#i miss the times when they were a ragtag group of alive people

[princetenkoo]

You Didn't Destroy Anything Yet (2023)

#mha #bnha #shigarakitomura #dabi #himikotoga #all for one #lady nagant #overhaul #mr skeptic #kurogiri #mha war arc #the paranormal liberation front #lov #league of villains #i miss the times when they were a ragtag group of alive people

[gardenofnoah]

like real people do

for @medusashima's rise of the dead collab. i blacked out and wrote this in like 4 hours because something about a fucked up prompt speaks to the grimy little freak that scratches around in my skull

wc: 1.8k ish. tags: MDNI, dark content, zombie!au, death. angst no comfort (unless you think cannibalism is comforting, i don't know your life), blood, graphic depiction of infection/injury, gn reader. read at your own risk thx love u

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a virus of unknown origin. researchers hypothesize that it was a spillover transmission event—the wrong rat stumbled across the wrong person at just the right time. some new, distant cousin of the rabies virus, with unexpected symptoms—most notably, the consumption of uninfected people by the infected. some suspected this was due to the genetic make up of the virus itself—it seemed to be fine tuned for longevity, and targeted specific motor functions controlled by the certain portions of the brain. this, combined with the rare psychosis symptom reported to be associated with rabies, may cause an uncontrollable compulsion to spread the infection, or, as others postulated, could convince the brain that uninfected bodies were a remedy for its suffering. 

at least that was the hypothesis, when the researchers were alive to articulate it. 

with the authoritative voice of science effectively silenced, there was more than enough room for conspiracy theories and hysteria to wiggle in and take hold. it was around that time that the media began to circulate the "zombie" rhetoric, and with no scientific name or official explanation (or government sanctioned placation) in place, an official zombie outbreak took shape. the violence that followed was as deadly as the outbreak itself, and served as another painfully efficient route of transmission. whoever lived through the war in the street died of the virus shortly thereafter. there'd been doomsday folks to warn of the end of times for as long as there'd been a time to be alive in. it was strange, then, when they'd fallen silent too. 

you and kento had joined in with a ragtag group of strangers early on—with strength in numbers, you successfully isolated yourself in an old, abandoned cabin in the woods a few miles south of town. you got lucky enough to have a few in your group that some construction experience—before you knew it, you had a fairly well reinforced fortress, where you could continue your game of chicken with death. from there, you could ignore the fact that fewer and fewer of your newfound troop came back with each expedition for food and supplies. 

there were books to read there, and if you let yourself, you could even find some joy in cooking meals with whatever kento could find in the pantry. he'd wake you up between moth-bitten sheets with breathless kisses, the two of you just grateful to have the opportunity of another day together. when he dragged you out of bed and twirled you around the creaky floorboards, you could pretend the apocalypse outside of your fenced in oasis was little more than a scary story. sprawled across his chest in the afterglow of some indulgence far removed from your reality, you could ignore the way death lingered on the outskirts of your camp. 

you could ignore it, until it was your turn to fetch the necessities. 

it was fine until it wasn't, as most things tended to be. you'd located a gas station that your group had missed on previous trips—a little farther out, but with how remote it was, it wasn't likely that it had been completely ransacked. if nothing else, you could figure out how to siphon any gas left in the tanks, and hope it was enough to get the old work truck left in front of your fortress running again. if you were mobile, your chances of survival would raise exponentially.

you'd tried to jimmy the door open with your shoulder as quietly as possible, but time and neglect had caused the wood frame to swell and distort around the metal. you grit your teeth when kento put a boot to the door. splinters of wood and glass shards flew as the scrape of metal rattled your bones. for a sickening moment, all was silent. and then you heard the screeching, and the dragging of rotting limbs against asphalt. 

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"fuck, fuck," you grit through your teeth, arms looped under his armpits as you drag him behind the checkout counter and into the first open door with the latch still intact. a storage closet, apparently.

you set him down for a moment, and it's—really, really not good. there's a deep laceration in his slide from a particularly nasty piece of glass. it's nearly eviscerated him.

you don't have the opportunity to fully process what that might mean—all at once, it feels like someone has lit your hand on fire. when you look down, you see a perfect outline of human teeth across the back of your hand. 

you reel back from kento. "oh fuck."

you have no idea what to do, looking around wildly as if the storage closet holds the answers to this god forsaken outbreak. and it might, you realize, when you spot an extension cord, coiled up on one of the shelves.

before you can even make sense of your own actions, you're tying one end of the cord to an exposed pipe sticking out of the brick wall, and the other around your neck. like this, your range of motion is just limited enough to keep you away from the door, and away from kento. 

but in your haste, you haven't packed his wound. he's going to bleed out at your feet. if you untie yourself, you're probably going to eat him. he's dead either way.

as if he senses your realization, he meets your eyes for the first time.

"where?" he rasps.

it's a moment before you can find your voice. "my hand."

he sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. "i'm so sorry, my love."

"why are you sorry?"

"it's my fault," he's too quiet, and far too uncertain to match the kento that's carried you through the last year of this outbreak, "i drew them to us."

you shake your head, but you're silent. wanting so badly to find the right words, and having a hard time getting your brain to catch up to the current moment. he was upright and steadfast, and now he's staining the tile beneath him. all in the matter of a few seconds.

"you need to untie yourself, love."

"no." you say firmly, barely giving it a second thought.

“you’re just going to watch me rot until you starve to death?” he laughs harshly, choking on it—sputtering a little. he takes a deep breath and he, despite you mentally willing him to stop, continues. 

“no,” he rasps, letting his eyes close, “don’t do that. you can have me—it’s okay.” 

“stop,” it leaves you with a groan, squeezing your own eyes shut and shaking your head, as if you could dislodge his words, “stop—” 

“this won’t end with you and i,” you hear him reach for you, limp arm dragging across the floor. he falls short—you can't bring yourself to meet him halfway, even if you had the range of motion to do it. “you know that, don’t you? locking yourself in here won’t change that.” 

and he just keeps talking, keeps prying open the wound you can’t see. "i just want you to make it out, my love. in case they can find a cure."

you can’t answer him. you want to laugh in his face, you want to scream at him and shake him. but you can't do anything—can't even tell him that you don't want to make it out without him, because when you look down at your hand again, you find that the tissue surrounding the bite has turned necrotic far too quickly—as if you were watching yourself rot, sped up or on loop. you know what comes next. 

you know you’re out of time.

the burn radiates up to your neck. your vision blurs a bit with the pain, and then with hot tears as it hits you—these are the final moments of your life. you wonder what you ever did to deserve to watch the love of your life bleed out in front of you. what could have been so bad, to then be forced to desecrate his corpse.  

“ken,” you choke, curling in on yourself, chin dropping to your chest. it’s an animal attempt at self-soothing—like a house cat that knows the end is here, you feel the instinct to isolate—to protect the others around you—even now. you are reduced to only primal senses: fear, grief, love. the need to survive. to ensure the survival of those you love, even in the final moments.

he’s fading just as quickly, but he’s stubborn. 

“c’mere my love,” he slurs, blinking slow, “it’s alright.” 

against all of your fleeting senses, you find yourself unraveling the cord from around your neck. if you looked down, you’d see that your arm is now blackened to the elbow. 

some part of you already knows, though, so you don’t bother. 

you’re focused on his face, through your tears—the blue eyes that hold yours despite the puddle of blood that you now crawl through. the smell is nauseating, but so is everything else about this—you feel it soak through your tattered jeans as you pull yourself toward him on your three remaining limbs. 

you stop when you’re over top of him, breathing heavy and dripping tears and drool onto his face. he doesn’t mind, and you’re not sure he can even feel it anymore with the way he’s looking at you like nothing about this is abnormal. 

“ken,” whispered, because one last secret between you is a luxury you feel entitled to, “i’m afraid.” 

“i know, my love,” there’s a soft smile on his face that wraps around your heart like barbed wire, “one more kiss? before we meet again.” 

“are you fucking crazy—” 

“please,” he croaks, and you see the fear mirrored on his face for the first time, “please. just one.”

you shake your head stubbornly and yet you reach for him, hands on both sides of his face. you ignore the way you see every one of your veins in your periphery, bold and darkened with decay, pulsing and searing as they trail up your shoulder. with the way you feel it creep up the side of your face, you imagine you have only a minute at most before the virus reaches your brain. 

“i love you,” he breathes against your lips, and you can taste it on your tongue—his love and his leaving, all in three words. if you were a better person, you’d let him go peacefully. 

you think you can feel it, then, when it hits your brain stem. latching on to every nerve, every synapse—choking the life—the willpower— out of you, one cell at a time. 

“please,” he rasps, and you don’t know if he’s begging for you to let him go, or if he's pleading with someone else, now. 

you don’t let yourself deliberate. you drag your lips down his jaw, vision spotty. you hover over the faint pulse of his jugular, hyper aware of how hard his body is fighting to keep him alive right now. feeling the fluttering of arteries, fighting to find something to circulate through themselves.

for a reason you hope you won’t have to justify if there is an afterlife, you open your mouth—whisper one last apologetic declaration of love against his skin—and you bite down. 

you bite until teeth touch teeth again. sinew shreds underneath, and you let it flood your mouth. you hear it when it starts—the death rattle, deep in his chest—and rip yourself away with a piece of him and squelch that should make your stomach turn, but doesn’t. 

he loved me, you think, forcing yourself to swallow. feeling him slide down your throat in some sort of sick last rite—an act of closure that suddenly feels fitting as he struggles to suck down one last breath. he loved me.

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this fic belongs to me (@gardenofnoah). i do not allow anyone to repost, edit, or reproduce this work.

#911? i've killed my husband please help #the way that i kicked my feet writing this #i want to write more of this #rip my mans though #nanamin #nanami kento x reader #nanami x reader #nanami fic #nanami kento dark fic #collab: rise of the dead #fic: like real people do

[beholdthemem]

EPISODE 6 TIME, LET'S GOOOOO!

-So the Briarwoods don't have everyone too scared to fight back. Excellent!

-Also, looks like Whitestone is not a strictly human settlement? I spy elf ears.

-"The Briarwoods have moved the kestrel. She's with Professor Anders."

"Anders? She'll be hard to extract."

Is this like. A codename for a captured resistance member, or an actual magical bird related to the mythology of the Dawnfather? I'm assuming it's the first thing, but if it turns out they DID mean a bird, I'm gonna feel like an idiot.

-OH WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK

-UNDEAD GIANTS?? REGULAR GIANTS AREN'T BAD ENOUGH??

-PROPS TO WHOEVER'S DESIGNING THE CREATURES/CHARACTERS, THAT IS HORRIFYING

-...unrelated to anything story-wise, I really miss Pike. Not as much as Grog (and probably Scanlan) does, but still.

-"Grog. You're part giant. Can you vouch for us?"

GROG'S RELATED TO THOSE THINGS? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

-Like, yeah, he's big as compared to elves/humans/probably orcs, but nowhere near THAT big. That's gotta be either very distant heritage, or Grog's whatever the giant equivalent of a runt is.

-"It's you! But you're not the same. Oh, little Percival, what have you become?"

I was kind of scared that when the people of Whitestone recognized Percy, they were going to be angry at him for leaving them, adding on to Percy's survivor's guilt. It didn't occur to me that they might grieve for what he had to go through instead.

-"What I'm trying to do requires discretion. Groups can be messy."

"But you're leading this group..."

Which is why he KNOWS groups can be messy.

-"No offense Percy, but you're a teeny bit too little to lead."

"Wait, we have a height requirement?"

"Uh, obviously."

"I kinda thought we were all co-leaders-"

VEX IS THE LEADER, AND YOU ALL KNOW IT.

-"Archie? But how- we grew up together-"

I think this is the most alive I've seen Percy look in quite a while.

-"We'd need a lot of luck."

"What you need is faith."

"At the moment, our holy person is... elsewhere."

BRING PIKE BAAAAAAACK-

-OH THERE SHE IS

-"Whatever is blocking you... is inside of you."

Oh shit, incoming Pike backstory?

-Scanlan likes young ladies and old men. Well, that explains him not feeling particularly opposed to that old guy "propositioning" him at the banquet.

-I love how Vax is like 'Percy, I'm sorry, lemme handle this and let them down gently- THOSE WERE BAD IDEAS, AND YOU SHOULD ALL FEEL BAD.'

-"I don't know, the solo mission sounds interesting..."

PERCY.

-"Okay, no elaborate plans. Get in, get out. Strike like a well thrown dagger."

See, this is why Vex is the leader.

-"Here's how it's going to go down..."

Again, this entire sequence is just MORE evidence why Vex is clearly the leader here.

-VAX, I WATCHED YOU BREAK INTO A ROYAL COUNCIL MEMBER'S HOUSE WITH NOTHING BUT A TOOTHPICK, HOW ARE YOU FAILING THIS HARD WITH A SHITTY WOODEN DOOR?!

-THE ENTIRE BACK DOOR SEGMENT IS JUST AN ILLUSTRATION OF WHY NOBODY GETS ANYTHING DONE WITHOUT VEX'S SUPERVISION.

-Snatching up out of dead bodies to reload, love the thinking.

-Vox Machina comes across as so ragtag and destructive that it's not until sequences like Scanlan's illusion/escape that you are abruptly reminded that they are very good at what they do. That ability to think on their feet, even in incredibly high pressure situations? They may have no decorum or restraint, but they're excellent adventurers.

-Much like Rock Lee, Grog's fighting skills are even further improved with booze.

-ARCHIE FOR FUCK'S SAKE THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS MISSION WAS TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE!

-"Stonefell."

Hoo boy.

-Oh fuck, when someone has a choir singing over their entrance, you know there's a truly apocalyptic amount of violence about to go down.

-UM

-COULD...

-COULD PERCY'S EYES ALWAYS DO THAT?

-I THOUGHT HE WAS THE GANG'S TOKEN HUMAN, WAS I WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME?

-"PERCIVAL! What the fuck are you doing, running off and risking the entire mission- and you point that thing at ME-"

Obviously this is a very fucked up high stakes situation, but there is a part of me that can't get over Vax full-naming Percy like a much older sibling trying to convey how displeased he is with Percy's behavior right now.

-(Seriously though Percy, do NOT point that thing at anyone you don't actively intend to kill. Vax deserves better than that and you know it.)

-I feel like Percy should have his vengeance- the Briarwoods have harmed people in the past and show no sign of stopping unless somebody forcibly intervenes, and as one of the first people they hurt, I think Percy has a right to be the one to do it. More than that, I feel like part of the reason it would be appropriate is, like...

-...as a general statement I'm kind of 'meh' on nobility in fiction, because the trope of somebody being given a divine right to rule over others (since they're somehow just miraculously more worthy than The Common Folk) makes me roll my eyes. Percy- and from what I can piece together, the de Rolos in general- feel a little different, though.

-One thing I keep noticing is that everyone they meet in Whitestone, everybody from Percy's past- calls him by his name. There's no bowing and scraping, no Young Master de Rolo, none of that- just Percival. Percy. He doesn't tell them to do that, and he doesn't react or correct them when they do on their own- it seems like this is just the relationship they've always had. Hell, Archie was the son of one of the de Rolo's personal employees, and HE calls him Percy.

-When asked what Whitestone is like, Percy doesn't just talk about life within the manor he grew up in- he talks about the town, the fields, the orchards. Rather than let the workers handle the work, solve their own problems and reap the rewards, it sounds like Lord and Lady de Rolo took an active interest in the workings of Whitestone/well being of its inhabitants, and raised their children to do the same. The reason Percy and the townspeople act so familiarly with each other is because rather than being sequestered away with other rich people, the de Rolo kids grew up spending time around the people of Whitestone. They don't think of themselves as better than the townspeople, they just think of themselves as having a different job/role to help make the place work.

-When Percy says 'My family was entrusted with the care of Whitestone' that actually MEANT something to them. The townspeople who rallied behind Percy weren't doing it because 'Oh, the final son of the family chosen by the Dawnfather is here, it's fate' they did it because 'When your family was in charge, no one ever went hungry. When we had problems we needed solved, we could go to them for help. None of us were ever harmed to humor somebody's cruel whim. When your family was in charge, we had leaders who cared about what happened to us, and we will back you because we know you do too. We trust you."

-When Percy saw what the Briarwoods had done to Whitestone as a whole, it gutted him. He can't really afford to be sentimental anymore, but I think what the Briarwoods have let Whitestone become goes against everything he was raised to believe in. So in taking out the Briarwoods, along with vengeance, I think there would also be an aspect of 'My family was entrusted with the care of Whitestone, and as the last living de Rolo I will see those who have harmed it destroyed.' A sacred trust.

-...at the same time, though, it feels like Percy's quest for revenge is destroying him in the process. And that worries me, both for his sake, and for the party's.

-"But Percy- you are not the last de Rolo."

WAIT WHAT

-"Your sister, Cassandra... she lives."

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT

-WHEN VEX SAYS TOSS THE BOOZE YOU TOSS THE FUCKIN BOOZE.

-"...I have a sister."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa T^T

-I feel like one of my worst nightmares is waking up and realizing I'm not a sibling anymore, oh Percy, I'm so glad you might get one of them back.

-How old is Cassandra? She looks... young.

-...if Lord Briarwood bit her, I SWEAR TO FUCK-

-It's weird that they murdered her family and kept her and her brother in a dungeon for weeks and weeks and now they're... dressing her in fancy clothes, seemingly keeping her healthy... like ordinarily I'd assume they wanted an uncontested de Rolo to rule through, but clearly they don't care about that. They got what they wanted via conquest, and they're keeping it by spreading that rumor at the banquet that the de Rolo's abdicated, so even if one 'mysteriously survived disease', that child's claim would be debated.

-What game are they playing at?

-It's she their pet? Their surrogate daughter? Did they decide they wanted a child to play happy family with and didn't want the hassle of raising one from babyhood?

-WHAT IS UP WITH YOU, YOU CREEPY FUCKS?

#the legend of vox machina #the legend of vox machina spoilers #more after work and i cannot WAIT to see where we go from here

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think the Sonic franchise would be universally accepted if it were to go into the direction set out by the SatAM cartoon (e.g. roboticization, Robotnik with demonic pitch-black eyes and a robotic arm, Sonic being part of the Freedom Fighter ragtag group) instead of the direction it took from the country of origin (e.g. Eggman being round and wears glasses, having colorful and surreal places)?

Well, let me ask you what you mean by that, because by 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog was a pretty big household name. Kids knew who he was, their parents knew who he was, and just in North America, he had two TV shows and a comic book. He was everywhere. That counts as "universally accepted" right?

And I suppose this is what you mean, right? Sonic was massively popular in the 1990's, when Sega of America changed so much about his identity to suit the region's tastes. And now, Sonic isn't as popular, so are the two data points related?

To me, this just feels like a broader version of "Robotnik was a better name than Eggman, because things were better when they called him Robotnik." And that has always been extremely circumstantial.

To my viewpoint, SatAM was extremely of its time. Cartoons were shifting in a certain direction -- typically the "Saturday Morning Cartoon" was something colorful and funny. There wasn't a lot of serious storytelling going on. It was stuff like Looney Tunes, but also things like G.I. Joe or Transformers, where they were more about action than meaningful plot.

That probably started to change around the time Fox debuted the X-Men cartoon in the 90's. This cartoon took stories from the comic books and (poorly) adapted them in to a Saturday Morning format. It was inscrutable and kids like me found it hard to follow, but my brother, who is 14 years older than me and was probably in his mid-to-late 20's, found it pretty fascinating. It broadened the format a little bit and soon the floodgates broken open.

Spider-man, Batman, Gargoyles, soon Saturday mornings were awash with darker, edgier, more serious cartoons for older kids. Even the Ninja Turtles, who were broken from the Transformers mold of colorful, action-based shows, was reworked to look darker and more serious. And right at the end of that first wave of shows was SatAM. Right place, right time, right vibe.

That... ended. Batman was eventually replaced with Batman & Robin, that was eventually supplanted with Superman Adventures, then the two shows were combined in to Batman & Superman Adventures, and every time it got retooled, the tone got lighter, and lighter, pushing back towards the old action shows of the 80's. Gargoyles went in the opposite direction, retooling itself in to "The Goliath Chronicles," becoming so self-serious it borderlined on a Saturday Morning soap opera. It lasted barely a whole season and most modern continuations of the Gargoyles mythos ignore it entirely. The "Red Sky" Ninja Turtles has more or less been treated the same, with extremely sparse home releases until it eventually landed on streaming a few years ago.

