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throwaway-yandere · 4 months

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𝑫𝒐𝒍𝒄𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒊𝒍 𝑵𝒖𝒐𝒗𝒐 (Yandere!Dainsleif/Reader)

a/n: I love Dainsleif with every fiber of my being, do you guys know that? Anyways, just like all Dain-fics, this one has illustrations (I hope they give Fairytale book vibes). I’d like to thank @meimeimeirin cuz this was an idea we were laughing abt at 4am and somehow I made something out of it HAHA.

Unreliable Synopsis: “Fairytale worlds follow fairytale laws. There’s always a protagonist burdened with impossible tasks who will experience the rule of three, witness transformations, find talking animals, and learn the power of kept promises. So, before you embark on your journey, "princess" (Y/n), have you heard of the Ugly Duckling’s tale?”

CW: light yandere themes, fairytale!au just for the hell of it. HURT/NO COMFORT. Late/Advanced happy birthday, Dainsleif.

"The destined knight is late," the great dragon clicked his tongue. One would expect that an inferior creature such as an ugly duckling would quake and shrink while perched on the Dragon King's hand. But their expression was nothing short of serene. There is a veneer of calm that the great Dragon Ongri did not overlook.

The "duckling" had the eyes of an old gentleman with worldly disinterests.

He was longing for death.

𝕺nce upon a time, there was an ugly duckling who was abandoned by both their siblings and mother. Oftentimes, he was pecked by his peers, sneered into thinking his big head and scarred face. were both a reason for his survival and misery all the same. The ugly duckling thought himself unloveable no matter where he went. The small waters he was born in had no room for miscreation, and when he traveled to an elderly's house elsewhere, the chickens thought him useless and undesirable. Normally, the story would've been a happier bedtime story if he had gone to meet the Royal birds and begged for them to end his life. Maybe then, he would've realized that he had not been a duck but a swan all along. But alas, our poor ugly "duckling" found his feet at the hands of the great Dragon King- Ongri's mercy.

"Will you kill me?" The ugly duckling asked calmly. "You need to release your anger, and I can be but one of many casualties."

"I am not a creature of impulse."

The divine dragon scowled. "After Bars' and Fein' deaths, the concept that this realm dubs as Time and Moments is now under my jurisdiction. I've no use for wasted breaths."

As it happens, the dragon was in a troubling situation. There is an immediate need for a substitute. Sensing the urgency of fate's call, Ongri unleashed an ancient incantation. Feathers singed into flesh, wings clipped into arms, and in a burst of radiant light, the "ugly duckling" was reborn as a human knight. His body had scar-like spots from the Divine Dragon infusing him with magic, albeit the metamorphosis was far from flawless. Even as a human, he was imperfect. Mysterious dark blue "burn lines" traced his neck and arms. With the new human's eyes still closed, the dragon spoke to him, the last for a long time: "Forget your past and this whole affair." He commanded. "Go, find and protect your princess."

It mattered not if this was the last breath Ongri would tell him, besides…

When a god applies a curse, it takes effect at a higher level of reality than the person themselves.

“(Y/n)…”

“It’s me, Dainsleif… Can you… still remember my voice?”

“…”

“I… understand that once a person reaches this stage of the curse, their senses get muted. The remnants of those who once dwelled here must have been the catalyst of your ailments worsening..”

“… I’m sorry. I am incredibly sorry that I found you at such a later time. It did not occur to me that you would be here in the Chasm.”

“In our next fairy tale, I’ll—”

“No… I cannot subject you to any more empty promises… But know this:”

“I will keep you safe from now on.”

“So, do not leave my side ever again.”

And the new knight opened his eyes.

Memories of the dragon vanished from his mind. He was now a being of larger flesh and bones without recollections of his past. Should another human take his shoes, they would know that it was a fresh awakening. His first breath tasted like rich champagnes. Golden. Even the sun shone in such resplendent light that made the world seemingly revolve around him.

His legs wobbled. Sliding onto the grassy area, he caught a sight of his hair. Blonde. Like hay— they were golden threads silkily strewn about. He soon noticed that the rest of his complexion was a light pinkish-hued color, as did the hands that prevented his head from taking a serious fall.

The reborn “ugly duckling” may have forgotten why, but he felt alienated from his own body. And he has the Divine Dragon to thank for his new vessel and plain armor.

“Help! Someone, HELP!!!”

His ears perked up. It was a scream with a fervor of a “damsel in distress”. Vent clamor as she may with her whole throat, nothing would come out of it.

But fate will not allow this untimely demise. Quick on his new feet, the new knight dashed towards the sound. No cavalry— just a single determined mind. After running for some time, the unnamed knight did not come across any souls.

That is, until he found the young maiden he was “fated” to save. She was on the ground, clinging into her wrist as though she burned her hand. In the ground laid an iron sword, begging to be drawn.

At the sight of the wild animal bearing down on her with frightening speed, the “knight” took her weapon and charged towards the scene, raising it in front of the menacing beast. He gazed at the bear that towered over him, displaying its slobbery maw and long, pointed claws. The untamed creature snarled and dropped to strike.

Perhaps the Divine Dragon saw his noble pursuits, perhaps he was naturally gifted in combat, but the bear was unable to rake the man’s body. Miraculous it was that not a single nasty laceration was left on his person. He lacked the strength to take it down in one fell swoop, but the speed he had made up for it. Like swans that swerved through the wind and flow of water, he dodged all its attacks. With a few strikes from his blade, the bear falls...

He breathed out, shaking in his boots though he tried not to show it. Straightening his body, he met the maiden’s gaze. His blue eyes met hers in a piercing gaze, nearly taunting her as his new opponent. The young lady exhaled a deep sigh of relief.

“T-Thank… you…”

Subconsciously, he circled the shoulder that recklessly swung the sword around. The new “knight” tilted his head. For what? He wished to ask, but words did not come out.

“For saving me, of course.”

The maiden gracefully stood. Her garments had lost some of their value due to the soil and dirt, but she herself was not affected in the same way. She exuded a fierceness that suggested anyone who ventured to hurt her would be receiving more than they bargained for. Instead of tucking her hair to the back, she pulled them forward, hiding her ears.

“Do allow me to introduce myself, kind knight.” She cleared her throat softly. “You may call me Princess (F/n), daughter of King Regan and current crown princess— heir to the throne upon the late Prince Pierre’s demise. May I know your name?”

…

… Silence…

The princess tilted her head.

"... Does my savior have a name?"

"... Name?"

The young man paused.

He couldn't remember his name. In actuality, he had absolutely no memory of anything. His mind was a bottomless pit with little to no air. With wide eyes, his hand moved slowly to around his neck. The act of conjuring up his supposed name left him terrified for reasons unbeknownst to him.

Does he… not have a name?

“... You must be joking.” The princess deadpanned. “How can one not have a name? Were you not baptized under the Divine Dragon’s light?”

She sounded incredibly upset by this fact. Whatever she ranted on about, it must be a human tradition.

“Do you not know how important names are—” The princess sighed, “Never mind. I shall assume you are one of those orphaned folks. Besides, if what you say is true, bestowing you a new name is a power much more potent.”

“I… want a name.” The man spoke up rather shyly, voice almost inaudbile.

"I know, I know… Huh, I usually take names rather than gifting them," the princess chuckled. She seemed wholly aware of his dilemma. "Hmm… Let me see…"

She examined his features closely. He was dressed in the traditional knightly fashion, albeit slightly altered. The holy kingdom's knights, of course, never donned masks—especially not half of one. He was strange, but there was an innocent genuineness about him. The blonde man doesn't have a polished appearance. He looked like a lost duckling.

It was rude to stare at the peculiar blue wounds on his face far too long so the princess’ eyes trailed above his hair.

"Leaf…" She pointed upward. "Leaf."

The knight blinked.

What a peculiar sounding name.

"Understood." He nodded and bowed politely. "I shall now be referred to as Leaf."

"No, I meant—" The princess cut herself off and chuckled. "Oh, well. I meant the leaf on one's head. But certainly the name Leaf does suit you fine."

“Do place your iron sword away, Leaf.” She added, cringing. “It is unbecoming of a knight to point a sword to their princess.”

“May… May I ask as to why you were attacked by a bear?”

“Quite bold of you to inquire a royal about a recent assassination attempt,” she humored him with a smile. He safely assumed she would not enact punishment for his assertiveness. “If you must satiate your curiosity, it is exactly that. An assassination attempt. They believed since my brother had fallen so easily, I myself must be an easy game since I adore wandering around the forest.”

“And they seem to be right,” Leaf muttered, wittily referring to the incident prior that arranged this fated meeting.

“Oh?” She scoffed, her polite smile remaining intact. “You’ve quite the tongue. Are you from the valleys?”

“I do not know.”

She squinted.

“Hmm, I see.” The princess exhaled and shook her head disapprovingly. “Then I am to presume that I should also use my wits to cleverly weave a background for you much like your name, Leaf?”

