Powers That Be want? Very bad place. Rank and clear orders are very important when appeasing those who outrank you is everything. Cel has dealt with a lot of young and unsure apprentices!?! Yeah well Cel isn't in their chain of command and gears don't get offended if you have an opinion on the right way to configure them. Cel is great Azu & Hamid talking about Zolf! Helen is wonderful! I thought this was going to be drawn out and indirect, instead they are actually facing things head on and dealing with them. Aw these two are so good for each other. Azu would set aside her own emotions. Hot damn Azu, getting right to it! Hamid can be amazingly open about his self awareness and it surprises me every time. It fits him and is a very good thing, but going from answering "how are you?" with "the Kobolds are doing well" to "I never knew how to help him" without it being jarring made me do quite the double take. Guess I was expecting more deflection. Yeah well you two are redefining your boundaries, entire relationship, and rank in specific, while being the perhaps the only people with enough of the picture to figure out how to save the world. Working out the balance between conflicting views on that, when neither of you knows what the end will look like was never going to be smooth. Oh yes and none of you have directly addressed that half of Zolf's rank & dick measuring stuff is because he doesn't know if he even has a role if he isn't The Boss or The Healer.* Oh the grin in Alex's voice as he tells them there is something else before the brorb interview. Whisky tumblers for each? Quite a sigh there Ben News? Big news? While they were in the institute? They ought to sit down. Wilde get to it. Ah Azu & Hamid are holding hands. Poor kid with his prop. Letter? Ancient Rome? Sasha? Are all the fics coming true? Their founder "Askingus"!?! Oh Sasha, oh Zolf! Lydia! Oh the kids! She named the kids after the party. She even found her faith. A break? How the hell are we only half way through the episode. Also hell yeah Lydia deserves all the awards, that was an amazing letter. XD Ben! Oh Hamid, we reacted that way to the epilogue that way too. It really is okay, it was a good end. Yeah he could use a drink. Poor Zolf. Hamid gives Wilde a hug. "technically I think that makes Sasha my boss". XP be cryptic Alex, The RSB will have it figured out by Friday. Ok Zolf got to read the letter on his own. Azu lit 3 candles, because Helen wants me to cry. Hamid is at Zolf's door with a bottle and two glasses. Lydia this is a compliment to your skill. More direct than I expected from Hamid. Oh these two! Okay he is drunk enough to go there (angry at Zolf for leaving but he gets it). About time someone told Zolf directly he's grown. Aw Zolf puts him to bed. Thank you Alex! Ben! (okay fair, if any of Hamid was left he'd cuddle). Sorry Cel! Lydia wanted to break/heal our hearts more than she wanted the plot to move forward ;) Good plan: take the orb to the anti magic field, only those who have already talked to it can talk directly. Info control. Hive mind/telepathy directly addressed. Finally what Shoin eats is addressed. Ok Cel has some teeth on them. Hasn't fed it, is using the vibration to threaten to explode his brain, (no English doesn't have enough pronouns we are working on it)... Oh good point better feed it. Aw Zolf is possessive of the kitchen. Shoin is still Shoin. Cel is not happy about not being recognized. Nice to hear the boys working together. The Infection might block him from being directly aware of being infected. Bullsh$% he backed himself up. Good point Zolf even if he does, they are separate lives, this instance can still fear death. Oh all the party have teeth, nice they don't have the "good guys have to be sweet & gentle with the baddies" thing Yeah Cel isn't stupid, the brorbs arm isn't a threat. Oh auto painting that will make the people theorizing on the bio side of how the Brorb works happy. A circulatory diagram, and am ocean of faces. Paints like a printer. A creepy charcoal sketch of London staring at the artist. *I swear on Rusty Tower if they let him hurt himself any worse because he thinks his new role is "a brick wall on wheels" I am joining the line to fight Ben in a Whetherspoons parking lot. Yes it would be in character but so would healing. There are other hills. Although seriously its been great having a character that shows so many of the aspects of depression that usually get left out. That Zolf is also a three dimensional character with a full personality beyond just "the one with mental health issues" while not making it look like those issues are tacked on or easy to handle? Stunning work.

#Rusty Quill Gaming #RQG Spoilers #alcohol #live blog thingy #RQG 156

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sapphichollow · 4 years

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I know you're probably busy, but could you do a pairing match up with one of the Swedes for me? Some info to help; I am a Capricorn, introverted, although somewhat passive aggressive. I have a strange fascination with knives and my favorite color is red. A huge passion of mine is languages; I know some German, Spanish, Russian, ASL and now Swedish(duh). I like to read and write stories. I also have recently gone vegan. Again, it would be super nice if you find time to do this!

Of course ! I ship you with........Oscar!

He’d appreciate your passion for language- not everyone can find the time to learn languages, especially notSwedish. He loves that he’s able to communicate with you in his mother tongue. You’ve been introduced to this personal, secret language that nobody else in the area knows. They know the Swedes as the three Swedish Brothers and you. This only brings you two closer. So, when you’re out and about, he likes to be able to speak fluidly to you about anything in particular, rather than stilted English, which he finds more difficult. He’s so proud of you, and kind of in awe actually. When he was made to learn bits of English, he hated it. So the fact that you are fluent in so many languages is amazing. He’s curious about ASL actually. Perhaps he’ll press you to teach him a few words. If you teach him ‘I love you’ in ASL, the dude will just do it. Maybe you’ll be chilling together, maybe you’ll be out and about, but sometimes you’ll turn around and he’ll just.....’I love you’, and smile. (It’s adorable to see this one man melt over you). It also works well because a lot of the time PDA is something he considers dangerous, mainly to you. He doesn’t want to put you in any danger, you see. Being an assassin, he’s collected a number of enemies (Fair enough), and he wants to ensure your safety. He loves you too much for that. So more often or not, it is an indirect ‘I love you’ that he knows you can see. Just subtle. But know that at any chance he gets, it’s there.

