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embossross · 1 year

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The Devotion of the Girl in the Mirror

Chapter 4 >> Chapter 5 >> Masterlist

✣ Pairing: Rindou x AFAB fem!Reader w/ a chapter cameo of reader/yuzuha

✣ Warning: 18+ explicit content, minors DNI

✣ Series: part of the In the Belly of the Beast fic universe

✣ Chapter CW: bdsm play feat. reader/yuzuha (gasp!), bondage, overstim, vibrators, exhibitionism, group BDSM feat. 2 other subs getting masturbated (one fem!AFAB and one fem!AMAB, idk crowd jeers, a little bit of degradation, bad communication & angst, drinking)

✣ Story CWs: BDSM dob/sub relationship; sex (oral, ptv, pta, etc.); genre typical drug use, alcohol, smoking

✣ Synopsis: A story of two lonely people find love for better or worse. Or, dom!Rindou is sweet on his girl. Or, on paper, you and Rindou have nothing in common. But sometimes chemistry defies logic, and with every conversation, you find yourself more bewitched until all you see, smell, or hear is Rindou.

✣ Word Count: ~8.5k

The black dot may have been nothing but a circle, a representation of the sun or an eye, except it is written, which makes it punctuation. As a symbol of punctuation, it may have been a period at the end of a sentence, except there are three, which makes it part of an ellipsis. As an ellipsis, it may have indicated a trailing off of a thought except it accompanies a blank space on his screen, an auto-generated signal from his phone, which means you are still typing, as you have been for the last five minutes with no message yet in response to his text.

It should not take this long to respond to an invitation to dinner.

With every minute that passes, his ire rises higher.

Rindou strains through another set of lat pulls, refusing to let you and your silent treatment slow him down. Opposite him, Benkei deadlifts a stunning 300 kg. When the bar hits the floor, the clang echoes off the mirror-lined walls.

There is a gym in the basement of his apartment complex, guaranteed to be empty in the early pre-dawn hours, which he prefers for the privacy it offers. Wakasa’s gym is never empty. Fighters practice boxing, MMA, and jujutsu with retired pros morning and night. Most of the customers sport tattoos from one syndicate or another, and Rindou often recognizes the guys on his own payroll by the free weights or sweating in the saunas. Rindou only started returning to Wakasa’s gym for the occasional practice bout or strength training session in the last few months. Wakasa’s been filling his ear with the idea of taking you and his girl on a double date, a vacation to the mountains when your semester wraps, and Rindou has been coming by to talk the details.

A text finally lights up his screen, and Rindou forces himself to ignore it for a solid minute while he finishes his set even as his eyes dart back against his will.

I can’t do dinner. Plans with Naoya. But I could do drinks.

Wakasa lopes forward, hands in his pockets, before Rindou can answer. It’s his turn to leave you with the ellipsis of anxiety and doom. He locks his phone and tosses face-down on a bench.

“Wanted to tell you we got the goods through Nagoya yesterday,” Wakasa says tonelessly. “Ushioda’s really come through. My guy says customs not only didn’t check, they agreed to decrease security personnel during offboarding. Ran is going to be a menace about being the one to make this happen, but he’s worked his magic on this.”

Rindou matches Wakasa’s subdued attitude beat for beat, but in his mind, he runs through a month’s worth of memos and emails to recall if he knew about this plan. “You sent a shipment of girls through the port? That’s fucking brazen.”

“Mochi wanted to test the limits early with something cheap before we put our expensive shit through there,” Wakasa said.

According to Takeomi, Ushioda begged on bended knee for clemency for his son. It was hard to say whether love or shame drove the father, but the outcome was the same. Acme Corp would smuggle Bonten contraband through the Port of Nagoya, so long as they streamlined into their regular shipping schedule to avoid setting off any alarm bells.

This was the second shipment received through the port after moving a little marijuana through a few weeks earlier. Rindou tries to keep his expectations in check as operations continue smoothly, but his hopes rise against his better judgment.

“Mochi says he wants to do a few more runs, but that you should start thinking through where you could source the heroine,” Wakasa relays.

They could source through the triads as the Chinese and Russian gangs already have inroads with the producers, but they would each take their cut and ruin Bonten’s margins. The drug would be new on the market. Rindou doesn’t want to price high outright. Start cheap and once the clientele can’t live without their fix, then drive the prices up. They could run a deficit to start, but that would mean Koko up his ass. Cutting the triads out completely isn’t an option either as they would need to ship out of China, but if they could build their own supplier network, they could negotiate a better rate.

“It’s gonna be too obvious if we have guys coming in and out of Afghanistan all the time. They don’t even run direct flights out of Seoul. We’d get picked instantly. I’m thinking we could get away with sending someone through to Turkey though. With a little palm greasing, they can cross into Iran without getting their passport stamped. The IRGC run the heroine trade through Afghanistan, so we could develop our own connections from there,” Rindou says.

Wakasa nods along at what he already figured. “Who you gonna send?”

“Not me if that’s what you’re thinking. I hate plane rides,” Rindou says.

“Of course, not you. We need you. I was thinking Hanma.”

Rindou groans. “I fucking hate that guy.”

“We all fucking hate that guy. But that’s why he’s good at this shit. He’s done great work in Hong Kong. Send him over there. He knows how to make the coldest man sweat,” Wakasa suggests.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll think about it.”

He finishes another set of lat pulls, while Wakasa and Benkei chat away about the insipid rise of Peloton. Endorphins rush to his brain, and he feels magnanimous enough to finally shoot you a reply.

See you at 5.

If he has anything to say about it, Naoya will be eating dinner alone tonight.

Two people could not be dressed more oppositely. Fresh from his post-workout shower, Rindou wears nothing but a pair of sweats. Droplets of water scatter across his bare shoulder blade as his long, wet hair drips freely. Strong chest and arms still pumped from muscle training great you at the door. You, meanwhile, dressed for an Arctic exploration in a floor-length parka, bulging in all the wrong places, a fluffy scarf wound three-times round your neck, and an equally fluffy, fur-lined hood. A mask completes the look, so the only skin he can see is a sliver of your forehead and your narrowed eyes.

“Just looking at you makes me feel cold,” you scowl.

“Just looking at you is making me cold.”

You barge right past him into his apartment. The heater works overtime to keep the entire complex a toasty 23 degrees. Past the entryway, where you slip out of your boots, the dining room table is lined with boxes of Chinese takeout; Unsure what you’d want to eat, Rindou opted to order a smorgasbord of options.

Beneath the unflattering coat, you wear a black dress. The long sleeves and tasteful length contrast a daring vee that dips down to show off the swell of your lovely, little breasts. You’re packaged like a delicious gift for the unwrapping, and Rindou can’t resist planting a soft kiss to the back of your neck as you hang your coat. He expects the battle tonight will be a long and painful one, but still you dressed up for him.

“Good to see it’s you under there. For a second, I thought it might be an assassin,” Rindou jokes.

“Easy for you to laugh all warm in here! It’s freezing outside. They’re calling for snow tonight into tomorrow, which sucks. I can’t miss class at this point in the semester,” you complain.

“Well, I’ve got everything you need to warm up,” Rindou says. He gestures at the table laden with food, and then, more critically, brandishes the bottle of wine bought just for tonight. “And if the weather’s too bad tomorrow, I’m sure they’ll cancel. You can just hang out here all day.”

“My professors are all sadists. I wouldn’t put it past them to host class as they get double-bypass surgery. They’d have the surgeon right there in the lecture hall,” you grumble.

Rindou half listens as you launch into a prolonged rant about your upcoming finals. His attention is understandably split as he searches your lively expressions for the ugly shadow of jealousy. Behind every word, he hunts for double meanings.

The look of pure betrayal on your face when he ran into you yesterday in Chiba will not soon leave his mind. It colored his scenes yesterday with Mayuri, turning him mean and unmerciful as he bound and belted her ass red. She deserved his full attention after putting her trust in him, but Rindou twice almost walked away to call you. Had you answered, he might have berated you for daring to look at him like that, like you’d caught him fucking your mother or murdering the family pet. Like he’d done something unforgivable to you.

Now, as you gripe about exams, every bit the picture of the beleaguered uni student, your words ring false. Like you are filling time and space to put distance between the you of yesterday, so judgey and offended, and the you of today. You tell him how exams are two months out, and like a good student, you are already studying in earnest in the pits of what you dub “flashcard hell” as Kii has taken to posting flashcards over every expanse of wall in her apartment, springing prep questions on unconsenting listeners, and crying periodically about how she should have spent fewer hours sleeping and more time reading the supplementary materials. Rindou hums in sympathy in all the right places, and he almost, almost begins to relax into the conversation. Like an idiot.

“Are you feeling the dumplings or the pork?” Rindou asks, plating up a hearty helping of food for himself.

“Neither. I can’t eat, remember?” you say.

“Oh, come on. Stay the night. It’s too cold to be going out.”

“True, but I promised Naoto. We’re going to this really fancy curry restaurant, and he said he’d pay, so I’m planning to go all out and get dessert,” you say.

Noticing his wine glass is running low, Rindou drains the last dregs and pours himself a healthy portion. This will be easier drunk. He debates pouring you more as well, wondering if a little tipsiness would make you spunkier or mellow the worst of your impulses. Because he senses the fit approaching, the moment you break your pretense that everything is fine and well and force a confrontation.

“You know, I don’t like playing games,” he says.

“I don’t like playing games either.”

“Then, don’t.”

Rindou says it shortly, definitively. The barest hint of command reinforces his voice, and he watches the way you receive the order, squirming in that delightfully submissive way of yours before you reject your inclination to obedience. You set your jaw.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say.

Rindou sighs. He expected you would be difficult but not passive aggressive. Not like this.

“You have dinner plans with Naoto? Seriously?”

“Yes?”

“Bullshit,” Rindou snaps. “I expected you to be immature about what happened yesterday, but this? You’re better than this. Forget your conveniently timed dinner plans, and let’s act like adults. Then, we can have a nice night.”

“It’s a work event. Naoto was nervous about going alone, so he asked me to come with him. This was planned weeks ago. I just forgot until he reminded me,” you insist, standing up from your chair, like the added height will strengthen your lie.

“Convenient,” Rindou sneers.

In the six months you’ve been together, you have never had a genuine fight or even argument. Seeing your smiling face typically puts Rindou in too good a mood, curbs the worst of his temper, so he is slow to pick fights. You, meanwhile, listen so well, adapting your behavior without him having to utter a word. Bickering typically becomes flirtatious banter in a matter of minutes, the kind that ends with your panties in his pocket.

So, Rindou doesn’t know what to expect from you in a real fight. He half expected you to fold at the slightest correction. You are still young, so he doesn’t write off the possibility of some kind of petty manipulation either, the silent treatment maybe, or more probably breaking into a mess of tears, the kind that bring so many men to a panic; Unfortunately for you, Rindou doesn’t capitulate to a woman’s cries or begging, going cold at any miserable attempt to manipulate his emotions.

Faced with you now, the tendons in your neck pulse as you square of against him without any sign of crumbling. You worry your lower lip between your teeth until it is red and swollen. It is the only sign of anxiety. Otherwise, you stand strong.

“If you feel like I’m somehow attacking you, it must be a guilty conscience. Because I haven’t said or done anything to you.”

“What do I have to feel guilty about?” Rindou demands coldly.

“You’d have to tell me. Because I thought about it all day and night –”

“See, I knew you were wound up about yesterday –”

“I thought about it all day and night,” you raise your voice to drown him out. “And, yes, it was weird to see you with someone else. Yes, it hurt. It was so unexpected. But, if you think I’m trying to punish you over it, you’re out of line because my eyes are wide open. You’re not my boyfriend –”

“No, I’m not. Which is why you shouldn’t –”

“I know, I know. How can I be hurt or angry when you’re not my boyfriend? You didn’t cheat on me or break any promises. I have nothing to be upset about.”

“Right.”

Confused and more than a little wary, Rindou sits back down at the table. He has held conversations like this a few times in his life. Most subs understand the importance of negotiation implicitly and take him for what he is. There have been a handful of in the past, however, usually inexperienced women like you, who struggled to work through the limitations of their relationship with him, crashing futilely against the boundaries of what he offered.

Because he doesn’t do relationships. Blame it on the dangers of his work, the secrecy inherent in the lifestyle, or some intrinsic flaw in his makeup. Regardless, he never plans to tie himself down to one woman. All that road offers is the erosion of his freedom.

“Since you wanted to talk about it so much though, bringing it up and all, I would like to ask about what I should expect,” you continue. “Because I didn’t realize you were seeing other people, and that raises questions. Like, are you practicing safe sex with these women? Have you been getting tested for STDs? Should we be using condoms? And, are you looking for more long-term subs? How would you even fit in another sub? Would we have to see each other less, so you could make time for a new one? What should I expect going forward?”

Each question is too reasonable to deny, so Rindou answers plainly, “You’re the only person I see regularly, so I use condoms with everyone else and get tested on the first of every month. If you want to use condoms together, that is entirely your decision. I’ll accept whatever you decide. I’m not looking to train anyone else right now. If I found someone that suited my tastes, I might consider it though, and yeah, that would mean adjusting my schedule around because I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you would not be open to training together.”

“No!”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Rindou says.

“How many women have you been with since we got together?” you demand.

There is no good answer, and Rindou groans, “Seriously? Don’t start overreacting now.”

“I’m cool! I’m being so cool. Just answer the question,” you smile, but it is a mockery of your normal, gleaming smiles. Teeth clenched tight together, it is more like an animal baring its fangs.

“No! I don’t owe you a fucking itemized list of every woman I’ve fucked. Just like I don’t run around town telling them about you. I haven’t cheated on you. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I just wanna know how and when you’re finding time to meet other people.”

Rindou rolls his eyes. “Because that’s rational. You don’t actually want to know the answer to that.”

“I just don’t know where you’re possibly finding the time to meet all these women –”

“Again, you’re exaggerating. Not all these women. Some, like Mayuri, I knew before you. Some I meet through work. Straightforward stuff.”

“Mayuri is the woman from yesterday?”

“I think we’re done with this conversation now,” Rindou says tightly.

A shininess blurs the color of your eyes then, and Rindou sighs. He wants to wrap you up in his arms and praise you for being such a strong, beautiful girl because despite all your tough words, this isn’t easy for you. If he could be a better man for you, he would consider it, but there is only so much he can offer, and the burden of accepting that is on you.

“Thank you for being honest with me. I really do need to head out and meet Naoto, but I’ll think about the condom thing,” you murmur.

“Baby, don’t leave like this,” Rindou tries. There is no more fight in your stance and now that the threat of conflict is ended, he finds the energy draining from his whole body.

“I’m fine! We’re fine. Seriously, Rindou. I’m not going to overreact or stamp my foot at you like that might change something. My eyes are wide open like I told you. I understand where you’re coming from completely. We can hang out soon,” you say.

Rindou doesn’t like the idea of you leaving when your foundations are so shaken, wants to stuff you full of gone-cold Chinese food and cuddle on the couch until you fall asleep on his shoulder. Even if neither of you yelled or descended into insults, he feels like he fought a war, and the only way to recover is in your arms.

He follows you to the entryway.

You redon your winter gear in a hurry. The puffy coat is plush and cozy as he pulls you close and kisses you long and slow. You return the kiss with wind-chapped lips not fighting him at all. The heat that always explodes between you blazes, and he cups and caresses you through the barrier of the coat.

He wants you to stay.

You break the kiss after only a minute and smile.

“I’ll call you, ok?”

And then, you are gone.

When Rindou sleeps, he dreams of shopping malls built like mazes, window shopping displays of the finest goods, and he understands without knowing that to obtain even one miraculous product from these stores would spell his salvation; But whenever he tries to enter one of the stores, the maze shifts, redirects him until he is walking forwards again, searching. Still searching. During the slippery seconds between sleep and waking, that liminal space where dreams and life converge, he stews in resentment for what he can’t possess. That resentment often follows him into the day, though he tries not to dwell on it. The recurring dream started sometime in his early twenties. He remembers that dream joining him in sleep on at least a monthly basis, but for all he knows, he dreams it every night only to forget with the rising of the sun.