“You wish for me to serve you, that I can tell, and for that to happen I would need your equal assistance,” Leaf spoke solemnly. “I do not recall anything of my past, but you can always make one for me.”

Leaf knelt in front of her. Silence ensued.

“You are deadly calm for a man who wished his history be erased…” The princess muttered.

Leaf was a strange man indeed. He was perceptive, yet he spoke like fate’s pawn. That is to say, the princess noticed he only ever says the truth. His countenance conveyed little desire to adopt rebellious ideologies. To be honest, there was nothing in those contrivedly starry eyes. It was bare. A false sky.

It almost made the princess worry for his lack of self-preservation had she not been the same. Lies were always at her hands’ disposal, and she greatly hoped it was not what her heart would contain in her last pages. She didn’t wish for a life of deceit. The princess's survival solely comes from her ability to “doublespeak”.

“I see your promise. You are made of self-mettle. Although your blunt tongue may mar your fortunes sooner before you could gaze upon His Majesty, I wish to prescribe you with new duties.”

She took a deep breath.

“This directive shall not be withdrawn in the name of the Divine Dragon. Leaf, a young knight from the Valley of Gaciea who will shortly be appointed retainer to the Royal Highness, Princess (F/n), kneels before me. Until the end of time, he shall be my sword, and I will be his master. Will you keep your word and uphold the oath— the promise?”

“I will.”

Not a moment did he hesitate. Not for a second did he think there was more to life than this. It was nearly bitter. His life sounded so simple to her tongue.

But it was a contract nonetheless.

A promise that must be fulfilled.

“I find myself stirred in restless days without you my by side. You haunted me so diligently this past 500 or so years.”

“Humor me, won’t you… my b-beloved?”

“Why have you hid away from me? Why did I have to find you in this state? Furred and mute. Didn’t you take a breath to think about how much your pain would mean a greater weight for me? Have you not a second thought about how much it pains me to see you like this— bearing the fangs of the abyss and the claws of the cursed…?”

“The only sigh of relief I can release is that at least in this new sky, Ongri— no, he calls himself Zhongli these days— would get between us no more.”

“This new fairy tale… For how long do you expect me to keep this promise, (Y/n)? How many more stories must we get through for us to reach a happy ending?”

“Please… I’m begging you… Say something!!!”

“…”

“… Speak… Please… Anything…”

“Tell me about our past rendezvous. Seduce me with your musings. Anything… can't you try, just for this special day?”

“Please… don’t turn your mask away from me…”

“Do you find time to flow as quick as the waters by the stream? I am inclined to believe this sentiment. I find it astonishing that we’ve spent eleven or so moonshines joined at a hip. Time ages us but we are none the wiser.”

Leaf grunted, heaving Princess (F/n)’s inventory as she spoke. He didn’t seem distressed by the weight and his princess appeared not at all troubled as well. At least, that what it seemed on the surface. Royals must make their superiority known. Leaf knew (F/n) wanted to also carry some of the bags, but he refused.

There were several notions Leaf refused that noon. When (F/n) entertained the thought of going out as herself and by herself, he disapproved with haste. Leaf had to know where she’s going, who she was going with, what she’s going to wear— just about everything. His voice alone overwhelmed the princess enough that you’d mistake him for the king. The knight practically ordered what she would wear and what route she’d have to take if she wished to see the ongoing festival.

Being herself was a safety hazard and being alone by herself was a death wish.

To his eyes, at least. He had always been a twinge too overprotective.

It was a hectic morning with a picture-perfect, almost cliche scene of bustling streets and frolicking kids on a medieval setting. While children would swerve around adults' legs to avoid getting tagged, adults walked slowly to hear each gossip. One kid had nearly hit the princess herself, but Leaf would not allow it.

Leaf pulled (F/n) away by putting an arm over her waist. The smell of her sweet perfume surprised him. Her smell reminded him of the forest. For the knight who professed to guard her innocence, her warm body lightly pressed against his was a fleeting but almost immoral moment. He set her down slowly, gasping quietly. The princess chose not to draw attention to the troubled expression on her most reliable retainer.

It was better not to acknowledge his growing romantic interests.

To her, he is only a sword.

Even if he is a friend, at the end of the day, he’s only a weapon to be used.

The princess quickly pulled the cape down further to hide her face— mostly her ears. For reasons unknown to him, she seemed to find that part of herself worthy of great insecurity.

He cleared his throat, face dusted in a pink hue.

“You say that time affects you, but you haven’t aged a day.”

The princess laughed.

“Finally, a compliment from a man as stoic as you? Oh, what a day to rejoice!”

Leaf shook his head with a small smile.

“I had given you one on several occasions.”

“That may be true, but random bouts of flattery from you are scarce.” The princess hummed. “I vaguely recall how getting anything out of you was like trying to get a frozen little duckling to quack. Who am I? Your mother duck?”

The smirk on his face was quick, but (F/n) definitely saw it.

Several staff once questioned Leaf’s ability to speak. Many, including (F/n)’s father, were convinced he was mute. Everyone in the castle knew of the princess’s peculiar tastes and thought Leaf’s recruitment was a mere byproduct. His masked appearance and strange scars added more fuel to those rumors. When Leaf defended (F/n) from another assassination attempt in front of the king and inquired about her condition, King Regan nearly toppled from where he stood.

After being bombarded with questions, Leaf merely said he refrained from speaking since he saw no use if he wasn't talking to the princess herself. (F/n) still finds it absurd that she has to give orders for him to talk to other people.

For Leaf, it was simple: he just didn’t see the point of forming other interpersonal relationships.

(F/n) was the only one that mattered in his eyes.

Only her.

Only she is worthy to serve and protect.

“You truly are like a little duckling following his mother’s tail,” Princess (F/n) sighed. “But you have vastly improved in our time together. That, I can commend.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Leaf laughed softly, mocking her tone in his signature subtle way. “Oh, what a day to rejoice.”

She playfully gave him an elbow nudge. “Do not copy me, Leaf.”

“My apologies.”

Princess (F/n) was meandering around because the harvest festival was drawing closer. With her own eyes, the princess intended to see how her people were faring. Rarely did she change into a more "common" outfit and styled her hair with simplicity. Though, if you were to ask Leaf, seeing her in her most simple clothes made her far more youthful than the garbs and crown that wrinkles her smile to a frown.

“Madame, would you be interested in buying your lover here a brooch?”

Both of them stilled as a merchant called out. The undercover royal pointed to herself.

“Yes, yes, of course I’m talking to you, gorgeous!” The merchant grinned. He had silver hair that slightly covered one of his blue eyes. “Do you want matching rings instead? We’re selling for fifty percent off!”

Leaf’s gaze was stern. Despite his reservations, he knew the merchant as Alfstan, another young knight who hailed from a family of vendors. Two moonshines ago, Leaf was (forcefully) placed on training duty and had the fortune of mentoring this aspiring knight.

Mind you— nothing was particularly dubious of his wares. Leaf just simply despised having another man brazenly take your attention away. He did not find their previous exchanges pleasant. Not when Alfstan often joked about replacing his position one day.

What hubris.

While he busied himself glaring at the poor man, the princess awkwardly laughed and dismissively waved a hand. “Oh, no, he and I— we are not—”

“Haha, I know, I was just pulling your leg, Your Highness.” Alfstan grinned, giving Leaf a quick nod. “Morning, Sir Leaf! Were you showing the princess around?”

“Shhh! Be quiet!” (F/n)'s eyes widened.

He protectively wrapped an arm around (F/n) again, this time far more confidently.

“Yes.” Leaf spoke, voice as solid as his resolve.

“Mind if I tag along?”

His stare sharpened. “I would very much mind, now return to your stall.”

The princess shook her head, poorly judging her retainer’s possessive words as acts of protection. Instead, she dwelled on their attire. “Drats, was our disguise that fragile?”

Alfstan assessed her from top to bottom, which made Leaf even more tense. “Eh, you’re really gorgeous that no cloak can hide your beauty, Your Highness.”

“I have to agree,” Leaf said stiffly, clearing his throat. “Perhaps I should hide her in a hay sack. WIthout your prying eyes.”

(F/n) raised an eyebrow. “And what? And be suspected of kidnapping me instead?”

Leaf shrugged. “Does that sound like an offense I would commit?”

Alfstan rolled his eyes. “Well, obviously. Besides, the only way you wouldn’t get caught is if you hid her in something as small as a teapot.”

And he would be right. But it will take eons to prove those suspicions as truth.

“Going back to your wares, Sir Alfstan,” (F/n) digressed. “These iron-framed tassels, are they made by your hand?”

Alfstan's respect for the princess grew.

“Yes, how did you come up with that conclusion? Most passersby believed I had ‘em commissioned from the East.”

(F/n) smiled crookedly. Leaf caught a glimpse of discomfort, but it was gone in a bat of an eye.