Oscar strikes me as intensely passionate for the people he loves. So when he says he loves you... HE LOVES YOU TO HELL AND BACK.

You have a fascination for knives! When Oscar finds this out, genuinely that was the tipping point for him. He’d liked you for a while, and his brothers would tease him for it. Say he was like a puppy when it came to you. If puppies could kill a man, that is. But when he found out, baby’s heart just.. BOOM BOOM BOOM. He gets so excited! He would happily support this fascination as he’s skilled in knife play. Sometimes, he’ll let you sift through them, admire them for a moment with you and then proceed to describe where they’d come from, the model they were, the precision. It’s amazing to just see you curious about the subject. Any other person he’d liked before, let alone dated, had shied away at his job, and his passion for knives. But you were curious.

He supports your choice to go vegan- so long as you’re happy and healthy, alive and kicking. He’s good. That doesn’t mean he won’t stick up for you though. Introversion is interesting. He’s not really all that experienced with introversion. He does what he likes, aloof, like a cat. But if you’re ever stuck- this man will help you out.

Hope this is okay!

#the swedes

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

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Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 21 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: Leonard Snart, the CCPD Captain of Internal Affairs, is known as Captain Cold for a very good reason: He hates corrupt cops with a merciless vengeance, and once you’re on his list, you’re in serious trouble.

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

"Again, Lenny?" old Mad Magpie cackles when Len limps up to her at her usual post near the CCPD. Most members of the cardboard brigade wouldn't care to be so close to so many cops, or wouldn't dare, but Magpie is an old homeless veteran who lived in Gotham before coming to haunt the streets of Central, and she doesn't fear much of anything. Len's been sending Danvers over with hot chocolate on a regular basis, though, so Magpie's usually willing to talk to him. "Don't you have any self-preservation?"

"Don't mention it," Len says. "Really. Don't."

"You can fool that secretary of yours -"

"Admin assistant," Len interjects.

"- and you can fool that new boytoy of yours, but you can't fool old Magpie," she says. "You've ripped those stitches again."

"Like I said," Len says, suppressing the wince of pain at the mere mention. He's pretty sure he's bleeding - getting thrown around by a murderous speedster was definitely not on his physical therapist's list of approved activities - but he's wearing enough layers and stayed in lurching forward movement enough that no one has had a chance to notice it yet. "Don't mention it."

She laughs. "I knew it," she says. "Can't fool an old bird of prey like me! I don't tell people things till they ask. But if anyone asks, I ain't promising nothing. Now, I see you're back to your wicked old ways, hanging around with that Allen boy - back together now, are we?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, good on you. He's cute. And I bet he goes pretty fast, if you know what I mean."

Len arches his eyebrows. He knows exactly what she means, and she's not advising him on how long it'll take to get Barry into bed. "You selling that info?"

"Hell no," Magpie cackles. "Like I said - he's cute!"

"Good. Lemme know if anyone does start selling that, will you?"

"You'll get first word, Lenny. You've been a good enough customer to us all these years, paying more than your fair share and never turning us in for vagrancy; we can do you that much."

"Much obliged," Len says. "Hey, if I manage to surprise even you, do I get a bonus going forward?"

She arches her eyebrows at him. "I'm listening," she allows.

"Mick's better."

"I already heard that he's awake," she sniffs.

"Not awake. Better. See?"

She squints around him in the direction he's gesturing at. Len can see the exact moment she spots Mick standing there, looking healthy as a horse (well, with some nasty burn scars, but those look years old already) and arguing cheerfully with Iris and Danvers about something or another.

"Well, I'll be," she marvels. "Yeah, Lenny, you get a bonus for that - assuming that being healthy means he's gonna be cooking up his usual free-for-all July 4th bash this year. News of that getting uncanceled'll buy quite a lot."

"It's definitely on," he assures her. "Assuming we haven't all been murdered by the Families, of course."

"True that," she sniggers. "Now, what're you going to do to stop them?"

"As much as I can," Len says honestly. "But for that I need help - you remember when I was looking for intel on speedster stuff?"

"Yeah?"

"I need to find a speedster. The bad one, in yellow; he was at STAR Labs, but we don't know where he is now -" Danvers checked STAR Labs and reported no success. "- and we need to put him down if we're gonna put any of this down."

"He's the one doing the disappearances?"

"He's the one doing the hits," Len agrees, since technically Barry caused some of the disappearances. Though he supposes that if you think about it a certain way, Wells was behind those, too, in an indirect sort of way... "Can you yank your chain and get me an answer?"

"Don't need to ring up the community, Lenny," she says, grinning. "You know they used to call me the Oracle, back in Gotham? Always knew what was going on, I did, and it's the same now: I already know where he is."

"And I'm guessing I won't like the answer?"

"Come now, you robbed him of his revenge or whatever; where else is he gonna go other than Central’s home away from home for the criminally inclined?" she asks, amused. "The place where everyone knows your name - and record."

Len experiences a distinct sinking feeling in his stomach. "Ah," he says. "Iron Heights."

Central City's one and only maximum security prison.

Len's been in a few times, to ensure his cover was appropriately legit. He doesn't remember it very fondly.

"He's getting jealous, he is," Magpie says complacently. "You've got an army, the Families've got an army, who doesn't got an army? He doesn't. But he can fix that."

No kidding.

Especially since - and Len is remembering this with a wince - the metas from Barry's secret prison have just been transferred there pending trial, along with the specifications of the Accelerator needed to maintain the anti-meta-powers effect of their cells.