The weeks that follow the lingerie incident remind him of that dream only there is no supernatural force reworking the architecture of time and space to prevent him from entering the store. It feels like he’s piloting a plane headed straight for a cliff. There is still time to push the emergency button and eject to safety if he is only willing to abandon the plane to its solitary, fiery fate. But, he is a pilot, and the plane is all he’s ever known, and the longer he goes without pushing the button, the slighter his chances of escaping unscathed.

Because you are not fine.

The three weeks that follow pass at a crawl. Time reshapes itself into molasses around the giant you-sized absence in his days. It is easy, at first, to deny the obvious as you offer such convincing excuses to blow him off. After all, your friends do often lean on you for emotional support, and finals are drawing close, and your mother does deserve a break. So what if you leave his texts on read for hours at a time?

On the fourth day, he calls you in the free period he knows falls between your Wednesday lectures. When you answer, Rindou mistakes your sing-song hello for the voicemail you have relegated him to recently. You apologize for not having time to talk, squeezing more words into a breath than humanly plausible as you explain your packed study schedule. You promise to see him soon before you hang up.

You sounded fine on the phone. The same voice, light and airy like spring personified, that Rindou knows so well.

But you are not fine.

The ice wall between you thaws a little in the second week when Rindou reminds you that he bought tickets to the Inaba/Salas tour. Again, you surprise him by joining as planned at the stadium. Throughout the concert, you smile and cheer along, and the open delight on your face as you groove to the music invites him to join in the fun. At the end of the night, he drives you home to where you swear your mom is waiting. He kisses you breathless in the front seat of his car. You sigh hot and sticky into his mouth, notched into the crook of his shoulder like you have carved a space for yourself there, and whisper “Sir” with more fervor than a prayer. Everything seems fine.

But you are not fine.

Only a few days later, you agree to a date. The familiarity as he texts you details and soaks up your liberal usage of emojis relaxes him into thinking all is well. He takes you ice skating at Tokyo Midtown Gardens. With your little gloved hand in his, you half carry each other around the rink, equally graceless without the surety of solid ground. Rindou laughs more than he has for two weeks. You both fall again and again, Rindou toppling each time so as to shield your body from the worst of it. As you sprawl on top of him, padded from head to toe in winter wear, you promise to kiss his purple bruises better and call him your hero. Back at his apartment, you do just that, licking and kissing every part of his body, losing track of time. The trains stop running, so you sleep where you belong in the cradle of his arms. He wakes up at 6AM to the sound of you shuffling, halfway out the door citing an early start to the day. You would have left without a goodbye, but at his groggy inquiry, you tell him you are fine.

But you are not fine.

Rindou wants to confront you about the change. He hates playing stupid games more than accusations or tears and would rather have it out at this point. But, whenever you visit, he never broaches the subject. Because you are so singularly you! And fuck it. He misses you. The contrast between seeing you fives time a week and this drought is stark. Now, when you leave, you don’t send him dumb memes or answer his calls to talk about your day. You don’t rush to make plans to see him again either, and Rindou knows he can’t accept your lame excuses anymore. Something is fundamentally broken.

For the first time in maybe ever, Rindou throws himself into his work. The timing is convenient with recent developments, so he offers to take the meetings outside the perimeter of Tokyo when before he might have dragged his feet. He personally briefs Takeomi every day. When Kakucho mentions a security threat in passing, Rindou volunteers to help even though it falls well outside his purview. Anything to keep the body active.

You had come to fill up the hours of his day, to be the dessert he could look forward to after a meal of veggies. Rindou can’t comprehend how he used to fill the interminable hours between six PM and sleep without your assistance.

So, he works, and he tries not to think about anything much at all.

The plane soars onward without any assistance on his part. The details of the exposed cliff face, jagged and unforgiving, grow clearer by the hour. There will be no escape. When he crashes, Rindou knows he is going to explode.

Ran once said all of Bonten has PTSD in one form or another. Overexposure to high stress, life-or-death situations puts too much stress on the adrenal system, so now half the executives drop to their stomachs when a car misfires, stand with their backs flat to the nearest wall in every new room, avoid crowds like some people avoid traffic tickets. Rindou considers himself free of this affliction, but on the road, hands flexing on the steering wheel and eyes split between mirrors like a car might strike out into his lane at any moment, he is every bit as activated.

The hour is late, creeping towards midnight when Rindou pulls onto the expressway. There are predictably few passenger cars sharing the road. Semitrucks kick up a mist of rain that obscures his windshield.

To fill the sleepless hours, Rindou is developing all kinds of new habits. Driving, brain preciously blank to all but the threat of traffic, is one of them. So is going to the office. Just today, he went to the Ueno office of all places rather than watch the hours of the day tick by in his apartment. There is no email unanswered, directive unissued, or memo unread to keep his brain occupied. He wishes there was because his apartment holds as little allure now as it did this this morning.

A notification lights up the display. It’s a reminder that the BDSM club in Roppongi – the one where you first met – is open for play tonight. Rindou palms his cock, and it feels like an animal, a dead one, in his pants. Not even a stir. His mood is too black and distracted to responsibly dom anyone, so he dismisses the notification.

Screeching the tires, Rindou almost misses his exit. He brakes hard down the ramp until he shoots out on a quiet street. At the drab buildings, he does a double take, recognizing the north entrance to Nakano Station.

He has driven straight past his real exit and an extra twenty minutes without noticing to arrive in your neighborhood.

Rindou feels drunk despite not taking a sip of alcohol all day. He pulls into a gas station and refills the tank. While it pumps, he pops his contacts out of sore eyes. Everything blurs like a photograph in soft focus. He closes his eyes against a headache and breathes deep for 120 torturous breaths. Back in the car, he unearths his glasses from the glove compartment. They’re the same style, though a stronger prescription, that he wore as a teen. Catching his reflection in the rearview, Rindou sees the boy he once was. Just as lost, letting things happen around him without a thought, only leaping to action when stronger powers (namely Ran) prompted). Someone who watches as life happens.

Nothing is in his control.

The BDSM club is five minutes closer to Nakano than his apartment, a negligible difference, but after the driving mix-up he changes course. Nostalgia takes the wheel to lead to where you first met, where he has not visited since.

The ticket takers at the theater don’t recognize him, hesitating until he points at the tattoo on his throat. He looks unkempt: hair ratty and unbrushed, jacket slung over his shoulder and button-up crumpled at the ends, and his glasses highlight the eyes of a man who has barely slept in days. It is no surprise that subs don’t flock to him when he enters. He doesn’t look like the all-powerful dom tonight. Best he sits back and watches.

Rindou pays for a full bottle of bourbon, served neat and hard on the taste buds. The club is busy as it’s Saturday, and couples and groups clog the four stages. There are no tables left close enough for a view of the action, so Rindou stands in the corner, taking heavy swigs straight from the bottle until his stomach cramps.

There is little variety on stage. Three doms whip, cane, and flog their subs. All older man with younger women. They are impersonal, showing perfunctory delight at the infliction of pain. These are the kinds of scenes that bore him when done without finesse.

On the fourth stage, he recognizes Lady X, a domme he knows from many shared nights spent just like this, bringing women to their knees. Lost in his memories is Lady X’s real name. Yuzu something…Yuzuriha? Yuzuyu? In the clubs, she always goes by her alias or is called simply Lady, but Rindou remembers her vaguely as the sister of the tenth gen leader of the Black Dragons.

Lady is the antithesis of Rindou as a dom.

If Rindou finds control in manipulating a pliant body and acceptance in a sub’s embrace of his touch, whether it offers pain or pleasure, Lady finds release in giving her subs what they want. Where Rindou hoards women’s orgasms like precious jewels, flaunting his ownership of them only to hide them away again, Lady distributes them like cheap birdseed, doling out orgasm after orgasm to her thankful subs. Eventually said thanks turns to pleading, as one orgasm becomes four and the pleasure twists to something monumental. Lady then ups the vibrator or nips the woman’s clit with blunt teeth because, as she told Rindou once over a drink at this very bar, her goal in every scene is to create a world where her subs’ worst problem is the existence of too much pleasure, not its absence, nor its inverse, pain.

Tonight, Lady commands the largest audience of patrons. No surprise there as she strikes quite the picture herself, tall and lovely in a pencil skirt as she brings three subs on stage to piteous tears. Rindou slides closer to her stage for a better look.

Suspended in a harness of ropes, the first sub weeps wretchedly. There is a hitachi wand held to her clit. The setting must be high because the buzz travels from the stage to his ears. The woman cries but does not beg for mercy. There is the sheen of the acolyte behind her eyes, like she might commit unspeakable acts if they only bring her back here to Lady’s ropes and generous toys.

A second sub at her side stands restrained but not suspended. Her arms are tied above her, so that she can do nothing while Lady strokes her cock. Lady’s little hand smears messily over the tip, which is an inflamed red. There is a puddle of cum on the floor from the woman’s past orgasms. Little drips of semen harden on her legs. Every touch must hurt, but Lady keeps playing with the tip, forcing her back to hardness whether she likes it or not.

The third sub is just an ass in the air. A perfect ass at that.

Bent over a wooden block and shackled at the ankle, so that her legs are to the audience, the sub’s pussy is spread wide around a vibrator taped to her clit. Her feet kick ineffectually against her restraints, little trembles jiggling her thighs.

Rindou enjoys watching Lady work, so self-assured, so competent at bringing her subs to the brink and past. His eyes stray again and again to the pretty ass in the air. A stir in his pants makes him question his decision to abstain tonight. It has been over a week of his own hand.

After fifteen minutes of more of the same, Lady releases the first two subs from their ropes and cuffs. They are felled heaps on the stage, panting in puddles of their own slick and cum. Lady rounds to the third sub, leaning toward that hidden face in private conversation. Then she stands, and sighs for the audience’s benefit.

“Here I am being so generous, telling this slut to cum as many times as she wants, and she hasn’t cum once! What to do?”

Lady answers her own question by crouching down in front of the sub’s spread pussy and burying her whole face in it. There is a lull in the music, and Rindou can hear just how lewdly Lady laves that pussy with her tongue. Her fingers stretch the sub’s hole at a brutal pace. The woman keens loudly and kicks her feet again. Everything from her little naked toes to canting hips look beautiful in the throws of overstimulation.

Of course, Rindou knows without knowing. A presentiment colors the scene. He leans forward with interest, compelled toward that wet cunt, not wanting to miss a moment of the action, but his stomach sickens too. He ignores the sensation, blames the bourbon warming its way down his belly.

Lady tuts as the sub continues to hang on the precipice without teetering over.

She turns to the audience and says, “Little slut is having a hard time coming without permission from her old dom. Isn’t that the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard? Why don’t you let her know she has permission to cum? Tell her to squirt all over my hand.”

Eager to join in more actively, the crowd of about thirty hoot and holler in encouragement, mixing in obscenities about the sub’s wet cunt and place beneath Lady’s toys. Rindou claps along.

Four fingers slam in and out of that sloppy hole, and the time between shakes and cries from the sub evaporates until she is blubbering at the stimulation. Lady yanks her up by the hair to gift her the added sting at her scalp, and it pushes the sub over the edge.

Correction: it pushes you over the edge.

Because Rindou knows that ass, and he knows those toes, and even at a distance with the lights too bright and a row of people in front of him, he knows that pretty pussy, too. That pretty pussy now clenches around Lady’s fingers in an orgasm far too long and powerful for your overstimulated body.

Rindou watches your face screw up in pain and tears, an expression just as familiar to him. It is an expression that should belong solely to him.

All three subs follow Lady dutifully off stage after your orgasm finally settles. She bundles you all in blankets, heaping compliments and affection down on you as is your due after such a trying scene. Rindou hovers within earshot as Lady pets your head and rubs a tear from your check. Twenty minutes elapse as you come out of subspace, during which time Rindou drains half the bottle of bourbon.

“I look like a racoon. I’m gonna head to the bathroom and fix my makeup,” you laugh, pointing at the streaks of mascara that paint your cheeks.

You replace the blanket with an overcoat to shield your nakedness then weave your way through the crowd. Compliments on your performance rain down from all sides. Rindou shadows your step. Not far from the bathroom, you drop your phone. When you turn to pick it up off the floor, Rindou is there, already scooping it off the ground.

“Rin – Rindou!” you yelp.

“Not trying to scare you,” Rindou says immediately, defensively, and he passes the phone back to you without even scanning the lock screen for a peek at your messages. “Just saw you and wanted to say hey.”

“Well, hey…um…”

“You might wanna fix your makeup. You’ve got…” Rindou gestures at the cakey residue you already know is there, and you curse.

“Yeah, sorry. I need to go to the bathroom and deal with this.”

“I’ll come with you,” Rindou says, opening the door for you.

“Rindou, you can’t come in here with me,” you whisper.

He almost tells you it’s his club and he can do whatever he wants, but Rindou wears his secrecy like a second skin and only smirks at your worries before following you into the women’s bathroom. It is a six-stall affair with a wall mirror above the sinks. He can hear a woman pee behind the door of one stall, but he ignores the stranger’s presence as you ignore his, turning to the mirrors.

“You did good up there. Looked like you had a lot of tension to work out, which isn’t surprising considering all the studying you’ve been doing. Didn’t you have a paper due this week?” Rindou prompts.

You rub dry fingertips against your cheeks. When that doesn’t work, you wad up three paper towels, wet from the sink, and scrub.

“Yeah, I had a paper on Bashō’s references to music and instrumentation in his poems, which was due on Thursday. It could have been a lot worse honestly. I like the subject, and I thought my first draft was good for once. Of course, I had a complete breakdown on Wednesday after dreaming that the paper was really supposed to be about Nishiyama Sōin and that I’d miscited every source in there, but um, I managed to calm myself down.”

“Good. I don’t know why you always have nightmares about your papers. You always get an A.”

“Not always,” you say darkly.

The woman in the occupied stall hurries out, casting a few curious glances Rindou’s way as she washes her hands. She doesn’t dry them, leaving little splatters of water on the counter. Then, they are truly alone.

“Are you planning to stick around now that you finished your scene? Can’t imagine you wanna do another after that? It looked intense.”

“You really watched that?” you ask.

“Most of it,” he confirms. “You did good.”

“Thanks,” you say without looking at him. You dry your hands while staring at your now streak-free reflection in the mirror.

“If you don’t wanna stay, I could take you home. Or, if you’re hungry, I know a 24/7 breakfast place not far from here. You never eat enough after a scene,” Rindou says.

“Um, I’m good…Have you been coming here often?”

“No, it’s my first time in forever. You?” he asks in a tone that just misses casual.

“It’s my second time in the last two weeks. I’m kind of trying out stuff right now,” you say.

“Trying out stuff…” he tests the words.

“Are you okay? You look a little tense.”

Normally, Rindou chooses his words with precision, but he finds himself unable to process his surroundings. He exists somewhere outside his body, outside his brain, outside this room entirely. He peers down on the scene almost like a security camera, removed and distant. No, rather more like footage from a security camera, viewed days after the fact in a little room by someone who neither knows nor understands the context of the scene. Trying to think through the likely consequences of his words or choosing an alternative phrase, he finds his thoughts vaporous and ungraspable. So, he simply speaks.

“I didn’t like it.”

“Like what? Watching me with someone else?” you say quickly.

He grunts because that’s easier than searching for any kind of answer.

“You said we could fuck other people.”

“I know. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Rindou agrees. It is the correct and automatic response, but he can’t resist tacking on the truth at the end. “I didn’t like watching.”

“Well, that’s flattering at least,” you mutter.

In a different reality, one where he sent you up there with a pat on the ass, he might have liked watching Lady work your cunt up to a waterfall before returning you to him, still hovering on the precipice, edged and needy. He might have liked teasing you all night with the possibility of an orgasm. But he did not like watching you cum for someone else. Not without his permission. Even with a filmy gauze slowing down his brain from the half bottle of bourbon, he knows that much.

“We’re not okay, are we?” Rindou asks.

“No, Rindou. We are not okay.”

“Well, can we talk about it?”

“I don’t know. Can we talk about it without you making me feel like a complete idiot?” you snap.

A woman pushes open the door to the bathroom, but upon hearing the direction of your conversation, she turns right around, leaving you to a privacy tinged by history. The door creaks back into place with a choked slam.