“I… I admire your skill with molding iron.” To the untrained ear, (F/n) sounded flustered and embarrassed. To Leaf, he was certain that she was unsure of herself. “It is commendable, how you smith your very own weapons, that is. I know many of our soldiers come to you when their blades are chipped.”

“You’ve heard of my skills?!” Alfstan beamed proudly. “Really?!”

The princess nodded. “Y-Yes…”

It was odd. Despite her high praise, her wariness remained. She looked at the blonde man. “He had also made your new Ulfberht sword too, right? It certainly pierces much better than his old one.”

Leaf didn’t bother with a reply, Alfstan made it for him.

“Yes, Your Highness. I thought it would make for a thoughtful birthday present!”

“Speaking of presents…” The princess gazed down, analyzing the items he sold once more. “What do you recommend as a gift for someone important?”

If Alfstan was elated by her earlier compliments, he could practically jump over the moon at her newest proposition.

“Oh? OH?!?”

Leaf gave (F/n) a strict yet gentle glare.

“Your Highness…”

“I still won’t let it slide!” (F/n) huffed. “I couldn’t possibly be satisfied with just new sets of armor. Alfstan, by my order, suggest a pleasant gift for the stubborn knight beside me.”

“On it!”

Without delay, the two bent down to select the ideal accessory for the man who vehemently refused. Alfstan was the only one touching the gems and (F/n) refrained from doing so. Tiny flecks of gold and iron infused the tassels, but she feared she would handle the stones carelessly.

Leaf palmed his face with one hand as the two chattered. Still, despite Leaf’s disapproving looks, he finds (F/n)’s enthusiasm to make him happy a wonderful notion in itself. To think that (F/n) would continue to insist on a present for a birthday that had since passed… She was more stubborn than he was.

“So troublesome…” He muttered with a soft smile. “I see no point in this, Princess (F/n). Serving you is a miracle enough itself—”

“Halt! Speak no more, Sir Leaf!” (F/n) exclaimed. “There! That one, Alfstan— that gem resembles his eyes, does it not?!”

“You have great tastes, Princess (F/n)!” Alfstan nodded eagerly like a motivated student. “That does look like his shade of blue— and so quick to find it among the pile, too! Are you sure you’re not some sort of custodian of natural treasures?”

Princess (F/n)’s awkward and stifled laughter can be heard again.

“What? Haha, what nonsense.” She shook her head. “Everyone calls me Princess (F/n), any other name would surely sound terrifying and mismatched.”

A nonanswer, but that made the conversation more humorous.

“Here you go!”

Alfstan reached his hand out with the tassel. (F/n) stared at him, silent and unsure. He blinked and snapped his fingers.

“Oh, right, you need a box— my deepest apologies, I was too caught up in the moment!”

The princess sighed in relief.

Leaf crossed his arms. “You’re doing well for your first time setting up a stall, Alfstan.”

“This isn’t my first and you know it, Sir!”

(F/n) laughed.

The merchant wrapped the gift she brought with care. The hush looms large around them as the merchant boastfully goes about his business, his tone comforting to her ears. The Princess walks over to the gift box once the merchant has finished. She can't help but smile because she can feel the tassel inside.

“Not exactly a surprise since Sir Leaf is here, but the packaging adds some charm, right?” Alfstan asked.

The princess couldn’t hold back a smile as she looked at the knight behind her.

“I think most of the charm comes from the person who’ll receive it,” (F/n) chuckled.

“Don’t you think so, Leaf?”

She wouldn’t know. And she’d never know a lot of things.

She never got the chance to ask her most precious knight if he liked that gift.

And she never will. No matter how many days, months, years, centuries— eons Leaf would wait, he would never hear the princess ask that same question again after this.

It would not matter if he was a judge, a prince, a knight, or a mere animal— it did not matter how many sweet new styles he would take. In the end, his arms will always be empty. Everything was pre-ordained. Dying in his arms, whether it’s slow and painful or mercilessly quick— will remain as the last line. He will always hold on to your corpse, warmth draining.

This was your fate, (F/n)— no, (Y/n) (L/n).

This was just the first of many branches of the Irminsul. The first of its many reiterations, possibilities, or better yet, alternate tales or "universal resets".

Princess "(F/n)" coughed, wetting the side of her lips.

"I haven't been able to p-personally attach that tassel on your s-sword, b-but… but I can spare you enough seconds to fly away…"

"Don't make haste!" Leaf gritted his teeth as he applied some pressure down her stomach. "This is not your decision to make!"

She didn't reply to his desperation, but she silently disagreed.

In her palm was the tassel, out of its box. The blue threads darkened with the taints of her blood. The metallic scent was nauseating. It weaved in a disorganized fashion around her fingers.

What a beautiful and tragic loom of fate, to love someone you were bound to hold with ruin.

It would’ve hurt less if it weren’t in his colors too.

"This marks the worst day of my life," the “princess” smiled, tucking the stray hair behind Leaf's face. "And even if given the opportunity, I wouldn't dare c-change not even a minute detail about it."

As if she— as if you— have the power to change destiny.

You're not a descender.

You're just a pawn.

That's when Leaf realized how fragile life ultimately was. With the curse undoing itself, he recalled and reflected on his animal days. He understood the Divine Dragon's intense frustration over a lowly duckling's will to perish. The curse of becoming human meant knowing the greed men had, but also the beauty of their kindness.

His small bird heart was not meant for this much sorrow. His life was meant to be simple. To learn that he was not a duck, but a swan.

How was he supposed to cope that the woman he had sworn to protect was not human, but a fae?

Everyone in the kingdom knew that the king would sooner disclaim his paternity than allow the crown princess (F/n) to truly lead— but they never had any real reason to support the king for this. The princess’s words were always more kind and ponderous than that of her supposed father’s. They thought him mad. They thought him deplorable. They thought him old and senile.

But he would not be king if he were not sharp.

Why, oh why, would the princess make great efforts to constantly hide her ears? Why would the princess utter roundabout ways in speaking her “own” name? Most of all, why would the princess fear the touch of iron?

There was a simple answer: she was not the princess, but a liar.

And yet, Leaf was the sole person who did not care, for he thought himself as the worst sinner or “quack” in comparison.

The kingdom won't learn the full truth for some time after this, but the fae made a bargain with the real princess. The real princess would elope with a farm boy and, in return, the fae would take her name. The trade was not malevolent. The two women were secret friends since childhood and neither wished the other harm.

But the townsfolks had little patience. They would sooner throw pebbles and stones than kneel for a false princess.

The moral of the story, like most Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, was simple: virtue will be rewarded, iniquity will be punished. The storytellers do not care beyond that, no matter how dark it sounds to the children who will hear it. The fae lied, therefore the kingdom shall rightfully punish her.

They better thank the dragon they oh-so admire that the court fae did not think themselves evil. They better sleep soundly, knowing that they have slaughtered a well-intentioned guardian.

For he will not and never will.

Not even with a change of title, name, and universe. Whether the land he walked on was called Gaciea, Fodlan, Belobog, the Continental, or Teyvat— what the world steals from him, he promised to take back.

There the two were, back to where it started. The same forest and patch of land where the bear had attacked her. Fate had a funny way of telling tales. Leaf can only scoff at how unimaginative it could be, sometimes.

Why couldn’t fate think of more comfortable deathbeds for the one he loved?

"You cannot allow this! I cannot allow this!" The knight gritted his teeth. "You will not die— you cannot die. You and I have a promise… You cannot break that one promise!!!”

“(F/n)” grinned.

The look in her eyes disturbed him.

She knew. It is finished. She knew that it was the last page of the book. Just living in these immortalized pages for the fae was well worth the want she had wanted.

“Consummatum est.”

Consummatum est….

Leaf gasped shakily.

“Did my life… even have meaning to you as well?”

Her expression was enough to tell him the words “who knows?” She surely did not. Her mind was buzzing and her thoughts were fizzling out. No one knows anymore. Maybe the Divine Dragon would but he would not accept any offering or prayers for these two heretics.

This is fine… He’ll forget his tears soon, surely…

He’s only a sword at her side… She never asked him to be anything more…

He should be okay, once she’s gone…

She grinned, lifelessly tracing her thumb across his cheeks. The curse is undone. The loom of fate was slowly disintegrating. Soon enough, he shall return to his original form. That of an animal. That of an ugly duckling. That of a swan who will forget his human memories.

It is finished.

On the book’s final page, there is only ever a fae’s corpse and an elegant bird watching over them. With its wings clipped back, curiously watching the light leave their eyes, he will return to the nearby riverbanks and forget what had happened. As retribution for stealing another’s identity, there will be no one left to remember who she truly was.

And that was all there was to it.

With the fae banished, the Kingdom of Gaciea lived happily ever after. THE END.

Dainsleif closed the book and lovingly looked at the “person” beside him in bed. He stroked the “person”’s light brown hair— its color reminiscent of the bear he had slain in his first life. It’s a shame he had to reunite with you in this condition. But it’s not like he would stop loving you. He doesn’t care if you’re a fae, a sinner—

Or a hilichurl.