They'd even recruited Ramon to advise on the process of transferring the tech, with the recommendation that his cooperation in converting one of the wings (now dubbed the Metahuman Wing) would go some significant distance to reducing his eventual sentence.

Len hadn't been involved with that personally, being busy with Mick's recovery at the time, but he'd set one of the DAs he'd always liked - an ardent prisoners' rights advocate in her previous life - on the task of making sure Ramon gave adequate thought to how what they already had in place in STAR Labs could be expanded such that the metas could enjoy their constitutional rights, however limited.

Len’s not entirely clear on the details, but whatever it was, it was only a temporary solution. Ramon is reportedly working furiously on developing some sort of meta-dampening cuffs that seem significantly more humane.

All well and good in theory, yes, but it's now occurring to Len that what he saw as a grotesque human rights' violation, and the so-called Team Flash saw as a temporary convenience, Wells saw as more of -

Well, as a useful storage container.

As in, where you store things for later use.

(The image of tiny metahumans being placed into a pantry and pulled out at need by a giant Wells is deeply disturbing. Len sure is glad that no one's invented some sort of shrink ray...)

"Thanks, Magpie," Len says, shaking his head to help him get rid of the unwanted mental images. "Appreciated as always."

"I'll let my people in Iron Heights know to expect you," Magpie offers. "There's always a few old cardboards in there for some reason or another. If you need something pulled, you just ask. You've got that bonus to spend now."

"Hopefully not necessary," Len assures her. "But thanks."

The resources of Len's task force, as they stand, are quite few in number, but fairly decent nonetheless: Len himself (mostly useful for tactics given the current state of his body), Mick (and his heat gun), Barry (and his powers), Danvers (and her powers), Detective Thawne (who Wells won’t kill), Iris, Snow and Ramon.

Of the latter four, Thawne and Iris are trained in conventional weapons, and Ramon has invented some sort of vibration-based gun he claims can stun people in a humane matter (he emphasized that three times over - whatever that DA told him has clearly stuck). Snow doesn't have any offensive capabilities, but she's a doctor with some emergency care training, and Len's not about to turn that down.

Especially given the fact that if his side doesn't stop bleeding soon, he's going to need some of that training to be employed on him.

"You good?" Barry asks when Len rejoins them.

"Peachy," Len tells him, and ignores the way Mick suddenly focuses in on him. Stupid tell, using a word he only uses when things are not, in fact, good; he should've remembered not to use it around Mick. "We have a location for Wells: he was last seen in the vicinity of Iron Heights."

"Wait," Ramon says. "Where we just put all our metas?"

"He was keeping them on purpose," Snow exclaims, realizing. She's not slow, that one; just a bit naïve. "They were always going to be Plan B - except now they're in Iron Heights, not STAR Labs, so he needs to go get them."

"And the rest of Iron Heights if he can," Len confirms, shifting a little bit to a more comfortable position on his crutches. "Barry, Danvers - can you take us all to the little hill right outside the Heights? One-by-one should be fine."

"Boss and I go first," Mick suddenly says. "Then the rest. Let's go."

Before Len can say anything, they're in sudden transit.

It takes about twenty seconds to reach their destination, which Len suspects is a polite attempt to go nice and slow by the speedsters but which only makes his side and leg throb.

Then he and Mick are alone, standing in the overarching shadow cast by the hulking hexagonal pit of despair that is Iron Heights.

Everything seems quiet from here, but that could be an illusion.

"Mick -" Len starts.

"You're injured but don't want to sit out the fight," Mick says. "I know."

Mick always does. Best partner ever.

"S'not why I wanted to talk to you, since I know I won't be able to change your stubborn-ass mind on it," Mick continues. "I wanted to check in on what I said earlier."

"What part?"

"About us still being partners. I mean, now that you're a cop and all that."

"Mick, as long as you still want to be partners, we're partners," Len says firmly. "I wasn't kidding about not picking the job over you again. If you don't wanna be partners with a pig, I get it. It's fine. I'll just quit my job."

Mick snorts. "Twenty years undercover and you'll just quit? Now?"

"Hey, it means I've got a decent resume, don't it?"

"Ex-thief, ex-cop, please hire me -"

"I'm sure that set of skills appeals to someone -"

Mick's laughing.

Len likes it when Mick laughs. He's missed it.

"Nah," Mick says. "Don't quit, not unless you want to. Hunting down bad cops is perfect for you. And I'll figure out some way that I can still be your partner."

Len grins at him. "Sounds like a plan, partner."

"Just do me a favor and don't die, boss."

"Says the guy who just woke up from a coma?"

"Hey, I got magic-future-tech-healed by the bad guy, I'm fine. You, on the other hand, are doing your healing the good old fashioned way, except you keep tearing your stitches."

"Shut up before anyone else gets here and hears you."

"I heard him," Danvers says, floating a few inches above them and still holding a dangling Ramon in one hand. "And I'm very disappointed in you."

"Crap," Len says. "Listen, Snow can give me a patch job, but there's no way I'm letting you guys go into Iron Heights without me, got it?"

Snow gets dropped off next. By Barry. Without another word.

"You're in trouble now," Mick crows. "Skirt's got moxie."

"Traitor," Len says, but it turns out Snow can in fact patch him up pretty quickly - a staple gun, some bandages, and a dermaplastic seal, plus instructions to keep from twisting too much if possible so that his back brace can try to keep his spine from popping out of place or something - so it turns out all right in the end.

While they're doing that, though, the rest of the team stares at Iron Heights.

"God, I hate this place," Mick says.

"It's - quieter than I thought it'd be," Danvers says.

"Have you never been?" Barry asks. "I - well, you know, with my dad - I've been plenty of times."