“Like a…? You’re not an idiot?” Rindou insists.

“I know I’m not an idiot! I have spent the last few weeks going back and forth between feeling so sad and then so goddamn angry with you! Because I know that I could not have been more chill about things if I had a lobotomy to remove my frontal cortex first! I was so cool about everything, so understanding, so kind, and you treated me like, like some fucking bother you had to get out of the way!”

The first feeling to reemerge from the confused pit you dumped him in is embarrassment at himself as he is admittedly slow on the uptake, stuttering out, “Wait…this isn’t about…? This is about our conversation at my apartment?”

“Yes!” you hiss, hands flapping emphatically and voice echoing off the tile. The overcoat swallows you whole, a sea of black fabric trailing the floor, but somehow you stand tall within it. “Yes! I came that night so prepared to listen to your side of things and be reasonable and empathetic and all the rest, and you treated me like I was a hysterical child that you had to manage. Far be it from me to criticize the great Rindou! Not that I even did criticize you before you were jumping down my throat. I am not unreasonable. I am not hysterical. And I am not a child. I did not appreciate being treated like I was.”

Rindou remembers back to the hours before you arrived at his apartment that day. How he’d been so sure you would accuse him of cheating or play mind games to negate your own jealousy. The whole time you were there, he maintained that sureness even when you acted contrary to those expectations.

It, he admits, hadn’t been fair.

Worse, it may have been patronizing.

He groans, not at you but at the memory, and rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck, yeah, yeah, you’re probably right. I see that. I didn’t want you to blow things out of proportion, so I tried to shut you down before you could. But I guess I acted like a prick.”

“A prick might be understating it. I came to you to have a conversation in good faith, and you made me feel so…small. Insignificant. Like, I’m just this easy thing to you. Like you could use and discard me, so I better shut my mouth before you throw me away.”

Rindou opens his mouth to give a rebuttal-like reassurance that you are wrong about your supposed disposability to him, but you plow forward, pointed finger punctuating every word, which is a welcome distraction from the look of raw pain on your face. It is like the sun. Too painful to look at directly.

“I know what that feels like, Rindou, because I’ve been treated that way before. I’m young and people call me sweet, and that means people think I’m stupid or superficial, but I’m not. I’m capable of dealing with the hard things and having the hard conversations, and I do not deserve to be treated like I’m too naïve to know how things work.”

There is a layer of grime on his tongue. He focuses on how foreign it feels in his mouth rather than the thumping organ in his ribcage. The way his heart races and the room feels too small is not dissimilar to the sensations he feels when someone fires a gun, when his life is momentarily suspended. A kind of physical panic that quickly settles into alertness.

He breathes deep, calming. Rindou smells the antibacterial soap and weak air freshener blowing from the vents. The colors of the room appear saturated, more contrast and more details accessible to the eye. Most importantly, he sees you clearly. The veins of your throat strain as if bursting with tension your body can’t contain. There are new smudges at the edges as tiny tears wet your eyeline. There is every emotion in those eyes from disgust to anger to sadness, but most of all, there is a question lingering there as you silently beg him to answer: where can we go from here?

“I have never thought of you as some easy thing. I fucked up. I don’t know what was going on in my head that day, but you’re right. I wasn’t seeing you. I should have shut my fucking mouth and listened. I’m sorry.”

Relief warms your eyes.

“I accept your apology,” you say.

“Really?” Rindou asks. After weeks of brewing resentment and your impassioned speech, he didn’t expect a speedy turnaround no matter how many pretty speeches he made himself.

“Yeah, I don’t like being angry. It takes a lot of energy,” you half laugh.

The abrupt about face from anger to laughter throws into stark relief that the is very drunk and very tired. Beneath that, Rindou recognizes a more abstract emotion, too: happiness.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner. I didn’t realize what you were upset about,” Rindou says, and then he adds helpfully. “Because I’m stupid. Thanks for forgiving me.”

“Yeah, you are stupid, but I figure you deserve a little grace because this was the first time in six months that you disrespected me. So long as you never treat me that way again. Seriously. My mother taught me to never put up with that from anyone,” you say.

“On my honor,” Rindou vows. “So, can I buy you something to eat now?”

The happiness explodes out like a shaken soda bottle. One second, he’s filled to the brim with it, and the next it’s gone, bubbling to nothing on the tile because you don’t say yes. Instead, you stare grimly at the wall, all traces of reconciliation gone as you clutch the sleeves of your overcoat tight.

He wonders if his apology is not enough, if he might prove his sincerity to you in some other way. If you were Mikey, he would cut off his pinky. He would gladly gift you the ring, index, and middle fingers of his left hand, too, if you demanded them. But fingers out of the question, he has nothing to give you to prove himself, and you don’t say yes.

“Rindou…I do accept your apology for insulting me, but that’s not all…The truth is, I tried to be cool about it, but I’ve had weeks to think, and…I’m not okay with things going back to how they were if you are dating or hell, sleeping with other people. I’m jealous and hurt. And I can’t accept it,” you say.

“It’s normal to be jealous,” Rindou tries, tone bracing and supportive. “I got jealous today, but I worked through it. I’ve been a dom since I was nineteen, and I’ve never been tied down to one person before. It’s not the way I know how to do things. That’s why I didn’t make any promises when we got together. I didn’t cheat on –”

“Please don’t start that again! I know! I know you technically didn’t do anything wrong. And I know that I can’t make you stop seeing other people. It’s your relationship, too, and you can have your boundaries, but…”

“But?”

“But if I can’t ask you to stop seeing other people, then you can’t ask me to keep loving you.”

You clap a hand to your mouth as if shocked by the confession, or like you might herd the words back into your mouth where they will remain unspoken. But it is too late. He can count on one hand the number of times anyone has told him they loved him, and he will not forget this.

“Baby…” Rindou tries to reach for you, but you scramble away, and now tears fall down your cheeks.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the problem, ya know? It hasn’t just been sex or hanging out for me. What we were doing, for me at least, was love, and it hurts too much to love someone who…I tried to take a step back, just have fun with you every once in a while, but there’s no medicine for falling in love, and every time I saw your stupid face, my heart started doing backflips. It doesn’t listen to me when I tell it we shouldn’t love you anymore. And that’s why…”

Your face blurs. It takes Rindou several confused seconds to realize his eyes are wet and blink the moisture away. When you reappear, you have steeled your nerves for the finishing blow.

“That’s why I don’t want to see you anymore. I need space and time to get over you, so um, please just stop calling and texting and all the rest. Just stop.”

Your face blurs again, and this time Rindou knows it’s because his eyes are watering. He blames his stupid glasses. He needs a stronger prescription.

There is no such excuse for your tears that drip past your chin to land on your collar. You wipe fruitlessly at the leakage, too slow to stimmy their fall.

If you say anything after that, Rindou doesn’t hear you over the ringing in his ears. Three women enter the bathroom arm-in-arm and immediately jabber at him about how he isn’t welcome, like three harpies sent to drive him away. Rindou doesn’t fight them as they push him out the door with their words.

Outside in the club, in the dark and music, far from the bright quiet of the bathroom, Rindou feels like he’s stepped onto the surface of Mars. Like he’s planets away from where you are, and he might as well be.

He doesn’t know how to find his way back to you because he stands now amid the wreckage, engine on fire, wings cracked. The plane has finally crashed.

A/N: entering my villain era

"'I was always watching you.' This could have been a breathless declaration of love or a final farewell." - Yōko Ogawa, The Diving Pool: Three Novellas

#tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x reader smut #tokyorev smut #tokyo revengers x reader #rindou smut #rindou x reader smut #rindou haitani

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plungermusic · 8 months

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“It's nearly September, the nights are drawing in …

and the back to school ads are everywhere. Who’d like to hear my ‘Summer album’!”

Conventional logic might look awry at releasing your ‘soundtrack to summer’ just as Autumn is doing up its bootlaces, but then Phil Jackson (and the British weather) laugh in the face of conventional logic.

Sun Up was written in its entirety during the summer of 2022 - the hottest, driest and sunniest summer since 76… and opener Sunny Side Up epitomises that too-hot-to-hurry feel: breezy acoustic bathed in warm bass and piano, and the bare minimum of drums, amble relaxedly along with plenty of stop-and-smell-the-flowers (chew-the-grass-stalk, make-the-daisy-chains) pauses, topped with an ear-soothing Dundas/Gold vox.

After that meander in the sun (probably without a hat), sun up begins to take on a somewhat heatstroke-induced, shimmering heat haze, bleached-out, surreal vibe as Phil’s magpie-with-ADHD’s eye for genre and styles kicks in… from the piano-led slightly psychedelic rock’n’roll stroll of On The Line with its reverb guitar quirks, to Aberavon’s McGuinness-flint-do-Here-Comes-The-Sun where mandolin, cajon and acoustic slide are topped with velvety mulit-vox harmonies; and from Turn Back Time’s Tex-Mex-spiced country (slow, spare, hypnotic guitar and a highly Kris/Kenny treacly low drawl) to the very Stanshall-like cameo Ice Cold Cooler (think Floyd’s San Tropez jazzy strumming on a loop, with a splash of Hawaiian guitar) all about, well, wanting an ice cold cooler! More country comes in the cantering El Paso rhythm and twangsome baritone (or at least very bottom-end) electric guitar of Beach Hut Groove (with a splash of accordion for added Borderland flavour).

Coming even more out of left field, Surfin’ Daddy evokes (surprise!) the Beach Boys… having a panic attack: polished multi-vox harmonies and cheesy 60s organ accents career along on a driving heading-for-a-cardiac bass heartbeat with no let up or alteration, to create an anxious sense of tense urgency; and there’s a further touch of the Californian crooners in the fine smooth harmonies (with an impressive bass to falsetto range) on Cruise Control, this time mixed with trippy hints of Grantchester Meadows, a Lieutenant Pigeon-on-acid piano-led chorus and some very glam fuzz guitar.

The Eddie Cochran-via-The-Velvets muted chugging riff and acidic ‘solo’ lines as well as a splash of jangly Cali-psychedelia and more multi-voice harmonies add a Psychedelic Furriness to Take You There, and the Byrdsy jangle returns in the sunny Haight Ashburiana of Petal with its Farfisa organ, high stoner vox and one word mantra dissolving close; while Lost And Found, despite its folky mando-and-acoustic spangled opening, turns out to be minor key disco/soul-ish fare à la Angie/Miss You - smoky vocal, piano (and synth-sax?) underpinned by a rich bass line and drums with sophisticated rhythms and a closing bout of slide-generated space-time distortion for good measure! Synth-brass appears again in the only instrumental, Newest Boogie: with piano, cocktail drums and some rather Djangoesque guitar straight out of a 1940s Tom & Jerry chase sequence.

Coming back down to earth a little, the album closes with the mellow Donovan-ish troubadourisms of In The Deep, with trilling piano ornamentation and a dextrous melodic acoustic guitar solo, and the upbeat bounce (with darker undertones) of Sunshine Song, Phil’s wiry Lonnie-Don-McLean vox backed with light acoustic strumming topped off with a closing cowboy yodel.

As per usual, everything you hear on the album is Phil (other than the tight drums on Cruise Control, added by John Halsey) in a feat of majestic multi-musicianship! Evoking (to Plunger’s ears) the days of lying in sun-baked meadows flicking through the stations on your trusty tranny (can you still say that? Ed), Phil himself describes Sun Up as “pure summer vibes” and that’s what it has, albeit refracted through the multi-faceted prism of his kaleidoscopic musical mind.

Given the start to ‘summer’ we’ve had this year, maybe Phil’s timing is more trustworthy than a Met Office forecast?

Sun Up will be coming out as a self release CD in August on Phil’s Bandcamp [here: https://philjackson.bandcamp.com/music ] and at gigs, and then a little later as a ‘digital thing’!

#phil jackson #sun up #suffolksfinest #kaleidoscope

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minijenn · 5 years

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Keys to the Kingdom Chapter 3

AN-Another chapter, this time focusing on the bad guys! Interesting stuff for sure! I won’t keep you from it, so here ya go! Enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/183131244364/keys-to-the-kingdom-chapter-2

Chapter 3: To Seek the Darkness

And people who say things they don’t really mean, really mean?

In the wake of the supposed defeat and destruction of the original Organization XIII, the group’s former base of operations had been left abandoned. For almost an entire year, the World that Never Was and the grand castle at its heart lay completely empty and silent, bereft of even the Heartless and Nobodies that were known to naturally spawn there. But with the rise of a new Organization with a new purpose, the shadow-steeped world’s usefulness began anew as well. And once again, the members of the Organization gathered at their former headquarters, waiting in the wings for whatever it is their leader required of them next.

In their current idle time, two such members traversed the unchanged gray corridors of the castle, remembering their winding twists and turns well even after their relatively recent respective revivals. The pair carried on a rather casual conversation, though even despite that, their tones were hushed, lest any unwanted prying eyes or ears be on the prowl. Something that was a very high likelihood, considering the various familiar faces that had returned to fill out the ranks of the new Organization XIII.

“So, why are you back?” Marluxia asked plainly, only barely casting a glance at the member keeping pace alongside him.

“Hmph, nice way to greet your old partner in crime,” Larxene scoffed, though she was still smirking all the same. Her tone was enough to elicit a similar sardonic grin from the graceful assassin, though it was quick to fade as his companion continued. “So, why do you think the old geezer took us back?” she asked, genuinely curious. “He must know we backstabbed the Organization back when Xemnas was running it.”

Marluxia shook his head. “Xehanort doesn’t care about you or me,” he said evenly. “To him, we’re nothing but empty husks. The old Organization was no different. Xehanort needs thirteen vessels to hold his essence.”

“Husks?” Larxene repeated, clearly not fond of the idea. “Not me. You know you and me are way above being just paws in someone else’s game. So instead…” the savage nymph’s grin deepened with a clearly sinister idea as she positioned herself just a bit closer to Marluxia. “Why don’t we just stage another coup instead?”

The graceful assassin sighed almost tiredly as he offered her a disapproving glance. “Larxene…”

“Oh, come on!” Larxene pouted with playful pleading. “It’d be fun. And it might actually work out this time without a dirty double-crosser like Axel around to throw a wrench into our plans. So… what do you say?” At first, Marluxia offered her no replay as he instead continued on his way, even with the savage nymph trailing right behind him, still seeking an answer. “Well?” she pressed impatiently. Finally, the graceful assassin stopped and turned to face her, his expression unreadable even as he prepared to reply and, at least as far as Larxene was concerned, give her the answer she hoped to hear. And yet, before he could, their conversation was unexpectedly interupted by another member who just so happened to round the corner at that very moment.

“Oh please,” Demyx scoffed, clutching his sitar as he joined the pair. “You guys couldn’t do it last time, what makes you think you could pull that whole ‘coup’ thing off now?” The melodious nocturne grinned as he strummed a few notes on his instrument. “You gotta play it smart, like me.”

“What?” Larxene shot back crossly. “You’re not smart! In fact, you’re just about the dumbest person in the Organization, but old and new!”

Demyx shrugged, seemingly unoffended. “Well, you heard what Marly said. I don’t have to be smart.”

“Or capable, or likeable, or attractive,” Larxene listed off, her hands on her hips. “A cereal bowl would make a better vessel!”

“Whoa, now you’re way out of line,” Demyx countered. “I am extremely imposing… When I want to be. Which is, admittedly, almost never.”

“Well, that’s one thing you got right,” the savage nymph huffed coldly. “Looks like the old man is getting desperate if he’d take someone like you back into the Organization. Probably only ‘cause his plan to get the true prize he’d had his eye on backfired on him.”

“Huh?” Demyx frowned, confused. “What prize?”

“Ugh, seriously?” Larxene exclaimed in appalled disbelief. “You can’t be that stupid. But then again, since this is you we’re talking about here, maybe you can be.”

“You and a few of the others who were only just brought back are too late to have known,” Marluxia interjected much more calmly. “But she’s talking about Sora.”

“Whaaaaa?!” Demyx exclaimed, genuinely surprised to hear this. However, before he could ask any of his many newfound questions, a corridor of darkness suddenly materialized, allowing a fourth member to join in on the engaging conversation.

“Ah, so the whispers I’ve heard among the higher rungs are indeed true then…” Luxord mused with a knowing grin as he offered the others a small nod of greeting.