The Sonic comics kept the SatAM cast alive and relevant, yes. But obviously Batman comics stuck around, too. And Spider-man, X-men, and Ninja Turtles. That was the format a lot of these shows were trying to copy to begin with, so it makes sense that SatAM would transition to comics fairly painlessly.

To circle back around to how successful the games are or aren't, it's hard for me to cite this now because I always looked at the TSSZ article for it and now that's gone, but somewhere around 2010 or 2011, the Sonic franchise was actually listed as one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the world that year, rubbing elbows with the likes of Pokemon and such. This was years after SatAM had fallen out of favor and the comics were starting to hit the skids because their availability was going down (this was a problem in the comics industry as a whole, not just for Sonic).

Meaning that, largely, the success of Sonic at that point was due to the games and 8 year old reruns of Sonic X. And it still landed in this top ten. I'd love to find this article, really I would, but it's impossible to google now thanks to so many other articles praising the Sonic movie for being the highest grossing video game movie of all time, mixed in with articles about how the Sonic fast food chain is dying and what happened to it.

At the very least, Sonic rates to make it on the Wikipedia list of "Highest Grossing Media Franchises." It rates high enough that it beats out Fortnite, Halo, Minecraft, My Little Pony, and Roblox.

Also, to back up a bit, consider: the Sonic movie did really well. And it wasn't Ken Penders' pitch for a SatAM movie, it was something wholly different.

And then consider the outrageous success of Sonic Mania. The most critically acclaimed Sonic game since 1994. Though sales figures aren't super clear, I'd estimate it's also probably the best selling Sonic game in the last decade and a half. There is nary a hint of the Freedom Fighters or "that Robotnik" in that game anywhere.

I love the Freedom Fighters. I love SatAM Robotnik. I'd love for them to come back in an official capacity. I'd love for the Archie comics to officially pick up right where they left off and keep going as if they never missed a beat. It burns me that Archie or Ken Penders or both forever tainted a lot of that stuff so badly that it's become an exclusion zone nobody wants to touch anymore. I've talked at length on this blog about how I think a character like Princess Sally was a perfect foil for Sonic and how they played off of each other extremely well. I want that back. I want Bunnie Rabbot back. I want Antoine back. I want Robotropolis back. And Snively. And Ixis Naugus.

But also, at some point, you have to look at the cold, hard truth: Sonic doesn't need those characters, it doesn't need that universe, and the SatAM version Sonic would not exist at all if it wasn't for the original Japanese Sonic first. SatAM was supplemental material to the main version of the thing people already liked. That's the entire reason something like Sonic Mania could achieve the success it did.

And that's all there really is to it.

#questions #anonymous #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #satam #archie comics #ken penders #sonic mania #robotnik

[kanohivolitakk]

Since its 3Hs anniversary some really cool things I like about the game that aren’t talked about enough because the fandom is too busy arguing who is right and who is wrong

The worldbuilding just. 3H has honestly one of my favorite fictional settings. Its just both expansive but also genuinely interesting. I have spent HOURS thinking about the world and made so many ocs its not even funny. I love thinking about the setting of the game so much.

I LOVE the puzzle like way the game explains its world and story. Like I know some people don’t like it because it makes the game a bit too convoluted but personally? I LOVE 3Hs way of not telling everything but rather giving hints and clues the player has to piece themselves. It makes the games world feel more interactive and feels so satisfying. Then again I enjoy that kind of approach to worldbuilding

In general I love 3hs fragmented story and the way how the story is placed in many different fragments. It is geniunely rewarding to replay the game from another storypath and notice the foreshadowing Would’ve the story been probably better had it been just one storypath? Honestly yes. But 3h is ambitious and one of the ways it is is with its fragmented story structure.

The structure of White Clouds is criminally underrated honestly and gets way more hate than it deserves. I love how the first few chapters set up the world of Fodlan and show injustices/conflicts of the world with chapters like the chapter where you face off Lonato for instance. Then the next few chapters are spend in deepening the mysteries such as the conspiracy against the church and the mystery regarding TWSITD. Then Jeralt dies and the last few chapters are spent as “beginning of the End” so to speak, as things clears to the intense climax.

On related note I LOVE how the game handles perspective and how the lords are the respective ways we view the story. I know so many people say “WHite Clouds is same on all paths” but I do feel that’s kinda the point. The story is the same but there are differences that come from the way each of the lords is strongly characterized and has different values, worldviews. The subtle changes on what are focused on in each route also foreshadow what will be focused on each route, which I think is super cool.

Even beyond the lords and routes the game does explore the idea of perspective well. I do think 3h has this very “everyone is the hero of their own story” type of approach to perspective and it shows it well. Each character believes they’re in the right and you can get this view that they view themselves as right. Even Agarthans who are the designated villains have this sense they think they’re in right and that the Nabateans were evil.

The way how games routes being divided into having a different focus is very cool. I love how AM is a smaller scale personal tragedy, how CF is a battle of ideals and how VW explores the world and reveals deeper mysteries. I also love how all of these are related to the lords ideals and worldviews: Dimitri is the most conflicted of the lords so he gets the most characterfocused story focused on . Edelgard is the most ideologically driven so her path focuses on her ideals and battle of wills against Rhea. Claude is the one who is the most freespirited and wants to know the truth so his route focuses on revealing the mysteries.

Also the way the houses characters reflect their respective routes storyline and central themes: Black Eagles are nobles that have conflicting relationships with nobility reflecting Edelgards goal, Blue Lions are all united with the trauma of Tragedy of Duscur, and Golden Deer are a house of misfits who give this “ragtag group who will save the universe with POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and this cool gun I found” vibes which fit the route PERFECTLY

I LOVE how the game plays with and subverts a lot of Fire Emblem tropes. While it does play some tropes straight (dad death and evil cult manipulating behind the scenes) it does do a lot to break from series conventions and playing with ideas to make a more ambitious story. The way it either subverts expectations (The evil emperor being female well intended extremist, Rhea being the Gharnef/Medeus instead of the Nyna archetype she’s presented as), twists familiar tropes to their natural extreme (Dimitris arc is basically the natural extreme end of stereotypical FE lord) and other similar things make the game feeling so planned out, like the writers understood FE stories and wanted to make something that challenges FE while still feeling like it.

The way how every major player acts as foil/pararell to another player is so GOOD. Every faction leader can be compared to the other somehow and that just makes the game SOOOO fun to analyze, trying to find all the similarities and differences and pararells is so rewarding.

A more specific example on this is how i love how the game plays with the idea of holy/sacred weapons. While normally these weapons are artifacts from goddess that defeat dragons, here the holy weapons are bones made from dragons and just???? HOW METAL IS THAT????????? It’s just such a neat way to subvert the idea of sacred weapons. Rather than being blessed creations of the goddess, they are weapons of destruction made by the villains.

I ADORE THE GAMES science fiction elements. I know people say they feel out of place but personally, they make the game memorable for me. I still remember the first time I saw that scene with nukes. I especially love the heavy implication that Sothis isn’t a goddess but rather a powerful alien. It makes her character much more interesting

I know a lot of people don’t like Agarthans but can I just say their backstory being “forced to hide after their land got conquered and desiring it back” making them a dark mirror not just 3h lords/Rhea but FE lords as whole is SO FUCKING METAL. This is what I mean with 3H writers knowing their tropes like back of their hand.

I love how in Part 1 sometimes you’d talk to two characters in Monastery at once instead of just one. It’s something I miss in part 2 honestly.

I love the small sidequests such as the fishing tourney and White Heron cup and wish Part 1 had more of them, it would’ve made the school part feel more alive.

I LOVE how some missions (esp paralogues) have subgoals that you can clear to get better rewards. I wish the game had been more clear with them or even made them main goals of maps sometimes.

I LOVE THE WAY Paralogues act as small gaiden stories that show more of the games world and characters. Its a neat way to let the sidecharacters shine and reveal some neat secrets of the games world and story.

The gameplay loop is honetly fun and satisfying. It is rewarding and while it gets tiring towards the end overall its a good gameplay loop.

I ADORE the aesthetic of Shambhala. Its just so sleek and sinister. The cyrillic letters spelling different words is so cool. Shambhala is my favorite map in the game and the aesthetic is a big reason why.

The games soundtrack is so good!!!!!!!!!!  But not only that I LOVE the way its electro elements subtly hint of Agarthans being in control behind the scenes. This is especially cool in Road to Dominion where the electro parts are barely noticeable yet present. but other tracks have subtle electro vibes as well.  The other way the games music tells the story (such as use of leitmotifs or how the monastery music changes once Jeralt dies) is great as well.

I love how 3h can be read as an allegory for reformation era and reneissance. Its such an interesting way to read the games events and compare it to a real historical periods there’s quite a bit of f

In general I ADORE the cultural references of the game. There’s surprisingly lot of way the games world is based on real life and the details are just *chefs kiss*

THE GAME IS DENSE WITH THEMATIC IDEAS. Besides the perspective the game tackles ideas of how trauma can affect a persons psyche and worldview  (as well how a persons trauma affects the way they interact with the world which in turn can affect the world as well), grief, societal values, historical revisiniosm and so much more. The game tackles SO MANY topics in an interesting manner, it is thematically just as dense as it is storywise as well.

I also love how the games thematic parts work in harmony with the story rather than one overshadowing with the other. Its super refreshing honestly where a games themes and story are both rich and I don’t have to pick one over the other.

Lastly I ADORE the games central message (or at least what I see as the central message anyway): The world’s fucked up and most people want to fix it, but what they deem fixing differs and because of that they go into conflict or outright war rather than trying to find a common ground. Everyone wants a better world but no one can agree what a better world truly means  so they fight over it. It was a theme that not only resonates with my personal values but also hit me REALLY hard when I first played it as it’s a theme that I found incredibly relevant and reflective of our own world during the time I played the game for the first time.

So yeah. I made this post since there’s SO MUCH neat things about the game, its gameplay and story that sadly get swept under the rug in favor of either arguing  which lord was right/wrong or complaining how the game is an unfinished, rushed and overambitious mess. Is 3h perfect? Hell no. But it’s a game that I hold near and dear to my heart and does genuinely SO MANY THINGS RIGHT, I’m sad no one talks about the genuine strengths the game has anymore, instead just complaining.

I’m not even joking when I say that 3h should be up there as heralded as one of the best, most ambitious and complex JRPGs alongside Xenogears, the first Xenoblade game, Suikoden and Trails series as whole along other such games. Its a shame the games reputation is less like those games and more like Persona 5s where everyone focuses more on its flaws and the fans being annoying than the fact the game does geniunely A LOT right. It’s just that good, ambitious game I love so much.

#Kirika Talks #Fire Emblem #FE3h #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fire Emblem Meta

[seaspectr]

sea's fiction podcast recs!

If you're new to the fiction podcast genre or looking for a new show to try, here's a list I compiled over years of listening to audio dramas and similar podcasts :)

For those who don't know, fiction podcasts are scripted audio-only stories that play kind of like a TV show in your head. The podcast medium is a lot more accessible to otherwise marginalized creators, so you can generally expect more diversity in the stories being told than you'd see from Hollywood. I love podcasts because they are perfect to keep your mind occupied while doing more mundane tasks like chores, video games, or drawing.

The is organized from most to least recommended, and there are asterisks next to shows with heavy LGBTQ representation, though virtually every show on the list has at least one or two minor queer characters. All of the descriptions and genre tags are written by me, and I try to keep things as brief as possible so that you can look through them quickly and find a match! Everything is available to find on Spotify unless otherwise linked.

Top 5 audio fiction:

Wolf 359, Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel, The Bright Sessions, Archive 81, The Magnus Archives

Full list under the cut

Audio Fiction

Wolf 359

Space station shenanigans evolve to uncovering the horrifying secrets of a cryptic organization. (Drama, Action, Mystery, Science fiction)

The Penumbra Podcast (Juno Steel series only)*

Brooding detective solves cases on Mars and falls in love with a master thief. (Action, Romance, Science fiction, Noir)

The Bright Sessions*

Therapist works with people with supernatural abilities, but a dangerous organization looms on the horizon. (Drama, Mystery)

Archive 81*

Employee tasked with listening to tapes discovers a world of cosmic horror, eventually becoming intertwined with the world and the tapes themselves. (Horror, Action)

The Magnus Archives*

Archivist records statements of individuals’ encounters with the paranormal. Eventually, he falls deeper into the world of supernatural horrors and struggles to retain his own humanity. (Horror, Mystery)

Life with Leo(h)*

An uptight lawyer's life is turned upside down when she is gifted a sentient android programmed to be in love with her. (Romantic comedy)

Look Up*

Love story between two high school boys who meet up on the beach at night to stargaze as they await their moms' return from space. (Romance)

In Strange Woods (Musical)

Journalist follows the story of a town after the disappearance of a highschooler in the woods. Note: heavy themes of grief. (Mystery)

36 Questions (Musical)

A woman tries to make amends with her ex-husband after long-held secrets were revealed. (Romance)

Harbor*

Small town siblings work at a mysterious department that deals with issues pertaining to supernatural monsters. (Horror)

ars Paradoxica

Physicist accidentally travels back in time into WW2 and changes the course of history as she tries to find a way back. (Drama)

The Two Princes*

Love story between two young princes in a medieval fantasy setting. (Romance, Fantasy)

This Planet Needs a Name*

Crew of scientific explorers are tasked with terraforming an alien world for the future of humanity. (Science fiction)

Desperado*

Misfits fight to protect their old gods and heritage from crusaders in a modern world. (Fantasy)

The Deca Tapes

Cabin fever amongst a group of amnesiacs known only by their roles with backstories that shed horrifying light on each of the individuals stuck together. (Mystery, Science fiction)

Time Bombs

Three episode arc about a bomb squad by the creators of Wolf 359. (Action)

Kaleidotrope* (link to listen)

College radio show that offers romantic advice... until the hosts fall for each other! (Romantic comedy)

Welcome to Night Vale*

Follows a radio host as he casually documents a small town’s inexplicably strange news. (Absurdist horror)

We’re Alive

A ragtag group of soldiers manage a safe haven in LA when a zombie apocalypse breaks out. (Action, drama)

Midst

Fast-paced narration of a uniquely imaginative fantasy setting and the varied characters on it. (Fantasy, Action)

Alba Salix: Royal Physician

Sitcom-like hospital comedy in medieval fantasy setting. (Comedy, Fantasy)

Red Valley

Corporate employee discovers records of the bloody creation of human cryonic technology. (Horror, Science fiction)

Unseen*

Vignettes of people living beyond the veil in a world of hidden magic. (Fantasy)

Rabbits

Investigative journalist uncovers secrets of an ancient organization in hopes of finding her missing friend. (Mystery)

Mabel

Caretaker communicates with a woman trapped within the soul of a house through a series of voicemails. (Mystery)

Other Fiction Shows

The Adventure Zone

D&D played by three brothers and their dad; both heartwarming and hilarious.

Myths & Legends

Retellings of mythology from around the world in a fresh contemporary voice.

Fictional

Retellings of classic lit in that same fresh contemporary voice.

Hello from the Magic Tavern

Somewhat raunchy improvised comedy show centered on a guy who has accidentally fallen into a medieval tavern in a magical land and banters with a glory-seeking old wizard and a chillaxed talking badger.

Off Book

Improvised comedy in the form of musicals.

* = High LGBT+ rep

This isn't meant to be objective but instead a list based on my own personal opinion toward the shows I've listened to. Feel free to add on with your own favorite shows, I know there are a lot of amazing ones out there I still haven't listened to. :)

You've reached the end of the list!

#podcasts #podcast recs #audio fiction #the bright sessions #fiction podcasts recs #recommendations #fiction podcasts #audio fiction recs #audio fic recs

[onlyangelcas]

rosé flowing with your chosen family

my addition to @spnwomenweek ☼ day 2: family | read on ao3

“Claire,” Kaia says softly, placing her hand on Claire’s shoulder. “This is your family, what are you so worried about?”

Claire sighs, unsure of what exactly is so nerve wracking about walking into a house filled with her loved ones. Her back is resting against the side of her beat up station wagon, one sneaker kicking uselessly at the gravel under her feet and Kaia is looking at her with those concerned eyes that make her stomach knot up with guilt.

In front of her, past the somewhat wild front lawn, is Sam and Eileen’s new home, where their family is gathered for a last minute housewarming party. Sam and Eileen had put in an offer a few days after their wedding back in March, eager to get out of the dingy bunker and begin their life as a married couple. Claire was happy for them, Sam deserved a life of domesticity, just as Cas and Dean did.

It was weird, those first few weeks after the Winchsesters had defeated Chuck, God, whatever. Claire was devastated by the news of Cas being taken by the Empty, she hardly moved from her bed in the days following. Left confused, broken, and grieving an angel who was like her father in more ways than just his appearance. Kaia was supportive, of course, content to cuddle up next to her and run a soothing hand through her hair or convince her to eat a real meal at least once a day.

Before she even had the chance to fully process the loss of Cas, Jack and Dean had rescued him from the Empty. She remembered Jody’s voice calling out to her, she had slid from her bed and padded toward the front door. Claire was shocked to see Cas standing there, normal trench coat and suit traded in for a sweater and jeans, his hand tightly holding Dean’s. The two men had looked at her with concern, probably taking in her wrinkled pajamas, two-day-old bun, and the dark circles under her eyes. She had passed on asking the millions of questions that had flooded her mind in favor of wrapping herself tightly around Cas.

Claire had never been one to show her emotions so viscerally, but in that moment she couldn’t help the tears that quickly rolled down her cheeks. The joy of seeing Cas, when she thought he was gone for good, standing in her living room full of life and having apparently worked out whatever feelings he had for Dean, was overwhelming. Cas held her tightly while Dean ran a soothing hand across her back, and she wept openly for the first time since the Bad Place.

After that, things had returned to normal. Not normal for Claire, because all she had really known for the last few years was hunting, but the kind of normal where she didn’t have to kill monsters or worry that Sam and Dean were off getting themselves in trouble. There weren’t any monsters to hunt anymore, which left her feeling empty and useless for months. Kaia had pulled her out of that, like Kaia always did, and they decided to travel across the country and see the places they had never been able to enjoy before. It was freeing, to be on the open road, enjoying just being alive.

Claire and Kaia often passed through Kansas to visit Cas, Dean, and Jack at their house on the lake or to swing by the bunker to see Sam and Eileen. They never missed a birthday, wedding, or big event. Which is how they found themselves back in Kansas, Jody had called to let them know everyone was getting together for a housewarming party for Sam and Eileen. Her and Kaia had been in Memphis, enjoying barbecue and Blues, so the drive wasn’t too much of a hassle.

“Earth to blondie,” Kaia says, snapping Claire back to the present. “Are we going inside anytime soon? I’m starving, babe.”

Claire clears her throat, “Yeah, sorry. Lost in my head.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She looks into Kaia’s eyes, the usual soft brown painted with worry, and smiles in hopes it will ease her girlfriend’s concern, “No, I’m good, just overthinking. Let’s go eat.”

Kaia gives her a tentative smile, wrapping her hand around Claire’s and pulling her in for a chaste kiss.

They approach the front door, Claire raises her hand to knock but before her knuckles make contact the door swings open, revealing Sam with a grin spread across his face. He quickly wraps them both up in a hug and pulls them inside the loud and lively house. Claire and Kaia congratulate him on the house before breaking away to greet Jody, Donna, Alex, and Patience.

After hugs are exchanged and road trip updates are given, Claire slips away to the kitchen for a drink and Kaia heads toward Cas and Eileen who are clearly gossiping in ASL in the far corner of the living room.

Claire yanks open the fridge and helps herself to a beer, twisting off the cap and taking a long drink before propping herself against the counter.

“Hello Claire,” Jack says happily from where he’s sitting at the kitchen island, Claire hadn’t even noticed him when she first came in.

“Jack, jeeze, you scared me.”