"Hate to break it to you, but you're the odd one there, Barry," Ramon says. "I'd never been here before I came to help install the meta dampening tech."

"Really? You invented…?"

"No, no," Ramon says, looking embarrassed. "I haven’t had time to come up with something new. What we did was basically just port over a mini-Accelerator, looping around the walls of the place – luckily the hexagonal hallways around the outside that the guards use for patrols is close enough to being round to work. It works on the same set of principles as the Particle Accelerator in STAR Labs does."

"Any chance that it'll block Wells' powers, too?" Iris asks.

"No, not unless he goes into one of the cells and closes the door. The entire system's not even noticeable until everyone's locked away - not enough energy. We're just running electrical energy through it, not accelerated particles, so it doesn't quite have the same effect."

"Probably for the best," Thawne says. "One Particle Accelerator explosion is more than enough."

"Yeah, that's true..."

“Does Wells know about what you’ve done?” Danvers asks curiously. “With the mini-Accelerator, I mean?”

Ramon frowns, considering it. “No, I don’t think so,” he says slowly. “This was after the whole chest-in-hand – er, that is, hand-in-chest –”

“Her eyes are up here, buddy,” Iris jokes.

Ramon flushes. “It was just a slip of the tongue!”

“I bet you want to slip someone some tongue –”

“Iris, leave him alone,” Barry says, hiding a smile. “Be nice. You’re making poor Kara blush.”

“He’s not my type,” Danvers says primly. “Sorry, Cisco.”

“I’m not actually interested,” he says crossly. “I like my women a bit more – dangerous.”

“You know Kara can lift cars, right? And fly? And probably crush your head like a nut? How is she not dangerous?”

“An aura of danger, you know what I mean…wait, how’d we get on this subject?”

“I don’t know, but I want off,” Thawne says dryly. “You were saying about whether Wells knows about the mini-Accelerator?”

“Yeah, right. No, I don’t think so. When the police showed up to STAR Labs, he wasn’t there, and they had me shut off the surveillance system before we started moving tech around. I certainly didn’t tell him, and I don’t think Caitlin did –”

“Wasn’t even aware of it,” Snow says, still focusing on Len.

“Right. So, yeah, no. I don’t think so."

"Okay, you're as good as I can get you," Snow tells Len. "Now up you go; we need you to tell us what the plan is."

"There is no 'plan'," Len says, getting back up. The painkillers Snow had brought with her are amazing. "We've gone well into the stage of the plan where everything goes off the rails."

"Len," Barry says, mildly censorious.

"What?" Len asks. "It's true. You want a plan? Okay. Plan is: we go inside, find Wells, subdue Wells. If necessary, fight other people in the process."

"I think I was happier without knowing that that was the plan," Ramon mutters.

"Second door forward?" Mick asks, focusing on practicalities. "That's the least guarded - though I gotta admit I never thought I'd be using that to break in."

"Yeah," Len says wryly. "We live in interesting times."

Getting into Iron Height isn't hard - they know where the door is, they know how it's opened, and Len can pop it in under thirty seconds (how's that for "out of practice", Danvers?) - but the lack of any security on the inside is a very bad sign.

"Dead?" Thawne asks, his face set. He's taking this ancestor stuff very seriously.

"Maybe, maybe not," Ramon says. "He's got superspeed and this is a prison, right? He might've just put the guards in the cells."

"Probably the only way they're going to survive a massive prison riot," Mick says. "Speaking of, I hear noise - main hall's this way."

"Is that the riot?" Iris asks. "Not to borrow Kara's words from earlier, but that's a lot quieter than I expected."

"It is," Len says, equally puzzled. "Let's go find out why."

Sure enough, the main hall was full to bursting with prisoners - far more than get let out in any one shift - but they're not really rioting. More like milling around confusedly.

Len and Mick share a perturbed look.

Still, there's only one way to find out what's up, so Len hobbles over to the first prisoner he even vaguely recognizes and smacks him on the leg with his crutch to get his attention. "What's going on?" he demands.

"Snart?" the guy - a con called Joey Monteleone, but mostly nicknamed Tarpit for reasons Len has never wanted to learn - asks, blinking at him. "Ain't you a cop now?"

"One with no sense of self-preservation," Mick growls. He might be right; Len'd totally forgotten that he can't just ask people (well, criminals) things anymore. "That a problem?"

Tarpit considers for a second. "It true you got a job fucking up corrupt cops for a living? Instead of snagging cons?"

"Yeah, it's true," Len says cautiously. That doesn't sound like the prelude to a call for lynching. "Not really interested in a job snagging cons, not unless they're doing something real bad where I can see 'em. Same rules as before, really."

"Cool," Tarpit says, then suddenly turns around and shouts, "Hey, everyone! Snart's here! He'll know what's up!"

And suddenly everyone is turning to look at him, the room breaking out into whispers.

Len sees Barry and Danvers both tense up, ready to run him away, but he waves at them to hold off. No one seems violent - yet.

In fact, most of the whispers that Len can hear don't concern the fact that he is (and was) a cop; they're more focused on his career as a very good freelance thief.

A very good thief that was pretty well known for not being affiliated with the Families.

"Listen, Snart, it true what they're saying about the Families taking over?" one of the cons asks.

"I mean," Len says, nearly falling over with surprise when Tarpit pushes him up onto one of the tables so as to better see and be seen, "I don't plan on letting 'em, but they’re certainly trying their best."

"And there's riots in the streets?" another one asks. "Anti-Family riots?"

"Well, yeah -"

"And they're calling in their cards? All of 'em?"

"Whatever they can, sure. But there's an amnesty -"

"An amnesty?"