“You’re in again too?” Larxene spoke up before the gambler of fate could continue. “What is this, Organization Rehash?”

“I happen to play an important role, even despite my rather recent revival,” Luxord assured. “Unlike some… others, perhaps.”

“So you were listening this whole time?” Demyx asked as he strummed a low note on his sitar. “So not cool.”

The gambler of fate chuckled. “One must hold one’s cards as long as necessary,” he said, conjuring up a deck in his hand to playfully flip about. “Even so, the context you just provided me with… certainly does shuffle the deck in an interesting way. Now I believe I finally understand what I overheard from Xemnas when he said we haven’t lost our proposed thirteen vessel just yet…”

The three younger members exchanged a rather baffled glance at this before they looked back to Luxord once more, overwhelmed with curiosity to hear more about what he’d gleaned from the Organizations’ leaders. “What are you talking about?” Larxene asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Either we all heard what happened by now,” Marluxia added, the slightest hint of confusion in his otherwise usually collected tone. “Or we were all there to see it for ourselves. Xehanort’s attempt at forcing Sora to join our ranks were halted by none other than Axel. His plan, however complex and intricate as it might have been, was a failure.”

“Ah, or so it might have seemed at the time,” Luxord retorted, holding up a lone card as he flipped it over to show the rest. “But a single wild card is all it takes to turn an otherwise unsavory hand…” His smile widened as several more matching cards appeared in his hand to create a perfect full house. “Into a full set.”

“Wait, I’m still confused,” Demyx interjected.

“Why is that not surprising?” Larxene muttered, rolling her eyes.

The melodious nocturne ignored her, though even still he sent her a small glare before he spoke his piece. “So did this whole plan that Xehanort had for Sora that Marluxia was just talking about work out? Or… not?”

“That is of no concern to any of you right now.” The other four members swiftly spun around to find none other than Saïx approaching them, his expression as aloof and stoic as ever as he came to stand before the group.

“Ugh, Saïx,” Larxene groaned disdainfully. “Figures that you’d join up again. What, are you here to tell us to get back to doing our jobs or something?”

“Precisely,” the luna diviner replied without missing a beat as he passed through the group. “If the four of you are done wasting your time on aimless gossip, then there are much more important matters to attend to. Master Xehanort has requested that all of us gather in the Round Room to receive our next assignment.”

“Y-you mean… Xehanort’s still here?” Demyx asked apprehensively, gripping his sitar a bit tighter at the mention of the master’s name.

“I thought the old coot left after his plan to ‘recruit’ the Keybrat supposedly fell through,” Larxene added, crossing her arms.

“The master still has business in this world,” Saïx explained, glancing over his shoulder at the group. “And so long as he does, then it is his intention to remain here to see that business carried out. Considering what his intentions are, you would all be wise to listen well to what he has to say.”

Without another word, Saïx disappeared into a dark corridor himself, likely heading off to the very meeting he had just told the group still gathered in the hall about. A bout of silence passed between them as they exchange a dubious glance, none of them quite sure what the master’s specific “intentions” were to begin with. In fact, the only thing they really knew was that the sole reason any of them had been brought back into existence was to aid in exacting those mysterious ambitions, whatever they might end up being.

“It seems as though another game is about to begin,” Luxord spoke up first, summoning a dark portal as he took his leave. “We might as well go learn what the rules are this time, hm?”

“Or better yet, learn how to bend those rules to our advantage,” Marluxia remarked, offering Larxene a small, knowing grin as he left in a similar manner.

“So… I guess everything’s same old, same old, then?” Demyx asked the savage nymph with an irresolute shrug.

“Oh, shut up already,” Larxene hissed as she also took her leave, leaving the melodious nocturne behind to do the same.

“H-hey! Wait up!” Demyx exclaimed, quickly summoning a corridor of darkness for himself. And with that, the entire group was gone, off to join the rest of their number and learn whatever it was their master had in store for them all.

Perched upon the highest, most paramount chair of the Round Room, Master Xehanort sat, watching coolly and quietly as the various members teleported in to take their respective seats. Each one of them bore a fragment of his own heart and his essence, of that much he had personally made certain, even among the members that weren’t already some sort of extension of himself. Even so, the elderly master had brought each of these figures back into existence for a reason, a purpose that would not only ensure the clash of light and darkness that he had been seeking for countless years now. But also, a purpose that would also deliver the ultimate prize that awaited on the other side of that clash into his hands once and for all.

One by one, the spotless thrones were filled, some of the members faces’ concealed by their pitch black hoods, others not. None of them spoke to each other out of either respect or fear for their master’s presence, but a few of them did exchange brief, fruitive nods of greeting here and there. By the time all of the members had arrived, all but one of the seats had been filled, the lone empty one being the shortest throne sitting directly across from Xehanort himself. The elderly master’s already steady grin deepened as he kept his sights on that empty throne, knowing that it would be filled soon enough. But as the master had already figured out, that would have to wait; in the meantime, he had another initiative to get off the ground instead.

“Greetings, my Seekers of Darkness,” Xehanort began, garnishing the attention of the entire group from his elevated throne. “It is fortunate that we have all managed to congregate here again so soon. Listen well, all of you, for there is much that we must discuss.” The master paused, almost as if to make sure every single member present was doing just that before he continued. “Firstly, let it be known that the clash of light and darkness that we ever strive towards is soon at hand. Already, the guardians of light are scrambling, rushing themselves to gather allies to their side, no matter how weak and unexperienced those allies might be. They are well aware that our own ranks are nearly completed, and indeed, we are close. There is but only one final vessel we must obtain, but fret not; that vessel is already starting to make the slow but certain fall into our hands. Our missing darkness will belong to us before they even know it.”

“Oh really?” Xigbar spoke up almost knowingly from his own seat. “And just who might this so-called ‘missing darkness’ be, huh?” Likewise, upon hearing mention of this apparently unknown thirteenth vessel, Larxene, Marluxia, Demyx, and Luxord all focused on Xehanort with the same sort of scrutiny, each of them curious to know if the rumors they had shared amongst each other could actually bear some weight after all.

The elderly master simply smirked at this, shaking his head as if to bar the more eager members of his Organization from knowing. “The answer to that will be revealed in due time,” he said mysteriously, sending side glances over at his younger self, Xemnas, and Ansem in particular. The trio said nothing but nodded, almost as if they were communicating something to the master, even if no one else was in on the tip. “But rest assured that we will indeed have all thirteen members on our side, perhaps even a few in reserve, just in case any of you fall short of my expectations…” A handful of the members seemed to fill the almost palpable chill in Xehanort’s tone as he said this, his smile finally gone as he glanced over each of them piercingly. “Which is something that each of you should pray does not happen… I’ve given almost each of you a second chance at existence. Use it well and do not disappoint me…”

If any of the lower-ranking members of the new Organization had any sort of doubts about the kind of stern authority their master wielded, those doubts were soon laid to rest the moment he summoned his Keyblade to his side as a show of exactly that. The fierce, dark weapon radiated immense power, power that some of them feared while others among them craved it. There was no question that it demanded respect, and it was clear that respect was what Xehanort demanded of each of them. And for the most part, that respected was what most of the members decided, for varying purposes and reasons, that they were going to pay him. For now at least.

“Each of you,” Xehanort continued, holding his Keyblade out level. “Take a look at this Keyblade. This weapon, and every other one like it in existence, are mere replicas, rendered after the most powerful key in existence, the one true X-Blade! It is a blade that I brazenly, foolishly even, tried to get my hands on years ago, all without realizing that it is merely a single key needed among several others to unlock the ultimate power that lies behind the essence of all worlds: Kingdom Hearts!”

A few soft, muted gasps rose up from some of the younger members who weren’t previously privy to the master’s plan, though in hindsight it did add up. Kingdom Hearts had always been the ultimate goal of the old Organization; it only made sense that the newest iteration of the group would be working towards its untold power as well. Which was why all ears were still on Xehanort’s bold words as he continued with the intent of detailing exactly how they were going to do just that.

“As mighty as the X-Blade itself is, it alone is not enough to bestow control of the heart of all worlds onto any one individual,” the master explained as his Keyblade disappeared. “To truly claim complete control over Kingdom Hearts, at least according to ancient legends previously lost to the ages, one must gather and unite thirteen divine Keyblades, all forged by the very Kingdom they possess the ability to unlock. And… whoever holds them all is destined to be its ruler undisputed, with every shred of power it has to offer at their disposal, now until the end of time itself.”

“The ruler…” Saïx spoke up first, breaking through the small bout of silence that permeated the room after this prophecy was delivered to the all. “Of Kingdom Hearts…”

“Well, well!” Xigbar spoke up with an intrigued grin upon hearing this. “Now we’re thinkin’ really big here, aren’t we, old man? I’d say it’s about time!”

“So I suppose your intention is to have each of us go out and collect these thirteen Keys for your purposed regime then,” Marluxia inferred, feigning boredom. “Correct?”

“To an extent…” Xehanort grinned knowingly. “The Keys to the Kingdom, as they are called, are scattered far and wide across the worlds. No one knows exactly where they are hidden, but it is foretold that finding even just one will lead to the location of the next and so on and so forth. It is for that purpose that I am indeed sending each of you out amongst that worlds to search for the Keys and bring them back to me. Do this for me, and I can guarantee: each and every single one of you will have an equal share in our conquest when Kingdom Hearts finally, finally belongs to us!”

Out of any other group, this rallying promise might have elicited an excited cheer; but instead, the members of the new Organization simply nodded in solid, mostly unanimous agreement with their master’s plan. After all, the power and potential of Kingdom Hearts was beyond comprehension, said to be able to do just about anything and everything imaginable. Regardless of whatever Xehanort wanted that incredibly power for, more than a few members already had their own ideas in mind for what they’d use even a fraction of it. Ideas that, as far as most of them were concerned, were more than worth the effort it would take to track the Keys to the Kingdom down and bring them back to Xehanort so he could pull it all together for them.

“I am certain that the guardians of light will soon be made aware of the prophecy of the Keys, if they’re not already,” the master continued. “But even if they do intend to search for them, they shall be far outnumbered. Scatter yourselves among the worlds and do whatever you must to secure those Keys for the darkness. And as I said before…” Xehanort glowered down at his members warningly, barely even needing to remind them just what was at stake if they failed to do as he said. “Be aware of the price for disappointing me. Inasmuch as I brought each of you back, I can just as easily take all that I have returned to you away again. And so, with that in mind… go! Go and bring forth both the Keys and the Kingdom for us all!”

On this stern command, most of the Organization members readily complied, not hesitating to disappear into dark portals so they could prepare to set out to do just that. The master watched with a satisfied smile as they all departed, including his own Heartless, Nobody, and younger self, each heading off on their own with their primary mission clear. However, only a handful of them currently knew of the other prize they were seeking, one that they could only just keep a close eye on from afar for now. Though Xehanort was certain that, with enough time, perception, and patience on his part, then all the pieces would soon fall perfectly into place, just as they did once before.

“‘Go and bring forth the Keys and the Kingdom for us all’, huh? Good one. I gotta admit, you nearly had me going right along with everyone else with that. And maybe I might have if I was even half as stupid as any of them are.”

The elderly master’s lingering grin faded somewhat as he raised an eyebrow down at the only remaining member in the room sitting several seats away from him. “I do believe I just issued an absolute order to everyone present,” Xehanort said coldly. “Which means you are free to go as well, Vanitas.”

The masked boy scoffed as he leaned back in his chair a bit, making no apparent effort to depart whatsoever. “Like I just said, I would have left right along with the rest of them,” he began bluntly. "If I hadn’t already caught onto exactly what kind of game you’re playing at, old man.”

“And what ‘game’ might that be?” Xehanort asked almost boredly as he rolled his eyes.

“You and I both know that you don’t have any plans of sharing Kingdom Hearts if you really do end up getting your hands on it,” Vanitas pointed out plainly. “A prize like that is far too enticing to just split up like that, especially for someone like you whose been after it for so long. I don’t know how you managed to get all those idiots to believe you, but believe me when I say that you’re not fooling me.”

Xehanort initially said nothing to this, instead simply sending the masked boy a rather piercing look of disapproval before ultimately deciding to pass his brazenness off as mere hyperbole. “So I suppose you find yourself quite clever for figuring that out, don’t you?” he asked, his confident smirk returning only slightly. “No matter. The other seekers shall still go and search out the Keys to the Kingdom all the same. And in the same way, so too shall you fulfill your purpose, Vanitas, by locating Ventus, joining your heart together with his, and finally forging the X-Blade for your master. And this time you will not fail me as you did last time. Do you understand?”

Vanitas didn’t respond, instead opting to glance away from his master as he crossed his arms stoically. Xehanort’s already somewhat impatient scowl deepened at this at this impertinence as he repeated himself much more firmly this time. “I said do you understa-”

“Understand? Yes,” Vanitas interupted, the bitter sarcasm in his tone excruciatingly clear. “Care? No.” With that, the masked boy leapt down from his seat with the apparent intention of leaving. “You really think that grand scheme of yours is actually gonna work this time? Face it, old man, you couldn’t get Kingdom Hearts to be yours back then, Ansem couldn’t get it to be his, and neither could Xemnas. You’re all exactly the same, in every way imaginable. Just a bunch of blind, ego-driven men stuck on the same stupid plan that never seems to work! Which is why I’m surprised I’m the only one who’s tired of waiting on you to deliver on something you’ll never be able to obtain, even with the X-Blade, even with the Keys, even with all the other pawns you think you have set up so nicely to help you in what’s ultimately gonna be just another losing battle. So forget it; I’m done.” Without even sparing Xehanort another single word, Vanitas turned to make his succinct and sour exit, though before he could make much of an attempt to summon a dark corridor, his leave was expectedly interupted by the master himself.

Vanitas deftly leapt out of the path of a powerful burst of darkness, one that came from Xehanort’s hand as the master stood atop his high throne, glaring icily down at the masked boy below him. “I’m afraid you don’t have the option of being ‘done’,” he remarked, his Keyblade easily appearing in his hand. In an instant, the master sped down from his elevated perch with frightening speed, his blade poised for attack. Vanitas only had mere seconds to summon his own Keyblade so that he could properly block Xehanort’s brutal swing, but even so, it still pushed him back across the room’s central platform by several feet all the same.

“So…” the masked boy began, somewhat breathless from the surprise of the attack as he repositioned himself to properly square off against his master. “We’re back to this again, huh?”

“I’ve found that it always was the best way to get either you or Ventus to behave,” Xehanort mused calmly as darkness began to swirl around his Keyblade.

“Hmph, like that straight-edged loser even has a rebellious bone in his body,” the masked boy deadpanned haughtily as he referred to his other half. Acting on adrenaline alone, he rushed forward, Keyblade at the ready before he sent its edge swinging hard at his mister. Xehanort countered the strike easily, kicking Vanitas back once more before rushing in for yet another barrage of unforgiving attacks. The masked boy only barely blocked most of them, though a few of them landed hard and painfully, even if they still weren’t quite enough to completely wear him down. Still, despite his age, Xehanort was stilled and strong, his abilities with his Keyblade far surpassing Vanitas’ own, however formidable that might have been. He well knew from experience that he’d only be able to hold his own in a struggle like this up against his master for so long and it was quickly becoming apparent that this fight would be no exception.

After lashing out with another merciless swing, Xehanort decided to keep his Keyblade pressed tightly against Vanitas’, knowing that the friction would inevitably wear the masked boy down, as much as he tried to push back against it. “You realize just as much as I do that this bout of petty rebellion is absolutely meaningless, do you not?” the master asked, glaring down at his apprentice harshly. “If you do not pursue Ventus and join again with him to form the X-Blade, then you will forever remain an incomplete, empty being of nothing more than directionless darkness. Act as impertinent as you’d like, but you cannot deny that I am the only one who can help you become whole again.”

Put off by such an arrogant assumption, Vanitas shoved his Keyblade back hard, surprising even Xehanort, but still not enough for him to relinquish his steady hold. “Its amazing how someone who claims to know so much can be so wrong about so many things,” the masked boy remarked bitingly. “I don’t need you to find Ventus. I never needed you. Face it, old man: if you really want that X-Blade, then you’re the one who needs me.”