“My apologies, I didn’t realize you hadn’t seen me.” Jack responds, his hands wrapped around a can of root beer.

“Yeah, I guess I was a little lost in thought.” She says, turning her head toward the door where the sound of Dean’s laughter is filtering through.

There’s a pause then, as Claire contemplates how she ended up here, with this ragtag group of former hunters, angels, and a witch that she calls family. It’s weird, she had always expected her dad to show back up one day and make their family whole again, back when she was young and naive. It’s even weirder, she thinks, that this band of misfits has become a better image of family than she could ever imagine to have with her mother and father. Claire had come to think of herself as a combination of Novak-Winchester-Mills-Hanscum for quite some time now, content to be part of this chosen family.

She still missed her mom and dad, from time to time, wondered what life would have been like if they had stayed with her. Claire never let herself spend too long on that path, knowing that if things had been different she would have never known Jody or Alex, she would never have known Cas, or Sam and Dean, she never would have fallen in love with Kaia. She has a family now; she found a mother in Jody and Donna, Castiel and Dean became her kind-of dads, Sam and Eileen the closest thing she has to an uncle and aunt, Alex and Patience are her sisters, Jack her brother. It’s weird and mismatched, but it’s hers and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Claire,” Jack says, breaking her out of her thoughts. “You seem troubled.”

Claire flashes him a watery smile, suddenly overcome with affection for her perfectly messed up family, “Actually the opposite.”

Jack smiles back at her, a gap-toothed goofy grin, “Oh, I thought you were upset.”

She pushes herself away from the counter, abandoning her beer on the stone surface, and makes her way over to Jack. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course, Claire, anything.” Jack says, his head tilting up slightly to lock eyes with Claire, who is standing close enough that she’s marginally taller than Jack sitting down.

Claire pulls Jack into a hug, wrapping her arms so tightly around him that her ribs ache, “I love you.”

Jack slowly loops his arms around Claire, resting his cheek against her shoulder, “I love you, too.”

She lets out a wet laugh, giving Jack one final squeeze before pulling away.

“Well,” A gruff voice says from the doorway. “Isn’t that just a sight for sore eyes.”

Claire whips her head around to find Dean lounging against the doorframe, his face soft with a bit of fondness in his eyes.

“Hello Dean,” Jack says, his face still twisted up in a goofy grin.

Dean stalks forward into the kitchen, quickly wrapping the two up in a warm embrace and pressing a kiss to the top of their heads. He pulls away just as quickly as he pulled them in, locking eyes with Claire and giving her a look that conveys all the words he can’t say out loud.

“Jack helped me get a bunch of Sammy’s baby pictures scanned onto a CD and I’m gonna put ‘em up on the TV for everyone, you don't wanna miss it.” Dean says, giving her a gentle pat on the back.

She laughs, “Sounds mortifying, I can’t wait to see Sam’s face.”

“C’mon,” He says, jerking his head toward the living room before turning and heading out the door.

Claire watches him and Jack disappear into the other room, smiling to herself as she snatches up her beer and heads into the chaos. Cas, Kaia, and Eileen are still deep in conversation. Jody and Donna are whispering quietly to each other on the other side of the room. Rowena, Patience, and Alex are pressed together on the couch, a martini glass dangling from Rowena’s hand as she gestures wildly, obviously recounting an insane tale as the other women listen with rapt attention.

She slides in next to Sam, who is leaning against the stairway railing, eyeing Jack and Dean with suspicion as they fiddle with the disc player next to the TV.

“This is a great house, Sammy.”

Sam looks down at her, smiling slightly, “It’s not bad, but it’s the people who really make it home.”

Claire returns his smile, then turns back to the scene in front of her; all her favorite people, the people she loves most in the world, gathered in one room.

Dean always says, family don’t end with blood, something his own stand-in father, Bobby, used to tell him. Claire never met Bobby, but she thinks he might have been onto something.

#spnwomenweek #they are a big family!!! #writing in claire’s pov is new to me so i hope i did her justice #claire novak #spn #supernatural

[druid-for-hire]

new hadestown au: BIKER ! EURYDICE, in which she’s a rogue lone-wolf biker dwelling in the urban jungle of a Neo Tokyo-type city called Hadestown, wracked with biker gangs, violence, poverty, corruption, and civil unrest, still recovering and rebuilding from an apocalyptic event many years ago. Heavy-handed with the AKIRA inspirations here, haha.

She fights for herself on the dangerous streets, an illegal racer with a consistent top-three placement and a reputation for ferocity that earns her the money she needs to scrape by. And then she meets Orpheus: a dopey bartender who has no place being in her business.

okay okay okay i’m gonna be jumping around a lot here. be warned. thanks @supercantaloupe, @regzillas, @birdmanlyss for your contributions! (sorry if i missed someone it’s been a while)

she's a lone wolf in a city infested with biker gangs and it's brutal

she's run over plenty of limbs in her day

then there's orpheus, this gentle, kind-hearted soul, an indie musician and shes like. fuck. now i gotta keep this bastard safe

puts a long pipe with a mess of bolts and metal on the end in his hands and tells him he'd better buckle up and learn to fight the road

this sort of thing is common among biker gangs to cause destruction and knock people off their bikes onto the road. other types include mallets, hammers, baseball bats, etc

shes small but knows a lot of self defense and is very good at handling herself on the road

besides teaching orpheus to steel himself and yes use that pipe on people, push them off and jam it in their wheels and let it break if it does, she's gotta teach him to hold on while she pulls all this crazy shit on her bike

she avoids taking him on the road because having to fight people gives him so much stress but he also stresses about her so it's all weird

the first time orpheus sees her run over someones arm hes like ""???????????????????!!!!!!!!"

"Don't worry it doesn't happen often" "WHAT IS 'OFTEN'"

she has a red songbird on her helmet and flowers on her jacket

and flowers painted on her bike too probably

or patterns like on the album cover

orpheus thinks it’s the prettiest shit he’s ever seen

so eurydice races, right? everyones like “who is this tiny little upstart” and then she takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair and everyone loses it

somethingsomething ig hades (who is something of a crime boss here, similar to Tombstone from the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, but not so unambiguously villainous in nature) becomes a contractor and he catches her in like, a bad contract that's hard to get out of without some kind of consequence

and now orpheus has to topple a capitalist again

anyway she like, meets orpheus in this little bar he works at

it's about lower middle class, so it's not too bad but it's still mostly populated by like, poorer people and bikers, etc.

they meet and it's cool and fun blah blah Come Home With Me shit

also this is a scene:

biker!eury: we gotta cross through downtown orpheus: what???? but there's a riot going on there! right now! eury: that's too bad, it's the fastest way! that's why you get this! (tosses him her pipe weapon) orpheus, barely catching it: sajskhsfdfs ???? eury: and i am gonna take this. (kicks open a trunk and takes out a rifle) orpheus: ???????!!!!???!?? WHERE DID YOU GET THAT AND DO WE REALLY NEED IT eury: Yes we do now come on orpheus: H-HOW did you get it eury: (loads gun) no worries orpheus: No i have many worries HOW DID YOU--

actually, on this emergency ride, orpheus proves surprisingly competent with her pole weapon—ruthless even, and eurydice wonders just where and how the hell he learned that

the conversation she has with him about that is the same one where he shows her his old, old scars

(besides ruthless—orph has apparently learned how to pose and intimidate. he does stuff like putting the tip of the pole-pipe to the asphalt as they’re riding, skipping on the road and creating sparks)

eurydice loves her bike more than certain relatives 

certain complications lead to it being destroyed by hades as punishment for doing him wrong. and it destroys her. that is her most trusted sacred bike, that thing has been with her since she was a teenager

once she repurposes that devastation into white-hot anger orph has to physically restrain her from hunting hades down and breaking his kneecaps with a thick lead pipe

he's never seen her this absolutely devastated and furious

he goes to persephone for more work because he wants to buy eurydice a new bike

he keeps it a secret from her until he leads her out to a garage, hands over her eyes

(some of these bits are copypasted from my friend @regzillas​)

orpheus takes his hands off and says Tada!!! it's just like the old one, there's no painted birds but she can do that. She just stands there in total silence mouth open, and orpheus goes 'so? do you like it?' before she bursts into tears. and at first orpheus is like :O!!!!! oh no!!! do you not like it? and eurydice through sobs just says 'nobody's ever done something like this for me’

it's... beautiful, it's touching, it's deep and it's love and she's so in love and she loves him so much, and she cries and holds him close and takes him in and she's so overwhelmed by her emotions, full of the care that orpheus so freely gives to her; and it's a breath of newness, fresh air in the cycle of dread and bitter anger that haunts the city (but she's still going to find hades and shoot him in the foot)

he just holds her and kisses her head

they spend the day painting it, the day after he buys the bike

hand-painted. and they both leave their handprints in paint on it, like carl and ellie do on their mailbox in the beginning of Up

a significant amount of time is spent thinking of a good name

theres lots of joking and eurydice playfully shoves orpheus and he falls over into paint

okay i wrote something like. Obnoxiously long for orpheus. i sort of have his backstory in this down, but i don’t have anything for eurydice unfortunately :( suggestions are welcome! but first: Hermes

biker!au hermes owns a chain of bars, several of which find their patronage among the ruffian youth, several of which are more refined and serve the middle class, and another several of which serve the upper crust hermes has a hand in every world and it serves him pretty well, and his chain is a bit of a channel of communication and its unspoken rule that whatever socioeconomic class or gang or organization you're a part of, hermes' chain is neutral territory no fighting allowed

eurydice walks in and hermes just gives her a Look and taps the 'no fighting' sign and she huffs

hes >:( if anyone does try to start shit. the honor system is strong enough that usually the other patrons will just throw them out, and if there are really problems, they'll hear from hermes personally

he maintains a very strict "no bitching in my fucking kitchen" atmosphere

and now, Orpheus

this really is kind of akira but without the government conspiracies; the city is a neon corrupt hellscape that’s still struggling to rebuild after an apocalyptic event that wiped it all through. the city is wracked with frustration and violence and anger, there are still urban ruins everywhere and the scars of rebuilding and struggle are plain in every corner of life; plain to see are the shells of ruined buildings, gigantic boats levelled from the sea and left in the middle of inland sectors.

orpheus was abandoned by his mother at an early age—kind and timid, he had to learn fast how to be suspicious and cautious in cruel ways. he couldn’t land himself a spot in any of the groups that other ragtag raging folks had eked out for themselves, still too hesitant or ungraceful or young for any of them. sure, he made friends, sitting and talking with lots of people, but never got to really team up—all he could do was just fight for himself in the blown out corners of the city. weapons made from whatever he had. a young child already spitting blood and teeth in hadestown’s vicious ground-floor landscape.

hermes is his mother’s close old friend, though the times they see each other are few and far between. when he saw him, hermes hardly recognized her son, wild-eyed and clawed and alone in one of the city’s more dangerous neighborhoods, with a pole full of screws slung over his back. how did she lose track of her kid for so long? he thinks. and takes him in.

hermes eventually realizes that his mother didn’t lose him. meanwhile, tiny orpheus, kind-hearted orpheus, despises hermes at first. he’s full of suspicion and desperately wants to lean into hermes’ kindness, but the streets have taught him to hold back. he spits curses at him, though the words slide right off hermes’ shoulders. it’s not genuine.  just frustrated. and picked off of the delinquents that were his friends, just like most everything else about him.

(hermes knows he’s gotten his trust when orpheus starts getting soft, when he’s crying over littler things; it means he’s been deemed safe to be vulnerable around, and he damn near starts crying himself.)

orpheus owns a little vespa! it’s covered in stickers, some of them worn out and old, some places with just the adhesive and the fuzzy white paper from where he tried to pull them off. some of them aren’t even proper stickers and just shit he peeled off from places while he was wandering around and stuck onto the vespa

even in canon i see him as the kind of guy who like. you look at him and think jesus how is this guy still alive he’s so noodly and soft, but he’s unexpectedly sort of street smart

anyway i mentioned this before but didn’t elaborate. biker au orph, to eury's surprise, does have his collection of scars, since he had a bit of a rough go at life

also he’s just ungainly and runs into shit

you can see em on his sketch page. he has a bit more than what’s shown, but what’s visible is a little slash across the bridge of his nose onto his cheek, and two on his left forearm. he probably has a stab scar in his side from just getting fucking knifed. the ones on his left forearm are from when a drunk coming out of a bar charged him with a fork

eurydice also has scars. kind of hard not to with the kind of life she lives

ok thats it. For Now. i don’t know how persephone or the fates or the workers factor in, if at all. I barely know how Hades factors in, mostly what i’ve said so far and that he does what he does to support himself and persephone. ah well! just have this

as this is extremely based off of AKIRA, i verily recommend listening to the movie’s soundtrack. besides the fact that it slaps hard as hell, the opening song, Kaneda’s Theme, has the perfect vibes for the city and the tone of eurydice and orpheus riding at night through it

#hadestown #hadestown art #hadestown fanart #hadestown au #broadway #musicals #biker au #my art #this au first came into being because i wanted eurydice with fingerless gloves

[milstrim]

Flesh and Bone and Heart

Chapter 1: “You have to let go.”

AO3 Link

Everything was bleak. Russet red skies painted a deep orange over every building and skyscraper. Over bodies of sickly green skin and the newly familiar sight of pools of blood stained to sidewalks and walls.

Peter hadn't quite gotten used to the bleakness yet, and he didn't want to. There was still hope after all. Even if he and Happy were the last New Yorkers left in a city of 8.4 million. There had to be other people alive, other groups of survivors across America, waiting for a cure. Because there had to be a way to more than survive this, even if the virus had wiped out the Avengers in a day...

He shook his head of the thought, squaring his shoulders and resuming his vigilant watch from atop the nondescript gray building he had called home the last couple of days. There was hope, and Peter would help the ragtag team that adopted him into their ranks to see it, even though he was sure they didn't see it like he did. There had to be hope after all. Humanity couldn't end because of one mistake. Aunt May couldn't be gone forever. Ned couldn't be a zombie without being allowed to have had a nerd-freak out over the whole thing. Mr. Stark couldn't be replaced by a husk of his former self.

It was impossible for Peter, to stare out at the city every day knowing about the looks the others shared when they thought he wasn't looking. How Happy would stare sullenly. How Sharon would always speak to him a little softer than the day before. Even Kurt, who had been the only one willing and able to match Peter's enthusiasm and attempts to keep everyone's spirits lifted, would drop the act the moment Peter wasn't in the room. He knew. He could hear everyone in their building, after all.

Which was why Peter sat on the building now.

The group had all formed three weeks into the apocalypse, not so easily fitting together but still managing to find how they all worked. His powers definitely made Peter one of the most powerful assets to the team, which was why he was usually on watch or patrolling around for where most of the infected were concentrated. Where once he might have preened at finally feeling so important--so seen--now he wished more than anything that he could shrink away. That his powers weren't needed so badly to keep a handful of survivors away from a fate almost worse than death.

He wished that everything was okay.

Even if it wasn't. And it might never be.

The screen of his mask caught something. Peter readjusted, narrowing his eyes as Karen zoomed in. He relaxed. It was just a small group of normal but infected New Yorkers. As long as everyone inside was quiet and kept up their normal routine, there was little danger there. It wasn't like it was Mr. Stark or those weird portal guys that would've gotten Peter weeks ago had Hope not shown up. They were dangerous, and usually who Peter kept his eye out for. Karen was always on the job tracking Mr. Stark, but the teenager had gotten used to training his eye for the familiar glinting red regardless.

With a quiet sigh released in a huff under his breath, Peter wiggled into a more comfortable crouch, watching the zombies until they filtered away onto a different street and out of his sight.

"Is there a street camera around there, Karen?" he asked, his voice a strained whisper. Two months into the zombie apocalypse the teenager had finally trained himself to make every word small. To treat every sentence like a danger. Sometimes Peter thought it was funny, that he'd had to learn to be quieter. May had always been so loud she'd been confused as to why he was so soft-spoken and he would joke that she was losing her hearing in her old age. But those smile-inducing thoughts would make his features fall with regret and guilt and he'd shove them away as quickly as they came.

"Of course, Peter. Here," his faithful AI responded, the video popping up on his screen. It showed the people continuing to stumble away, so he waved the video away. No real danger. Just a normal, boring, and tense day in the apocalypse.

The high schooler thanked the AI as the video disappeared, forcing his strained shoulders to drop and relax. It was something he'd found himself doing a lot recently. The apocalypse was, well, it was the apocalypse. It was dangerous and nerve-wracking and every breath was filled with a tired guilt that made his chest feel stale. But it also lacked a lot of action. Especially recently. The past two weeks had been a strange mixture of the constant need to be vigilant but with a significant lack of things to do.

It wasn't incredibly hard to get food. Most zombies had moved from being indoors to try and hunt better--like there was really anything left to hunt--leaving supermarkets vacant and easy to raid. It wasn't hard to watch out for infected intruders. Two people were always on watch. Important items were always ready to be moved and Karen kept a constant eye on security cameras around whatever building they were occupying that week. And Peter was left with little to do to occupy his thoughts.

He didn't want to think. Not about his situation. Not about the world. Not about his family and friends. He wanted to fight. He wanted to do.

Sometimes the teenager would try and piece together a semblance of a cure. Many zombies had rotted away completely, and there were vacant labs dotted around New York. He could try his hand at his chemistry knowledge and combat what he could. But every attempt, no matter how promising, had always ended in failure.

Peter couldn't make a cure. He was smart, but he was only sixteen and a half. He was a kid and he couldn't do it.

But there was a different sixteen year-old that maybe could.

Miss Okoye had arrived yesterday, in a shiny ship that had bled out of the air and landed in the open space in Avengers tower where the Quinjet should have been. Peter had been on watch then too, but he hadn't seen the plane land at the building across the city, it was invisible after all. Instead, Karen had alerted him and the teenager had immediately leapt off the building towards the tall and lonely ghost of a tower.

  (His first day in the lab had been so tense and awkward. He hadn't known what to say and Mr. Stark hadn't known what to do. Peter had been so nervous he'd nearly burnt his hand off while doing simple wiring. Mr. Stark had panicked so bad--grabbing his hand and having Friday scan it and double-checking it himself when he didn't quite believe the AI--his cheeks blazed red and then Peter had burst out with loud giggles at the panic.)

  Peter had arrived quickly and without interruption from a certain flying zombie, with enough time to warn Miss Okoye that Mr. Stark's suit also got alerts when something entered the tower and that they needed to leave immediately. Thankfully, he and the warrior had left before anyone could arrive and Peter had gotten to ride in a super-freaking-cool Wakandan ship. It hadn't quite distracted him from being back at the tower, but he'd let everyone think it had.

Now the group was making a decision. He could hear them faintly a few floors below, their voices murmured and concerned. It was hard to make out what they were saying exactly, but he couldn't quite say he cared. Certainly not enough to have Karen enhance the sound and let him know every word that was being said below. He had found that happening a lot recently. Not caring. At some point everything had become too much and his brain felt much too much like wet tissue paper to try and purse through anything in there other than I wish I wasn't awake. I wish I wasn't here. I wish someone else had survived instead of me. Someone who was ready.

But there wasn't anything else. And Wakanda would be safe, if they managed to make it there.

That was the debate.

Did they go search for a man who'd been thought to be dead and lost days into the apocalypse, or pack up and go to the last safe haven on Earth? Miss Okoye had her goal, with or without them--that, she had made very clear. But the rest of the group was split, and something they had decided when they'd first met was that the group should never split. And so, the debating. The arguing. All in whispered murmurs that had to be stifled to nothing if Peter ever gave the signal that an infected group was nearing too close for comfort.

The teenager hadn't heard much of the argument, hadn't made much of a point to pay attention to it, but he knew where everyone lay. Happy was ready to retreat to Wakanda, and Peter couldn't blame him. He didn't have superpowers, he wasn't trained, and the teenager was sure that it had been quite a blow to not only lose all of his friends but to have to depend on a snot-nosed teenager afterwards. Peter wanted Happy to go too. Traversing the zombie-infested country was a death wish for anyone who wasn't in better-than-peak fighting condition.

Kurt wanted to go. Bucky and Sharon wanted to fight.

Hope wanted to fight, but she wanted Peter to go.