He scooted closer beside you.

"So, does the story ring any bells, my beloved?"

Zhongli, upon recalling what happened and the curse he had inflicted on both of you to fulfill some children’s fairy tale, sought the “ugly duckling” and the “false princess”. Retired as he is, he cannot undo the fate you must play nor terminate his contract with Celestia. For consolation, he merely offered the Khaenri’ahn a teapot. Unlike the Chasm, the teapot was forever peaceful and serene. The brightness of lumenstone ores was not as comforting as the adeptal light that peeks through the drapes. This is your current place of residence. Whether you liked it or not.

"To think Nicole would entail the story of our past life." He laughed softly. "And these names... Hah... Are those the best she could conjure up to bypass possible erasure…? I suppose I should still thank her for her best efforts. I can see how challenging it would be to document our story, given how we lived through so many resets."

There’s a slice of cake paired with wooden utensils on the nightstand. If your mind had not deteriorated, you might’ve assumed they were gifts from the aforementioned Nicole and the Geo Archon. Unfortunately, forming a coherent thought required a mental fortitude akin to iron. You currently do not have such willpower.

“Alfstan— no… Halfdan was right. There will come a time that he’d protect you from harm and not I…” Dainsleif mumbled defeatedly, his eyes burning with tears he couldn’t let out. Far too tired to dwell on it. “He must’ve forgotten his old jests in his previous life because as far as he’s concerned, he’s simply doing his duty as a Black Serpent Knight…”

He pecked your forehead, closing his eyes.

"Did you remember, my beloved? Vacation may not have any business being in my vocabulary but it is my birthday today…" Dainsleif leaned his forehead against the cold stone that covered your face. "I know you— do not feel guilty over your lack of gifts. It is not as if I bothered to count my age since the cataclysm. I didn't want to celebrate this occasion for the past five centuries. Not when you weren't at my side..."

The blonde man turned his gaze to the floor.

How many times will he have to “reincarnate” just to see a happy ending for the both of you?

"Happy birthday… to me…" He sang weakly. "Happy birthday to me…"

The man— the former sentimental judge— the former tyrant prince— the former "ugly duckling"— and now the current bough keeper, observer of fate in this new fairy tale, trembled…

“Happy birthday, happy birthday…”

… And sobbed.

You, in your ungreedy husk of a body, tilted your head in innocence. Pain coursed through every nerve now that the Abyss Order’s cleansing equipment broke. The man before you was no different from the shadows you fought and hid from that would terrorize the dark and cold places in the Chasm you’ve instinctively called home. But somewhere deep down, you carried a complex weight that hilichurls wouldn’t normally have.

That weight was a human emotion dubbed as "pity."

You pitied the shadow that loomed and embraced you.

And your lone reluctant arm that wrapped around him was enough to make him fully break down.

His throat constricted as he cried into your inhuman shoulders. Your scent was like that of a wet duckling, and he preferred that over the blood that disgraced your form several "fairy tales" ago. Dainsleif caressed the golden band on his finger. It was the most important ring between the two that Pari Zurvan found him clutching whilst unconscious in the wilderness.

At the very least, you were safe.

And you being alive today was a good enough present for him.

You tilted your head down, feeling his warmth one last time while Dainsleif took a deep breath, singing with more air than a proper tune.

Though it was barely discernible, he could just about make out the words you muttered a phrase from the old language of Khaenri'ah. Or at least, he deluded himself that that was the case. In his catatonic mind, you spoke the words:

Happy birthday, my beloved.

"H-Happy birthday to me…"

Taglist: @pix-stuff @sagekun @vennnnn-diagram @dilucragnidvr @tnsophiaonly @lsleepysimpl @kitkareen @dxprived4-starboys

#yandere dainsleif #yandere dainsleif x reader #dainsleif #dainsleif x reader #yandere genshin #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere x reader #yandere fanfiction #yandere male

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giggles-and-freckles · 3 years

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Okay woohoo some fic recs incoming!!!! These will probably be all over the place, but I’ve just got to scream about them for a second!!! PS gonna try to do these more frequently because this is fun!!!

Click below the cut if you dare!

Declarations by Nny11

Summary: A series exploring Obi-Wan and Ahsoka's relationship as Grandmaster and Grandpadawan.

Okay, so this is one of the first fics I can genuinely remember reading with a heavy emphasis on the relationship between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka where I was like 'hey oh my god I love them?’ It was a monumental moment for me because now I am so obscenely ride or die for them and I truly do think back to this fic often with utter fondness.

A moment I loved:

“From a certain point of view,” he finally conceded, motioning her to start again. “At least I know you’ve learned something from me!”

“Well I couldn’t learn the secrets of your hair routine!”

the flood comes rushing in by @kenobilovebot

Summary: "I have done this for you. I have put you first." Or, Anakin finds out.

A little bit of sith!Obi-Wan? As a treat? Hm, well...all right!!!!! I don’t want to say too much here because I would really prefer you read it than read any more of my mindless babbling but–it’s good.

A moment I loved:

He can hardly think around the smothering darkness that has so wholly encompassed his master, so effectively destroying the light that has always been. He’s always been able to reach for it at the worst of times. Now he can’t feel it at all.

a time to say goodbye by Sokaless

Summary: Ezra isn't the only one facing the temptation of change in the World Between Worlds. Just minutes after facing Vader, Ahsoka falls through a portal seventeen years into the past and must relive her final encounter with Anakin and Obi-Wan without drastically altering the future. But Anakin Skywalker taught her many things. How to push her luck was one of them.

This is a short and sweet time-travel fic that finds Ahsoka back in that moment in the hangar with Anakin right before they unknowingly have their last goodbye. She knows more now than she did before and struggles not to say it all. But the theme of learning from loss is really special and powerful and I feel this sad sort of closure when I finish (I say that actively because I have...read this fic several several times). Painful, poignant–all the best things.

A moment I loved:

One last thing she learned from Anakin- teaching a lesson often requires holding your student to higher standards than you hold yourself.

With the knowledge that she’s holding him to a standard she herself might never reach, Ahsoka tells Ezra, “I’m asking you to let go.”

good morning, sun by @katierosefun

Summary: “You look miserable.” Ahsoka dropped her hand, spun around. Obi-Wan stood behind her, one arm carrying a cloak and the other half-extended to Ahsoka. [or: After she leaves the Order, Ahsoka has one last encounter with Obi-Wan.]

Let’s see how many of Caroline’s fics I can get away with posting before someone reports me. This one-shot is full of all the good post-wrong jedi stuff. Soka and Obi have a conversation at Dex’s that hurts a lot but also feels real and I will never not respect Caroline for understanding the nuances of the disaster trios intricate and intimate relationships with each other and how they shift and mold around different circumstances. This feels so authentically them that it hurts.

A moment I loved:

What came out instead was a small, half-choked sound.

When Obi-Wan opened his arms, Ahsoka fell right into them. “It hurts,” Ahsoka said, her voice cracking. “A lot.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan replied thickly. “We’ll take care of it.”

You Haunt All My What-Ifs by @kckenobi

Summary: But then she saw the way Obi-Wan’s lip was quivering, and his eyes were shining, and she realized— He hadn’t called because he needed to tell her. He’d called because he needed her. “Obi-Wan,” she breathed. “Oh, Obi-Wan…” And she wanted to reach out, to hold him. To be his refuge, his shelter, his home. Instead she just watched as he shook his head, palmed at his eyes, apologized. She reached out. Touched the hologram. It flickered. — [Satine and Obi-Wan—then, now, and every echo of what if between them.]

One of the first fics that got me on my Obitine grind!! Just the right mix of angst and angst to create the perfect recipe of absolute sorrow. These characters feel so real I could reach out and hug them–and oh, how I want to after this incredible little fic.

A moment I loved:

And then suddenly she was thinking of every little what if—the other paths they could’ve taken, the millions of ways they could’ve ended up here. She imagined a future where he’d stayed. She saw white weddings, crying infants, painting nursery rhymes on a pale bedroom wall. She saw herself rolling over in the middle of the night, bumping shoulders, feeling his warm breath on her face. She saw family dinners, rushed breakfasts as they hurried the kids off to school. She saw laughter. She saw a lifetime. And at the end, she saw herself old and gray, holding his hand, his eyes the last thing she’d ever see.They had arrived at the end now. But she was not old and gray.

Dying Words by @cloudyskywars

Summary: Anakin is trapped beneath a collapsed building, and has one final conversation with Obi-Wan.

One of my favourite febuwhump contributions from within the mountain of wonderful fics that the second month of the year created!! Some good ol classic Obi & Ani pain. Hint of a deathfic...but mostly just the moments leading up to it. And they...hurt. Also!!! Melanie took the care to make Anakin’s final words be about Obi-Wan, which is very special to me for the reason she includes in her author’s note.