That final bold statement was easily enough to set Xehanort off even more than he already was, an impressive feat to be sure. In his tranquil rage, the master brought his Keyblade down in a sudden, calculated swing, one that the masked boy was unable to properly deflect this time. Vanitas was thrown back once more by the incredible force of the attack, to the point that he barely even noticed the small, but sizable crack that had started to form across his mask as the result of it. Somehow, its glass surface didn’t break, but all the same, Xehanort showed no signs of letting up anytime soon.

“Perhaps you did not hear what I told the others,” the master said darkly, standing over his injured apprentice threateningly. “I restored you to your pitiful existence, even after the disappointment you proved to be years ago. But it’d be just as easy for me to take you out once again and replace you with much more… suitable candidates.” At this, Xehanort rose his Keyblade, hovering it over Vanitas with the intent of bringing it down in a devastating blow in a moment’s notice if he didn’t get his way. “Which is why I will only tell you this one final time: you will forge the X-Blade for me or you will face obliteration once more. And this time, I will not be as merciful as to give you another chance again. It’s your choice.”

Initially, it seemed as though Vanitas was actually going to comply with his master’s demands as he said nothing, simply hanging his head in what almost looked like begrudging acceptance. That is, until he managed to pull off the only trick he had up his sleeve that could actually work to put some distance between himself and Xehanort’s deadly Keyblade. An immense pall of darkness surged around the masked boy and from that darkness, a swarm of creatures, both big and small, though all composed of the same shadowy malice, emerged: the Unversed.

The massive wave of monsters was more than enough to push Xehanort back, finally giving Vanitas enough time to pick himself up and leap out of the fray. Of course, the master made quick work of the rampaging Unversed, but by then, his apprentice had already safely distanced himself by leaping onto one of the higher chairs and summoning a dark corridor to make a hasty retreat.

“Oh, believe me, I am going to forge the X-Blade,” Vanitas assured, his tone icy as he turned to face his now-former master one last time. “But when I do, I can guarantee that you’ll be the last person to ever get your hands on it, ‘Master’…” And, without bothering to spare another word on Xehanort, the masked boy disappeared into the darkness, ready to act on his own ambitions for a change instead of those of his faltering, vindictive master.

“Hmph,” Xehanort scoffed to himself, still standing in the center of the Round Room as his Keyblade disappeared. “Insolent whelp. No matter…” The master was quick to teleport back to his usual elevated seat, his contented, calculated grin returning as he thought back to his steadily-developing plans. “He cannot stop what is destined to transpire. The Keys, the Kingdom, and of course, the thirteenth vessel shall all soon fall into my hands, one by one.” Xehanort’s smirk widened as he set his sights on the lowest-bearing seat across from him, still as empty as it had been before, though he could already sense that it wouldn’t remain that way for long. “Isn’t that right… Sora?”

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #jen writes #keys to the kingdom #kh fanfic #organization xiii #xehanort #vanitas #larxene #demyx #marluxia #luxord #saix #xigbar #feat minor cameos from #young xehanort #xemnas #ansem

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st-just · 2 years

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do you need to (or is it beneficial to) read other wildbow stuff before reading Pale? I know people talk about Worm a lot. What's the best place to start with *gestures* all of that stuff?

Oh you absolutely do not!

...have a big post describing/reccing all the different things somewhere, but tumblr's search is being uncooperative atm, so

Super ultra condensed versions, I would start with one of

Worm - Bug-controlling girl is bullied in high school, has no friends, accidentally joins a team of quirky teenage supervillains and convinces herself she's going undercover. Contains: superheroes with cool/clever powers, a hilariously/terrifyingly pragmatic protagonist, constant escalation, Olympic medalist feats of rationalization, some light war crimes. This is the one with the big fandom, and also all the fanart (disproportionately high quality and amazing) and all the fanfic (...not). Start here to understand the memes.

Pale: Three teenage girls are recruited by the local monsters in their decaying northern Ontario tourist trap hometown to become witches and pretend to investigate the suspicious death of the regions most powerful spirit of violence, mostly so they tell any other nosy wizards of whatever variety who poke around that it's already being looked into. Girls turn out to be inconveniently heroic and competent and try to actually do the job. Contains: Dark urban fantasy, my favorite kitchen sink set of metaphysics/magic system from anything, a setting where basically no one is allowed to lie and consequently everyone's extremelly good at deceiving each other, Teenage Hijinks(tm), three protagonists trading off the POV each with their own bespoke issues. This is the one that's currently being updated, so it's what most of the live chatter is about. Also the best in terms of like, prose and character work imo. It's also the longest by a decent bit by now.

His other works are

Ward: Direct sequel Worm, you absolutely have to read Worm first to understand it. The two of them together are usually said to take place in the Parahumans setting, but that's also kinda sorta the general fandom name/tag, since he insists on all works being titled four letter common nouns out of I assume some religious prohibition on SEO

Twig: The unloved middle child. Totally stand-alone work, unrelated to anything else. Biopunk alternate 1910 starring a bunch of experimental superweapons adorable precocious children. Read this is your take away from worm was 'You know, this is good, but it could really use more unreliable narration and body horror.'

Pact: The previous unloved middle child, but has been getting much more attention now that Pale's a thing. Totally unrelated to Worm or Twig, shares a setting with Pale, but they're totally unrelated with only one very minor arguable cameo between them, and you can read either first without issue (Pale is on the whole better,but Pact is significantly shorter). Dark Urban Fantasy/Horror starring Blake Thorburn, Unluckiest Man In Canada, who sees his estranged family for the first time in years so he can tell his dying grandmother to go fuck herself and wakes up several months latter to find out a) she was a witch, b) she left him everything, c) his reflection has been replaced by a twin sister who lives in mirrors and d) karma is real, heritable, and he is its newest chew toy. Read if you finished Pale or Worm are you thought 'this was good, but the protagonists just have too much downtime and too many healthy relationships, and everything was too hopeful and easy for them.'

...not sure how helpful that was, but yeah, start with Worm or Pale, depending on which seems more interesting to you.

#reply #toasthaste #wildbow #otherverise #worm #pale #ward #pact #twig #web serials #sorry this took so long to answer!#parahumans

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yamayuandadu · 2 years

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Weekly Wikipedia repairs roundup

Kassite deities - not even a topic I am very interested in, but this article had so much utter nonsense in it - articles from 1885(!), Nanaya and Laguda as deities of Kassite origin, Mesopotamian symbols from the Kassite period as culturally Kassite symbols, Indo-European speculative nonsense, a book using the word “Armenoid” (sic) as a source - that I had no choice but to put it out of its misery, and resurrect in a new, better (and considerably extended) form. Learn all there is to learn about Harbe, Sah, Kamulla and friends - which is not much, but hey! Feat. special cameos from the ethnic stereotype goddess Kaššītu and “Kassite Yarikh” from Ugarit.

Dumuzi-abzu - the OTHER, female, Dumuzi who might be the ORIGINAL Dumuzi. Has no real connection to Dumuzi (male) in terms of function, other than that one love poem apparently confused them (for grammatical reasons I could not include it in my blog article about Ninshubur and plausible gay moments in Mesopotamian literature). Page created from scratch.

Manuzi - a small time Hurrian mountain god slash minor weather god with a pet eagle. There isn’t all that much to say about him, I just realized that if I won’t fix nobody else will, and I want every Hurrian deity’s page to be more or less credible for the sake of my planned Hurrian god list article.

Barama - wife of Kura, the head god of Ebla. Her name might mean something like “full of color,” and there isn’t exactly much info about her since all we have to rely on is one explanatory text for a romantic royal date in the family mausoleum which apparently was necessary to annually renew Barama and her husband, and some offering lists. Page made from scratch, for completion’s sake.

Kura - the head god of Ebla. You know, the article ended up being surprisingly long, considering how little evidence from Ebla has theological character. Page originally made by me last summer, and only expanded now.

Ninegal aka Belet Ekalli(m) aka Pentikalli - goddess of palaces, with a name which is not exactly creative, but which definitely does the trick. The name can function as an epithet of Inanna, but when treated as a separate goddess, Ninegal instead seems to operate rather closely to Nungal, the goddess of prisons, whose page I took care of in february.

Shul-utula - another god I do not really have much interest in whose page I only fixed because I’m tired of Michael Jordan, ''Encyclopedia of Gods,'' Kyle Cathie Limited, 2002.

Laguda - while it is not incorrect to say that for the most part there was no such a thing as a major Mesopotamian sea god, and that the sea was more of a religious concern among the Hurrians or in Ugarit, Laguda is one of the three most notable exceptions from this rule (you can stretch it a bit by adding gods associated with fishing but that’s a matter for another day), the other two being Sirsir and Lugal’abba. He was seemingly the god of the Persian Gulf. Page created from scratch to make sure nobody can revert my removal of Laguda from among Kassite deities.

Sirsir - the god of sailors, possibly depicted as a slightly morbid looking boat-snake-human hybrid. I had to link his article in Laguda’s and as a result learned that the only source it uses is an atrocious hoax, Simon Necronomicon, so I had no choice but to fix it. Fifteen years had passed without anyone doing something about this! FIFTEEN!

Annunitum - I called Nanaya the bootleg Inanna par excellence but you know what, I think “epithet of Ishtar from Sargonic royal inscriptions turned separate deity” might actually be a better candidate for this title. Article created from scratch.

Tashmishu - brother of Teshub (the Hurrian king of gods) and Shaushka (Shaushka). Addresses own brother as “my lord” which is kind of funny. He is also his sukkal, at least in myths, though he has to compete for that spot with the god Tenu. There’s a mildly gruesome brief description of mutilation in the myth section so careful out there if that might bug you. Article created from scratch.

#weekly wikipedia repair roundup

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crazybutgood · 3 years

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The Perfect Gift

Happy birthday Neville and Harry! Here is the finished product of this Drarryville WIP, featuring a nervous Draco trying to decide on the best gifts for his boyfriends. Thank you @curlyy-hair-dont-care for the amazing and quick beta and your encouragement. Thank you fantalf for cheering me on through my frustration (much of Draco's exasperation here definitely mirrors my own 😬) while I folded these stubborn cacti 🙈

Here's the bulleted list of my HC, followed by the image of the origami I folded at the end (please click on image for better quality!) :

Draco has a YouTube channel, posts videos feat. fun creative artsy stuff he likes to do including makeup tutorials, origami tutorials, sometimes with voiceovers.

Draco's too worked up over thinking of a perfect gift for his boyfriends, Harry and Neville, and before he knows it, there's a week remaining. One night when Harry's cooking a lovely dinner for them, as Draco soaks in the comfort and domesticity of the night, he plans to make something handmade for Harry and Neville's birthday because it's more special and what to get two people who can buy whatever they want? Plus the two also like to occasionally give handmade, heartfelt gifts to Draco too and he wants to do so as well.

With 5 days remaining, Draco films a video to post later, a bday special for his boyfriends: folding an origami cactus. The video has a voiceover. He talks about how the origami part of this gift is a throwback to the paper cranes he folded for Harry back in school, amused at the thought of how they used to fight often then and the antics he did to gain his attention, and now he had it. He goes on to talk about how there used to be animosity between him and Neville too, and how far the three have come from that time, fondly speaking about some memories of how their relationship progressed. He mentions how the cactus part of his gift is because of Neville's love for plants.

His recounts are interrupted with a few curse words and slight yells of frustration as he tries to get the folds right. He knows he's going to have to edit these out later.

A few hours later, Draco pauses his filming, grumpy, hungry and upset. He's got the cacti alright, but he struggles to fold the flower pot. Along the way of his journey down memory lane, he was inspired to use one of the small candle holders that Harry had placed candles in during their anniversary dinner to use as a makeshift flowerpot. He threw in small stones that the three had collected from their vacation together at the beach.

4 days remaining, Draco tries again to fold the pot and succeeds. He studies his handiwork and can't help the gnawing feeling that this video special and the cacti gifts are inadequate. He's a perfectionist, and doubts if this is good enough for Harry and Neville.

The last few days before 31st, Draco spends miserably overthinking if his gift is ok and gives in and hits the shops to buy Neville actual exotic plants, throwing in a cactus as well. He buys cookbooks for Harry which include cuisines he mentioned he wants to give a try. Draco skims through the book and throws in seeds for some of the herbs needed for some recipes in the gift pile—they can grow those in their thriving garden.

Harry and Neville are delighted by his gifts, which Draco is relieved about. He's secretly sad about not being able to give them the origami cacti. Harry and Neville pick up on Draco's off mood, trying to lighten it with reassurances that his gifts are lovely and also with their usual banter. When it barely helps, Harry asks what's wrong, making a quip about Draco being as prickly as the cactus.

Draco snaps and fires back that he hopes Harry pricks his finger on the stupid cactus, and cacti are just hard to deal with, ok? Lord knows they gave him paper cuts when he— Draco stops talking, realising his slip up about the paper cut, stammering out a half-hearted cover up.

Harry and Neville pick up on it and realise that Draco must've got a paper cut while folding something. While Draco waves off their mild concern about the minor injury, they ask him if he'd actually folded a cactus too?

Draco hesitates before admitting that he did. He goes to retrieve the paper cacti, in their flower pots—one made of paper and one a makeshift pot using the candle holder—and sets them down in front of Harry and Neville, quietly explaining what he'd actually planned to do, and that he didn't think it was good enough.

Neville cuts him off with a firm yet gentle reassurance about how Draco shouldn't doubt himself and his abilities, and how could he think that Harry and he wouldn't like anything Draco got them? The fact that Draco went through the whole process of making something for them made it all the more special.

Draco is sniffling a bit and is largely relieved as he's enveloped in a hug from Neville and Harry. Harry lightly jokes that Draco is actually a softie, and he can't believe that Draco was going to keep this secret from them and they've got to watch his video now. Draco lets out a watery laugh as he smacks Harry's arm but agrees to show it to them.

The two absolutely melt over the video and suggest doing a cameo appearance at the end where Harry and Neville tease Draco about being a sap but also seriously say how much Draco's gifts and the man himself mean to them, and it's just a short soft session of the three reminiscing about the past a bit, light-hearted witty banter, and teary declarations of love.

Image description: a picture of two origami cacti, one tall and one short, folded using green paper. The tall one on the left is placed in a candle holder with the quote 'Continue to keep the flame alive.' The cactus is surrounded by colourful pebbles in the candle holder. The short cactus on the left is placed in an origami pot folded using brown paper and a bit of the crushed cream coloured paper balls intended to resemble pebbles are peeking out from the pot.

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vickysaurus · 3 years

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What if season 5 was two seasons?

So watching through season 5, I kept noticing how fast the pacing had to be with the amount plot threads there were and how often I went ‘I wish we saw more of X’. So as I’ve mentioned a couple of times, I’ve started wondering if it might’ve been better if its story had been spread over two seasons rather than one. Now, obviously I understand that kind of change would not have been in the crew’s hands and no matter what they wanted would likely have been impossible. This is not intended as a ‘they should’ve just done this’ but as a thought experiment. Would a sixth season even have worked? So I’m gonna try and figure out how season 5′s content might’ve been done over two seasons in an alternate universe. In order to keep straight how far in the seasons we are, I’m gonna number the episodes 5-1 to 5-13 and 6-1 to 6-13 for clarity.

-5-1: We’re gonna start off immediately inserting an extra episode: The Fall of Bright Moon. Rather than a time skip, we get to see the first days of the invasion and the evacuation of Bright Moon in the face of overwhelming force. Micah has to switch back into being king, Adora has to deal with losing She-Ra, Bow has to deal with losing Glimmer. There’s a major subplot about Scorpia working up the courage to apologise to Entrapta and the two of them reconnecting. Perfuma probably helps her with that. That sounds like a pretty busy episode, but I think the first two Velvet Glove scenes from Horde Prime should probably be moved to it to not just leave Catra and Glimmer hanging completely.

-5-2 to 5-4: Horde Prime, Launch, and Corridors stay mostly the same. Since I moved the first Velvet Glove scenes to 5-1 and we can probably cut a bit of exposition from Horde Prime with the addition of that episode, these episodes get a couple minutes extra, which is split between an extra Glimmer and Catra in jail scene and some more of Scorpia and Entrapta’s friendship in Launch.