"Only for anyone manipulated by the Families in the lead-up to this," Len warns. "Or, I guess, involved in the riots afterwards."

He's a little bewildered by the fact that everyone keeps looking to him for answers in this impromptu little Q+A.

Luckily, in his time of need, Mick is there for him.

"Hey, assholes!" he bellows. "You know what that means? That means no extra sentences for anyone fighting against the Families, and the Families too busy to call in any cards they have on you. So tell me - who wants to go fuck up some Families?"

The roar of enthusiasm is very near enough to flatten Len backwards.

Ah, Central City.

Where even the criminal underworld hates organized crime.

Len's never felt more at home.

It helps that the whispers (not really whispers, now) are about Len's recognized skill at prison escapes that don't end badly.

There are also, here and there, some comments about not wanting to work for that, quote, "yellow Family fucker".

Right.

"Can someone point me to where the asshole in yellow is?" Len calls. "And in the meantime, let's get you guys outta here - we've popped one door, but let's try to avoid a riot - nice and orderly exit, that's the trick of it - and while we're at it, does anyone know where the guards have gone..?"

The guards, it turns out, are in fact locked into the same cells the prisoners have been liberated from, in what Len assumes was meant as a cruel bit of irony but which probably ensured that they weren't murdered by vengeful criminals.

The rest of the exodus is pretty swiftly organized - Len makes them pair up in the buddy system, using their cellies as buddies, in order to make it a bit less chaotic, and it works like a charm - and before anyone really understands what's happening, he's being helped off the table and whisked off back to his task force to focus on their Wells problem as the criminals file out of the prison.

"We've been discussing the issue," Iris tells Len when he rejoins them. "The prisoners don't know where Wells is, but we're pretty sure we do."

"Oh? Where? The meta wing?"

"No," Ramon says. "We figure he won't want to risk being stuck in any of those cells, just in case; he probably got the metas out of there and took them with him."

"Took them with him - where?"

"Wing C," Barry says, voice unusually grim. "The low-security wing."

Len frowns.

"That's where Barry's dad is," Iris says, equally grim.

Ah.

Old Doc Allen. The good man, who was framed and sentenced to prison for a crime he did not commit - by Wells.

Who is obsessed with Barry.

Not good.

"Right," Len says. "So this is probably a trap, but we're going to have no choice but to spring it. All agreed?"

"With any luck, Wells won't be expecting all of us, and not this fast," Thawne says. "He's a planner, but we've thrown his plans off the rails; he's playing it all by ear now."

"Just means he's desperate," Mick says. "Desperate men are dangerous."

"Still, I don't see that we have a choice," Len says. "Let's go - er, in the interests of speed, Danvers, could you..?"

He ends up getting a piggyback ride from her while Mick carries his crutches.

It's humiliating.

"I could probably carry you bridal style," Barry offers oh-so-innocently. "If you wanted."

"Just because Mick has my weapons -"

"Crutches aren't weapons," Ramon objects.

"You'd be surprised," Danvers and Iris chorus.

"- doesn't mean I'm taking any lip from you," Len finishes, ignoring them. "So shut it."

Barry proceeds to mime zipping his mouth shut, though that doesn't get rid of the grin.

Getting close to their destination does that.

"His cell is this way," Barry says, looking down a deserted corridor. "Supposedly. But -"

"He's definitely not there," Danvers says. "Sorry, Barry. The only people here are in the main hall."

"How do you know that?" Ramon asks.

"Uh," Danvers says. "Would you believe me if I said X-ray vision?"

"What," Len, who knows what Danvers sounds like when she's being evasive, says. "Really?"

"As it happens..."

"We talking medical level x-rays," Mick asks interestedly, "or can you peep under peoples' clothing -?"

"No!"

"Quick denial," Mick says wisely. "You know what that means, right, boss?"

"Boss! Make him stop!"

"It means 'leave off teasing until we’re not in the middle of a firefight', Mick," Len says mildly. "We're checking the main hall next. Everyone got weapons out?"

"Except you," Snow says. "You're not fighting - no, not even on the crutches!"

"I'll keep that in mind in the event I have a choice," Len says dryly, getting off of Danvers' back and leaning back on his crutches. "But I'll try to stick to the back. We ready?"

"Ready," they chorus.

And then they walk into a trap.

Wells is lounging on an impromptu throne constructed shoddily out of prison tables, smirking at them, and all around him are the metas Len vaguely recognizes as being part of Barry's kidnapping.

They probably all bear a grudge.

A very reasonable grudge, but perhaps a less-than-timely one.

All but one of the current inhabitants of the main hall are metas. Only one exception: a cage, constructed out of twisted cell bars, placed immediately to Wells' left, and in that cage sits a terrified but defiant-looking Doc Allen.

Definitely a trap.

"Welcome, my friends, to my little hell on earth," Wells says. His smirk fades. "Kill them! Kill them all!"

The metas charge forward.

As the guy bringing up the rear, Len can see the battlefield unfolding almost immediately.

Barry disappears, replaced by a streak of yellow lightning, and a second later Wells, too, disappears, and the yellow and red lightning bolts zip around the room in perfect tandem.

Mardon - Len recognizes him - summons balls of ice into his hands, grinning meanly and throwing them at Thawne. Not a surprise, really; Thawne's Joe West's partner, and Mardon would know that. Unlike Iris, Thawne's a policeman; Mardon would consider him fair game. Thawne ducks away, shouting something about them not meaning any harm and coming in peace, but Len doesn't lay high odds on that approach actually working.