A moment I loved:

“And,” he said, “if you ever see Ahsoka again, tell her she was the best padawan I could have asked for.” His breaths were coming in rapid pants, now, and the room was spinning out of focus. “Obi-Wan?” he asked, voice barely audible. “Yes, Padawan mine?” he responded, his own voice shaky as well. “Thank you for being my Master,” Anakin said.

i’m only me when i’m with you idiots by @renegadeontherunn

Summary: who let Obi-Wan pick the holo? and where's the remote? they might need a bigger blanket.

[or, Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan have leave on Coruscant and holo night is the perfect excuse to all squeeze onto a couch together, bicker, and be, well, a family]

Fluff, fluff, fluff! Yes, please! My dear Fiona does a wonderful job wrapping these three up in a blanket and plopping them in front of a holo for a night of witty banter and so-cute-I-could-melt platonic cuddles. I love these three, I love this fic!

A moment I loved:

“You met a civilized Padawan? Couldn’t have been ours.”

get home by @curse-of-men

Summary: After a mission goes wrong and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker goes missing, it is up to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano to bring him home.

[or: a Grandmaster and a Grandpadawan go on a road trip to rescue chaos personified]

What? Me? Rec’ing another Obi-Wan and Ahsoka centric fic? HUH? Hehe, I love that Lou says this is the missing Obi & Soka arc in their author’s note because um, did they look into my heart and know that’s what I most desire? Anyway, this three-parter is incredible from start to finish and I demand you all go read it immediately. :-)

A moment I loved:

Making their way to the cockpit, Ahsoka tilts her head into Obi-Wan’s general direction and says: “You know, Master, Anakin would probably think things so far have gone excellently.” Obi-Wan returns her look and sighs.

“Now you surely must get why I am so worried about this.” Ahsoka grins and gestures back and forth in the empty space between them with one hand.

“For what it’s worth, I think we make a good enough team.”

we stand here, together by @nightdotlight

Summary: Master Depa Billaba and Padawan Caleb Dume.

Windu worries for them, out in the wider galaxy. Waging war, while he and Anakin sit here, waiting.

But he trained Billaba, and Billaba is training Dume. Anakin once took lessons from her, when he himself was a Padawan, and he knows she is skilled enough by far, to ensure that both she and her student make it back to Coruscant safely.

It’s ironic, that when cut off from the Force he can understand other people better than he has in years.

ZOWEE!!!! This fic made me ugly cry on my conference period at school!! Ha! Another fic that culminates in, er...death. But!!!! The lead-up! Ooh, baby! The writing style of this one is also very fresh and unique which I appreciate as someone who essentially reads the same thing eight million ways (by choice, mind you!!!! and loves it every time!!!!). This is just an absolute gem of a fic. Queue: your best crying playlist.

A moment I loved:

Depa, her Padawan braid hanging from her shoulder, hugs him around his middle and drags him to the training salles. The whole way, her laughter follows them– warm, like summer rain. Like the smallest, most ephemeral moments of happiness.

Her smile feels like a sunset on his back, and Mace smiles back even as they spar, as green and purple clash over and over again in a dance unique to teacher and student.

He does not need to reach out to know the galaxy is at peace. When they take a break from their own spar, Mace feels a light tap on his presence in the Force; when he turns, Ahsoka Tano stands there in training robes, her own Master a few paces behind– and beside him, Obi-Wan Kenobi, face lighter than it has been in years.

Her Padawan beads hang from her headdress; when she smiles at the banter behind her, turning to retort, they catch the light, and the half-formed impression of those beads torn asunder and held in gloved hand is dissipated by the glare.

Only Hope by @tessiete

Summary: The infamous "Year on the Run".In the wake of her father's death, Satine is assigned two Jedi to escort her safely back to Mandalore, but in the chaotic aftermath of a civil war, there is more at stake than one person's survival. Together, they work to unite Mandalore, overcome ancient grudges, and bring peace to a world ravaged by bloodshed.

Man, oh man, do I love a good year on the run fic! And man oh man am I loving the heck out of this one. It’s in progress so go ahead give it a bookmark and a subscription while you’re at it!!!! But the banter! The sass! The (I assume soon to come) pining! The Qui-Gon third wheeling! READ IT! Cannot recommend highly enough.

A moment I loved:

“...and you’re bound to be hungry.”

“I assure you, I’m not.”

“Well, Obi-Wan is,” Jinn asserts. His back is to his apprentice and so he cannot see the mutinous glance which darts his way. “And as you’ve seen, he’s trouble when he isn’t fed. You have five minutes.”

Goes to Ground by jerseydevious

Summary: Obi-Wan has a question for Anakin following his experiences on Zygerria.

Silly Jedi boys trying and failing to communicate, gosh dang it!!! They get there, eventually, though. :’) Some post Zygerria angst and some tough discussions. HERE. FOR. IT.

A moment I loved:

“You are a bad influence, padawan mine,” Obi-Wan said. He gave Anakin that smile, the one that made Anakin feel like he shared a secret with his Master, something only for them.

In Sacrifice, Peace by @ilonga

Summary: “Shh. . .” Anakin says, gathering the younglings around him, reminding Obi-wan of all those whispered arguments where he had insisted to Anakin that yes, he was good with children, he’d be just fine teaching Ahsoka. He can almost feel the terror rising off Anakin from the hologram; Anakin doesn’t know what’s happening either. But he isn’t letting the younglings feel it. “You need to listen to me very carefully, okay? This--” his voice breaks, “--this is going to be scary. But you have to be calm, and strong. Just like Master Yoda taught you.” [Or, the ROTS au where Obi-wan finds a very different type of pain while looking through the Temple's recordings of Order 66.]

PAIN AWAITS YOU HERE! But that is exactly why you should click, kudos, comment, bookmark, and let this fic live in your head rent free like it’s living in mine. Truly couldn’t get it out of there if I wanted to! AND I DO NOT! Yet another deathfic and angst with The Team (TM). Read it, peeps.

A moment I loved:

“And then?”Obi-wan closes his eyes, pretends he can’t feel the weight of the body in his arms, pretends it’s really Anakin he’s talking to and not some worrying coping mechanism. “And then we fight.” he says.

to hold by @katierosefun

Summary: “What—” Ahsoka looked up and, where she had expected to find a mumbling drunk, she found instead—

“Master Kenobi?” Ahsoka asked, stunned. She straightened, already swinging her backpack around herself again.

“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan managed. He was breathing hard, just barely bent over because he was supporting, Ahsoka realized dumbly, Anakin.

Anakin, whose head was lolling against Obi-Wan’s shoulder. Whose face was two shades too pale and eyes fluttering and lips parted in a soundless groan that brought Ahsoka right back to battlefields and med bays and other places that she hadn’t been in a long, long while. [or: after leaving the Order, Ahsoka runs into some familiar faces.]

Caroline at it again with the post-wrong-jedi disaster trio angst comin’ in hot! Some platonic bed-sharing, some confused Anakin, some conflicted Ahsoka, some pained Obi-Wan. Well–strike that. They’re all in pain. But what do we expect, honestly? What do we want, honestly? Pain. We want pain.

A moment I loved:

“Only another dream,” Obi-Wan said. He looked at Ahsoka, his face just barely shadowed. “Seems that it’s passed.”

Another.

Ahsoka’s stomach twisted. She looked at the hand she was holding. It was strange—she couldn’t remember if she had ever actually held onto Anakin’s hand this tightly before, but now she could feel the familiar callouses, make out just the faintest of old scars. Ahsoka squeezed it once.

Not near as many as I planned to do or have saved and ready to rec, but...this already got, er...quite lengthy. So! Same time, next week! I’ll have some more! (Well, probably not same time and maybe not even next week...but soon.)

#fic rec #how is this only thirteen fics hahahahahaha #I literally just cannot shut up #go kudos and comment and reblog their stuff PLS I beg you!

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icollectyoursins · 4 years

Text

Risotto x Fem!reader (Not SFW)

You’ve been teasing Risotto all day and he is sick of it.

We’re starting this blog with a BANG, bitch.

Have a character, but no idea? Prompt list here!

Looking for more? Master post here!

WARNINGS: Spanking, Biting, Marking, Vibrator on Max, Choking, Teasing (like, a lot), Fingering, Vaginal Sex, nice soothing baths afterwards, cute and cuddle morning Risotto is best Risotto.

Word Count: 2425

Will leave you too sore to walk the next day.

He's 6'8, built like a brick shit house and has the goods to match. Probably 9 1/2 inches, 8 minimum and thicc (just under 2 inches in diameter). Well trimmed, but not groomed.

Tease him. Go on. I dare you.

This man is the brat-taming king and he WILL tame you.

Risotto corners you in the bathroom when you're about to get in the shower, running his hands all over you, soft and gentle. He lures you into a false sense of security. You feel his lips on your neck turn to a smile. He looks up at you in the mirror one last time, then bites where your neck meets your shoulder as hard as he can.