Peter didn't want to go.

He wasn't an Avenger, but neither was she. There were no Avengers left. But he was the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. It was his responsibility to help his community, and hiding in Wakanda wouldn't help. If there was a fight, some way to help, Peter would take it.

Finally tired of the silence, he opened his mouth to ask Karen to let him listen to the debate, when a tingle--shocking and cold and running a shiver of goosebumps along his arms--stopped him. Immediately the teenager was on high alert, his muscles tightening in anticipation as he searched for the danger.

"Where's the Iron Man armor?" he snipped quietly to Karen. A screen popped up immediately, showing the armor still in Manhattan. He furrowed his brows. "Okay. Okay. Is it the wizard guys? Karen, search through security cameras nearby and alert the others that something is--"

He cut himself off at a painfully sharp tingle, instinct directing his chin up to stare at the tired russet sky. Except the laziness of it was gone now, replaced now by a fierce fire of ruby red, leaching out from a strange bright spot in the sky. A meteor. Great. The zombie apocalypse, now a meteor, what next? Nuclear war between the zombies?

Karen zoomed in on the meteor heading straight for Manhattan and--no. That wasn't a meteor. Was that--a person? Oh my, God, it was a person.

Said person zipped out of sight just as that thought registered, disappearing among the buildings. Towards where he knew Mr. Stark was.

Peter didn't even weigh his options. A person (alien or possibly already dead) was heading towards the most zombie-infested area of the city. He had to try.

And without a second thought, he slipped off of the building and began swinging.

    "You're not going to convince him!" Happy snapped, his frustration bubbling over. The argument had taken up much of the night before and pretty much all day now. All held in stifled and angry whispers that only made the man angrier as he was forced to keep his voice low and repeat what he'd been saying for hours now. "You've known him for months now! You know you can't."

"He's a kid," Hope pushed back, her voice just as steely as when the argument had started. "He doesn't need to be in the middle of this--even if you and Stark thought it was a good idea. If there's a safe haven in Wakanda, that's where he needs to go."

"And lose one of our most powerful members?" Sharon said. "Look, I don't like the kid fighting any more than you do, but we can't really go anywhere without him. I doubt we'd ever even get out of the city without him."

Hope glared at the agent, aghast. She'd been backed into a corner for hours now, but the woman had refused to back down, spitting and snarling her argument through furious whispers and an exaggeratingly patient voice. Her hard stare examined the faces around the table, looking for some sign of agreement that Happy wished he could offer.

Happy had seen what had happened to Tony. He'd been there when Pepper had turned. When Peter had come bounding through the window of the tower and snatched him towards their new semblance of safety while blubbering about his Aunt and his friend and the state of the city. All in one afternoon.

The former bodyguard thought back to that afternoon a lot. It was clearer in his mind more than almost anything in his life. It had been a gray day. One that turned the sky white and hung heavy in the air and cooled the once bustling streets of New York. It had been strange for the end of spring, but appropriate for the world.

Tony and Rhodes had both been infected, along with the rest of the Avengers, that much they'd known since Friday had reported their vitals completely askew. Happy hadn't told Peter yet, but he'd assumed the kid had already known. The entirety of the West coast had been swallowed, but shaky live footage of people's last moments and journalists as brave as they were stupid had been on a repeating cycle of news for the last thirty-six hours. Peter had never been particularly on top of the news, but Happy had heard how he'd begged Tony to go and help the Avengers. He'd remembered the heart-breaking anxiety and the admittance of a terrible feeling from his Peter Tingle.

But Tony had made Peter stay. He'd told Happy to make sure the kid didn't run off or 'stick his nose into anything that he shouldn't.' Happy's best friend had left with a tight smile. Happy had said good luck.

And now Tony was gone.

Or, more accurately, Tony had spread the infection among the entirety of New York in four hours.

Happy remembered a lot about that day, but he still wasn't sure why Tony had come back to the city. The bodyguard couldn't read brain scans, but Friday had said Tony was practically a shell after fifteen minutes. And a shell had no reason to return home.

He guessed the why wasn't terribly important, because Tony had returned, heading straight toward the tower.

Happy had been about the leave, actually. After watching news footage of Natasha--on her own, bloodied and torn and still trying to fight--finally losing an impossible battle, he knew he'd needed to pick up Peter and May. They needed to get to the compound and try to figure out how to keep the world from breaking. With the Avengers gone there had to be another solution. Maybe it was going to be harboring scientists on a heavily fortified government base. Maybe it was going to be finding other heroes, like Fury had done. The world was so big, there had to be more superheroes--but it hadn't worked out like that.

He'd been on the phone.

"I'm leaving now," he'd said to Pepper, stepping into the elevator. "I'll get Peter and May and take them to the compound. I think you should get in the car with me."

"No. I'll drive myself after you in a couple of hours," she'd said, the dryness of grief clinging to her voice. "The governor's meeting with me soon to discuss how to best lock down the city and prevent an infection."

Happy had thought they'd have at least a week or so. The infected Avengers were fast killers, but they were thousands of miles away and hunting their way through the country.

He'd thought they'd had so much longer.

"I don't know how we'll prevent anything without a cure or a forcefield," he'd said.

"Wakanda's providing aid all over the world. I'll hold a meeting with Queen Ramonda and the President this evening to discuss protecting vulnerable hotspots around the country. New York should be able to--"

The phone had crackled as it crashed, whatever Pepper was saying being completely lost to a thunderous boom of glass. His heart had begun racing before he even found the ability to speak.

And then the red. Lights and alarms flashing overhead in a terrifying headache that Happy remembered even now. The fear. The fatigue. The overwhelming wish that everything would just be okay.

But it wasn't. And it likely wouldn't be.

"Pepper?" he'd finally said. No response. "Pepper? C'mon--what happened? Friday, take me up to the penthouse. Now."

The AI obliged, the elevator stopping and shifting as it began to zoom back up.

When the doors had finally opened, Happy had wished he had just left. That he'd just gone for May and Peter hours ago. He knew it made him a coward. He knew it was a betrayal to Tony's trust. To Pepper's. But...

The smell had been strong immediately. Rotting and stomach-churning and burning the hairs of his nose. It was a smell he would come accustomed to in the coming weeks, but then it had been new and terrifying.

The sound had been low. A growl upon the still and charged air. A low hum that had taken him a moment to register past the smell.

And then he'd finally taken in the sight.

And it had been Tony.

But it hadn't been Tony either.

Tony had always had such a distinct posture that Happy could pick him out in the biggest of crowds. His skin was warm and his eyes a deep familiar brown. The suit had been an oxymoron for years. It had meant safety in a lot of ways. It had meant protection and the world and the knowledge that Tony would look out for them, and that he would avenge them if need be. But it had also meant that his friend was in danger. Every damn day. That he had left to go face danger, and that the danger had finally bested him.

Now the suit was the danger. Now it held a rotting corpse, with eyes white and red and veiny. With skin gray and blue and green and grafting off onto the expensive tile floor. Now the arc reactor shined on a collapsed body, twitching in tune with the ringing of the phone beside it.

Bulging eyes had turned to the opened elevator door. Pepper's red hair had begun to shift and turn until a matching pair was facing him.

Happy had pressed the close door button just as he had heard a shouted, "Oh, my God. Mr. Stark I saw you fly in through the window! What--"

The bounding figure of Peter Parker had leapt through the broken window, landing lightly on the shards of glass littered on the floor like sand. Fear had so tightly taken over the excitement held tightly in the kid's shoulders. The imposters had stared. Peter had taken a step back.

And then there'd been a fight.

That was where pieces of the day had gotten blurry. He remembered Peter yelling something at Happy, something about getting out of the building, but Happy didn't remember going down the elevator. He'd rushed out, knocking the couch into Pepper's way while Peter had grappled with Tony. In a flash of panic and skills that Happy hadn't known Peter had had, Tony and Pepper had been flung into the elevator. Peter had grabbed Happy. And they'd swung.

Of course, that elevator hadn't lasted for long. It was a pitiful prison for Tony. No, he'd escaped within minutes. Long enough for him and Peter to get away, but not long enough to warn the city. Not to save May.

Hope's voice snapped Happy back to the argument and out of his hellish memories.

"So Peter comes with us," she said, defeated. "But where are we even going? If he's coming, we're not leaving without a solid and airtight plan."

"There is no such thing," Okoye responded. "Not anymore. Not here."

"But--"

"She's right, Hope," Barnes said, his voice as steely and cold as usual. "The best we can do is not argue and keep moving. When we have T'challa, we'll call for backup and head to Wakanda."

"Sounds like the best plan we'll get," Happy said.

"Great. We'll leave in the morning," Sharon declared. There were nods all around, except for from Hope, who had turned from her arguing to fiddling with the high-tech gauntlet on her wrist, her brows furrowed. And, suddenly, Happy had a bad feeling.

"Or we'll leave right now," Hope said.

"What?" Kurt exclaimed. "Why would we--"

She raised her forearm, displaying the screen on her wrist. "Peter just left. And Karen just alerted me to breaches in the atmosphere."

Oh yeah. Super bad feeling.

"Of course it got worse. How could it not get worse?"

    Peter was only halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge when he saw it. The second thing to interrupt the russet sky of the day. A spaceship. Great. Let's just spread the alien virus to the rest of the universe, yeah?

Crouching on top of a bridge spire, he stopped for only a moment to observe the circular ship taller than a skyscraper. It was definitely different than the Chitauri, so he guessed that didn't mean they were going to attack. Of course, it didn't mean that they were going to not attack either. Part of Peter hoped that maybe some friendly visitors had heard of their troubles and were descending with a cure. A more realistic, and more bone-crushingly tired part of him knew that that was most definitely not the case.

With a rallying breath, the teenager kept going.

"Okay. Just gotta make peace with the new aliens and hope backup arrives. Oh, Karen. Send an ask for backup to Hope please? I've got a feeling Mr. Stark is gonna be here."

"Done, Peter."

"Great. Thank youuu," he sung, dipping low and skimming the water for a few seconds before swinging back up and finally making it into Manhattan.

The spaceship was stirring up dust and its gusts of winds were whipping around trash (a months-old Starbucks cup ended up hitting him right in the face, so nature wasn't quite healing like they'd thought). But, most dangerously, it was attracting a crowd. Hordes of zombies lining the streets were snapped out of their trance and were beginning to amble towards the disturbance. Some faster than others, but as long as Peter was quick they wouldn't be the main disturbance of the afternoon.

Karen kept up a map of Mr. Stark's rapidly approaching location.

    Peter arrived as the dust settled upon the street, revealing a strange mixture of figures, a low thunder of throaty growls, and the sound of at least one regular guy. The teenager recognized three of the figures, and had expected them too. Iron Man and the Wizards. If they ever lived through this, he needed to tell Mr. Stark they'd be a good band or something.

The other two infected figures were--you had to be kidding. The aliens were infected. Amazing. Thank you, Universe for being ever so helpful.

The man--not infected and hopefully human--let out a strangled exclamation of surprise as Mr. Stark raised his arm, once again on the attack. Peter pulled harder on his web, willing himself forward faster. He was so close and yet so far. Mr. Stark and the wizards were still approaching but he still wasn't even close enough to strike what was he going to do--

A flash of red. With a determined flourish, nothing but a floating piece of fabric declared itself in the street and dove. And then, quickly and efficiently, Mr. Stark was thrown. And now Peter was in range.

The young superhero landed just a little too harshly in front of the uninfected man, not even taking a moment to examine his face as he flicked out a hand at the nearest creature. The wizard's jaw was hanging loosely from his cheeks as he raised his hand, a dangerous path of orange following the trail of his fingers.

At the same moment Peter shot a web at his wrist the fabric wrapped around the zombie's head. Peter pulled and the cloth tugged. He stared at the thing, confused as to what it's plan was--could it have a plan? It was an inanimate object. A floating one, but still--before this time tugging with it. In a strong and swift motion, the wizard zombie was knocked into a car, making the vehicle dent in its doors and fall to the side.

"Nice!" Peter exclaimed as the fabric zipped off the guy's head before it was slammed into the car door, the thing was by his side in a flash, finally allowing him to see it was a cloak. "Woah. Wizard stuff is pretty cool."

"I'll tell you what's not cool," Peter turned towards the new voice, his jaw dropping as the man continued to speak, "sticking around here! C'mon, move it!!"

Bruce Banner--literally Bruce Banner oh, my God. Where had he been? Why was he here now? Wait, did he maybe have the cure? Was that where he'd been or something--grabbed his arm and began running. Confused and shocked as he was, Peter followed, allowing his legs to be pulled into motion.

A shock ran up his spine, but it wasn't fast or strong enough to completely warn Peter of the sparks that turned into a window twenty feet behind him before he could even blink.

Wizard whose face was still attached lunged. Bruce Banner jumped back with a fearful exclamation, backing the two into a nearby car. The zombie's teeth clicked and snarled, its rotten stench burning at his nose and making his eyes water. But the teeth never came, not close enough to bite. To infect.

"Don't eat me!" Dr. Banner yelled. And, surprisingly, it didn't.

It took Peter a moment to realize what was holding the incensed zombie back. Cloakie had grabbed onto its arms, tugging back harshly. The cloak tugged, the zombie chewed the air, the portal dimmed. And then the portal was gone, snuffed out as quickly as it came and leaving nothing but a lolling head on the ground beside Peter Parker and Bruce Banner.

Peter, so numb and so wired on adrenaline at the same time, had no reaction but a small flinch and a hitched breath. Dr. Banner fell, scrambling to get away from the head as he still backed himself into the car, strangled and horrified yells escaping his lips.

"Oh!! Ugh! Ah, ah, go away go away!!" the Avenger said, kicking the head away in his panic. Peter watched it go before turning back to the fight still continuing behind him.

Mr. Stark was blasting at Cloakie, who still held the zombie's headless body as it looped around in the air in a flurry of motion. Peter watched his mentor for a bit, debating on whether he needed to attack and trap him while the man was distracted, or grab Dr. Banner and run, when the decision was made for him.

"Agh!!--" he exclaimed as his legs were tugged and pulled into the air. A confused scream escaped past his lips at the lack of anything physical pulling him, but there was no time to ponder.

Instinctively, Peter stuck his hands to the pavement, grunting as his legs were still pulled straight up in the air. Now essentially in a magic headstand, the teenager could make out the approaching zombies. Mr. Stark, Goatee Wizard, Squidward, and Gray Hulk. Squidward seemed to be doing the magic in this scenario, its hand held out in a probably magic but threatening gesture.

"Hey! No, put me down! C'mon, I'm not good meat, guys. Really. You'd be better off finding some rats or--" There was a crack. Peter looked down at the pavement he was sticking to now crumbling around his hands. "That's not good."

And then Peter was fully in the air, the cement still attached to his stretched out hands and the zombies still approaching.

"Heyyy, guys," he said, trying hard not to look at Mr. Stark. "Y'know, I feel like you just had something to eat and I hate to spoil dinner so I'm just gonna--"

Buzzing filled the air, choking the rust sky in clouds of black. Peter closed his eyes even as the figures stopped only a foot from his face, unable to watch the spectacle and glad to fall to the ground. Wind gushed overhead, a hot air following the streaming wave of ants as they thundered forward.

Remembering that Mr. Stark was there, Peter forced his eyes open in time to see his mentor be completely surrounded and engulfed by a flurry of ants as thick as smoke. The husk of the hero growled and snarled, swinging and snapping at the pests now swarming around him.

The other three wasted away, their soft and rotting flesh eaten completely by Hope's army of thousands, but Mr. Stark still stood, dead yellow eyes staring straight into Peter's.

Mr. Stark didn't recognize Peter. Peter didn't recognize Mr. Stark.

Hope warped back to her normal size, mounting a defensive stance between him and Mr. Stark with her arm outstretched. Mr. Stark's repulsors whined and Hope's gauntlets charged. It took the teenager a split second to realize what she was about to do.

He made to his feet.

"NO!! HOPE DON'T--"

Mr. Stark's body careened. His head rolled, stopping just by Peter's foot.

He couldn't look away.

Mr. Stark had always been such an infinite figure in Peter's mind. Uncontrolled and ungoverned by terrors of death and incapable of causing grief. So the teenager hadn't let himself feel grief, because it was too unreal--too impossible--to feel grief for his mentor. To feel grief for the world, because the world couldn't end like this. He'd repeated that every day. Every morning. Every night. Every minute. Humanity couldn't end because of one decision. One mistake.

But Peter had made a mistake too. He had made the mistake of locking misery and his mourning away, of moving every thought towards something different. Something productive, something positive, something uplifting. He'd made it his role, and his role alone, to keep the group going, no matter how much denying he had to do to get there.

And that had been a mistake, because now there was nothing stopping two months of fear and regret and anguish as it piled and piled and piled. It flooded in like a torrent of mud, slimy and all consuming through his head and his stomach and even towards his limbs until everything was numb and he had only thought left.

Mr. Stark's gone. He's gone. He's gone.

An ant, as huge as he was, grabbed Mr. Stark's head and left.

Peter stared at the spot where it had been, unblinking, breath short, limbs taut. Hope kneeled beside him, her helmet retracting.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I know you two were close."

He ignored her apology. "There could have been a cure. There could've--and now--"

"I'm sorry," Hope said again. "But you have to let go, Peter. We can't save everybody."

Peter didn't hear her. A new thought replaced the old one.

But why couldn't we save him?

Someone cleared their throat. Peter and Hope turned to stare as Dr. Banner stepped over a now rotten skeleton.

"Would anyone care to explain, please?"

Hope sighed. "Where to start."

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#whumptober2021 #peter parker #hope van dyne #happy hogan #fanfiction #irondad fanfiction

[tmnt-brave-new-world]

Prologue

He was running faster than he had ever moved before, his breaths came out in heavy pants. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They had known going into this, there were damning consequences to failing. It simply wasn’t an option. Icy blue eyes gazed up at the sky as the pieces of Krang’s ship and dimensional gate loomed over the city of New York. It was forming a giant ring above them, and no one was willing to try and imagine what might come pouring forth once it did.

Humans couldn’t survive the atmospheric conditions from Donnie’s understanding, which meant it was up to them to stop this from happening. They were heading towards a building to try and determine the best way to stop the gate from fully forming, and additionally to use the high advantage point as a jumping off point to hopefully reach their intended target.

“Come on! We got this bros!” Mikey yelled excitedly before he took a running leap from the roof top, and landed on a piece of floating metal headed towards the giant conglomerate of moving parts, in the sky.

“Damn it Mikey! Don’t just rush in, you idiot!” Raph yelled after him, before following his lead and jumping on another piece of metal and machinery as it floated by. He would never admit how grateful he was for Mikey’s regular bouts of pure dumb luck.

It took longer than they had originally expected to reach the structure, and the fight with Krang himself was absolutely brutal. It didn’t help that they were down a man as Donnie attempted to override the protocols and force the override to disengage the pieces. They had thought that Shredder was a nightmare, but in retrospect he was nothing compared to this. They didn’t have the experience, or any given advantage in this fight. They were exhausted and had only recently began to repair their brotherly bond after the infighting from the past week. It was just too much at once.

“Leo! There’s something wrong, I’m out of time! I can’t stop this! Oh God, I’m so sorry; I tried. I gave it all I had!”

As the fight between Krang and his three brothers played out, Donnie poured everything he had into breaking the code, he was certain he had it and just needed to tease out the finer points before he could take total control. The others just needed to hang in there a little longer. His fingers flew over the keyboard until, with a sense of relief he managed to stop the impending doom that would follow the systems countdown. They had won, it was over, and with literal seconds to spare. He stood from where he had been seated at the controls prepared to tell his brothers the good news, however he paused. Nothing was changing; why hadn’t the ship stopped constructing the gate?

He looked back at the command system, attempting to determine what he had missed. As he scanned the system his stomach tightened itself into knots as the sudden spike of dread began to drive itself throughout his nervous system.

The system had shifted into a second control override system, and the clock continued its countdown to the end.

The had failed. They couldn’t stop what was to come next.

Leo swallowed hard against the sudden fear, and bile that tightened his throat. “We’re leaving now, we don’t have a choice, we need to retreat back, and try to formulate another plan!”