-5-5 and 5-6: An extra season gives us time for worldbuilding and more of the new characters, and since I like the Star siblings I’m gonna selfishly give them a bunch more screen time. The plan to save Catra takes more preparation in this version, leading Best Friend Squad and the Star siblings to go on an adventure on another planet after Stranded, one that is under Horde occupation but hasn’t been destroyed by them. They’re there for either information or some kind of device they’ll need to get on the Velvet Glove, but end up sowing the seeds for a local rebellion on the planet. We’ll see more of that plot later on.

-5-7: Save the Cat. It’s perfect as is.

-5-8: Taking Control’s A plot, enhanced with some scenes from Don’t Go into a full episode.

-5-9: This is where Taking Control’s B plot with the chipped Etherians goes. To go with it, Best Friend Squad is going on another space adventure after a rendez-vous with the Star siblings while they try and escape the Horde. I’m thinking maybe Hordak could be one of the clones searching for them, and while he doesn’t come face-to-face with Entrapta we could see some more of his conflicting feelings building in the course of this. Just a moment’s hesitation on his part allows Best Friend Squad to escape. Catra befriending Glimmer and Bow is a major part of this episode, and it basically bridges the gap between the little overtures between them in Taking Control and Catra as a part of Best Friend Squad in Shot in the Dark.

-5-10: Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio only get a cameo in season 5, and that’s something I really want to change. I want to give them a ‘Lower Decks’ episode where they’re basically just trying to go about their lives post-Horde but rapidly discovering the war is impossible to ignore. I feel like we don’t see enough of the normal Etherians in general, and I think these three are a great way to show how they’re doing.

-5-11: Perils of Peekablue. However, the scene at the end where it turns out Micah is already chipped and so are enormous amounts of Etherians doesn’t happen yet.

-5-12 and 5-13: So now I need to have a big season finale happen, and unfortunately Shot In The Dark, while a great episode, is also a little too low-energy to fit the bill. So what I’m gonna do is make it the B-plot of a finale two-parter. The A-plot is set on Etheria, and is basically some big climactic business where the Princesses, General Juliet, (remember her?) and many common Etherians take the fight back to the chipped princesses, and things go well until disaster strikes and Micah gets chipped. Pretty vague, I know. The ‘Lower Decks’ episode we did sets up a lot of the plot here; Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle are probably involved in it. The two-parter ends with the big ‘Oh fuck everyone’s chipped’ moment at the end of Perils of Peekablueas the big season-ending cliffhanger. After that scene, we switch to Best Friend Squad landing on Etheria, and that’s how season 5 ends.

-6-1: I think An Ill Wind would be a solid season opener as is.

-6-2 to 6-10: Yeah, I’m gonna take this whole block of episodes in one go, because this is where it gets complicated. Return to the Fright Zone and Failsafe take place in this block, but it’s beyond my ability to figure out the full plot developments of this entire season. While for season 5 I can keep to the structure of Best Friend Squad’s space adventure, season 6 is gonna be a lot more freeform, and would presumably have major plot elements added. Here’s my thoughts on these nine episodes:

-The chipped princesses get unchipped earlier. They provide good heartwrenching moments, cool bossfights, and allow for major villains ranking below Prime without having to introduce new characters, but I think ultimately it does the chipped princesses a disservice since they just don’t get to show character in the second half of the season. Just compare how well we know Netossa as a character with how well we know Spinnerella. So they get unchipped over the course of these episodes and get to be with the Rebellion again afterwards. Mermista and Spinnerella get unchipped the same way as in canon. Scorpia actually gets to talk while chipped and has a heartwrenching confrontation with Catra in which she basically responds in the worst possible ways to Catra’s regrets (the same way we saw chipped Catra basically being am expression of her worst traits) and they have a fight that’s super rough for Catra, but Catra manages to damage her chip and save her. They have a better chat afterwards, and that’s when they make up and hug it out. I think Micah is the last one to be unchipped, and I might actually keep him chipped until Heart, Part 1 so Glimmer still gets that climactic confrontation with him. Now, a possible concern is that this means there’s just not gonna be enough ‘bosses’ around to fight in Heart. Solutions to this could include for example advanced robots, chipped minor characters like Huntara, Dumbface Octavia, and alien monsters. Maybe Hordak? Though I definitely want him back on the Velvet Glove’s bridge in time to give Prime his date with gravity.

-So that’s sort of the major arc, but there are several characters and plot threads that I feel could easily be an episode’s A- or B-plot in this bunch:

*Catra is mortified when she realises she caused Angella’s death and has a big freak-out over it and tries to run away, Glimmer confronts her and they deal with their feelings on the matter

*Another Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio episode

*A Wrong Hordak episode where he discovers his own identity and picks a name, also feat. Entrapta’s attempts to reach out to Hordak

*Madame Razz episode where Adora tries to get her help, possibly involving the Crystal Castle and George and Lance

*Sea Hawk and Double Trouble drama kids adventure where they try to save Mermista (I think Mermista vs. Sea Hawk and Mermista being unchipped gets moved to the end of this episode). These two were delightful for the little time we saw them together in Perils of Peekablue and I want Sea Hawk to somehow rope Double Trouble into an adventure.

*All the space adventures and world building I put in season 5 coming to a head when some form of space reinforcements led by the Star siblings come to help.

*And of course Return to the Fright Zone and Failsafe.

-6-11 to 6-13: Heart is now a three-parter, deal with it. Horde Prime is beaten at the end of part 2, or more likely the start of part 3, and the rest of part 3 is that sweet dénouement I crave.

So with all that laid out, let’s return to the question: would this work? I think if it had originally been written to be two seasons, the story could have easily worked for two. As is, I’m retrofitting a single season to be two, so some of the stuff I’ve added sounds rather redundant or vague. There are certainly enough plotlines and characters to make a split work, but of course those would’ve had to have been written into the plot from the start to not feel tacked on. Of course, brevity is the soul of wit, so even if two seasons had been an option, it’s quite possible a single that has too little time is still better than two that have too much.

#spop #she-ra and the princesses of power #meta #season 5

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thenamesblurrito · 3 years

Text

Another ask dump

y'all like talking to me and i appreciate it, have some answers, feat. voices of the Matrix, accidental references, photonic crystals, Underbite, types of relics, robot scuba gear, and pineapple pizza

(the post this is referring to)

FHFHGFHSJF an unintentional reference but i'll take it!

(the post this is referring to)

oh huh, yet another unintentional reference, totally forgot about that. there is cyberflora up in the city proper too, i realize i didn't phrase that well. but the stuff that junkers would be able to scavenge from would be the leylines, the wellsprings, the cyberflora growing in odd deep places where no one else has noticed them.

fshfshhsgdf thank you, he IS adorable! i even gave him a little schoolboy tie

you've found a neat little oddity here, actually, which is that it isn't Optimus who hears the former Matrix bearers, it's Orion! when he powers up into Optimus, he essentially absorbs-becomes-assimilates his relic, like shrugging on a selkie skin and becoming more than the sum of both parts. the former Matrix bearers are an aspect of what goes into creating Optimus, but it isn't exactly distinct, not ghosts or voices or guiding hands to direct his actions. no, it's Orion the youngling who hears them speak, or heckle really, gets a sense of who they are/were and what they want and feel and urge him to do. the Matrix is, fortunately, not a very autonomous relic, unlike some other ones with annoyingly strong, uh, personalities. it's not difficult to tune them out if he doesn't want to listen, but it can get irritating when he's trying to pay attention in class.

there are rare exceptions, however, occasions where Optimus encounters what lives within the depths of his relic...

not really, yeah. they EXIST, they're a form of information storage for Cybertronian neural networks and spark scans, as well as being integral material in medical life support systems and hotspot harvesting infrastructure. it's not the Matrix that produces them, however, and there isn't anything particularly supernatural about them. they're in the same general category of resources as sentio metallico, innermost, and rarified or super energon.

nope! that is definitely in the realm of "special talents"/outlier abilities that don't show up naturally in SNAP's storyline. at least, for the normal people. those with relics have plenty of weird abilities, and if Underbite was supernatural, that kind of power would practically be tame in comparison to some of the stuff the heroes do.

that said, there are some random one-off things people can do, just because sparks and thus frames have unique coding with sometimes unpredictable results. Swerve, for instance, discovers in Maccadam's class that he can identify different chemical compounds and materials by taste, with far more accuracy and nuance than the average mech. just a random thing! but hardly supernatural, which is def what increased strength and healing would be.

but perhaps... if things were different... Underbite would have that ability naturally? (side note but can you imagine trying to wrangle an ENTIRE ACADEMY of TEENAGERS with inbuilt abilities like eating anything or forcefields or freakin invisibility like. someone would die on day one just from a hallway fight.)

(the post this is referring to)

i mention it just a little bit here! the difference is more of a meta category than an in-universe term. in short, major relics are major pieces of power consolidated into a usable form, a relic, that will create such a strong bond with the user that they get an entire array of upgrades and powers, with the downside of being totally beholden to this one major relic and incapable of using another major relic (unless you are a loadbearer). minor relics are smaller pieces of power consolidated into a usable form, creating a less all-consuming bond with their users which means a very small set of minor powers and little to no upgrades, but capable of being used alongside other relics, even major ones.

the swords of the Elite Guard, for example, are all minor relics that came linked inside the major relic of the Enigma of Combination. the distinction between major and minor is a little more blurry than that, and some relics are right in the middling area of power that means they might behave as if in either category.

people in-universe don't really have this distinction aside from the mythology and tall tales about the magical tools wielded by the Knights of Cybertron. the Star Saber, for example, is so famous and well recorded that it's actually found a place as a name, like Star Saber the Academy teacher!

(the post this is referring to)

yknow what, you're right! there's definitely some sort of insertable/wearable seals. they wouldn't be permanent, and they'd certainly be bulky and uncomfortable, and some may actually require a medic to insert. they'd get in the way of ventilation, cramp joints, and rub against important lines and protoform. just sticking things into seams and under armor is actually incredibly uncomfortable to the point of triggering something called entrapment protocols, a panicked paralyzed state that can be debilitating if the physical intrusion causing it isn't removed.

because of how diverse and unique frames are, there's no standard seals, and some frames just have too much open space to actually seal, making swimming impossible. so, it comes down to 1) is your frame capable of being sealed, 2) is the discomfort worth it, and 3) can you actually get the seals put in place and removed afterward.

not so easy as putting on a bathing suit, huh.

as for murder via water, yeah! that's definitely a thing, that murderers do! but combat... there's not really combat, not like i believe you're thinking of. there's no war going on, there's no standing army so no drills or training, in fact combat and violence and weaponry in general are very much frowned upon under functionism. i'll quote the relevant part of that post here:

in stark contrast with the severe consequences the state carries out against those it deems wrong, society as a whole is kept very docile. Cybertron is a unified territory, so all of its citizens answer to the government of the Grand Architect. There is no standing army, nor indeed really any army at all, aside from the Enforcers. Violence is frowned upon, to the point where the most violent activity still tolerated is sports like boxing, and even that is considered barbaric. There is no weaponry, especially since mecha aren’t forged with inbuilt weaponry. Enforcers carry state-owned equipment with occasional access to genuine weaponry if facing a bigger target, but those are closely monitored to remain in their stations once their shift is over. Personal use is completely forbidden. More violent or pugilistic folks end up Enforcers, perpetuating the brutality and heavy control of the corps over the populace.

and as for Octopunch, not a clue! i don't remember him, and i don't have him on my character list, so while he might end up as a random background filler cameo, i don't have anything for him right now

afsgsjdjshwoisegf WHAT A QUESTION

Makeshift. Makeshift would adore pineapple pizza. Frenzy would like it, Rumble would HATE it. Predaking would tolerate it and Blackarachnia would pick off the pineapple but still eat the pizza.

Starscream would refuse to touch any pizza with pineapple on it, and Skywarp would eat some just to annoy him, even though he's not a particular fan of it. Thundercracker doesn't really care either way. Megatron likes it okay but avoids it so Starscream doesn't make a giant fuss about it. Blitzwing is disgusted but doesn't make a show of it. Nightracer will eat anything she can get her hands on, good or not, but she picks off the pineapple because Red Alert likes pineapple, and she wants to give them to her.

Ariel likes strawberry pizza better. Moonracer likes chocolate pizza better. Firestar thinks the both of them are heathens and won't eat pineapple pizza. Chromia doesn't like pineapple anyway. Arcee eats it just for the Experience.

Minimus doesn't personally care for it but maintains that anybody can eat whatever they'd like. Windblade doesn't like it and will publicly decry it. The two of them have probably debated over this a few times. Orion doesn't mind it and doesn't have any opinion about it, and is mostly baffled by the arguments over it. Hot Rod is a living vacuum and will c o n s u m e regardless of pineapple or not. Deadlock likes to gross anti-pineapple people out by messily eating it in front of them. Blurr doesn't like pizza very much, it's the tomato sauce.

#cybertron #optimus #autobot #orion pax #cybertronian biology #worldbuilding #underbite #students #swerve #knights of cybertron #elite guard #star saber #eukaris #functionism #ask dump

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naivesilver · 3 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV), Le avventure di Pinocchio | The Adventures of Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio (1940) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lampwick/Pinocchio, Lampwick & Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket | Archie Hopper & Pinocchio | August Booth, Geppetto | Marco & Pinocchio | August Booth Characters: Pinocchio | August Booth, Lampwick (Pinocchio), Geppetto | Marco, Jiminy Cricket | Archie Hopper, Nova | Astrid, Grumpy | Leroy, Emma Swan, Background & Cameo Characters, Appearances from both OCs and canon characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Friends to Lovers, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Light Angst, Minor Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Minor Original Character(s), a lot of show events happen anyway, though probably not at the same time, don't ask for logical explanations I only care about two (2) baby idiots, EXTREMELY self-indulgent, Time Skips, POV Multiple Series: Part 2 of Huge problem solved (It's alright, I only got a thousand left) Summary:

"Lampwick. You’re Lampwick, right? I remember it. I remember you.”

Growing up in Storybrooke can be quite the challenging feat. Thank the gods Pinocchio has someone to share it with, then.

(Where Lampwick ends up in Storybrooke and I stop giving two fucks about canon.)

#ouat #once upon a time #pinocchio #lampwickcore #fanfic #you thought I'd reached peak italian-ness with the giuseppe fic? WELL BAD NEWS FOR YOU #also I had a tremendous bout of 'this sucks' right before posting it #then realized I couldn't care less #look how far I've come since last year's crisis bitches

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aftermathdb · 4 years

Text

DEATH BATTLE Review: Danny Phantom vs. Jake Long

The 2000s go at it. Now all that’s left is for a certain fire tyrant to fight a certain sky tyrant, and the circle will be complete.

I have no idea why people thought that Dante Basco would voice Jake in the episode. He’s legally not allowed to. For some reason, people think that DEATH BATTLE is some big-shot production, when they’re clearly not.

Also, Butch Hartman endorsed this fight. So… that’s a thing.

Danny Phantom′s Preview.

So, we open up on Boomstick rapping the Danny Phantom theme song, which sets the tone for the rest of the episode. Going over Danny’s typical teenager depicted in the early 2000s life… And his parents’ weird occupation.

Before Boomstick stops rapping Danny’s theme song, he does go over how Danny got his powers, and became a superhero.

And we get an early Wiz and Boomstick segment.

There’s a bit of a pause as Boomstick refuses to laugh at Wiz’s joke.

This goes on for a bit, because they go over how strong the Ghostly Wail is.

But then they go over how powerful Danny’s ecto beams are, and how they are comparable to actual lasers as they do all the typical laser stuff like bouncing off reflective surfaces, straight line movement, burn, and magnification. So Danny’s attacks are light speed, and he’s dodging them too.

And we even get a calc for how strong it is.

So Danny’s attack comes out to over 550 Tons of TNT.

The hosts go over his feats,

like how much he’s fought over his career.

Like this Dragon Girl Dorothea.

Who has an attack output 7.5 Kilotons of TNT from dispersing clouds.

And he’s even beaten his alternate evil future self… Dan Phantom… Yeah, Boomstick points out how ridiculous it is too.

And right before Danny’s end quote… Even Wiz gets in on rapping Danny’s theme song.