One of the metas turns into poison gas - Len remembers hearing about him - and flows forward, gaseous tentacles reaching out to strangle them all, but Danvers takes a deep breath and literally blows him back away from the others, flying forward to confront him one-on-one. It's still a little discordant, seeing his secretary (admin assistant) floating a few inches off the ground, still wearing her red skirt and mesh leggings and that ridiculous puppy-getting-ice-cream sweater she likes so much, her hands balled into fists and a fierce expression on her face, but Len can't help but grin in pride.

A second later, Mick steps up to join her, shouting, "I got this guy, go help the others!" and aiming a burst of his heat gun at Nimbus.

"But -"

"My gun only kills, Skirt, and the boss wouldn't want me to murder prisoners. But this guy's got a death sentence, so he's fair game for me."

Danvers nods her understanding and backs off, turning back to the fight just in time to snag Ramon out of the way of the guy shooting lasers out of his eyes.

Len wonders what name Ramon gave him.

"Deathbolt coming in hot!" Ramon shouts, solving that mystery. "Caitlin, watch out -!"

Snow, who was 'Deathbolt's next target, disappears.

Literally disappears - Baez, the only female-presenting meta (Len hadn't noticed the gender disparity before, he wonders why that is), appears next to Snow in a burst of smoke, grabs her around the waist, and they both disappear and reappear elsewhere, out of the line of fire.

"You saved me!" Snow exclaims.

"You gave me all your old medical textbooks and talked to me while I was stuck in the Accelerator," Baez says. "I'm still pissed at you, but you don't deserve to be - wait, Deathbolt? Why does he get 'Deathbolt' and I get 'Peek-a-Boo'?! What the hell, Ramon?!"

"He has laser eyes!" Ramon shouts back from where Danvers has dropped him off and where he's aiming his vibration gun at Deathbolt. He shoots off a burst, which Deathbolt ducks. "What was I supposed to call him?!"

"I don't care what you call him," Baez says indignantly. "I care what you call me! Peek-a-boo is a kid's game! Or a stripper name! I want a badass name!"

"Is now really the time -" Snow starts.

They seem to have Baez well in hand, and Ramon is now exchanging vibration blasts with Mr. Laser Bolts in a game of stalemate.

Iris -

Iris is fine. She has her hands on her hips and she's scolding a guy three heads taller than her, with steel skin, and much to Len's surprise it's working surprisingly well.

It helps that she clearly tasered him first - he still looks groggy.

Danvers, meanwhile, has flown over to confront the last meta, a relatively non-descript man in black with sunglasses; Len's not sure what his powers are, but he has no doubt Danvers can handle him.

That's all the metas handled.

Barry -

Barry's still not winning. He's keeping pace, barely, and he's keeping Wells' attention on him, but that's it.

Wells is still faster. Wells is still stronger.

Wells is still going to win, and then he's going to murder everyone else in the room at a speed that ensures no one but Barry and maybe Danvers even knows it's happening.

They won't be able to stop him.

This isn't a television show, where Barry could use the power of romantic love (Len), familial love (Iris, Doc Allen), or even platonic love (everyone else) to inspire him to greater speeds to squeak out a win.

Even Danvers' help can only do so much - she's admitted that she's out of practice, and now that Wells is anticipating her, he'll have thought of something.

They have to find another way to stop him.

They need something creative.

They need something out of the box.

They need -

What the hell is Charlie doing here?

He's peeking in through the door, barely visible, but to someone who knows him as well as Len does, he’s unmistakable.

Len hobbles himself over as quick as possible. "What the fuck, Charlie?" he hisses. "Get outta here! Get - why are you even in here?"

"Attempted assault," Charlie says, unperturbed. "Someone I invited home overreacted."

"You tried to eat them, didn't you."

"They didn't say no until we got there," Charlie replies, as if that makes any sense at all. "Anyway, I've got a message for you, from the cardboard brigade. Magpie said it's your bonus."

Len's eyebrows go up. "I'm listening."

"Magpie says to tell you that while most of what the Accelerator did was give people powers, but that there's a few people - joined the brigade recently - that seem to react badly. Like something's been taken away."

"Well, yeah," Len says. "That makes sense, I guess; you win some, you lose some -"

"She also said to tell you that Hartley Rathaway did or reviewed almost all of the construction on STAR Labs' version," Charlie continues. "Along with Francisco Ramon. All the hardware and tech, they knew it all in and out, just the two of them."

Len's about to ask why he cares when it suddenly hits him.

You win some, you lose some.

There's a mini-Accelerator built into Iron Heights. They already know that it dampens meta powers. If they get both Rathaway and Ramon on it, could they jury-rig it to try to undo the grant of powers it gave before?

Len has no idea if that's even remotely possible, but what the hell, it's worth a shot.

"Thanks, Charlie," he says. "Now go away, get somewhere safe."

Charlie disappears down the hallway.

Len turns back, but before he can do or say anything, a giant dining table comes crashing into the wall only a few feet away from him.

Danvers is standing there, her eyes bright red, her expression furious and deadly and aimed at -

Well, mostly aimed at the guy currently cowering at Len's feet.

Non-descript meta man of the unknown powers, now no longer wearing sunglasses indoors like an idiot.

"What did you do?" Len asks the guy.

"My powers," the guy squeaks. "I cause people to become enraged, which distracts them."

"You...you realize there's nothing else here for her to get distracted by, right? And that the major target of her rage would be you?"

"I realize that now!"

"Well, stop it! I need her for something."

"I can't stop it! She'll kill me!"

"At this rate, she's gonna kill you anyway," Len says dryly. "Here, listen, how about this: you undo it and I'll arrest you. Nice, safe police custody pending trial -"

"Deal! Deal!" the guy yelps as Danvers tears another table - longer than she is tall - off the ground, where it had previously been screwed down hard enough to resist the strongest felons' joint attempts to lift it up.