The brothers quickly regrouped and leapt off of the giant piece of alien tech, they managed to use one of Donnie’s last ditch tools, a grappling gun, to attach to a building and use the momentum to swing themselves away. The force flung them harshly towards the gravel laid roof top of another near by building. The landing was anything but gentle and resulted in several injuries that would take awhile to heal, even with their elevated healing abilities.

As they ran from the empowered machine, they couldn’t help but pause for a moment at the sudden blinding light that it admitted, beaming towards the sky. Unknown to them the beam of light was more than a terrifying display. It was alerting the rest of the galaxy to Earth’s presence and placing this relay of the Krang network online. There was no way they could hide now; The bell had been rung, and it had been heard by any all planets and peoples that had the appropriate technology to do so.

…….. 12 years later……….

 The Turtles listened intently to their communicators as each of the special handpicked teams, took their positions. It was so close, Leo had waited for over a decade for this opportunity; a chance to finally begin to atone for his failing that had allowed Krang to change the world, stripping resources, and taking people off world to be used for all sorts of terrifying reasons.

He glanced at several of the men and women that were apart of his assigned unit for this maneuver. Not all the change brought on by the gate had been for the worst. It had allowed the rest of the universe to find them, and allowed them to find new allies, technologies, and experiences they wouldn’t have otherwise encountered. A significant number of those present were not human, but from the other races across the stars, who had relocated to Earth, or had joined in the resistance against Krang and his tyrannical mechanisms.

There was one other factor that had given he, and his bothers something they had only dreamed of. With the wide variety of peoples and cultures that came from this new world, they were by no means the strangest creatures around; Mutants were no longer feared or threatened. They just simply were. Another group of other beings. The Humans in the first few years had been shocked and terrified of the new species that came to Earth, but had learned over time that shared cooperation, kept everyone alive, and their resources replenished. It was truly, the one good thing that had came from the past decade of hiding and scrapping to get by. Most people were too hungry or scared of Krang and his control of everything else to act like asses with the new neighbors who were moving in every new day.

Leo snapped back to the task at hand. It was crucial that they manage to take out Krang this time. If they failed the resistance would be exposed, and most likely traced back to their bases and obliterated, one by one. Today, was their first, and last chance to complete the assassination attempt. It had taken months and many lives to painstakingly determine Krang’s location and determine a strategy with a decent enough percentage of success to make it worth the attempt.

Leo took the opportunity to check with Raph, Mikey and Donnie to confirm they were in position and ready to act.

“Donnie, are you ready to do this?”

“I have counted the minutes to the time when I would have a chance to finish what I started so many years ago. I am more than ready Leo.”

His voice was cool and his tone seemed to lack emotion over the com link, but Leo knew Donnie was full of fire and wasn’t leaving until this day was done. Donnie had suffered from possibly the largest sense of guilt. He blamed himself for failing to crack the code to controlling Krang’s ship, and thus for the devastation that followed. He had spent almost all his waking moments applying his knowledge to any and every area that he could. In the short time since the Last day of earth, he had become a master chemist, surgeon, and triage doctor, architect, engineer, and mechanic, in addition to his previously developed skill set. His talents and abilities were endless and applied whenever needed.

“Mikey, you in position?”

“I’m watching our target and his guard as we speak. He isn’t getting away this time.”

Mikey had matured tremendously over the years. He still laughed and smiled, especially with the children of the resistance, but in the quiet moments when they were alone, his eyes showed the loss he felt at the countless lives snuff out prematurely, or taken against their wills to be enslaved among the stars. He spent his free time taking what was around him and creating things of beauty, or finding ways to make the bland camp rations into foods that even the smallest and pickiest of eaters craved. He felt a need to give those around him acts of inspiration. It was as much a balm for his soul as for those around him.

“Raph, Its you and me brother. Are you and your team prepared?”

“We’re ready on this side. We either succeed today or die trying. I’ve put everything I have into training these men and women. We will not fail today.”

When Krang had succeeded in setting up his relay that day, and Earth fell so easily in the days that followed, Raph raged, and lashed out at anything that moved, until he simply had nothing left to give. It was the loss of the world, and so many people above, that had made him feel that his rage meant nothing. He spent years taking his anger, and negative emotions and channeling them into trying to save the lives of those who called him a monster and a freak. Except, with everything else going on in the world, they no longer saw him that way. He became accepted and for once, finally accepted himself.

Taking his fathers teaching he began to show others how to defend themselves and to protect the weak, and those they cared for the most. He had become an incredible teacher over the past decade, and with his abilities, it had been noted by several commanding forces, from across the galaxy that the loss of life had diminished by notable percentages in hand to hand combat, whenever they clashed with Krang forces.

Leo after accepting the loss of the most important battle of his life, had spent his efforts coordinating mass evacuations of the people of New York, which had turned to organizing refugee camps. He fought to protect them, including the alien life forms that had come to Earth hoping to escape the devasted home worlds they fled from. As time and the need built, he soon found himself commanding a ragtag band of freedom fighters, taking back areas and stealing supplies whenever available. Under his leadership, life had been tolerable, and people had faired significantly better. The camps had swelled into the thousands over the years until he was effectively running a small, ironically, underground city.

Krang even with as many spies as he had working for him, had never been able to find the location of the city. It moved and changed its shape whenever needed, and those within it realizing how better off they were fought to keep its secrets, by whatever means necessary. His abilities to win people, and see several moves ahead, is why those who had opposed Krang on their own planets sought him out, and after a time, Leo decided it was time to try and take back what Krang had taken from them all. For the lives and peace of so many he was willing to attempt this suicide mission.

That is how they found themselves here today. There cause was noble, and their reach extended across the universe. They were here on behalf of the billions of lives that Krang had suppressed for an unknown fixture of time.

Today it would end. Today was a new day

“Everyone into position, we begin operation Star Waltz within the next 60 seconds. This is everything we have prepared and trained for. Don’t let me down my brothers and sisters.”

…… 20 years later………

 Leo finished his glass of smoky aged bourbon, with a small sigh. 32 years. That was how long ago it had been from the Fall of Earth, marked in the calendars as E.F. and the current year of 21 New Earth, or N.E. The world at the Death of Krang had been overjoyed, but soon after they found themselves in a new struggle. As with every change in power, a vacuum had formed and it had taken a significant amount of time and effort to help elect a governing body, for the planet, as well as root out those who had benefited the most from Krang’s control. Banning slavery and freeing those who had found themselves under its control had taken Leo to places around the world, and to other galaxies he never thought he would see. He had also gone to meet the elected official of each new territory, determine if this was by the will of the people or simply another power crazed asshole who needed to have an “unfortunate” accident. After the time he and his brothers had spent fighting Krang, they had all agreed, that no one would ever suffer a monster so long as they drew breath. Whom ever found themselves in charge, was well indoctrinated that they were a civil servant, and if at any point they became a tyrant, they would be dealt with, in one way or another.

Some fell in line without incident, having survived the new world, they understood the need for cooperation. Others depending upon their policies and whatever else the brothers managed to dig up, were given one of two sentences, they were either executed on the spot, and their cabinet might also suffer the same fate. Ff they were deemed to be just as corrupt, or on rare occasions when they weren’t truly bad, just bad enough, they awoke on Donnie’s exam table, with a bomb inserted into their necks, and a very strongly worded warning. The control to which was held by the world elected federation, who acted as a voice for Earth.

What they did was decidedly not ethical, however they had all survived hell for far to long and had to do too many terrible things, to dance around a megalomaniac. Those who were in charge, were there for the sake of the people, not to line their own pockets, or benefit from the suffering of others. That was the primary reason that Krang had a chance to come to Earth in the first place. They would do whatever it took to keep those same circumstances from ever happening again.

Which reminded Leo, as he stared out across the skyline of his high rise to the glow of the gateway. They hadn’t been able to remove the gate. There wasn’t a way to “turn it off” once it was activated. Destroying it also wasn’t an option, tampering with the gate would have released the equivalent of so many thousands of nuclear warheads directly upon New York and several other states in which the radiated particles would have been carried upon the winds to. Additionally, the Nanites which managed its upkeep would have been released in the trillions and would have cannibalized the planet and all its inhabitants along with it, to rebuild the infrastructure.

Definitely not an option to alter the Gateway, whatsoever. Not to mention, if something big and bad did ever arrive to the planet to try and conquer or destroy it, the Gateway was ultimately an escape route. Per Donnie’s calculations they could evacuate everyone on the planet in under a week, and for those that didn’t want to go, well good luck and best wishes.

The new residents, and all the worlds that until Krang, had been unknown, were now very much aware of Earth, and Earth was just as aware of them. They had simply decided it was a cultural trade, and good for commerce. Not to mention, the mutants got to stay above ground and live as federation recognized citizens.

Life was definitely good, and their new lives, were significantly improved. Each of the brothers had found a niche that worked exceptionally well for them, and from the new world, came many new opportunities. Which Lead to the creation of Tartaruga Bros incorporated. It was a stretch for a name, but they did need a last name, and O’Neil they all agreed, carried too much of a painful memory of happier times.

Somethings had definitely stayed the same. A small smile came to his lips, as he listened to Raph and Mikey argue over toppings to the artesian Pizza that they were creating for a late-night snack. The brothers had decided that they did better together, especially as they worked best as a team. They stood together as a united front as defenders of Earth and all of her peoples.

  They had upgraded though, from a lair in the sewer to a state-of-the-art penthouse in the sky. Life was better, but everyday held something new in this Brave new world.

#TMNT Brave World #TMNT AU #TMNT blog #TMNT Brave World Prologue #TMNT #ninja turtle

[hallowedmuses]

𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑡: 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟

SUMMARY: Our ragtag team of heroes including Natasha Romanoff, Daniel Sousa, Clint Barton, Loki Laufeyson, Veronica Stevens, and Deke come together to rescue Director Daisy Johnson from the clutches of Lucia von Bardas. TRIGGERS: Torture, Violence, PTSD, Trauma WRITTEN WITH: @ofbartons, @oflokismischief, @ofdcniels, @daisyljohnson, @ronniestvns, @oflemcns

CLINT: when loki woke him up for the rescue mission, clint wasted no time. he threw on the first shirt he could find, which luckily was clean, and his shoes before literally tumbling out the door with his bow in hand. his fuzzy pizza-sliced patterned pajama pants wasn't the most tactical choice, but then again neither was his bright purple t-shirt and converse. once they'd arrived at the hellicarrier, clint took out the guards on a section of the deck before firing a bomb arrow at the wall to create a point of entry for 'tasha and the dude in the blue shirt. "i will admit, being subtle might have been the smarter play here." he chuckled over the comms while firing a trio of arrows. the explosion had two purposes in his head- one, the point of entry, and two, draw attention away from daisy's rescue duo. the second purpose was just working a little better than he'd thought it would. he slid across the deck, firing off a couple more arrows before standing up and kicking one of the guards in the chest. using the controls on the handle of his bow, he switched to a smoke arrow before aiming at a group of the guards "hey lo, i'm really glad you have the cape still." keeping the arrow drawn back, clint turned his head to look at his boyfriend "otherwise i'd be too distracted by that ass of yours." he winked and let the arrow loose, still looking in loki's direction "not to mention all these schmucks would be staring at it." he switched back to regular arrows before firing into the smoke.

LOKI: Loki should've known Clint would be far from ready when it was time to lead the mission, it had been quite awhile since he'd gone into battle but then again he did quite love the hunt when it came down too it. His mission was simply and if anything he could easily take out anything humans could throw at him. "Possibly but then again we have quite the army of people who have been missing out dear Director and I'd burn the place down if she wasn't in there." He mused throwing iced daggers at all who dared come near. For those who got to close they were met with his quick stabs and his illusions. when he heard his boyfriend speak chuckling softly "Its all about fashion darling, Those little SHIELD outfits do nothing for my figure" He mused back looking at Clint he always found his Archery skills rather attractive before he rolled his eyes "as for my ass I'm sure I can other wise to distract you, maybe flirt with a villain or two and see how much of your spy skills come out to play, after all Green is quite your color my hawk"

NATASHA: "Subtilty was never your strong suit, but I do appreciate the flare. The pajamas make it easier to find you too," she laughed as Clint shot a few explosive arrows to give herself and Daniel an entry point into the helicarrier. As Clint, Loki, and Ronnie guided Lucia's guards away from the entry point, Natasha and Daniel made their way in. Natasha fired off a few taser disks, hitting the oncoming guards squarely in the chest. She watched them fall to the floor, convulsing as electric shocks ran through their body. As the guards fought to peel the taser disks off of themselves, Natasha made her way through the hallway. She ducked as a few rounds of bullets came flying at her and Daniel. She grabbed him and pulled him toward the wall for cover. Natasha used the wall to shield herself as she fired at the oncoming guards. "Ronnie, have you located the room where Daisy's being held captive?" They could aimlessly fire rounds all day, but they needed to know what direction to go. She made a face as she heard bits and pieces of Clint and Loki's conversation over coms. "Honestly," she frowned and looked over at Daniel. "I can't even be mad. I did this to myself inviting those two along."

RONNIE: “Yea... I’m working.. on it.” Veronica breathlessly remarked over the coms. A few grunts could be heard as she flipped the guard she’d been tangled up with and stabbed him with one of poison daggers.  “Now where were we.. a yess.. here we go.” Ronnie grabbed her data pad, ducking down behind a bolder as she took control of the building. “I’m in, I’ve got eyes on Daisy.. She’s alive..” Ronnie neglected to add how bad she looked from the live feed she was getting on their shitty surveillance system. “She’s on the fourth floor, third door to the right. Give me thirty seconds, I’m disabling the alarms and lock mechanisms now. I’m about to fry the fuck out of their systems and equipment. Can’t promise I won’t blow the lights.. hope you brought flares.” Ronnie playfully teased, falling forward as a couple of guards began to fire at her out of no where. “Hey lover boys! As uncute as it is listening to you flirt endlessly while taking out guards, I could use some help over here! Cover me while I shut down their main line.” She made a mental note to switch them over to their own channel when she was finished here.

DANIEL: while this wasn't the strangest mission he'd ever been on, that title probably had to go to the whitney frost case, this had to be the most chaotic and strange team daniel had been apart of. you had not one but two super spies (one of which was in pajamas and using a bow and arrow of all things), a tech genius, a god (or were they an alien? daniel was a little fuzzy on that particular detail), and deke... at least most of them seemed to know what they were doing. daniel ducked down when agent romanoff pulled him out of the line of fire "thanks." he waited for the shooting to stop, meaning the men were reloading, and once they did he leaned out at shot the men. keeping low he moved towards the door to the stairwell one he heard daisy's location. daniel couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him at the couple's banter "compared to the things i've heard howard utter, this is nothing."

DEKE: In the past, when Deke had thought about his 'next cool mission' this had hardly been the thing in his mind. Not Arrow-Guy in his pajamas, not working with someone who practically a God, Black Widow herself or well, any of them. Certainly not Daisy being in danger like this... But still, he was nothing if not adaptable. So adapt he did. Rescue Daisy now, rankle his mind about all these events later. There was something pretty calming about the group of them being so casual and prepared (though he still felt a spike of fear at every loud noise, the many of them). He was working with the best, Deke reminded himself. He'd gotten the Hyperbaric Chamber ready to go for Daisy upon their return, nervously awaiting. In one of his more anxious moments  he'd thought about preparing food for Daisy before remembering he wouldn't know how long she'd be in there for. So, with the chamber up and waiting, Deke listened on the comms and waited. "How's it looking? It sounds pretty crowded." Crowded, being the word for all the many enemies they seemed to be facing (and taking down). "You guys doing okay?" He was fairly sure they were but it didn't hurt to ask.

DAISY: Daisy had been living in a fantasy world, but it could only last so long before she eventually had to wake up. Wake up was a relative term. It didn't mean she was entirely awake and aware, more so that she had to wake to the reality of her situation, that there were no happy endings, that she couldn't get what she wanted, that actions had consequences, and even when you thought you won, it could come back to bite you in the ass. In the time that it had taken everyone to track down her kidnappers, Daisy had been put through several different forms of torture. Lucia had even been so kind as to grace her with her presence, reminding Daisy of what she'd done to the woman and how everything she was going through now was her own fault. Daisy could give her that much. Daisy had done her fair share of awful things, even if she hadn't been entirely in control of her own actions at the time. Nick Fury Sr. had made sure of that. It seemed that even after she'd taken things over from him, he still managed to screw up her life, but in the end she wasn't really surprised by any of this.

Currently, she didn't know where Lucia was, and she was just surrounded by guards who had all made sure not to listen to a word she said. Still, that didn't mean she wouldn't try. Her ears were ringing, but she could still feel some kind of activity on the ship. She spat out blood. "Sounds like . . . you've got company," she taunted, her voice raspy and barely carrying out to them. Her breathing was shaky and uneven. "You might . . . wanna go deal with that." They ignored her, saying nothing.

CLINT: clint had been in a lot of sticky situations before, but this wasn't one of them... if anything he was like a greased up hog running from the farmers trying to catch him, which might be a little dangerous for him. bad things tended to happen to him when he got too confident, but at least both loki and 'tasha were here to keep him from dying. he was about to fire off an arrow when a guard came up on his left, so he turned and stabbed the arrow into the guy's eye "oooh... i hope your insurance includes vision." clint quipped as he fired another set of arrows into the group. "aww, don't be like that lady. you know that my husband and i are cute as fuck." he winked at her as he ran by, headed towards loki... not because he needed the back up but purely because clint wanted to get another look at loki. his look was different from the last time clint had seen him in his battle gear and the blonde had to admit it was a damn fine look. "hey handsome! you come here often?"

LOKI: Loki had enjoyed the thrill of field work, it had been such a long time since he'd been able to use his daggers and magic against an actual threat. The best part was having Clint fight side by side him, before they'd been on opposite sides of a war, never sharing more the small glances. He fought with a passion ensuring they would clear a spot to bring Daisy home, there was no way he was leaving without her even if it cost every single on of these humans lives. "Did you really just say that Clint?" He questioned chuckling softy as he quickly disarmed three more guys pinning them down with a couple of his daggers. "We actually are, plus you are the driving force that brought us together in life and on this mission. The blame is fully on your shoulders Nat darling." He teased the other as he noticed his lover coming towards him. He could easily see that glint in his eye whenever Clint saw Loki in his more regal clothes, though now he'd donned on his Asgardian wear leaving that as his go too field work outfit. He turned to reply to Clint before throwing a dagger right into the bad guy who'd tried to take Clint by surprise. "Depends on who's asking, and if they are going to buy me dinner first," He mused winking at Clint.

NATASHA: Natasha had learned long ago to tune out the chatter of the coms. She kept her volume low so she could focus on their current situation. If shit hit the fan outside, she trusted her team to be able to handle it. "Ah, Howard Stark. If working with him is anything like working with his son, I'd pass on the opportunity," she joked. Tony wasn't so bad...in small dosages anyway. The lights on their side of the helicarrier flickered before going out completely. In the next moment, Natasha and Daniel were bathed in an eerie red light. Ronnie must've knocked out the security system. Only the emergency lights were operational now. "Fourth floor, third door," Natasha nodded as they slipped into the stairwell. She heard heavy boots above them. Reinforcements were coming through. "Five pairs of boots," she whispered to Daniel as she ducked behind one of the spirals. As the sound of boots came closer, Natasha shot a taser disk at the first guard. He convulsed and fell forward, tumbling down the stairs. He was wearing the same mask Natasha saw in her memories. The widow jumped out from behind one of the spirals and landed a kick square in the chest of one of the guards. He fell forward and took a third guard down with him. Three out of five. Not bad. She turned to take down the other two, but it appeared Blue Shirt was already disengaging them. She would have to share the body cam footage from her stealth suit with Daisy later. That was sure to lift her spirits.

RONNIE: “Nice one Nat.” Ronnie mused as she watched Nat take out three guards at once, followed by Daniel knocking out a couple more. “You kids make a good team. Daisy’s gonna be so proud.” She snickered into her earpiece. She’d muted Loki and Clint’s come but kept an eyes on everyone’s body cams in case the lover boys got into trouble. She loved them dearly, but their banter was brining her lunch back up.  “They’ve got her surrounded.. ten.. maybe fifteen guys.. the footage is shit.. but I’m trying.. ” Ronnie relayed, watching the room she was being held in like a hawk. “She’s saying something to them but no ones budging... hold on..” a few clips to enhance the audio and suddenly Ronnie was sporting a shit eating grin. “I knows we’re here. Hang on, Director.. we’re coming for you.”  