Jake Long′s Preview.

Jake’s preview, similar to Danny’s, opens with a brief history of how Jake got his powers, and a brief moment of him singing the Jake Long theme song.

And fairly early on, we get another animated segment.

This goes on for a bit where we get a gag of Boomstick claiming to have what amounts to ninja insurance.

Regardless, the hosts then go on to Jake’s powers, as they go over the fact that they are magic in nature.

This goes on for a bit as Jake has been noted to have been able to strike many different opponents that ordinary people would have trouble fighting against if they could at all.

Like, ghosts, for example.

And we also go over just how powerful Jake’s fire breath is.

Yeah… minor complaint is that there’s not a whole lot to go off of in terms of Jake’s stats. They mainly focus on his story and how he struggled with his life as both a magical protector and as a teenager.

But still, we get a similar thing from Sam Jack vs. Afro Sam in regards to Jake’s end line.

(Why does Jake get to have his catchphrase as his end quote but Danny doesn’t?)

The Battle Itself.

Luis and Zack are mainly on animation, Danny will be voiced by Nicholas Andrew Louie and Jake will be voiced by Dom Dinh. American Phantom by Brandon Yates. And audio led by Chris Kokkinos.

So, we open up on a museum at night, where Danny is putting something back, and Jake accuses him of stealing something “else” and instigates the fight.

So, Danny responds in kind.

Regardless of how this fight started, it had to have “Dragon Up!” and “Goin’ Ghost!” in it. So, I really appreciate that.

Anyways, we get some minor back and forth, with Danny being able to dodge Jake’s fire with ease, and Jake not really being able to handle Danny’s flight speed that well early on.

In fact, it takes a while for Jake to land a hit, so Danny goes intangible to avoid more blows.

This obviously doesn’t work, and Jake gets to do his combo.

This goes on for a while until the fight gets taken outside.

Opposing element beam struggle?- Oh YES!

Now, this goes on for a bit until Danny’s wins out, and crashes Jake into a Red vs. Blue promotional billboard.

The two do battle with their respective cloning techniques, as we get into an area where, well…

Finishing blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

For those of you wondering, Danny possessed Jake, slammed him into some buildings, then vaporized him.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, right off the bat, Jake was definitely in the advantage with training, and they both have comparable reaction speeds, but Danny had the advantage everywhere else.

For starters, while Jake’s wide array of powers gave him some edges, Danny had counters for everything. Cloning was a moot point, and his power level was well above that of the ghosts that Jake fought.

In addition, Jake’s fire blast wasn’t anywhere close to the level of power to the power of Dorothea’s fire breath, which Danny took head-on. So Jake didn’t have any real strength to get past Danny’s defenses.

Danny was basically Hiei in this fight. He had plenty of counters to whatever Jake could throw at him. Fire breath?- Ecto Blasts can match it and then some. Flight?- Danny’s faster. Heightened senses?- Doesn’t do much against invisibility.

And Jake had no real counter to Danny’s possession. So Danny could pretty much just force Jake to take himself out.

Overall impression.

Tad disappointed that this wasn’t hand-drawn. I was really looking forward to a hand-drawn fight between these two, since it’s their most well-known medium. Also, there wasn’t a whole lot of references to either characters’ series withing the fight. Though, to be honest, I wouldn’t have minded a cameo by Dante Basco in the form of a security guard wondering what was going on… I think it would have been funny.

(Seriously though, Dante is legally not allowed to voice Danny in non-official material. I saw comments wondering about that, and like… come on guys. It’s not that hard to figure out).

Overall, the fight felt pretty well-paced, the music is awesome, and the result is well-explained.

Could’ve used some more quips though…

8.7/10

Next time…

Oh yay. Now if only one of these combatants had a super toxic fanbase, I would totally go in and make fun of them in my story if I weren’t taking a break from that.

And also: Cue comments claiming that She-Ra is gonna win because of the recent finale of her Netflix series. Because toxicity is totally how you earn respect for your character. Right Batcult?- You definitely earned respect for your guy by claiming that Panther only won because of Black History Month all those years back, huh?

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Mighty Lady Rumble.

#Death Battle #Deathbattle #review

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glapplebloom · 4 years

Photo

A few selected by random people, and a few picked by me...

(Mecha Sonic art by Nikori20)

((NOTE: None of these will be in Death Battle anytime soon if at all! Do not consider this possible))

Mecha Sonic from Super Mario Brothers Z

What started as a minor boss in Sonic 3 and Knuckles turned into an unstoppable killing machine due to being the most flexible of the Robotic Sonics. While Z is in the title, Mecha does have things that sets him apart from the Androids in DBZ. The biggest being he has weaponry. I wouldn’t mind looking into him for a Death Battle.

Cell and Kermit from Devilartemis

What do you get when you mix a biological android and a Muppet? You get one of the strangest pairings on the internet. While Cell does have your traditional DBZ skills, Kermit is all over the place. Not to mention Cell has a stand of his own in Moist Fista. So they can bring in their own unique thing.

The Operator from Marble Hornet

A creepypasta so popular, it had numerous games, movies and cameos, the Slenderman is a tall monster of a man. While there are many interpretations, this one is a more tamed version. Can his ability to corrupt memories be enough to take on some of the other horrors out there? Like...

Cabadath from the Chzo Mythos

Long before the creation of the Slenderman, there was Trilby’s Notes. In it was a faceless tall man with a unique weapon. Before becoming the Tall Man, he was an arrogant man trying to call an outer being to be a servant to him. Instead the King took him and made him into the Prince. With his unique power set, those who face him will soon know the name of the king. ...It hurts...

Sonichu

Well, I asked for OCs so someone was gonna bring up the most infamous one. The less you know the better. But I will admit I probably done some stuff I do regret that are similar to how this guy’s creator did it. But hopefully I don’t fully match the history and don’t go down the creator’s path.

Painis Cupcake from TF2 Freak World

A monster in the guise of a red Soldier, A cannibal possessing inhuman strength and the ability to spit shovels. And I haven’t really seen a thing of his. Luckily there’s a wiki. I recall seeing him with someone who can shrink limbs and make people disappear, but I could be mistaken.

The Bermuda Family

Someone was going to submit their own OCs, surprised only one and for RWBY. Alba, Fluorentz and Tramonto are siblings born under a notorious pirate. When their father died, they vowed to undertake different forms of piracy to stay out of each other's ways. Alba is your modern pirate, the whole smuggling, slavery and the like. Tramonto is your classic pirate, rading ships and taking supplies. And Fluorentz is a digital pirate, so hope you got a VPM. With a unique story and powers, they could be fun to see.

Lightning Bliss

One of the many Brony Analysis out there, Lightning I believe got the most feats and abilities out of the rest of the cast (minus Mary Sue for obvious reasons). Between her Heavy Weaponry, her pet Twink, and Rainbow Power, she got a lot on the table that makes her unique to even canon Ponies. Would be a fun to see.

Erma

What do you get when you take Sadako and turn her into a little girl? You get Erma. A cute story about a kid with a monster mother and a human father. With powers similar to the Ring Girl and unique abilities of her own, Erma brings a lot of unique abilities to Death Battle.

Bob and George

These two are Sprite Comic Royalty. While there was a sprite comic before them, Bob and George really made it into a thing. One being an electric elemental, the other a fire elemental, these two working together would be tough to beat no matter who they’re facing.

And that’s 10. Will these guys ever appear? Who knows?

#other

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taylorswiftstylequestions · 5 years

Note

To add to the current convo, I think that me! as the lead single with Brendon Urie’s feature was just so incredibly random. As someone fairly invested in the pop punk scene, I still can’t wrap my head around that crossover, bc it wasn’t like it was a song that would appeal to the average p!atd fan & grab downloads/streams that way. The generic popiness plus the feat. just seemed to me like a really strange way to begin the new era, especially when none of her previous leads have been collabs.

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"It's because the songs aren't that great" - THIS. As much as I hate saying it. Frankly, Red was the apotheosis of her writing & nothing since has lived up to that, despite several great moments. The slight decline (note: even "declining", Tay's lyrics still outshine most of pop) was camouflaged by the dramatic sound change on Rep, but w her reversion to light bright pop, it's more obvious. & what we've heard thus far lyrically from Lover (except for the promo single) isn't even (1 of 2) (2 of 2) as good as 1989 or Rep. Blank Space jumped out to me on radio because of the *lyrics*. Me! doesn't. It's vapid. The aesthetic is fab, though! YNTCD has a great hook, but the parental didacticism of the lyrics is too annoying for me to want to hear a lot of it. My guess is that both Tay & Republic are looking for a single with traction and that's why they're releasing so many. I don't, however, understand the lack of live performances.

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As an European fan, my 2 cents on the promo discourse is that she went / is going to minor shows around Europe (minor but pretty big in those countries) as an attempt to rebuild her European popularity. In South Europe (where I am from) the mainstream public barely knows her name, her last single on radio was SIO. In North Europe where I currently live she is seen as an act for teenagers. Ignoring continental Europe during the rep tour was probably a consequence but didn’t help her case.---

Thank you for sharing everyone's thoughts regarding promo of Lover! I've been feeling disconnected from Tay somehow more this era than others, even reputation. At least for reputation we knew why she was avoiding everything and it fit the message of the Era. I am also little sad that the aesthetic for this era seems childish/a little garish - I love pastels but I would've loved to see more mature Tay (more like what you had predicted/hoped).

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I do believe the promotion of the album itself will be much more robust than whatever she did with Me and YNTCD, hence the September cover. As for what a fellow anon said about Madonna’s constant reinventions, well... I don’t believe this era is a reinvention a la Ray of Light. If anything, the color palette feels like a step backwards. Taylor is huge on changing up her style for each album cycle, but she doesn’t always do it well. The transition from rep to Lover, for instance, was (CONTINUED) Part 2The reputation era had such a dark aesthetic, and switching it up to pastels as soon as the reputation tour (which is arguably responsible for turning the tide of the media in her favor again) ended was far too stark. It just wasn’t as natural as any of Madonna’s reinventions. Had she released something more mature while approaching thirty, I do believe she would have fared better. Her no-promo strategy does not work for this era anymore. I have high hopes for the album,though

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I think the time between me! and yntcd was too short and i think thats mostly because they wanted yntcd to be released during pride month but that song didn’t cause the hype they were hoping for not even with all the celebrity cameos. I think if it wasn’t for yntcd purposely being released in june we would have gotten the second actual single at the end of july

Last bit of discourse before I close this topic. Thank you all so much for sending in your incredibly thoughtful thoughts! (thoughtful thoughts I said it)

#tsser

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oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch · 5 years

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“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” Movie Review

Back on Oscar nomination day in 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 5 nominees for the Best Animated Feature of the year, and while that list included some crowd favorites like Big Hero 6 and more mature blockbusters like How to Train Your Dragon 2, the largest story that day wasn’t about any of the nominations, but one film that was left out of them. Most pundits and basically any critic who had seen the brilliantly creative, immensely funny, and more-emotionally-affecting-than-it-had-any-right-to-be Lego Movie had it pegged as not only a surefire nominee, but surefire winner of that award, and our jaws were left hanging on the floor at the lack of its mention during the announcement.

Despite that though, The Lego Movie went on to be an animated hit in the homes of people all across the world, two mildly-to-wildly successful spinoffs were launched to critical praise, and the studio immediately began plans for a sequel, with directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller not returning to the project as they were already booked to direct the Solo movie for Lucasfilm (which they were fired from, and then they moved on to Into the Spider-Verse and we all saw how that shook out). Thus, we have The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, which finds Emmet and the rest of the Lego people 5 years removed from the ending of that first film. Bricksburg has been ravaged and destroyed by the toys of DuPlon, and our heroes now live in Apocalypseburg. But when some of the residents are captured by a mysterious new character from the Sistar system, Emmet must embark on a daring new mission to rescue his friends and prove that he truly is The Special.

I’ve made it no small secret that I love The Lego Movie and thoroughly enjoyed Lego Batman. Lego Ninjago was…fine for me, but I mostly chalked that up to it being very much tied into the popular children’s Ninjago series, which I hadn’t watched. With the direct sequel to the film that birthed them all being not only released but also set 5 years after the original, I was curious to see if the team at Warner Bros. would be able to pull off the same magnificent feat they did in 2014, especially without the direction of Lord & Miller. And, for the most part, they almost do. Much like How to Train Your Dragon 3, I thought Lego Movie 2 was pretty good – just not as good as those initial outings. While there are certainly moments of levity and plenty of jokes from a script by Lord & Miller, something did feel missing in its direction and pacing.

For a start, there are too many musical numbers in this movie. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a Lego movie, especially as a critique to start with over something more significant, but that’s exactly my point. It doesn’t make much sense until one realizes that the studio fell so in love with what worked in the original that they just decided to do that again – but a lot more. Sure, the original film this one is following had an iconic original theme song, and even Lego Batman dabbled a bit in the introduction, but Lego movies are not musicals. Even Tiffany Haddish (who can’t sing very well, as we find out) gets no less than two numbers essentially all to herself, and basically all of them take place in the second act. This not only overcrowds the movie as a whole, but the second act is simply too repetitive. On a story level, that means there’s less time devoted to moving it along rather than just using the same jokes for a little while longer than necessary. They’re not bad jokes, and some of them are actually quite funny, but that zippiness that was so profound in the original film is missing here, giving way to a slightly more elementary-style humor, which follows, considering the director they found to replace Lord & Miller is Mike Mitchell, director of Trolls.

Not only is the second act overly repetitive and reliant on the same jokes, the newer characters added to the franchise aren’t exactly super memorable. None of them leave the lasting impact that a character like a Lego Batman did on the first movie, and there are basically zero interesting cameos throughout (save for one that actually does turn into a pretty hilarious real-world reference joke during the third act). General Mayhem seems to be the stand-in for the Batman character this time around, but apart from capturing the main heroes and transporting them to the Sistar system, there’s really not much else to her until the final couple of minutes and she doesn’t help craft other characters’ development like Batman did for Lucy. In addition to this, the villain this time around (whose name I’m not even going to attempt to type since I’m writing this at almost 2:00 in the morning) might be a more intimidating presence than Lord Business, but she’s not exactly as or more compelling.

One of the things that made Lord Business compelling was his tie-in to the real world that informed the surprise reveal at the end of the original Lego Movie, but while the added-on real-world element to this entry in the series presents a beautiful intent with its message, the actual Lego sections don’t handle telling that message quite as clearly as the first one did its central themes, which makes understanding the villain character in The Second Part more difficult than it honestly should be. Most of the supporting cast that are introduced in this movie aren’t very memorable, which doesn’t bode well for a franchise plan. Even though the Rex Dangervest storyline does go to some pretty ambitious places, he remains sort of a watered-down version of what he’s probably meant to be, and a lot of that is wrapped up in his very convoluted storyline.

Even the animation seems to have taken a bit of a hit; in the original movie, it was made fairly obvious that everything was made of legos, and that was a super cool and innovative way to create an animated movie, but when this sequel gets busy in the Sistar system or with characters not from the Lego world, it becomes difficult to get very invested in the animation, as it no longer carries that particularly unique look. If we’re going to continue to get Lego movies in this vein for a while, spending more time outside of the Lego world than in it is a bad idea. Legos are fun! Spending time in the Lego world should take up the majority of a movie in this franchise, not a minority.

There is a fair amount to like about this movie though; pretty much all the original characters carry the same weight and charm they have since 5 years ago, and the story and themes this movie presents in conjunction with the last one are actually very sweet. Some of the music is actually quite catchy as well, and The Lonely Island come back again with a stellar closing credits sequence. While the direction could have used quite a bit of work, the script by Lord & Miller does what it can to keep the franchise fresh and new, and if nothing else, most of the jokes are funny on first arrival.

It may sound like I’m knocking on this movie too much, but much like How to Train Your Dragon 3 (the superior film between these two, if you’re wondering), I did enjoy it – I just find it to be a bit disappointing as a sequel. That’s the tough part about being a film critic; if you’re reviewing a sequel, talking about the stuff that worked again isn’t nearly interesting as what doesn’t work as well this time around or what works better because that sticks out more, which can make it sound like that’s all you think of the film. With Lego Movie 2, that means telling you that while what worked last time mostly works again this time, there are a few spots that don’t work as well, and that’s okay, if a little bit of a bummer.