His arms wrap around you. You're pinned. A high moan escapes your lips as he sucks red into your skin. He waits until he's sure this mark will last before moving to another. He's going to make sure you have a pretty purple collar after tonight.

You whine and moan, squeezing your thighs together to get some sort of friction, some sort of release as his lips and teeth assault your neck. When he notices, he bites down extra hard on your neck, then bends you over the vanity and smacks your ass hard enough for tears to touch the corners of your eyes.

Risotto spreads your legs open so they can't touch and wails his hand down on your cheek once again. He doesn't say it, but the strong hand in the middle of your back tells you not to move. You moan and whimper when you feel his finger float against your now slick folds, then pulls away, not giving you the satisfaction of his touch yet.

"You've been teasing me, (Y/N). You should know better. Haven’t I been kind to you?" He waits for a retort or an answer and slaps you behind when he doesn't get one. You moan and nod your head. "Use your words." He growls in your ear.

"You're right, I should know better."

"And have I been cruel to you?" He squeezes your ass as a threat to make sure you reply.

"No, you've been good, so good to me."

"Then why did you do it? Did you want to show off? Show my squad what they're missing? Did you think you’d get away with not letting me touch you all day? No one gets away with misbehaving; not while I'm here. Now, be a good girl and get on your knees" the last two sentences are whispered in your ear, low and threatening.

He's gonna fuck your throat, right? Right?

He doesn't, actually. He has a better idea, one that won't threaten to make him cum. He spreads your legs a little further and you can feel the cold bathroom floor seeping through you.

"Stay."

See, a few weeks ago, when you were scrolling through your phone, he managed to look over your shoulder. You were looking at vibrators and other stimulating things like that. And yes he did, in fact, see you put that one with the remote into your cart. He'd waited until it came the next week and then hid it in his drawer. When you'd ask if anything came, he'd say no then ask you what you had bought. You'd always said it was just some clothes. Just some clothes. You should know better than to lie to the leader of La Squadra, cara. Risotto always knows.

You hear him unbox something from the other room, unaware of what he has in store. He comes back with a chair and something in his other hand you couldn't quite see.

Risotto sits down, cheeks hurting from smiling so much. He motions for you to stand up. His eyes seem to swallow you as he stares, admiring your lovely form. Then, come here. You carefully walk towards him, wary of what he's hiding.

"Close your eyes." You go to ask what's about to happen, he stops you. "Close them." You can feel your knees shake as you wait for him to touch you. The sound of tape ripping then being placed on something fills your ears. "Safeword?"

"Red."

"Keep going?"

"Green."

"And slow down?"

"Blue." You two had almost picked yellow to match the theme, but it didn't seem to roll off the tongue.

"Good, you'll tell me when I go too far, right?" The concern in his voice sounded genuine.

"Of course," you reply with a smile.

"Let's get started." He tapes the small, yet powerful, vibrator to your clit then orders you to get on your knees again and you wonder where he got the tiny contraption.

He pushes your legs apart with his feet to get you where he wants you. He doesn't move them. As much as he would love to use something else to keep your legs open, spreaders are a little out of his price range and he's never had the time to make one, so he has to improvise.

Risotto curls his hand around your chin, placing his thumb on your bottom lip. He slowly moves it in your mouth, relishing the way you swallow it greedily. He pushes down onto your tongue, holding your mouth open. You whine at the loss of something to suck on.

He's about to press the first button when he thinks of something more sinister. He braces his legs and pushes the last one; the highest it can go. Your whole body jerks up and forward, pushing his thumb further into your mouth. His feet keep you as spread as possible. He watches in sick pleasure as you writhe and twitch. Your hands latch onto his legs for some kind of leverage and he stops the vibrator, chuckling as you moan.

"Too much?" You can't talk with his grip on your chin, so you just nod. He laughs again, low and deep. "Good. Hands off." You open your eyes to plead with him. "You tease me all day, not letting me lay a single finger on you, and now you want mercy? Tch. That won't do."

Risotto’s eyes go dark as he stares down at you. "Hands off." Regretfully, you obey. He pushes the button again and the process repeats. He stops when he needs an answer from you or when you're about to cum. Relishing in the way your moans get higher and louder. When he thinks you've had enough, he turns it down to the power setting, one you can barely feel, and speaks.

"Poor thing. Look at what a mess you've made and you haven't even cum yet. Tch. So desperate. Do you want it? Do you want me?" He lets go of your tongue and leans into your face. "Do you want my cock?"

You nod frantically, leaning forward to brush your lips against his. "Please." He's weak. You learn so quickly. He kisses your lips and removes the vibrator. He gets up and stows the chair in the corner, then takes off his clothes. You've always loved watching him get undressed. You love admiring all his toned muscles clench as you run your hands over them, or the way he relaxes into the bed. You love all his scars and bruises. You'd kiss every single one if he didn't tell you to stay. Or did he, you can't remember.

He comes back to you, completely naked now. He's fully erect. It looks painful. Maybe you should help him. You reach to run your tongue along him when he pulls away.

"Almost forgot something."

You sigh loudly, frustrated and he turns to you again. “Don’t be like that. Unless you want that thing on you again.”

“Now, why would you do that, when I’ve been so good?” He narrows his eyes, then walks towards you, grabs your neck and pulls you to your feet.

“Say that again,” Risotto squeezes his hand on your windpipe. He waits for an answer. “I didn’t think so. Now, turn around.” He lets go of you and watches you carefully turn around, then pins you to the vanity with your arms behind your back.

“I was going to grab the lube and stretch you out properly, but I don’t think you deserve that. I don’t think you deserve this,” he rubs his tip in between your folds. “Shame, you were doing so well, too.”

You were about to call him an asshole but held your tongue. You just wanted to cum so you could think straight and come up with an actual insult. He, of course, wouldn’t let you until he wanted to and even then, it was a toss-up.

The temptation to bend you over and fuck you until you couldn’t walk was great, but Risotto’s resolve was greater. He pulled his dick away, replacing it with his fingers. A long moan slipped through your lips as he rubbed up and down your slick.

He latches onto your tender neck again, covering up any skin that’s poking through the red, biting down whenever you move too much for his liking. His eyes flick up to the mirror to watch your reaction as he slips the first finger in, memorizing the way your eyes flutter back into your head and your mouth goes slack with something finally in you. God, if only you had been good. He would have done anything you asked, but you just had to open your mouth.

One finger grows to two, then three. Your neck is sufficiently red and purple now. He can’t take it anymore.

“Don’t move,” he lets go of your arms and lifts your hips up, aligns himself quickly, then finally gives you what you want.

You both groan when his tip slips through and again as he slowly inches himself in. And then again and again. God, he was heaven. Your toes barely touching the ground added to the thrill.

"Fuck, you ~aah~ feel so ~mmm~ good." Each word is emphasized with a deeper thrust into you. All you can do is mewl. He picks you up and then pins you to the ground, positioning your ass in the air while he hovers over you. "Is this what you wanted, puttana?" He picks up his pace, the tip of his cock hitting what you can only assume is your cervix. "You ~fuck~ wanted to be bent over and reminded where you belong? You wanted your cunt to be filled up with my cock? ~Ah~ troietta sporcacciona. Of course, you wanted to be filled up by your Capo." He slaps your ass, then gropes it.

It doesn't take long for you to come undone once he starts slapping your ass and degrading you. He drags it out by rubbing on your clit, making you twitch and scream.

"Cum already? We're not even done yet." He lifts you up onto his lap and forces you to bounce on his dick until he's close, then he pulls out, jerking himself until he cums on your thighs and floor. You whimper at the loss, wanting to feel your capo fill you to the brim with his release.

"Sorry, dolcezza. Did you want that? Did you want me to cum in your sweet little pussy?" You lean against him and nod your head frantically. He chuckles darkly into your ear. “Oh, mia amata, we're only getting started on your punishment. Now, can you walk or do I need to carry you?"

The next morning:

Risotto wakes up with a strange weight on his chest and a light snoring in his ear. You must have passed out on him and then him not long after. Poor thing, you must be exhausted.

He rubs your back gently, smiling when you sigh and curl into his neck more.

You finally wake up a few minutes later, immediately feeling the consequences of everything you did last night. He laughs when you groan, rolling onto your side delicately and then follow suit, rolling so he faced you.

“Buongiorno, mia bellissima,” he brushes your hair back, admiring the marks on your neck. “You look good with all of these, maybe I should get you a real collar.” You roll your eyes and groan. “Come on, let’s get you in the bath.”

He ignores your groans and gently lifts you out of the bed and into the bathroom, setting you on your feet near the shower. Risotto makes sure you’re able to stand before going to turn the tap on.

When he comes back, he holds you close, freckling your face with kisses as the two of you wait for the bath to fill up. He asks if you need water, or if you wanted bubbles in the bath.

You reach to touch his face when your shoulders and biceps scream. You wince and put your arm down. He smiles and kisses your forehead. Then your temple. Then your cheek, lips, neck (of course being gentle against the deep purple marks he left) until he's kneeling, head resting against your stomach. Your heart flutters a bit and you run your hand through his tangled hair.