DANIEL: hearing that they had eyes on daisy made him feel a little better but he wouldn't feel settled until she was out of here completely. after kicking the fifth guard in the chest, with his bionic leg for good measure, he turned towards natasha to see if she needed help "ten to fifteen? i think we can handle that." daniel smirked before reloading his guns "so how do you want to do this?" he peeked around the corner seeing that there were no guards outside the room but daniel knew all hell would break loose once they went in.

DEKE: He listened intently to the communications, hoping to hear word of Daisy's safety and prepare the Hyperbaric Chamber for her. Well, it was mostly prepared. It'd really be him opening the thing, then everything was smooth sailing. That is, if her injuries could be healed by it... Which they should. Unless she literally lost a limb or died she should be fine. She would be fine. He heard the ruckus over the comms and felt his heart swell with fear. "Any eyes on Daisy yet?" He asked desperately. Then he heard it. They found Daisy. "Is she okay?!" He asked over the coms, without much hope of getting an answer. They had other things keeping them busy, after all. So he continued waiting anxiously.

DAISY: As the fighting outside continued, the guards around Daisy got more anxious. They could hear on their comms that they weren't exactly winning this fight. "Let's just get rid of the dead weight," said one of the guards. "I doubt Lucia wants this one alive anyways."

"Did you hear her say that or are you just assuming shit again?" asked the other guard. "You know what she'll do if we go against her orders."

"Screw her orders. That's the fucking Avengers out there. If Lucia wants her alive, we can just blame her death on the Avengers, say they didn't give us any choice. Hell, we can say she attacked us." He pulled the tubes that had been connected to Daisy out, but there were still drugs in her system. She couldn't do much. She could barely move. He pulled her up by her hair, shoving a gun against her skull. "You're going to get them to stand down, or you're going to die.

"Guess. . ." Daisy choked on her words. It was hard to focus on her words, when she was focused on something else. "Guess I'll die then." Her shoulders moved up slightly in a shrug. She wasn't actually expecting to die now. She imagined Natasha was probably leading this charge, and these guards didn't stand a chance against her. If Daisy could just move her fingers a little more, she could help Natasha too. There. A small tremor shot out from her fingertips, and the door to the room slammed open. The guard still had a gun to Daisy's head, but Natasha would be here in 5...4...3...2...1... //

NATASHA: "Thanks, Ronnie," she replied when Ronnie relayed the message about what was waiting for them up ahead. "I dunno, Danny Boy," she smirked up at him. "I seem to be carrying all the weight here," she elbowed him gently. "Pick up the slack or I'm gonna leave you behind and save your girl myself. Maybe I'll steal the kiss right from under you too." Natasha glanced down at her utility belt to see what supplies she still had left. "I still have a few taser disks left. That should be enough to shock the oncoming guards. The rest we can take down the good old fashion way." And with that she heard the door to the room where Daisy was being held slam open. "Good girl," Nat grinned. Daisy was a fighter till the end. "Come on, Daniel. Let's work for a living." Natasha sprinted into the room full force. It didn't take long to make an assessment of the danger. She threw the first taser disk at the man who'd had a gun to Daisy's head. He dropped the weapon and began to convulse on the floor. Natasha threw the remaining disks that she had at the next few guards that tried to come at her. She used the momentum of their falling bodies to take down a couple more men. She was really hoping this would be the last of them.

DANIEL: the male let out a quiet huff at the update from ronnie "quack right?" he raised a brow before rolling his shoulders "to be fair, you are enhanced." daniel joked. he looked calm on the outside but internally he was worried about his girl... if that's still what she was. plenty of time had passed for her and daisy was probably given many opportunities to move on from some square she only knew for a short time... he wouldn't blame her in the slightest. nodding he followed after natasha, downing guards with his guns before exchanging blows with a couple. he dropped to the ground and knocked the legs out from under one before moving towards daisy his heart nearly breaking at the state she was in.

his hands were shaking slightly as he knelt down by her “hey... what did i tell you huh? i thought you were supposed to take care of yourself.” he was so relieved to see her again, although this wasn’t the reunion he had been hoping for after he had to stay behind to make sure that the team was able to escape back to their timeline with the chronicoms in tow. he worked as quickly as he could, removing any leftover wires and nodes from her body, while talking to her about... well, anything really. if anyone asked him later what he’d said, danny boy wouldn’t be able to tell you. his focus was getting daisy out of there and making sure she was safe. after he pulled the helmet off her head, he started brushing the hair out of her face “keep fighting okay? you stay awake for me daisy and i’m gonna get you home.” memories flashed in his mind of their time in the barn with malick, his heart breaking at the fact people kept hurting the amazing woman in front of him. he’d kick himself later for not trying to find a way back to her sooner, could he have prevented this from happening if he had? or perhaps he’d have been taken too, used against her in some way... he’d never really know, but daniel had to focus now. get her home, get her safe, make sure she’s okay three easy goals he could focus on. as gently as he could, daniel gathered daisy up in his arms and lifted her from the ground. “i got you sweetheart, it’s okay.”

DAISY: As the man who had been holding Daisy fell after being tased by Natasha, Daisy crumpled too, her body unable to hold herself up after constant torture. She was glad to have been right about Natasha coming in, but after her head hit the floor, her awareness of what was around her was fading again. She vaguely heard the sound of fighting, and then there was a familiar voice that she hadn't heard in a long time. Her eyes, covered in her own blood, wouldn't open anymore, but she recognized Daniel. She must've been slipping. It was a result of being so close to death. An auditory hallucination. It wasn't real. "Daniel?" she whispered, allowing herself to ask even when she knew this wasn't real.  

NATASHA: Natasha was tired as she took out the last of the guards. Parts of her tactical suit were torn and her lip was bloody from where one of them managed to hit her, but she was thankfully in one piece. She pushed her coms button to give the team a status update. "We have Daisy," she informed them. "We're en route out through the north bay entrance. Take the carrier, find Lucia," her voice took on a darker tone. "I have some questions for her myself." Lucia von Bardas was the one that ordered this torture. Natasha was about to return the favor. She turned to see Daniel pick up Daisy. The woman was barely conscious at this point. Natasha approached them and gave Daisy a reckless smile before quacking obnoxiously. "I didn't give you permission to die. This is so unprofessional. I'm sure you'll make it up to me though."

Her coms buzzed. "Romanoff, we're in."

"Welcome to the party, boys," she grinned. Moments later she heard boots on the ground and the sound of rooms being checked and cleared. It was the back up unit that she'd called. "Come on, let's get her to the Hyperbaric Chamber."

DANIEL: "yeah sweetheart, it's me." he spoke softly as he adjusted his hold to keep a feel of her pulse like he had when he pulled her out of that barn all those years ago. watching the small interaction between natasha and daisy made him smile, seeing her have family like this made him so happy... it was everything she deserved. seeing the agents filing in daniel started moving out of the room, daisy didn't look too good and she needed to get back to hq to start recovering. he turned and looked over his shoulder, smirking slightly "you coming romanoff? thought you said you were gonna steal the kiss from me?"

DAISY: She still heard his voice speaking to her, and she felt like it was just a sign that she was going to slip away again soon. The sound of Natasha's voice was something she knew to be real. She could focus on it, though that was getting harder to do. She heard Lucia's name, and the hellicarrier started shaking violently. It wasn't intentional on Daisy's part. She was hardly in control of her body right now, but as Natasha came over to her and started quacking at her, Daisy calmed enough for the shaking to stop. She tried to return the greeting, but it only came out as choked gurgling. Apparently, blood in your throat didn't allow for very articulated speech, even in the instance of duck calls. She managed at least a small smile as Natasha criticized her for not getting permission to die. "n't dead yet," she wheezed out.

She felt herself being lifted up and moved through the halls. Her eyes weren't open, but she could hear and feel just well enough to know she was being moved quickly. Daniel's voice spoke again, and she had to remind herself again that this wasn't real. It was easier to believe that it was a hallucination from what he said. Even if it was her Daniel, she was sure Natasha would kick his ass for implying she was falling behind. Daisy hadn't been able to see much before, but she'd heard the fighting. Plus, she knew Natasha well enough too to know that she must've done almost all of the fighting here. From the sound of Natasha's orders, she was leading this thing. Whoever suggested she of all people was falling behind was going to regret the words coming out of their mouth. Daisy almost felt sorry for whoever it was, but at least it wasn't actually Daniel.

Whoever was carrying her, certainly not Daniel, got her off of the hellicarrier fairly quickly, or maybe Daisy was just losing her concept of time passing. She heard S.H.I.E.L.D. agents directing the person carrying her back to the zephyr, telling them to get her to the hyperbaric chamber as quickly as possible because she didn't look good. She fell back into unconsciousness before she found out if she made it into that chamber or not. Maybe she was dead. She hoped not. Natasha hadn't given her permission to die yet. How would she make it up to her?

DEKE: Deke was nervous. Not his usual 'state of being' kind of nervous but the more dastardly 'holy shit is my friend alive' kind of nervous. Also the 'she got tortured and it's my fault' kind of guilt laid in pretty thick too. But... he couldn't let that take away his focus right now. He needed to be an agent. Turn off the nerves and the guilt, he was a pro at it in the past he could for sure do it now. He would, if nothing else than for Daisy's sake. The moment Daisy was in, all hurt and bruised and broken but still Daisy, still strong. Well, Deke did what he did best. Move. As soon as it was possible with Daisy situated and safety in there the machination turned on and began it's process.

That was his part. Small. In the end, it was Daisy who would have the toughest job. And that was surviving. Deke inhaled deeply, wishing he could do more and knowing he could not. He ran a hand through his hair. "She'll be okay." He spoke, not even knowing if the words were for himself or the others. "She will..."

NATASHA: She rolled her eyes at Sousa's joke. "My pacing's fine. Yours though..." she frowned. She'd carried most of the operation from the investigation to the rescue mission itself so she wasn't even mildly amused. "We'll have to work on that if you wanna keep up with me and Daisy," she winked. She'd already stolen a kiss from Daisy...more than that actually. But she wasn't gonna tell the old man that. Bless his heart. Now that her team had moved in on the helicarrier, getting to the zephyr wasn't all to hard. Natasha's shoulders eased once Daisy was in the chamber. She would be okay.

"Romanoff, we have Lucia," one of her agents reported through the coms.

"I'm on my way." Natasha looked up at Deke, Daniel, and the others. "They have Lucia and I have questions." She also had a penchant for violence. And based on the way Daisy looked right now, Natasha had no plans to go easy on Lucia. "I think you guys can manage from here. Get Daisy home safe or the next body I bury will be yours," she informed the team. It was very clear she had the means to carry out on that threat. With that, Natasha left Daisy's side and made her way back to the helicarrier to interrogate Lucia. / END

#discord chat

[fifteenleads]

Fushigi Yuugi. Set in a city in Hokkan, before Episode 33. Canon-divergent.

.

.

There must be some truth to this so-called "retail therapy" of Miaka’s, Nuriko decides as he feels himself calm down walking through the line of stalls in the night market.

The very idea of spending is definitely the furthest from his mind, of course, as the one responsible for keeping seven people and two horses alive on a relatively-shoestring budget. That said, though, he still has to stop himself from approaching a stall selling ornate hairpins like it’s second nature to him.

Beside him, Tasuki doesn't even try to stifle a laugh. This goes largely unnoticed by the crowd of buyers, of course, but Nuriko whirls around with a frown anyway.

"Will you stop it? I am trying to think here, you know."

"No, you weren't," Tasuki says matter-of-factly, an eyebrow raised.

"Exactly my point."

Ironically, it proves Tasuki's point too, so Nuriko moves on instead, gloved hands fiddling with the scarf around his neck. He misses the familiar warmth from his long braid, which he had thrown out before the group split up.

Would Kourin have been happy? Disappointed? Maybe both?

Funnily, it's been a while since he last thought about Kourin at all.

Every day with this ragtag bunch of misfits certainly changed things. There were more people to take care of— to "mother," as Tasuki had derisively called it, which he promptly received a smack to his head for.

Kourin would have loved the hairpin, that's for sure. A shame she wouldn't even get to see it. Houki would, too. They don't really have these types of jade stones back in Konan, after all. He'd include it in a package, along with his next letter, Nuriko decides. That's better.

Beside him, Tasuki's steps slow down to a hesitant shuffle, the soles of his snowboots creating a muffled friction as they are dragged across the ground. It's probably the closest thing to shyness the redhead will ever show, but he's always been loud like that. Brash. Straightforward. Honest.

Too much for his own good, sometimes.

And Nuriko is proven right when a trick of the light catches his attention, and the same hairpin he had his eye on is thrust into his hands. "Wha—"

"You're way too obvious," Tasuki says, "and were taking too long."

(Has he been thinking for too long?)

Nuriko purses his lips petulantly. "No, I wasn't." He is still twirling the hairpin with his fingers, though, admiring the jade flowers and gold-plated leaves. When he catches himself, Tasuki is already ahead of him, an amused smirk on his face. "Exactly my point."

Fair enough.

So he takes a couple of large strides to catch up and delivers a well-timed slap to Tasuki's shoulder— forutnately managing to not send him flying this time. "Ow! Why do you hafta do that every single—"

"Thanks." Nuriko grins, slinging a hand over the injured limb and bringing him closer for warmth. "I'll pay you back when we go home, okay?"

Tasuki cranes his neck as far away as their difference in height would allow, but lets himself be dragged along anyway. "Yeah, yeah. Anytime."

Despite the gruff tone, he's not hiding that sheepish smile well, but Nuriko keeps quiet about it for now. At least he'll have another funny story to tell Miaka when they get back.

For now, he keeps this nighttime memory to himself, savoring it for as long as time (and himself) allows. Good times like these don't happen often, after all.

.

.

.

For Alexis.

#fushigi yuugi #nuriko #tasuki

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 132 Thoughts

This month, more people scream and die.

Exactly as keikaku.

Unlike certain keikakus, however, this keikaku is still missing the essential element of a keikaku in that there is no actual keikaku there’s just a lot of people running around screaming while they try not to die and then the screaming only stops when they die.

People also die when they are killed.

...Maybe.

Before we approach the obvious, the most interesting part of this chapter to me is that once again, Eren is presented with the option of stopping. While he’s in the planning stages of his assault, it is explained quite plainly that strategic strikes will completely undo any country’s attack on Paradis.

Hizuru favors a limited test run of the rumbling. Yelena provides a tactic that uses only a bit of the outer wall. She explains the reasoning. She isn’t wrong.

We’ve already had plentiful examples of what the Wall Titans can do. They can swim. They’re easy to spot from the distance, but there is no ammunition or strategy that can deal with them. Running is the best option, and even that is a risk.

Systematically destroying every single port would have bought Paradis all the time in the world. Yelena has this discussion with Eren back when she is wanting Eldians to die out, so they have different view of what counts as a win, but if Eren had wanted to, he could have easily wielded his massive power to keep every nation’s military from fucking with them.

He doesn’t do that. Instead of a small portion of the walls, he wakes up the entire part. Instead of targeted strikes, he goes for armageddon.

Eren has options. Hange can say that Eren has no solutions, hope, or future, but the lack of hope is all that comes close to the truth. There is a solution right here. Fight anyone who would oppose you, and win. Make it clear that the assaults only happen because they made the mistake of declaring war on Paradis.

Eldians might be treated like crap everywhere, but Eren’s murdered plenty of Eldians with this plan. If his only care is the island, he could have worked to protect it.

Instead, even in the most generous of reads, he's deconstructed Paradis’ government in a time of incredible strife, sowing the seeds for an ugly civil war that has already had its beginning skirmishes.

Eren’s actions are destructive in every single category. When he first activates the walls, Armin still has that flash of hope that Eren is only using the amount of force he needs to put an end to this assault.

He doesn’t. He wakes up every single titan, sends them marching, killing people on this island he’s supposed to care for so much, and now his closest friends are stuck in a world where to prevent genocide, they are probably condemning their own people to an even worse future than they already had.

The thing about this level of power is that you can do what you want. No one can stop you. If this starts with people forcing Historia into a breeding farm, Eren can just murder anyone who’s in favor of that.

(Sidebar: I still am annoyed that no one came up with the obvious solution for that problem. If they need someone with royal blood to still be around in fifty years, just turn Historia into a mindless titan and ditch her underground with specific instructions each new Founder can follow. Titans are functionally immortal when left alone. They’re much less fragile than humans. Any dedicated person could easily kill off all the royal heirs, so might as well simplify the process, keep one royal heir around and relatively invulnerable. Then each Founder has easy access to their power if they just go to the right place. Obviously there are risks, but honestly it’s more straightforward than having a bunch of free-minded little kids be your backup plan.)

Eren can destroy an entire country before even the most knowledgeable titan experts can work out a reliable plan.

Paradis was never in danger. They had this. The rest of the world had a hundred years to forget, but a handful of public demonstrations illustrates the point very, very clearly. Yelena’s strategy was meant to serve Zeke’s plan, but if what Eren wants is Paradis to thrive, it works. He doesn’t have much time left, but he doesn’t need it to destroy other countries’ options of attacking Paradis.

Hizuru is interested in allying with Paradis because of this power. They’re the first. They would not be the last.

At the very least, this would give Paradis more time, which they’ve all seen the need for.

Instead, Eren chooses to destroy everything that might even consider being a threat to Paradis. There is no diplomacy. There is no measured use of force. There is no plan. There is the monsters he’s always hated, and falling so far into the darkness that the freedom he claims to want is destroyed by his own hands.

There were countless threads Eren could have followed, being a demigod. He very honestly could have done whatever he wanted.

So he did.

I feel like we’re still missing why. By the time his head has gotten blasted off, he’s encouraging his dad to murder the Reiss family, and he’s hallucinating himself as a child, I think it’s more than fair to say this war has won against Eren. He’s broken, and this is the path he’s on.

Maybe it’s as simple as thinking in such stark black and white terms that he needs a future with a guarantee, and death is the strongest guarantee he can come up with.

Except going back to just last chapter, this is not what Eren wants. It is not something he is approaching with the passionate conviction of being in the right. He’s in tears over it. He’s horrified by the future he causes, but chained to it because he knows he causes it.

It’s a difficult problem to explain. From a plot perspective, I’m frustrated because there are so many ways this didn’t have to happen. I’ve said before that tragedy should feel inevitable, and with each reveal of what Eren got up to in the shadows, this tragedy feels entirely avoidable.

However, from a character perspective, it does make sense that once Eren’s course of action has been decided, he doesn’t see the other options. The inevitability is a trick of his mind, but it’s a trick that he’s bought into completely, so the tragedy is found in how truly unnecessary this all is. The tragedy is that the most powerful person on the planet is a slave to his own mind.

Here’s where that stops working for me:

We see that character arc play out better elsewhere.

That’s Floch’s role.

Floch is an unlikable, divisive zealot who will happily kill civilians and throw children out of airships. He joins the Survey Corps when it’s the hip and happening thing to do, and has none of the conviction to back up their ideals.

He is the sole survivor of a suicide charge. Everyone around him dies in the space of a few minutes, and he’s left alone to make sense of it.

The only sense he finds is that this has to be necessary.

This is how they win.

The world is chaotic and vicious, and the only way to answer that evil is with evil. This world that hates them is not allowed to wipe them out, and anyone who tries will feel their wrath.

Floch doesn’t bother with mercy or kindness. He doesn’t mind that the rest of the world has to die for them to live.

This is how his world operates. Kill or be killed. Those are clearly the rules. Those have been the rules for a hundred years, more clear than ever when they step outside and are eaten on contact.

If the rest of the world lives, Paradis dies.

Paradis is home.

For as long as it’s existed, it’s been hated. Never mind that the current people living there are also victims of the Eldian Empire. They’ve lived in a bubble, and forces keep showing up to pop that bubble, leaving nothing but bodies in their wake.

It is cruel and appalling.

But Paradis is still alive.