“I’m giving The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” a 7.6/10

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Michael in the Mainstream: Split

There’s really no dancing around this: Split is a stealth sequel to Unbreakable. It is something that makes so much sense and puts so much of the film’s more absurd moments into context that you might think back and berate yourself for not catching on sooner. But it is a testament to how good this film is that this is actually the only twist, and it is a fairly minor one that enriches the viewing experience and encourages rewatching to pick up on all the tiny details that fall into line with the rules laid out in Unbreakable – a feat Shyamalan hasn’t really achieved since his first two movies.

After having a minor return with The Visit after becoming the butt of jokes in Hollywood for years, Shymalan proved he still had a knack for great filmmaking with this stunning comeback, an intense slowburn thriller with a heavy focus on character development, again calling to mind Unbreakable (it really makes you wonder if that twist was even meant to be one, or if it was just there to drive home the obvious). In a weird way, though, this movie is a lot more fun than Unbreakable was, though not necessarily in its subject matter; the film deals with abuse (physical and sexual), trauma, Disassociative Identity Disorder, kidnapping, hostage situations, and a monstrous entity known only as “The Beast.” Not exactly a lighthearted romp, but it manages to be more entertaining, if not exactly better, than its predecessor on the merit of its lead actor’s multiple performances.

James McAvoy is the MVP here. Portraying Kevin Crumb, a man with 23 split personalities who kidnaps three teenage girls to feed to his secret 24th personality known as “The Beast,” McAvoy faced the task of being able to make each personality portrayed believably distinct. To say he succeeded is a bit of an understatement; each and every one of the split personalities is enjoyably unique, from the prim and proper Patricia to the obsessive-compulsive neat freak Dennis to the creepy and awkward child Hedwig. We don’t get to see all of the personalities of course, with a few being relegated to brief cameos, but the ones we stick with through most of the film are well done and all feel different from each other.

Of course, some would argue the film is tastelessly treading into offensive territory with its depiction of mental illness, with the old and tired cliché of mentally ill people being portrayed as disturbed and violent. I would argue this is not the case; for one, the DID is portrayed relatively realistically, and out of all the personalities, only three or four of them are actually malevolent in any way, with the others just being normal people who happen to inhabit the same body as people like Dennis and Patricia. The fact the film takes place in a superhero universe also helps, as the more fantastic elements are much easier to swallow and any inaccuracies are merely artistic liberties taken. It should also be noted that Kevin’s therapist also repeatedly stresses that she doesn’t view them as awful or monstrous, and genuinely cares about their well-being and wants to help them. What I’m saying is this isn’t a poorly-executed B-movie portrayal of mental illness, and it should not be treated as such, especially as it does not claim to speak for people with DID at large (and if it does it doesn’t demonize them, as Kevin is ultimately a tragic and sympathetic figure to the end).

Anya Taylor-Joy is the other strong element this film offers, as she plays Casey, the only girl out of the three kidnapped who doesn’t lose her cool and is able to assess the situation and figure out how to adapt to what Kevin’s personalities toss her way with ease. The reason for her ability to adapt on the fly is outlined through flashbacks to her childhood interspersed throughout the story, which lead up to some heartwrenching and dark revelations that explain why she is so excellent at surviving situations like this. Frankly I find her performance to be a bit underrated, but it’s also not hard to see why when McAvoy is giving such a powerhouse performance that it tends to overshadow the other players; still, without Taylor-Joy to bounce off of, McAvoy’s performance might have missed that little extra something needed to make it truly great. Either way, both actors do a fantastic job in their roles.

The film’s plot is actually relatively straightforward, which is perhaps the biggest twist Shyamalan could possibly throw at an audience. Of course, that honestly helps the movie, because this film is much more about the characters and the way their experiences have molded them into who they are than it is about building up into some great mystery. And even without the trademark Shyamalan twist, it does have that trademark Shyamalan cinematography, with a lot of great shots and scenes.

There is so much I love about this movie, but one of my absolute favorite things isn’t in the film itself, but an interpretation of the film that was sadly deleted off of the Fridge Brilliance page on TVTropes. The troper’s theory was this:

Some of the events of the film curiously line up quite well with the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles. The lines "Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way," "There were voices down the corridor," "She got a lot of pretty pretty boys that she calls friends," "And still those voices are calling from far away," "We're all just prisoners here of our own device," "And in the Master's chambers they gathered for the feast," and "Last thing I remember, I was running for the door" all stick out. However, the line that takes the cake has to be "They stab it with their steely knives, but they JUST CAN'T KILL THE BEAST."

Frankly I’m not sure this was intentional, but it does add a layer to the movie that makes me enjoy it even more, even if it’s not intended on the part of the Shyamalan. Frankly this is a step up from the unintentional joy The Happening gives me, so I think we can conclude Shyamalan is truly back on track.

Split is an absolutely fantastic film, and easily one of Shyamalan’s best. If you enjoyed Unbreakable, this one is definitely a must-see, and if you just like movies that are very character-driven to begin with, this film will be right up your alley. One can only hope that Glass can live up to this film and the first; it’s obviously doubtful it can surpass, but here’s hoping it can at least settle for being a satisfying conclusion.

#Michael in the Mainstream #review #movie review #M. Night Shyamalan #Split #superhero movie #James McAvoy #Unbreakable

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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Chuck Yeager Remembered: Crazy Stories From A Supersonic Life

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/chuck-yeager-remembered-crazy-stories-from-a-supersonic-life/

Chuck Yeager Remembered: Crazy Stories From A Supersonic Life

(Original Caption) 1949-Captain Charles Yaeger besides Bell X-1 after first powered take off of … [] supersonic plane.

Aviation legend Charles “Chuck” Yeager passed away Monday evening in a hospital in Los Angeles.

The retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general is perhaps best remembered as the first man to have broken the sound barrier, a feat that he accomplished piloting a bright orange Bell X-1 rocket plane on October 14, 1947.

His portrayal by actor Sam Shepard in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, based on the novel by the same name by Tom Wolfe, cemented his status as a pop culture legend. (Yeager himself had a cameo as a bartender in the film—appropriate as he was by his own account a hard partier.)

However, Yeager’s adventures—and misadventures—went far beyond those deservedly famous episodes.

Yeager could have starred in his own “Behind Enemy Lines” film

Born in 1923, Yeager grew up in rural West Virginia. Enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Force two months prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he moved up from mechanic to flight training partially on account of his unusually good 20/10 eyesight.

Overcoming an initial bout of air sickness, Yeager soon demonstrated natural aptitude for flying. He started his fighter pilot career in the sleek P-39 Airacobra, one of which tried to kill him in November 1943 when its rear-mounted engine combusted. Yeager bailed out, but injured his back.

He finally saw combat early in 1944 flying a P-51 Mustang with the 363rd Fighter Squadron based in Leiston, England. The Mustang was exceptionally fast and maneuverable, and, when equipped with extra fuel tanks, it had the range to accompany strategic bombers all the way to Germany.

Yeager named his P-51B “Glamourous Glen” after fiancée Glennis Faye Dickhouse, a California girl. But on his seventh combat mission, and a day after Yeager shot down his first enemy fighter over Berlin, cannon fire from a German Fw-190 fighter severed Glen’s elevator cables over Bordeaux, France.

Yeager parachuted into a pine forest to evade capture, managed to contact French Resistance fighters, and basically joined their ranks in a support role for several weeks, helping them make bombs to blow up bridges. Once the weather had improved, he finally embarked with a bailed-out bomber navigator on a lengthy trek across the Pyrenees mountains towards neutral Spain.

At one point he escaped a German patrol by sliding down a mountain on an improvised log slide. Then he carried the injured navigator up a mountain and performed field-surgery with a pen-knife, amputating a leg. Though Yeager later had to leave his comrade near a road, he was rescued and survived the war.

Meanwhile, Yeager surrendered to Spanish authorities. After a stint “imprisoned” in a luxurious hotel, was repatriated back to England. You can see Yeager’s official reports on his escape here.

Yeager actually named at least four different airplanes after his wartime sweetheart

Normally escaped pilots weren’t allowed to return to combat duty. Undeterred, Yeager successfully petitioned General Eisenhower in person to return to combat duty—dodging a Nazi V-1 cruise missile strike just before the meeting—and promptly named his new P-51C fighter Glamorous Glen II.

Yeager with his second Mustang, the P-51C Glamorous Glen II.

But Glen II was soon replaced by an improved P-51D named Glamorous Glen III. This featured a bubble canopy for better visibility, and beefed up armament from four to six .50 caliber machineguns. We’ll return to Glen III in a moment.

Chuck Yeager’s third Mustang fighter, the P-51D Glamorous Glen III. Note the underwing extra fuel … [] tanks and the 12 kill markings under the canopy.

After flying his last combat mission in January 1945, Yeager married Glennis in February. Then he went on to name the supersonic X-1 rocket plane after her as well, this time using her full name (“Glamorous Glennis”). The couple had four children and remained together until her death from cancer in 1990.

Captain Charles E Yeager standing next to the Air Force’s Bell X-1 supersonic research aircraft, … [] Muroc Army Air Force Base, California, October 1947. Yeager named it the Glamorous Glennis after his wife. He became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

In 1997 and 2002, Yeager also flew at supersonic speeds in F-15 Eagles named Glamorous Glennis in tribute to his X-1, although whether those count as his airplanes is debatable.

10/14/97.Edwards Airforce base, California, 50 years ago on 14th October 1947 Chuck Yeager broke the … [] sound barrier, now 50 years later to the minute Brig.Gen Chuck Yeager breaks it again an F 15

He became an ace in a day—and downed two German fighters without even shooting

Technically, a fighter “ace” refers to a pilot who has shot down at least five enemy aircraft in aerial combat. Only a minority of wartime pilots shoot down even one enemy airplane, let alone become an ace. But Yeager belonged to an even more exclusive club—he’s one of a few combat pilots to have become an ace in a single combat mission.

On October 12, 1944, he was flying Glen III as a free-ranging escort for a bomber squadron attacking Bremen when he spotted 22 German Me-109 fighters at a distance. Obscured by the glare of the sun, Yeager maneuvered his squadron into a chase position behind the unsuspecting German fighters.

(GERMANY OUT) World War II A Me 109 fighter plane of the German air force in flight – without … [] further details – around 1941 – Photographer: ullstein – Sobotta – (Photo by Sobotta/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Yeager’s squadron had closed within 1,000 yards when the German pilots realized their predicament—and freaked out. One of the startled German rolled over and collided with his wingman, forcing both pilots to parachute out before anyone had even opened fire!

The West Virginian then continued his tear as described in his combat report:

I dropped my tanks and then closed up to the last Jerry and opened fire from 600 yards, using the K-14 sight. I observed strikes all over the ship, particularly heavy in the cockpit. He skidded off to the left. I was closing up on another Me. 109 so I did not follow him down. Lt. STERN, flying in Blue Flight reports this E/A on fire as it passed him and went into a spin.

I closed up on the next Me. 109 to 100 yards, skidded to the right and took a deflection shot of about 10°. I gave about a 2 second burst and the whole fuselage split open and blew up after we passed.

Another Me. 109 to the right had cut his throttle and was trying to get behind. I broke to the right and quickly rolled to the left on his tail…I got a lead from around 300 yards and gave him a short burst. There were hits on wings and tail section He snapped to the right 3 times and bailed out at around 18,000 feet…

Yeager attributed his success to a newly installed K-14 gyro-computing gunsight, which adjusted for the lead on a target based on an estimated range dialed in by the pilot. He concluded:

I claim Five Me. 109s destroyed. Ammunition Expended: 587 rounds .50 cal MG.

That was less than third of the typical ammunition loadout on a P-51D.

Yeager nearly repeated his ace-in-a-day feat in a November air battle in which he downed four more formidable Fw-190 fighters.

His final kill was scored against a superior Me-262 jet fighter. After narrowly dodging its powerful cannons, he swooped down on the much faster jet as it was attempting to land.

He had complicated feelings about his World War II service.

Over the course of 61 combat missions Yeager was credited with 12.5 air-to-air kills. But Yeager later wrote that he wasn’t proud of all aspects of his combat career, citing how his squadron was assigned to strafe “anything that moved” over a 50×50 mile sector in Germany to “demoralize the population.” He wrote in his autobiography:

“In war, the military will seldom hesitate to hit civilians if they are in the way, or to target them purposely for various strategic reasons… I’m certainly not proud of that particular strafing mission against civilians. But it is there, on the record and in my memory.”

Yeager broke the sound barrier with broken ribs

Two days before his scheduled supersonic flight in 1947, Yeager was riding a horse with his wife at night when he was tossed off and broke two ribs. Fearing his record-breaking flight would be canceled, he had a civilian doctor tape the ribs and did not inform his superiors. Still in pain on the day of his flight, his injury forced him to rely on a jury-rigged broom handle to seal the cockpit canopy.

Yeager wasn’t just a fighter pilot—he flew jet bombers over Vietnam

Between 1966 and 1968, Yeager commanded the 405th Fighter Wing, composed of five squadrons based in Taiwan, Thailand, The Philippines and Vietnam. These flew a diverse mix of aircraft. During that period, he went out of his way to log additional hours of combat flying time by joining the crews of B-57 Canberra jet bombers based in Phan Rang, Vietnam. The B-57s flew light attack missions targeting Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam.

A twin-jet B-57B light bomber.

Yeager later commanded the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing—an F-4 Phantom jet fighter unit—that was deployed to South Korea during the USS Pueblo crisis. He frequently flew down to Vietnam in his Phantom to visit his son, then serving in the U.S. Army.

He claimed a head-of-state ordered a hit on his personal airplane

Yeager could be a difficult personality at times—unsparing in his criticism and litigious later in life. And then there was the time he was convinced Indira Gandhi personally had it in for his personal light plane.

In the early 1970s President Nixon sought to deepen U.S. assistance to Pakistan as part of his secret campaign to create a diplomatic connection with China. At the request of the U.S. ambassador, Yeager was dispatched to Pakistan to advise its Air Force between 1971 and 1973—and promptly found himself in yet another shooting war.

On December 3, 1971, Pakistani jets launched a preemptive strike on Indian airbases due to an escalating conflict over the status of then-East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh). The Indian Air Force launched counter-strikes, including one targeting an airport near Islamabad on December 5.

A Hawker Hunter jet from IAF No. 20 squadron blew up Yeager’s Beech Queen Air twin-engine light plane on the tarmac. In a fiery meeting with his colleagues at the embassy, Yeager blamed Gandhi for the attack. He later wrote in his autobiography the attack was “…the Indian way of giving Uncle Sam the finger.”

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi confers with President Nixon at the White House.

In fact, the Pakistani Air Force had evacuated its fighters from Islamabad airport prior to launching its attack—meaning that Yeager’s Beech Queen and a U.N. transport plane were likely the only targets the IAF pilot could find to attack.

He was a technical consultant on an acclaimed air combat video game.

In the 1980s most air combat videogames (*ahem* air combat simulators), like the excellent Their Finest Hour by Lucas Arts, used two-dimensional images for graphics.

Yeager, however, served as a technical consultant with future videogame behemoth Electronic Arts EA to produce Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat covering air battles in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

And the action all played out in chunky, un-textured but oh-so-three-dimensional polygons.

View from cockpit of an Fw-190 fighter striking a B-17 bomber in Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat.

What really made Air Combat so great was its emphasis on leveraging the characteristics of the various planes. A digitized Yeager would explain the historical context of various battles, which tactics to use against various aircraft matchups, and even shout advice mid-mission and chew you out if you failed. This was a dream come true for the 9-year-old author.

Comparison of the capabilities of the P-51D and Fw-190A fighter.

You can actually play the game for free in your browser to appreciate the state-of-the-art graphics, circa 1991.

He kept on flying supersonic aircraft at an age most people are comfortably installed in a retirement home.

On October 14, 2012, the 65th anniversary of his famous supersonic flight, Yeager flew to supersonic speeds a final time in the backseat of an F-15D fighter over the Mojave Desert. He was 89 years old at the time.

From Aerospace & Defense in Perfectirishgifts

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