A few seconds later, Danvers is bright red with embarrassment, but not with metahuman-inspired rage. An improvement.

"Can you take him and that Deathbolt guy back to STAR Labs for the time being?" Len asks her. "And then bring me Hartley Rathaway. The cardboard brigade will know where he is."

"Sure," Danvers says, then flies up behind Deathbolt to pop him one on the head - rough, but effective - and disappears a second later.

"I had him on the ropes," Ramon, who most definitely did not, protests.

"Whatever," Len says, gesturing for him to come closer. "Listen, question: can we use the Accelerator here to create another dark matter pulse? Preferably reversed or something, to try to drain people's powers?"

"It doesn't work that way," Ramon objects. "This isn't Back to the Future, you can't just reverse the polarities and -"

He pauses.

"What?" Len asks.

"I mean, you can't do that," Ramon says slowly. "But you can cause another pulse, if you had enough energy. As much as I hate admitting it, Wells built the original Accelerator with the intention of it blowing up with dark matter the second it had enough power, and we didn't have any choice but to use that same design here."

"Wouldn't that just give them more powers?"

"It might," Ramon says. "But the original explosion put Barry into a coma for months, remember? That dark matter's a real shock to the system. Even if it would be giving him more powers rather than cancelling them out - which it might, who knows, dark matter's weird - it still might disable Wells for the time being. That's what you're thinking, right?"

"It is, yeah."

"Good idea, in theory, but two problems. A, I don't know everything about the system -"

"Danvers is going to get Hartley Rathaway," Len tells him, and has the amused pleasure of seeing Ramon pull a face.

"Yeah, that'll work," Ramon says through gritted teeth. "That guy was a total jerk, but he did know his stuff. Stupid, pretentious -"

"You can sue someone for torture and kidnapping, you know."

"- extremely intelligent person whom I'm going to be very nice to and work well with?" Ramon tries.

"That's better," Len says, suppressing a laugh. Now's not the time. "You said two problems - what's the second one?"

"We don't have enough energy to cause a pulse," Ramon says. "It's like I said earlier, we're only running electricity through the system, not -"

"Extremely fast-moving particles?" Len asks archly. "Like, say, those?"

He jabs a finger at the streaks of lightning still bouncing around the room.

One of which is his boyfriend.

"Oh," Ramon says. "Uh, yeah. That'd work. I - wait, wasn't that Wells' plan all along, though? For Barry to run through the Accelerator and power it for him to time travel with?"

"I have no idea," Len says, because the technical aspects of Wells' time travel plan mystify him. "But even if so, he was planning on STAR Labs, not the mini version you installed at Iron Heights - which, according to you, he doesn't even know about."

"Okay, that makes sense," Ramon says. "But - if they're both running through the system to power it, then there won't be any way to stop both of them from getting hit by whatever new pulse we create. Whatever happens to Wells will happen to Barry: they might both lose their powers, or get hurt."

"Yeah," Len says, all humor fading. "I know."

He swallows.

He doesn't want to say it, but he knows it's true.

"That's a risk Barry's just going to have to take," he says. "You know he'd agree, if we asked him. If it meant saving the city -"

"And stopping Wells," Ramon says. "Yeah. You're right."

He squares his shoulders.

"I'll do it."

#coldflash #barry allen #leonard snart #kara danvers #iris west #mick rory #cisco ramon #Caitlin snow #eobard thawne #eddie thawne #Shawna baez #mark mardon #roy bivolo #tony woodward #henry allen #Hartley rathaway #kyle nimbus #my fic #an internal affair

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kirbythoughtsihave · 5 years

Text

He who has conquered the Star

AN: SORRY I wrote this like an hour ago and I am falling asleep right now

There once was a legend on an ancient planet. A planet of beings so wise and powerful, that only they could defeat themselves. They knew of this, and in order to stay safe, they encourage friendship as much as possible. This worked, and the pitfull of many was fixed by the beings of seemingly infinite wisdom, however even the smartest of minds couldn’t count on luck.

A group of ancients began to work on the power of friendship, and how it could be used for good. This pleased many, as frenship couldn’t be harmful, right?

The group tested everything, gathering survey to inform, stalking for info, and experimenting with their own bonds for the sake of knowledge. This disturbed the other ancients and they tried to help the group. This only provided more test subjects as the group lied about their feelings and waited to see the results of this path.

In the end, they found that friendship could be physically manifested and that it could be used to create and destroy. They created tools; tools of hope, dreams, and power. Wish granting devices and cretors that created on their own. However, that group wanted to learn more, so they focused more on the components of the friendship.

Hear, Soul, Mind, and Dark were all the components of friendship. This puzzled the group, how could matter of darkness be a friend, and so they isolated the component, into a matter most dark, and with this condensation of darkness, a being was born.

The scientist freaked out and tried to destroy their creation,but all of the energy would be abused by the void. The group screamed for the other ancients, and they came rushing by as the dark being tried to consume the group. The whole planet tried to fend back the being of their own creation, the being trying to find the group that created it. All it knew was destruction; whether it be from it or them.

The void absorbed every bit of magic and technology thrown at it, and created spawns to help with the search, until four individuals joined forces to fight against a common threat. These four allies used the matters that the matter of dark was missing and forge them into sphere and used those sphers to imporsion the monster.

The battle was won, but the lives lost caused the planet to become inhabitable. The planets intrade with the ancients home collapsed without an economically infrastructure, and the group, the indirect destroyers of planets, were scattered in hiding, may they be out of shame, or out of fear.

This only got worse, as the way to create beings out of matter became known, people foolishly began created life. However, things changed.

A group of sorcerers combined all the matters of friendship, gave the creation a heroic heart, and took away all traces of darkness. This bore two beings, of yellow and pink, however that story is for another time child.