Because Erwin murders all these new recruits, Paradis lives.

Floch is the only one left alive to know that so intimately.

It is not a kind assessment.

It is one he redefines his life by.

Answer devils with devils. Their enemy is the entire world. There can be no rest. There can be no sympathy. As long as the outside world exists, Paradis will be a target for its hatred, and that hatred will eventually succeed in killing them.

Floch believes this. Genocide is not something he has a problem with. He’s been living in a world where it’s Us or Them, and has repeatedly made it clear that he will choose Us.

Floch is a teenage boy who survives brutality he’s not prepared for, and reconstructs his entire worldview around the tactic that tries to kill him. He’s a dick, and he does terrible things.

He believes in what he is doing.

He believes that if he doesn’t stop the plane, Paradis will die. He believes that our little ragtag group of heroes are the final, greatest threat to his home. He believes that Eren’s evil is the only thing that will keep them all safe.

At the end of the day, his only hope is that the Devil is on their side.

Floch dies believing in that hope, and he dies to the people hellbent on destroying it.

It’s tragic and sad, because he could never see anything better.

Our first real introduction to him is him on a rooftop, arguing that a boy whose eyes sparkle at thoughts of the ocean is not a good contribution to the war effort.

On that same rooftop, his devil argues that that is exactly why that boy needs to stay alive.

I understand that Eren’s somewhere that we can’t really reach right now, but I don’t feel like the story has shared the thread of how things got this bad. I can point to a dozen different factors that finally broke the camel’s back, but I wouldn’t say any of those are the reasons canon is operating under. We know that Eren came completely undone when the memories of the future were unlocked, but as late in the game as Marley, he’s still devastated by what he’s about to do.

So why does he do it? Why this choice? Why this way?

I think I spent most of last month’s post arguing that, so I won’t belabor it much more, but... I really feel like something’s being overlooked, and I don’t understand it. It’s hard to say if the story simply has a much different vibe than I expected, so my mind is rejecting all this, or if it’s intentionally weird. I’d like to think it’s intentionally weird, because in my opinion that’s a much better story, but either way, right now everything Eren’s doing feels like an incredibly pointless detour.

...Sure, that will end the world, but who cares about that, give me my character work.

How did hope become an impossibility for Eren?

To less painful things, I suppose.

No one suffers like Mikasa suffers.

I like Annie. She has always, very emphatically, wanted nothing to do with this. She has pride in her skills, but she spends years of her life undercover for a government that hates her, planning the deaths of people she respects. I like her opting out. This has never been her war, really, and she’s finally among people who will respect that she’s done with it.

It adds to the sweetness that Reiner is one of those people, now. As her self-appointed leader, he drives Annie into things she can’t stand, clearly favors Bertolt, and is generally just a pain who’s trying too hard in all the wrong areas.

Reiner gets that, and instead of bullying her into participating when she doesn’t want to, he lets her go.

Annie finally gets to pick her battles without anyone negging her.

It’s not a resolution I expected, but it’s one I’m glad for. It follows the trend of our leftover cast being completely past done with violence.

Who knows if that will turn out well for them, but I like the story taking the gentler approach. The world’s ending, so they might as well take the time to be kind to each other. It’s the opposite path of what ultimately destroys Floch, and I love to see it.

The Survey Corps is represented by their yearning for knowledge. Understanding. For a hundred years, that yearning has been paired with war, and the dead bodies have piled up.

Now, the remaining bodies left who call themselves Scouts are kind of. done with that. They’ve seen too many friends die. They’ve built trains. They’ve seen the ocean. They’ve tried foods from other countries they didn’t even know existed.

Surveying the outside world required weapons because otherwise you’d die, but there’s a reason why Levi keeps on missing the promotion to Commander. Levi is a defender of humanity. When he dedicates his heart, he does it to protect people. Learning more about the world is a side effect.

To match the Survey Corps’ ideals, violence is the side effect. It’s not what they’re meant to be about. Yet somehow they’re all soldiers with huge body counts, guilty even of killing their countrymen.

Levi lets Erwin go on that roof because he rejects Floch’s desire to condemn one of them to being a devil for the rest.

That results in letting a boy who dreams of the ocean live.

Hange becomes the Commander and gets to see their world expand. New friends are made, new technologies discovered. New civilization. New, new, new.

Aaaaaaand it’s still all trying to kill them.

Hange begins as a recruit who hates titans. What saves Hange from that hate is curiosity. At the end, that curiosity and awe is still alive. Even heading into death, we return to that beginning spark of salvation.

“Titans really are... incredible.”

No one else in the world looks at these monsters and sees something amazing. Hange is enamored with them. The world is burning, these things are responsible, yet still. There is wonder to be had in looking at them. They are an incredible, impossible creation, and Hange gets to see them up close.

A world like that has to be called incredible.

That’s why Armin gets to be Commander. Jean’s there to help. Mikasa’s there to help. Connie’s there to help.

But the Survey Corps exists to go out into the world and understand it. If something is hidden under a rock, you lift the rock. If you don’t know why someone’s doing something, you talk to them.

The world is fucking beautiful.

If the person in charge doesn’t remember that, they’re all doomed.

(This is why Levi is not allowed to be in charge.)

It’s a good sendoff for Hange. Time spent with Levi, getting to be a chaotically cool genius who saves everyone... yeah. It’s a good finish.

But this better not be fucking going where I think it’s going.

Let me politely frame my issues with dream sequences and time travel in fiction. I feel that I have done it before, but let us revisit, briefly.

There’s this show called Supernatural.

A thing that happens enough time to warrant its use as an example is that characters see or go into the future, and find that everything is fucked beyond belief. It is all bad, everything is wrong, see how you must avoid this so it never gets this bad.

The frustrating part is that hey, these characters in the future should have the same degree of agency as this guest from the past. Except they don’t. Because the past character is the main character. Future crew is just an extended what-if, and soon the entire plot will be devoted to making sure this what-if never happens. They are not real main characters, so they don’t get to do cool stuff. They’re forever doomed to failure.

The ghosts of the Survey Corps watching the progress of their living comrades isn’t a new concept. Every veteran has been haunted by them. Seeing them at the end of the story, doing exactly what we’ve been told they’re doing... fine, okay.

I just am starting to feel like the story’s quaking for a reset button.

Everything is bad. The world is fucked up beyond repair. There is no plan to deal with it, except to try to keep the global genocide from living its dream. In a world where they succeed in that, Eldians will be more hated and feared than ever before, Paradis being wiped off the map will probably be an international priority, there will be no Founding Titan to protect them, and there’s no path to recovery.

Then we’ve got a shot of ghosts all looking over the current happenings.

We know from Paths magic that all of Ymir’s people are connected. This doesn’t use that imagery; it’s based much more simply in the oath all these soldiers swore. But the point is, we see dead people. At a point in the story where many, many dead people are being produced.

I don’t mind a character being welcomed to an afterlife. A lot of stories go there.

But I am a suspicious, terrible person, and getting a glimpse at sentient dead people at this time makes me wonder if we’re allowed the privilege because they’re going to be newly present in the story.

And I am fine if we go the way of a Madoka ending. It’s better than a Lelouch option, and I like Madoka.

The only thing is, if we are going to hit a reset button, I become very, very cross at some of the choices made. Because sure, the characters might have still made those decisions, but the author knows that things are free to go as badly as whimsy will take them, because it won’t last. And with how my primary objection to the current plot is that it feels unnecessary, and like the choice to go here was made without enough reason to back it up...

It hasn’t happened yet, there’s nothing more than a suspicion that it might happen, but there are some specific kernels of “this needs more canon explanation” that I think the story should have, and if we’re stepping into the afterlife, magic solutions don’t seem far off, and if we get a magical solution without first establishing the non-magical ways we first ended up here, I will have a problem.

But hopefully none of that will even be an issue, and I’ll look back and feel silly for bringing it up.

...It’s just that our main character is not only threatening, but committing global genocide, and as of right now, the win condition is a moral win where everyone lives to oppress Eldians another day.

-tosses charred confetti-

And I feel like that is an incredibly pointless and boring story, so maybe it is not the story we’re being told, so.

So.

To next month.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 132 #tl;dr #chapter post

[ben-lyintous]

so... i've been working on my M9 playlist for over a year now and it's nowhere near done, but i wanna share yasha's part of it with you guys because i'm pretty proud of it

I Was Married by Ruth B.

Zuala. Though they both knew their love was forbidden, they couldn't control against the pull of one magnet to another. But their clan wouldn't have that.

Graceless by The National

She doesn't know what happened after she had ran... But whatever she did, she knows she has fallen from grace - she woke up different, her wings gone... And the pain is numbing, she hates it, but it's what she deserves, isn't it?

Misguided Ghosts by Paramore

I'm going away for a while, but I'll be back, don't try and follow me…

Sure, there's a group of people around her now. Friends? Maybe. But the Stormlord needs shit done. And so she leaves. Often. She's better off on her own anyway.

Not Like The Other Girls by The Rasmus

(unlike the other girls, she's Goth)

Anyone Else by PVRIS

Yeah I know I went and left you all alone

Please don't think that I let you go

I'll never let go

Bonded for life…

Say Goodnight by Bullet For My Valentine

Flowers laid out for you, so many colors leave me blind / Farewell, my friend

With one loss still fresh, it happens again. She still misses Zuala more than anything when she loses Molly too. And so she hurts, and she RAGES.

(also there's thunder at the beginning, I mean, come on)

Maybe Sprout Wings by The Mountain Goats

Ghosts and clouds

And nameless things

Squint your eyes and hope real hard

Maybe sprout wings

Bad dreams happen. Especially when you're haunted by both your own past actions and the memories of those who were taken from you…

Sleeping With Ghosts by Placebo

Soulmate, dry your eyes, 'cause soulmates never die

I'd like to think this is Molly talking to Yasha.. somehow.

Suffer Well by Depeche Mode

Where were you when I fell from grace / I found treasure not where I thought

She found that treasure in a ragtag group of assholes, the one and only Mighty Nein. And it's still hard, but she hangs on.

Sleep by Poets of the Fall

Messing with your head, fickle visions, fickle visions…

The Stormlord has an unconventional way of keeping in touch.

My Heart Is A Fist by Papa Roach

Somebody stop me before I do any harm.

So... Obann. Yasha's mind is not her own, she's forced to do terrible things… again. Like drive a sword through the chest of someone she cares about deeply.

(also, where is the Stormlord in all of this?

I see you on your cloud looking down, I am on my knees today, but you don't notice me, I'm screaming while I pray…)

Here Comes The Sun by Imaginary Future

She comes back from the Obann ordeal bruised and battered, mentally rather than physically, but also... softer. And finally ready to start healing.

Neptune by Sleeping at Last

Caught feelings. Feels guilty about it.

Break the Cycle by You+Me

Let me heal the wounds you've held on to for all these years, break the cycle, break the chains, love is louder than all your pain

This is a love song, but I'd like to think of it as Yasha's love letter to the Nein...

Breathe by Angels and Airwaves

...this one, however, is for one person in particular. wink wink nudge nudge

A blue, black shade of love sent from above

My hands are tied, two worlds alone, and this I know

Your breath's like wine, and just like clouds, my skin crawls

It's so divine, the sky it glows with fields of light

Did you know that I love you?

Come and lay with me

I love you

And honestly, I will love you

You make me feel alive

And I'll love you

Until the end of time

#the next one will be most likely caleb's because boy do i have a fuck ton of songs for him #yasha cr #beauyasha #critical role #yasha nydoorin #Spotify

[rainbowcaleb]

Stardust

{thirty solar years ago}

Essek understood that what he was planning could be considered reckless endangerment, or it would be if it wasn’t him planning it. He’s attempted spells before that were adjacent in nature, even if not quite at the same strength, and he was certain he knew the theory precisely and accurately.

The only true lingering problem was one of components.

Essek needed stardust.

He had already poked around his own lab, in-disguise around town, and even sent a few coded messages to his less than above board contacts. In a fit of frustration he had re-read six tomes of arcana and triple checked his already-scrutinized spellwork. There was no getting around it. Meteorite shavings did not work, attempts with star ruby spell gems did nothing, even a mote of pure energized light was no replacement. The spell needed stardust, freshly collected and as close to alive as it could be. Essek was confident in his own power, and graviturgy was a delightful field of study, but he could not possibly be expected to yank down a star from the very sky just to use for a component?

Perhaps that’s why this particular magical feat had never been attempted before; it required a long life of patience to wait until a star fell your way, or the power to rearrange fate into a more favorable position.

Essek left the familiar space of his lab to head up to his observatory. If he had to pace fruitlessly while pondering this problem, he might as well have a more pleasing visual. He strode up his stairs to the highest point of his tower, stepping outside the lab space onto the narrow balcony that surrounded the top. From here he had a full view of the spread of the city beneath him, lamplights bright among the ever-darkness. Above him it was mirrored, distant pinpricks of stars scattered across the sky, twinkling in a frustratingly joyful way. Essek could be patient. He had centuries ahead of him, perhaps more. He gripped the edge of the banister, the cold metal sharp under his palms. He had not gotten to where he was now by waiting on something to randomly click into place. As he watched the slow turn of the interlooped rings that charted the ley lines of magic in the world, he knew what he had to do and how.

He pushed back inside his tower, raising his arm as he did so. One quick movement later and he pulled his spellbook from the air and into his hand. Essek felt he was stacking risk onto risk in his pursuit of this goal, but if he was correct (and many years of life had taught him he usually was) then with adding this spell he could trade centuries of waiting for mere decades. 

He stepped into the middle of the room where the carved sigils and runes on the floor were most concentrated. A stripe of crushed agate here, a dusting of fossilized wood, bones of a mouse trapped in amber set in the middle, and then Essek stood above his little pile with a forked metal tool in hand. With a sharp burst of power, he struck his metal rod into the pile like a match and the components burst into flame. The bright red only lasted a split second before the flames rolled into yellow, pure white, and then into a simmering grey. Essek kept his hand to the illusory fire to ensure an even burn across the tool in his hand, clenching his teeth from the unsettling chill of the spell, until the last of the flames flickered out with a last dusty gasp.

He stood up straight, turning the rod over in his hands. The once-gold metal had burnished into an iridescent black that seemed to eat up the light in his room. He stepped out into the night air once again, keeping his eyes on the sky above. He raised the tool up, and without looking away from the stars on the horizon, he flicked the fork. Essek could feel the rod reverberate in his hand, but the sound was too high for even his ears to pick up on. He held the fork skyward until the very last of the tremors in the metal stopped.

Essek sighed. That was the easy part.

Now he had to wait.

{present day}

It had become a habit. Every day before meditating Essek would traverse the familiar steps up his tower, and up and up until he reached the highest point. He would step outside onto the balcony (now since widened for easier access) and walk a slow circle around his ever-swirling ley links to observe the night sky. He would hold his fork in his hand as he paced, hoping that tonight the rod would ring again.

At this point it had been three decades of waiting. And while Essek had grown accustomed and somewhat fond of his slow nightly stroll around his observatory, there was the smallest nagging voice that perhaps in the overconfidence of his youth he had performed the spell wrong.

He was beginning to believe those thoughts tonight. He continued his circular pace, the rod loose in his hand, and instead he started to ponder improvements, experiments, and another attempt….

Essek dropped the rod suddenly as he was utterly shaken from his thoughts. He picked it quickly back up, bringing it to eye level. Even if the trembling metal in his hand wasn’t confirmation enough, he could see that the fork element of the rod was ringing, and the glossy black surface seemed to shift and warp.

A star was nearby. 

He scanned the horizon quickly. It was possible he was distracted, or facing the wrong way, and had missed the telltale streak of light. But the fork would tell him, it would point him the right way. Essek floated down his stairs, opting to put on an illusion disguise rather than wasting any time with his mantle as he rushed out his door. The rod was singing under his hand, the metal growing warmer as it rang. Some force of power was pulling him down this path, guiding his movements left, right, right again, as he hurried through the city. He felt magnetized and the fork was yanking him towards the very thing he sought. The missing piece of his spell. The final piece.

In a matter of minutes he was outside of the Lucid Bastion. Essek knew in his disguise he would not be let past the guards, he would have to switch to Shadowhand Thelyss if he wanted to venture in. It wasn’t that unusual for the Shadowhand to arrive at the Bastion very late or very early, depending on what work needed to be done. The magnetic pull of his path was almost forcing his hand out in front of him, so Essek snapped his generic drow disguise off and pulled his mantle from his pocket dimension. It took a moment longer than usual, as he did not want to let go of the trembling metal fork for even a second, but with the Shadowhand persona firmly reaffixed, Essek swept into the Bastion and started down its labyrinthine halls. 

He floated as briskly as he could without catching attention, but his giddy anticipation sped him through salon after salon, the wind of his movement sweeping his mantle out behind him. He only paused when he heard noisy overlapping voices, accents he couldn't quite place, and most interestingly all speaking Common. 

Essek slowed and peered around the corner, the fork tremors shaking up his wrist into his forearm now. He caught the tail end of a group being led past the double doors at the end of the hall, into the antechamber before the court of the Queen. Even at this distance his eyes were drawn immediately to the two humans in the ragtag group. It was extremely unusual to see in Rosohna. He had just seconds to catalogue all details he could see before they disappeared behind the tall doors. Essek’s gaze flitted last to the human male, bright red hair catching his attention. 

The vibrations in his hand surged in intensity, making him pull away from the wall in fear of involuntarily knocking against it. Essek could barely hold the rod anymore. It wanted him to go forward and now. 

Even as he was conjuring up a plausible excuse to enter the antechamber, a message rang through and interrupted his mind. It was a summons. The Bright Queen had called a meeting of the full court within the hour.

Essek summoned his full concentration to open his pocket dimension and forced himself to drop the fork within. He could not have that distracting him or alerting any prying eyes. He did not need questions about his private affairs. He drifted back down the hall from where he came and his thoughts pondered that odd group of strangers and the redhead human. Essek did not believe in coincidences, and so the meeting must involve these people. And the fork...it’s pull had definitely directed his hand in their direction.

He had many questions (how did such commoners stumble upon a star? what would they want it for? how were they containing it’s essence alive, and not letting it fall chill and inert as stone?), but all answers seemed to point, once again, to patience. 

The star was still potent, he was sure of it, and it was within hand's reach somewhere in the Bastion. This was the closest he had ever been to his goal. Essek couldn't stop the uncharacteristic grin from spreading across his face. 

Nothing could stop him now.

{ day 2 prompt from @finelyfrenzied ‘s fictober list, I am so slow to write these haha. I’ll catch up eventually! }

#essek thelyss #shadowgast #caleb widogast #essek #shadowgast fic #FICTOBER! I finished another prompt! :) #my fic #critical role fic

[houseofhurricane]

ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (13/32) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: This chapter includes descriptions of physical and emotional abuse towards Vassa. If you find this potentially troubling or triggering to read, I'm providing a summary of the chapter at the very end of this chapter, so that you're able to skip it and keep following along with the story. You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. If you'd like to get an early peek at chapter 11 and all future chapters, follow me on Instagram at @house.of.hurricane. Thank you for reading! ❤️

When Koschei claims her, the fire rages in Vassa’s veins, threatening to consume her. She hates that Lucien’s last impression of her will be the screaming of a wretched, frightened woman, but in those last moments in the Spring Court, Vassa is certain that Koschei will turn her body into filaments of bloody flesh. She can feel her flesh separating from bone.

When she opens her eyes again, she is back at the lake and Koschei looms over her, silhouetted against the full moon. The only indication that any time has passed is the white gossamer gown that Koschei has always dressed her in, translucent even in the moonlight.

“You put up quite a fight, my darling,” he says, nearly purring the endearment. Bile rises in her throat. Before, he never touched her except to strike. He’d never called her darling. “I had to force you to sleep for days. And you will notice that the enchantment on you is more tightly wound than before. After all, I was asked to keep you from escaping.”

“Briallyn is dead. The rest of the queens have left their thrones behind. Who still binds you?” She imagines herself in the throne room. It’s the only way she can keep her voice level.

“You’ll find I always keep my promises, little bird. Unlike your ragtag group of friends. You should know that they have not appeared to try and claim you.”