Risotto sighs, leaning into your touch and rubbing circles on your hips. he could stay like this forever; stay with you forever.

He looks up at you, smiling, then gets on his feet again, pressing more kisses into your cheeks and forehead. Yeah, he could get used to this.

Afterwards, he lifts you up and into the bath carefully. He massages out any soreness you have, gets you water and anything else you ask for. Uses a soothing cream on your ass as well as anywhere else he thinks he may have gone overboard.

He cuddles you for the entire day and the day after that if his schedule permits it, if not, he tells you to stay home, rest, get your energy back.

Risotto will tell the rest of La Squadra that you had a rough uh... mission, yeah. Yeah, a rough mission and that you’ll probably need some help with getting food and such to which they all agree because these walls are NOT soundproof and they feel bad.

As much as he would love for the rest of La Squadra to see how much you belong to him (ie. the bruise collar on your neck) he knows that he’d never hear the end of it from Melone and Formaggio, so he tells you to wear a turtle neck or scarf if you’re planning on moving from the bed.

Translations:

puttana = slut

troietta sporcacciona = my little slut

Oh, mia amata = Oh, my love

dolcezza = sweetheart

Buongiorno, mia bellissima = Good morning, my beautiful.

All translations are from here, sorry if it’s a little off. Obviously, I do not speak Italian despite how much I thirst for Italian men.

#risotto #risotto nero #risotto nero x reader #risotto nero x reader not sfw #risotto nero not sfw #risotto n/s/f/w #risotto nero x fem!reader #risotto prompts #not sfw

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brokenxfragments · 3 years

Photo

Dystrial, the Deceiver

Icon Use: FFXIV model

Theme Song(s)

Everything Moves - Bronze Radio Return

The Wolf - SIAMÉS

Basic Information

Age: 3000+ (immortal)

Gender: Male

Height: 6′5

Weight: 230 Ibs

Species: Mirato (shapeshifter)

Orientation/Sexuality: Homoromantic/Homosexual

Relationship: Single (ship verse dependent)

Occupation: Infiltrator, Assassin

Brief Personality: Devious— Intelligent — Secretive

Brief Bio: Playful yet formal, this creature can be very misleading depending on his intentions; as a trained assassin & infiltrator, Dystrial makes himself to be whatever he needs to be, though at current he has no real evil intentions. Having served a mad god for several hundreds, if not thousands, of years, he only seeks a little company & perhaps a duel here & there. Yet his mission is to find an old friend of his, as well as old enemies.

Full Biography

Born of a species of shapeshifters, the mirato, this particular race would feed off of another’s adrenalin - for those that were passive, they’d oftentimes find a group to integrate with, taking whatever form necessary to be accepted & feed in a non-aggressive manner. Usually, the group sought for are known for taking risks or participate in extreme acts that would have them be full of adrenalin (aka, adrenalin junkies). There are also those that would impersonate a loved one when that one leaves, feeding from the adrenalin of the impersonated’s own mate via love-making before they’d slip away afterwards, usually none the wiser. However, for those like Dystrial, they were active in seeking their source in a far more aggressive way, to which were how this race would be feared. In doing so, at least in this mirato’s way, he actively fights someone, usually to the death, wearing his prey down the longer he feeds & never losing energy until his prey finally drops from exhaustion.

However, this particular mirato would catch the attention of a being he had mistakenly picked as his prey; upon engaging, Dystrial would very quickly realize that this being was no prey after only a few quick though fierce blows, pinned to the ground by a foot that radiated heat. He thought that he was going to die for his mistake & had accepted it - then the stranger spoke, speaking of his kind in such an knowing manner that he knew far more than any outsider should know. He’d realize why as the man introduced himself as the aspect of extinction itself, Aridem. And he would give the mirato a choice; to die right there, naught but ashes as he’d burned from the inside out... or he would serve the mad god in his mission. And in wanting to preserve his life, Dystrial chose the option to allow him that, being spared of a rather grotesque manner of death. Yet he’d learn quite quickly the kind of mission that Aridem was carrying out - to wipe out the entirety of the universe. None would be spared... but it would not be painful. Since it were a god carrying this out, the mirato figured that there was little choice in the matter. And not to mention that a painless death was better than one done otherwise.

Dystrial would undergo the ritual of Aridem’s own fashion that would make him immortal, having his heart removed from his body & kept safe, so that if he died he’d simply resurrect whole, brought back to the lair that the mad god had set up for their base of operations. If there was anything that Dystrial thought was good from this exchange, it was this assurance that he wouldn’t die. And he would serve Aridem well, swiftly gaining his lord’s confidence as he would be tasked to infiltrate the targets that the god wanted him to go, seek out & assassinate the leaders or important figures. But most importantly, he was to seek out remnants of the Elder Gods’ essence that had been left behind on worlds in their ever going war before they were sealed away. These essences were solidified, giving an appearance of crystal but had immense power even in these scattered forms. Oftentimes the inhabitants of worlds would take these pieces & use them, sometimes as mere decorations in their ignorance, in other times as actual power when they’ve discovered how to access it. Aridem wanted these essences to gain power, absorbing these sources when he’d find them.

Once these essences were found & drained, this would be the signal that the world had fulfilled its use. If the world was close to the edge of the Void, the world was simply swallowed within its maw - if the Void was not in proximity, Aridem would raze the world in a wave of flames that would use the world’s own atmosphere to do it all nearly in a flash. In this way, he would know which world had already been scoured for the precious essence. And Dystrial, while he were an aggressive sort of mirato, couldn’t help but feel helpless in that he brought these world-ending apocalypses, even though realistically he knew that even without him, this group of mad men would do it anyway.

Years would go on, the mirato never really knowing how long he served this god, though yet within this group of Harbingers, he would sort of befriend the other non-god within the circle, the ivaci dracon called Zikom. While they were usually more likely to butt heads & the mirato would be cruel in his moody days since he were considered ‘higher’ in ranks than Zikom, the creature still would look out for him, keeping him out of trouble when they went on missions together. The two were often in conflict with another deity that would arrive on the targeted world as them, the one named Rosalia. With long studies of his opponent as well as what he’d pick up between her & the mad god along with his son, he understood the deity with quite some clarity; this was the mate of his very own god, from a time period where the mad god was not mad. Dystrial had some amount of sympathy towards her, though he wouldn’t show it so long as he were in service to Aridem.

But he eventually would decide that he wanted to be freed of this service that he were pressed into, even if it were to be through death. And in that same token, he wanted to free Zikom as well, the would-be proud creature that shouldn’t be bound by invisible chains of false loyalty. In secret, without even telling Zikom of what he intended, he’d devise his plans, which would take time as he would revise ideas & gathered new information during his service. Eventually, he’d settle to the idea of swapping their hearts for replicas - hearts that came from their own species. A mirato’s wasn’t hard to gain, given that he only needed to find one that was caught by aggressors that found out its identity - swapping it for his own was the trickiest part. Part of the reason it took so long was so that he could learn discreetly of the means of magic that Aridem used to preserve their hearts. After much tampering, he would be successful, taking his own to a different universe altogether when he would follow Rosalia out through the Rift.

Zikom’s would be the hardest one, given the fact that the dracon’s heart was one transformed from beast to something more humanoid when the ritual was done on him. Forcing a similar spell was quite difficult when magic wasn’t in his reach. Yet it didn’t matter, not when the long-drawn war would finally escalate. Aridem’s plans had been successful & was drawing to its completion - it was time to bring the realms of gods into the Void along with the rest of the universe, having accumulated enough power from the Elder Gods’ essence. Dystrial could have simply given up on Zikom & made his bid for freedom, but he felt a sense of obligation to the dracon. He’d wait, plan, watch even as he fought in the now bloody war as both forces of Seraphine & Infernam rose to meet their foes, most of which was Malshano’s contribution of creatures, ‘recycled’ beings that had been from the dead worlds that he simply called consumers - creatures of the Void.

In the final battle, Dystrial was given a special task by Malshano, which due to his sympathy towards Rosalia would make him feel a little sick even after all he had done - to seek out the deity’s remaining children that had been brought to the very last sanctuary, & to tell Malshano where they were at once located. Long before this point, he knew that the mad god’s son was even madder than his father, obsessed with ‘punishing’ his own mother in any way he could, though he was oftentimes unable to do it personally because of his service to Aridem by making the consumers. But now he could. And Dystrial was able to find his targets... but he had a small breath of relief, having come upon them as they first talked the adopted mortal child, Hikaru, to be sent through the Rift to a safe world, far outside Eldria, to then have one of the twins to follow after an intensive argument. Because of one twin’s ability to make duplicates, the female Silvia was staying behind to fool anyone that might seek them out, even though the male Tobias was reluctant to follow this plan. The sister would force her brother through the portal & have it close behind her, with only duplicates of her siblings to follow her.