Kirby shook themselve,’ why were they having flashbacks now,? We are in ANOTHER DIMENSION...’. Their eyes darted to their side. Dark Meta Knight, Darouch, and Marx were annoying Meta Knight as Susie and Magolor observed. Rick, Kine, and Coo were talking to some of the helpers who were...helping. Gooey was floating next to Ribbon and Adeline, and the girls had nevose looks on their faces. Taranza was talking to Bandanna Dee and Dedede, most likely about government stuff- the sort of thing that made Kirby fall asleep whenever Dedede complained about it during a meal.

Speaking of meals…”Hey Adeline. Is STILL LIFE ready?”

“Kirby...I just used it.”

“Yeah but…….that looks to be boss coming up”

The artist looked in front to see several essence surround an elegant door, and paused. “Guys! I think that’s where all these portals are coming from!” The group all stopped their conversation and examined the gold door that was coming up.

“Okay, are we all healed?” asked Bandanna Dee.

“I could go for some food right now”

“But are you healed?”

“...Yeah..” The group did a double check, Kine and Darouch were missing some health, but the group was in great condition. With that, they entered the door to the corrupted officiant.

(0^0)

Everyone felt tired, they had just fought Hyness and the Three Mage Sisters. The helpers that helped were collapsed by the body of Hynessx leaving only the dream friends and Kirby standing(besides the aforementioned sisters). The Sisters opened a portal back to the Gamble Galaxy with four warp stars waiting for them. They restored Hyness's heart, and were on the warpstar when another portale appeared. The star allies look at Hyness in suspicion.

“Juh? Japologa, but this is not me Majaja.”

The allies looked at each other and sighed, ‘welp, I guess we’re doing this’ was a common thought among them.

“Wait, I might be able to help.” Hyness summoned the pink spheres of legend and shot them at each of the warp stars. The stars lit up and combined in a flash of light, and each crating a bigger star, a STAR SPARKLER. The allies nodded and hopped on in a four single file line, one group per four stars. As they entered into the darkness they heard a faint, “We’ll take care of anything that comes out!” from the mage sister below.

Inside the portal, the darkness faded as the group ended up on a large flat mirroring surface, as what looked to be the galaxy watched. In the center layed a morphing blob of sharp spikes of darkness. It molded itself into a giant form, larger than any being that Kirby and the gang have ever fought sans Star Dream.

The giant was TRUE VOID TERMINA, and it was a titan on darkness.

Eyes appeared all over the body and the four stars split up to take the down. Rick, Kine, Coo, Gooey, and Marx took the left, Adeline, Ribbon, Darouch, and Dark Meta Knight took the right. Taranza, Magolor, and Susie shot the eye in the back, while the main four took the eyes in the belly and on the head. The titan’s face mask flew off as Kirby’s star flew inside.

“This is gross,” mutter King Dedede.

“Said the person who was eating rotten food earlier,” quipped Meta Knight.

“Possession!’

“Guys could we not fight each other in the middle of fighting someone else” said Bandanna Dee.

“Fine”

The Shell came off with the combined forces of an electric hammer, sword, and sphere. The force of the shell blew the four friends out of the body of the void.

Void Termina’s body directed the newly unleashed power brought upon by the removal of the shell and wings of a familiar foe sprang from it's back. The white and red wings had eyes form on them, and the star allies knew that they had to do this phase again.

The titan's body cramped up in pain from the shots fired by the four stars, and was sent crashing into the ground with the loudest thud some of them have ever heard.

Again, the face-mask fell off, but this time the four Star Sparklers rushed into the body of the colossal. Then their eyes met with eyes most familiar.

“ Kirby...what”

“Kid...explain”

“How”

“What”

“Who”

Kirby froze. Those eyes. The eyes of the star traveler. The eyes of a created being, the eyes of puffballs. They were staring at them with the innocence of a newborn. Kirby stared at the being for what seem to be an eternity, but both knights were re yelling at them. They glanced at their friends, eyes in confusion, panic, and fear. The knights’ eyes were one of fearful recognition.

“You recognize them”, stated Kirby

“They….the eyes”

“What's going on?” asked Gooey.

Kirby laughed and said with a sign,” There were tales of the star conqueror. The being that came on a spring breeze. Living anywhere and consuming all.”

“ Why does that thing look like you demanded Susie.

“For they are me and I am them. We were made the same, but the experiences we had changed us.”

“What about us?” asked Dark Metela Knight.

“You were created by that wizard, right? What made you think he had the right recipe, o’or winged one?”

“Kirby, stop talkin’ like that” said Dedede.

“ Apologizes, but this is a family matter an-” Kirby was cut off as a laser was shot at them. “ Oh right, final boss.”

The dream friends rushed at the boss, swinging everything they had, and used the confusion and betrayal as fuel to fan their flames. The orb laughed and smiled as the final blow came down, knowing the fate they will receive. The orb exploded and everything went to white.

(0^0)

Kirby woke up to the burnt face of Zan Partizanne tending their wounds. “ What happened?” asked the pink puffball.

“After you left we fought a butterfly and then there was an explosion on the other side of the portal and all of you guys came out with magical injuries.”

“ If you really think about it...isnt everything a ma-”

“That's it, you aren't getting the wait on your explanation.”

“Wwwaaa-”

“ EVERYONE!!! KIRBY IS AWAKE!!”

The room flooded in with helpers and dream friends. They all had a pensive look on their faces. “Kirby...what was that?”

Ohh..ohh…

“ It's a long story,but here's the abridged version.”

#kirby #kirbythoughts #kirby spoilers #kirby star allies spoilers #writing #fanfic #fanfiction

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