“I told them not to rescue me,” Vassa says, injecting as much fire in her words as she can bear. Inside she still feels ragged, every joint and sinew sore and tender, though her skin is still unmarked, the moonlight making her skin unnaturally pale, even against the white gown. An image, her golden brown hand on Lucien’s bronzed arm, the way they were shining and alive together, streaks across her mind. She banishes the thought quickly. Vassa has never been sure if Koschei can read her mind, especially now in this weakened state.

“Surely you are scheming,” the death-lord says, curling a finger and using it to raise her chin so that she’s forced to meet those depthless eyes, “but I will warn you, your cadre will not find me quite the fragile opponent that plagues this world.”

“Why am I so important to you?” she asks, forcing herself to meet his gaze, to keep from looking away. Best to keep him talking. Maybe then he’ll reveal a key part of his strength or magic, maybe somehow she’ll be able to pass it on to Lucien and he will know what to do, will know whether the words are sincere or a carefully baited trap.

But Koschei only gives a little smirk and turns away from her, sweeping his cloak in a gesture she knows means she is to follow.

Vassa had always been dimly aware of her relative weakness as a human, but now, unable to remember what has happened, unable to free herself, unable to focus on her goal with the same single-minded passion she’d had during her first captivity, she feels weak as a wet piece of paper, ready to dissolve at the faintest touch. She’d trained with a sword, once, gave speeches that brought her people to their knees. But no words can save her now, and even if she had a sword, what use would it be against a magic so powerful that none of the fae in this world could find a way to overcome it?

It was a hard lesson to a woman trained to be a queen, but in her first captivity, she learned how to be powerless, how to bide her time. So Vassa heaves herself to her feet with as much grace as her throbbing joints will allow and follows Koschei.

The sorcerer is bound to this lake, so Vassa has never been sure how he manages such a richly appointed table, more elegant than anything she has witnessed in her own court or in Prythian. The food, too, is exquisite, and though she is worried it has been drugged, after three days without a meal, she wolfs down everything so artfully arranged on her gilded plates, trying not to notice the gleam in Koschei’s dark eyes.

When she begins to feel sleepy, Vassa hopes it is merely the effect of being sated, the wine she drank. Koschei did drug her before, in those first days when she had not yet realized the futility of fighting him. After a week, the helplessness was enough to break her. Still, she thinks, as a heavy unconsciousness claims her, this means he thinks she can escape. That somehow, in some way she still cannot parse, the death-lord is vulnerable.

She wakes submerged in the dark waters of the lake, weeds clinging to her ankles, her lungs burning, and Vassa barely has the strength to hoist herself to the surface, pushing the water away from her body until she can gasp in the air. Above her, the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen.

Taking in the beauty as she paddles to shore, Vassa thinks of Elain. A peace that is nurtured by beauty, the legacy she’d wanted. At the time it had seemed a lovely wish, if a little anemic, the kind of thing that girls dream of. But now, as Vassa watches the stars fill the great dome of the sky, glittering above her, she thinks that maybe Elain knew all along, the necessity of this wish. If all along she was lost in her pragmatism, while Elain Archeron, the sweet-faced gardener, was the one who really saw the world.

She does not know if she will ever see Elain again.

She’s still not sure why Koschei let her leave with Gabriel Archeron, though Vassa has wondered if Hybern’s magic, their command of the cauldron, was too great a threat for even the death-lord to allow. But perhaps, in spite of all his promises, Koschei will let her go, or perhaps Lucien in all his cleverness will find a plan, and Elain will wield whatever fearsome gift is inside her, and Tamlin will storm the gates alongside them, the sword under which all their cleverness and strategy can thrive. Her companions at the Spring Court could be the stuff of legends, she decides, if only they’d realize their own capabilities. Perhaps this is nostalgia, but still it glows inside her, an ember of hope.

It’s this hope that allows Vassa to steel herself for the dinner with Koschei, that keeps her from fully slaking the growling hunger inside her. So that she pretends to fall into the drugged sleep early, her limbs sprawled heavy on the table, her face on the half-laden plate for effect. She knocks over the wine and worries this is one flourish too many, but once she’s really evened her breathing, Koschei begins to croon over her. The tone, which reminds her of her fellow queens exclaiming over babies and puppies, makes her skin crawl, but she cannot understand what he’s saying, the language unlike anything she’s ever heard on this earth. She wills her muscles to stay relaxed. Even a twitch will give her away.

Without warning, he picks her up by the back of her dress, the delicate seams digging into her skin, and flings her across the room.

For a small eternity, Vassa is in the air. Eyes closed, she tries to keep herself from panicking, from anticipating the fall.

When she hits the wall, and then the ground, the pain in her head is bright in her eyes, an explosion of pain that shoots through her body. The food she ate rises, burning, in her throat. Her joints are clanging. All the while, she tries not to make a sound, to keep her breathing low and even, though each breath is its own sharp pang.

Boots cross the room. Will he kick her next? Is this what Koschei does every night?

Somehow Vassa wills herself to stay still, nearly relaxed. She wanted to know what was happening to her. If he continues with a beating, eventually she will lose consciousness, but at least she will not be some limp doll with only a few precious moments of clarity, of starlight and beauty and memory.

But Koschei does not kick her.

Instead, he crouches down by her.

“I know you’re awake,” he murmurs, his voice so gentle it could belong to another person, not the sorcerer who flung her across a room as if to shatter her, “I am at least a bit more clever than you think I am, little bird.”

She stays quiet. Koschei has never rewarded reluctant obedience.

“Do you know what I think? I think those faeries convinced you of their friendship and now you mean to spy for them. Perhaps that’s why you offered so little resistance when you felt my call. I want to believe you missed me, but as I said, I am not quite as foolish as you believe.”

His fingers are on her face, tracing her cheekbone, the line of her jaw. The pad of his thumb presses into her bottom lip.

Lucien touched her like this, only a few days ago. Your lips are perfect for kissing, he’d said, how is it that they’re so soft?

“I smell that faerie on you, Vassa,” Koschei says, obliterating her thoughts. His voice approximates a song. “I know you took him into your bed. Did you think the fire would burn off my enchantment? Or did you know that your lover’s true father is known across this world for his acumen at breaking spells? Did you think they would find a way to free you?”

He brushes his thumb against the seam of her mouth, so lightly that her lips do not part.

“The creatures of this world are weak. I would have thought you’d know better by now.”

Vassa does not whimper or cry out, only waits for him to speak again, to strike or violate her. She will be limp as a doll, she tells herself, a dead weight in his hands.

Instead, there is silence for one laden moment, then another. She hears the sound of his boots on the floor, walking away.

Then he turns back. Before Vassa can register the sound of his quickened steps, his booted foot is at her stomach and his fingers are in her hair and once again, she’s flying.

This time, oblivion claims her before the pain.

&

&

&

Vassa wakes up inside the firebird. The world is still alive, the water of the lake spangled with rainbows and the afternoon sun, and the absence of pain is a miracle. She tries to remember why she is so glad to notice all these things but she cannot remember. Instead she wonders why the lake is empty, why the other birds scatter when she draws near.

Why, if she has wings, does she not fly?

This time, when the sun dips below the horizon, Vassa’s mind is ready and she swims to shore before the fabric of her dress is soaked through. The pain from the previous night’s assault has vanished from her head and her stomach, her back and her shoulder, even in this form. She realizes that perhaps more than a day has passed, that it could have been weeks since she was last conscious. Somehow this possibility is more appealing than Koschei healing the damage while she was incapacitated. Even when there’s magic involved, a healer needs to put his hands on the patient, skin to skin.

When she hoists herself up on the bank, Koschei looms over her.

“How was your day?” he asks, as if they were completely different people in completely different circumstances, friends parted for a day by their respective obligations.

Vassa is careful to modulate her voice so that it’s all sweetness.

“Did you know that birds can see more than humans?”

“I have heard the shapeshifters among the High Fae make such a comment, but I suspect their own vision is relatively weak. Particularly if they’re devising artificial eyes.”

She takes a deep breath of the evening air to buy herself a bit of time to think, notes the chill of autumn beginning to creep into the summer evening. Soon, the water of the lake will be frigid and she will have to stay in her right mind if she wants to avoid swimming those waters when winter comes.

Koschei misinterprets her silence as acquiescence and holds out his hand to her.

He does not decide what her gestures mean. It’s what she tells herself as she grips his palm with her cold fingers, allows him to pull her upright. When he turns away from her toward his home, she follows without comment.

Let him think she’s already broken, she thinks with a little smirk, trying to keep from tripping on the sodden skirts that cling to her ankles.

Koschei passes his entry hall, the dining room, leads her deeper into the house, further than Vassa would expect the walls to extend based on the outer dimensions of the structure. He ascends a spiralling staircase, passing the hallways to two shadowed floors, then leads her to a landing that would be beautiful in the day, with high windows and wooden floors that would gleam red-gold in the sunlight. The color of her own hair.

But this moment of enjoyable vanity is destroyed when Koschei stops, gestures with elegantly pointed fingers at an open door. The room lit with candles is a bedroom, the bed large and inviting.

During her first captivity, she slept outside, under the stars. Even the freezing nights were preferable to this implicit threat. Nausea rises through her, the remembrance of those fingers caressing her face. She tries to keep these thoughts from appearing on her face, knows that she’s probably failing. Her queen’s training only preserved a certain lack of respect, not the threat of capture or abuse or even rape. Her tutors did not prepare her for this scenario when they taught her how to modulate her voice.

“I only thought that you would like to change into a dry gown before dinner,” he says, his voice a perfect simulacrum of charm.

“And deny you the pleasure of drying the fabric through your own magic?”

“I am given to think that you human women detect such interventions as unpleasant. Unless you have learned otherwise during your time in Prythian.”

She thinks of Lucien, the way he’d warm his hands or feet so that he never caused her a single shiver of cold, only of pleasure.

“I learned many things in Prythian,” she says, trying to keep the expression from her voice. “Will you wait for me, or should I meet you at the table?”

“Are you planning on escaping through the window?”

“I’m sure you’ve already considered this possibility and warded the room.”

He smiles at her, runs his tongue along his pointed teeth. She has to work to hold her resolve. There is a benefit in letting an enemy think he has won. Even if it feels like a real loss.

“Join me at the dinner table. I expect that you will not linger unduly.”

She nods, dips into a curtsy for good measure, then waits until she hears him pass the second landing before entering the room. Quickly, quietly, she opens every drawer, looking for a weapon, a document, anything that could help, but there are only washcloths and cosmetics and jewels and perfumes and handkerchiefs and underthings. Because of course what she needs most at this moment is a functional corset.

She does not, cannot, ask herself how Koschei acquired so many items of a woman’s toilette. At best he summoned them to himself with whatever magic populates his flawless table. The worst options will wreck her utterly.

On the bed lies the dinner gown, sumptuous in a deep green velvet, no adornment but a line of pearls at the wide collar, which she knows will glow against her skin. The gossamer gowns are for virginal princesses. This is a dress that a queen wears when addressing her subjects.

She lets her sodden dress and underthings fall to the floor with a wet slap. The velvet is heavy enough that she does not bother with undergarments. They will only leave her itchy and haunted by the women who wore them before her, why Koschei kept them prisoner and how he managed to make their lives miserable.

In all her time with Koschei, she’s never seen another woman. Only the sorcerer, until Gabriel Archeron negotiated her freedom.

Nevertheless, and perhaps it is only her imagination, but Vassa swears that she can feel the spirits of these unknown women around her while she fastens jewels around her neck and in her earlobes, arranges her hair into a coronet. Their spirits gild the air around her when she fashions a stiff necklace into a diadem that’s pleasantly cool against her forehead. She has never liked bracelets or rings, which have always felt constraining, especially after Koschei, but when she looks at herself in the mirror, she looks passably queenlike. She even manages to muster a haughty expression, the kind that would send Lucien rolling his eyes at her whenever she aimed it towards him in the bedroom. A traitorous clutch of hope pounds in her heart, just at the idea of him.

I believe you will find a way to free me, she thinks in his direction, hoping one of the clustered spirits will pass the message. Their presence does not scare her. They have not assembled to do her harm.

Finally, heaving a deep breath into her lungs, Vassa exits the room, descends the winding staircase until she’s in Koschei’s lavish dining room.

Koschei is alone at the table, angling a goblet of wine to his lips.

“You look lovely, little queen,” he says, rising as she walks toward the table. He pulls out a chair for her, brushing a kiss to her temple.

For a second, his beard snags on the chain of her diadem, and Vassa forces herself to smother a smile, her first in days. Then she forces the hair free and sinks into her chair, letting her palms sprawl on the arms, the way she’d sit on her throne, the youngest and most willful of the seven queens who ruled the human realms of this world. With her people she was all easy grins and drawling delivery, witty and clever and sure, but with six other queens, Vassa knew enough to keep herself in check, to hide the whirling of her brain behind flawless manners.

She eats the food before her, her bites demure and chewed in silence, and eventually Koschei begins to speak about nothing in particular, the harvest in a nearby village and the berries of the forest, the signs which predict the weather in the coming days and seasons. Vassa sips her wine and makes encouraging little sounds in the back of her throat, watching for the small detail that will signal disaster.

This evening is practically a kindness coming from Koschei. His kindness is always suspect.

Vassa waits for a drugged sleep to claim her, but the meal continues the way a state dinner does, a new course periodically revealed as the most boring guest drones on and on about subjects that interest him only. Luckily, Vassa has had years of practice at smiling and nodding while crucial diplomatic relations can crumble over the improper acceptance of a compliment.

When dessert is finished, along with the smallest sip of port Vassa can manage, Koschei says, “I would like to offer you a room to sleep in, as a symbol of my faith in you.”

“That is a great kindness,” she manages to say, though all her senses are screaming.

“It would not do, if you were to sleep outside in the coming days. The nights are growing colder and colder. I would hate to see you freeze. Do you know what happens to a human body in such conditions?”

She expects him to continue speaking but he looks at her as if he expects to answer. She lets her eyes widen, as if the thought is too horrible to consider, as if he himself has not flung her across the room and allowed her bones to fracture.

“Believe me, little bird, you do not want to experience this pain. I insist you take the room.”

How she makes herself murmur a thank-you, Vassa will never know.

She climbs the stairs slowly, turning to look over her shoulder, but Koschei does not follow. When she reaches the room at the top of the staircase, she removes her jewels, pulls the blanket from the bed, and wedges herself against the closed door.

“If you have any ghost-magic, I would appreciate your protection,” Vassa whispers to the spirits that thicken the air of the room.

There is no silence. There is also no attack.

Vassa wakes into the gray pre-dawn, and manages to make her way outside before the world, her mind, all dissolve into a haze of colors and movement which overwhelm her thoughts completely.

The next few weeks fall into this routine: a new dress for every dinner, Koschei’s endless small talk, peppered with increasing yet innocuous questions about her mundane preferences and youthful memories, and a night spent curled on the floor with her back to the door, sleeping and yet alert to every sigh and creak of the house in case it’s an alert to Koschei’s presence. He never comes, and Vassa never feels more feral than in those half-dozing hours, when she realizes the way animals must sleep in the wild. Luckily she’s able to sleep on the lake as the firebird, which she realizes as her human mind learns once again how to work within the confines of the bird’s mind.

One night, when Vassa is preparing herself for dinner, there is a voice inside her mind.

Have you seen my sister? The voice sounds like Elain but with more gravity. Feyre.

You know I am a captive, don’t you?

Elain wants to rescue you more than anything. She and Lucien. I am worried they have made some terrible decisions in the course of pursuing your safety.

A death-lord holds me as his captive, High Lady, she says, not bothering to hide the derision in her voice. Once, she’d asked Feyre to free her. She’s not convinced that Feyre took her plea seriously. She’s heard the stories, of course, which tell of Feyre Cursebreaker, who, as a human, bargained for Tamlin’s life against Amarantha. Her trials and the torture she endured before she was reborn as High Fae have become legend, to the point where Vassa wonders how much is true, or if Feyre has given up the memories of her experience. Because if she endures this, if she ever leaves Koschei, there will be no women in captivity in her lands, no girls locked in strange rooms at the behest of men.

We are working on a plan to rescue you.

But you have lost Elain and probably Lucien, as well.

A silence, and then a sound like a sigh, so deep it’s nearly a groan.

Is he… harming you?

At first. Now he is being too kind.

There’s a silence. Vassa doesn’t know if Feyre understands or thinks she is being ridiculous. She has never been more aware of all her weakness than in this moment, when she cannot so much as parse a simple mental conversation.

We will rescue you.

There are only a few moments before Koschei will be suspicious, so Vassa decides to blurt out everything she knows. Let Feyre and her court work out the implications.

Lucien is working on parsing the spell that binds me. He’s working with Helion in the Day Court. And your sister -- I cannot detect power the way the fae do, but your sister is much stronger than you think. Koschei knows about her powers, probably more than you do. He will want her at his side.

Has he mentioned Elain to you?

Not yet. He doesn’t trust me with much information. She blows out a breath, fogging the mirror so that she’s only the red mass of hair and golden skin, the heavy purple folds of her dress. I am late to dinner and I am sure he will detect this conversation.

I’ll erase it behind you.

When you see your sister, tell her she was right about beauty. And Lucien has not betrayed you. I think Lucien is the best male in all of Prythian.

There’s a tug at her chest, the harness of the spell pulled tight.

I’m being summoned, she thinks toward Feyre, and then, as she descends the stairs, Vassa begins to wonder why it is that, despite the perfect ordinariness of the day, she feels a spark of hope inside her like a flower unfurling its petals.

Dinner with Koschei is a little quieter than usual, and Vassa finds herself worrying that Koschei will notice the difference in her, the lightness. As usual, she makes sure to keep quiet, hum her acquiescence in between careful bites.

“It is not so terrible being here, is it?” he says, when the plates of their entree have vanished and the dessert has not yet appeared. She longs to reach for her glass of wine.

“The forest is lovely in autumn,” she responds in a voice like honey, keeping her barb well-cloaked. “There’s a certain angle of the light that is quite beautiful at this time of year.”

He scoffs a little, the smile on his lips revealing the points of his teeth. Whatever Koschei was in the world of his origin, he was never meant to have an endearing grin.

“I am speaking of this life you have, every night. The dinners and dresses, the well-appointed room. You would like it to continue?”

She wants to say you know I am a captive, don’t you? The words feel familiar but she knows they are not safe in this place.

“You keep the finest table I’ve ever known, Koschei.” She meets his eyes when she says this, tries to make them earnest as she offers this one tiny pleasant truth.

“There is so much more I could offer you, little queen.”

He leans toward her, across the table, reaches out her hand. Vassa allows him to clutch her fingers. He runs his thumb against her fingertips, his skin against hers. She does not wince. She forces her face into a pleasant expression.

“Tell me more.” She cannot say what are you talking about. She will not be able to make the words sound pleasant.

“I could make you my wife and queen.” His thumb is on her wrist, the dip at the base of her palm where her pulse thrums. “Forget Scythia, Vassa. You could rule over all the human lands. The whole of this world.”

“And what would be left for you?”

She cannot keep the fear from her voice, but Koschei does not seem to mind. He regales her with another smile, a predator’s expression.

“There are other worlds, my little queen. Soon I will enter them as ruler.”

Vassa is too stunned even to attempt a correction to the posessive. At some point, her hand falls to the table, empty.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN SUMMARY

Vassa is imprisoned by Koschei at the lake. She is barely conscious in her firebird form, and is physically abused by Koschei when she's awake. Still, despite the abuse and the fact that as a human queen she is in every way outmatched, she tries to keep fighting. Vassa becomes seemingly acquiescent to Koschei but stays alert for any apparent weakness, though she begins to despair. After a short time, Koschei begins to show kindness to Vassa, offering her a new gown every evening and a room in his house which she's never seen, which is inhabited by the spirits of other women. She is afraid that Koschei will drug and/or assault her, but instead he offers her dinner and shelter. After a few weeks of this confusing treatment, Feyre speaks into Vassa's mind, looking for the missing Elain and Lucien, and promising a rescue, a promise that Vassa doubts. At dinner that same night, Koschei offers to marry Vassa and make her queen of this world, with himself as the ruler of every realm. Horrified, she does not answer him.

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