While he wouldn’t necessarily want any of them to die, at least the deity Rosalia wouldn’t lose all her children. With this in mind, he’d report back to Malshano & would lie, saying that all three were present at a temple on the outskirts of the battle. And when Malshano went to find his targets, Dystrial used this chance to shadow-travel to their lair, snagging Zikom’s heart without bothering to leave a replica behind, taking it & himself out of the lair that was already breaking apart as the Void was in the process of consuming everything, including the mad god’s only protective location - Aridem didn’t need it anymore. It was a mad decision, keeping it with him, but he returned to the final battle, intending to find access to the Rift, but his return was timely indeed, for the First Daughter of Seraphine would send survivors into the Rift just as she was falling to the Void’s maw, the island she resided on for countless millennia having been in the process of being devoured. Dystrial arrived onto a world that wasn’t the same as the one he’s been to before, though because of the last minute attempt to rescue as many survivors as Salri could, he knew for certain that he was likely to meet with the other survivors, sent to the last world that the Rift had been connected to - which would make it the same world that likely Rosalia’s surviving children would be found. Because the heart of the dracon remained alive, he also know that Zikom was alive.

But now that freedom was finally at his fingertips, Dystrial wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. All the same... he would make himself a new life.

#._;ooc;_.the.echoes.beyond.(.mod.)#._;muse;_.the.life.of.a.spy.is.to.know.not.be.known.(.dystrial.)

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polandspringz · 4 years

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RWBY Actually Has Good Writing: A Thematic Analysis

I may be a stickler for desiring more Ozpin content, and occasionally I do feed into RWDE posting when I get caught up in some of the more negative opinions, but RWBY’s writing really isn’t as atrocious as people are making it out to be, and after Ozpin’s speech this volume, I thought about highlighting why. One of the key points in this is Ironwood’s character, as many people who defend him have said his character has been destroyed by the writing and people against his actions have said the opposite, that he’s always been an irredeemable dictator. This split also applies to those who side with Ozpin or Team RWBY, in the now overdone debates about whether Ozpin was justified in lying and so forth. Something that has really frustrated me is the ignorance people seem to be showing in regards to how characters are supposed to be characters, and are supposed to do bad things or make mistakes for the sake of the narrative. We all knew Ironwood was going to turn for the worse this volume, although we were happy to see him resist it for the majority of it. However, while he may be making horrible decisions that are jeopardizing the safety of the kingdom, does that make him inherently an evil character?

“But fear itself isn’t worthy of concern. Its is who we become while in its clutches. Will you be proud of that person? Will you forgive them? Will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? Will you even recognize them? Or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start? I suppose we all find out, sooner or later.”

There is a difference between an antagonist and a villain. Ironwood is definitely not a villain, and the same goes for Ozpin. They don’t have evil motivations, they are not trying to completely destroy the world like Salem is. They have caused problems for the protagonists, yes, but they are not the villain of the series. Ironwood has only been the antagonist for this Atlas arc, like how Roman was for the first three volumes. The reason they have transformed into these roadblocks though, in the words of Ozpin, is because of fear, and this is something that RWBY has never failed to deliver on, and in fact has been building up this theme beautifully since its world-building in the first volume, because...

The Grimm are attracted to fear. Plain and simple, that is one of the first concepts we are introduced to. The heroes fear failing in their respective paths, although that’s a constant fear in any story set in an action-adventure like this. Ironwood fears Salem like everyone else, but his fear also stems from more than just being annihilated or killed. His fear stems from a lack of power. We know this because of his speech to Oscar in the vault earlier in volume 7, how he felt small and powerless when Salem took control at the Vytal Festival, when the Queen piece was placed on his desk again, he snapped because he feared that he had already been usurped and lost the upper hand. He lost his leverage and power over Salem’s forces. Now, RWBY may be in a fantasy world, but because of its trope heavy nature, it is not a stretch to say that Ironwood’s fear of Salem having power over him could also be gender motivated.

I first thought about this in regards to Ernest Hemingway’s works. The Sun Also Rises, in particular, but any of his works have a similar theme of war and masculinity. In The Sun Also Rises, the main character is made impotent because of an injury in war, and the long and short of that is whole theme coming to fruition is that war is emasculating because there was no story-book manly victory in war. War is fearful and terrifying. Additionally, the main female character in the book is shaped by her masculine appearance (due to the trends at the time of the 20s) and her personality and lack of stereotypical femininity leaves no place for the men to need to behave stereotypically masculine, but with those two forces emasculating them, what are they left with to be men with?

It’s not nice to think that sexism exists in a fantasy world, but because RWBY by nature has always has such an emphasis on girlhood and women, from the main characters being a group of girls to the villain being a woman, it is very interesting to have a theme of sexism be so subtle. Because RWBY isn’t about sexism, if anything, it’s about women being able to carry on where men couldn’t, being able to move forward and be stronger then men in all different ways. If we look at Ironwood in this case, he is a man of war and military, but he is already in a way emasculated by his previous injuries, (although he may have the same strength with the robotic prosthetics, that did not happen overnight, that was still likely a shocking injury), and now with the other destroyed arm, he is weaker once more, at the most crucial time too. His allusion to the tinman though, of not having a heart and being stone cold, that removes typical features of femininity in an effort to be more mature and masculine. When Salem comes and he devolves into fear, he reverts to that coldness for more than the sake of allusion. He is doing it to find strength in the fear, but it is making him fall. But besides all of this, at his core, Ironwood is a military man, and stereotypically, men are in control in the military and government, women are not.

But what about Winter? Well, very simply, she is a subordinate to Ironwood. She doesn’t have power over him. What about Cordovin? She’s not a member of the military, but Ironwood still is of higher rank than her and she’s not a part of his arc. What I’m really getting at here is that there is an indication that part of Ironwood’s fear and desperation to fight Salem might be motivated by sexism and this fear of emasculation. His main motivation might be to stop her out of fear that she will destroy humanity, but subconsciously, there is more bothering him about that Queen symbol that the show doesn’t need to explore because it is crafted in there so perfectly that it doesn’t need an obvious scene of characters explicitly telling us this. The only person who was ever above Ironwood was Ozpin, another man, and while Ozpin can be said to have more feminine traits in his softer and more compassionate approach in volumes 1-3, he was still a man, so for Ironwood, it’s excusable.

So where does this leave us? Well, this sort of theme about gender in the show isn’t likely going away, as it is probably going to be how the Atlas arc closes. Ironwood is going to fail, and Team RWBY is going to have to pick up the pieces. We’ve seen this before in almost every dynamic between a female or a male character in the show. It happens even when Ozpin is exposed for lying. He is revealed to have messed up, he fails and hides away. Team RWBY keeps moving on though, they push on to Atlas with the relic despite Ozpin’s failure. Qrow keeps stumbling through life, falling back into depression and alcoholism, but Ruby and Yang just push past it and keep going, they do not let it drag them down. When Raven left, Taiyang was hurt, but Summer entered the picture and helped him, and then when Summer left, Taiyang was so broken, and it was up to Yang to pick up the pieces and raise Ruby. This isn’t to say the girls in this show are fixing the men, but rather they are stronger and more able to fix what the men could not.

There are some interesting cases though where we see more of this divide between the men and the women in terms of their power and ability to control the situation though. With Adam especially, he was unable to move on from Blake and chased after her. Blake was able to move on for a while, but Adam was the one dragging her down (with fear). She was able to free herself with the help of the other female characters in the show. The White Fang had good leadership under Sienna, but when Adam killed her and took over, he failed and the organization continued to collapse, now Blake and Illia are picking up the pieces and pushing forward. Even with Salem, Ozma’s failure was dying to a simple illness. She perhaps could have learned to move on if the Gods hadn’t granted her immortality and cursed her. She had no power over them even when she tried to attack them with her magic the first time. They made the decision to punish her in that way, to knock her down because she tried to hold power over them, but that caused her to move forward in a different direction (maybe not necessarily towards the light/good, but she kept moving forward while the Gods abandoned the planet).

To finish up though, I wanted to touch upon Oscar, Ren, and Jaune because now we have the question- well why haven’t they failed? Well, they have, and the women of the show have moved past their failures too, but they are characters with more feminine traits, which is what gives them power over the men in the show like Ironwood and Qrow who continue to stumble and fall. Jaune and Pyrrha- Jaune’s failures are the entirety of the Beacon arc, his semblance issues, his lack of combat training, Pyrrha does try and help him, and their bond in a way does contribute to Pyrrha’s death in the narrative, plus it leaves an impact on Jaune as one of his failures. However, he’s managed to get stronger since then, but he’s not the main character, Ruby is. And as such, during much of Volume 4 Ruby was the real leader of the group and Jaune did not mind it. Ren’s closed off nature is being more explored currently and will continue to be explored in the coming volume it seems, but we’ve seen how he’s damaged his bonds with Nora because he’s trying not to fall. He is viewing his closeness to Nora and sensitivity as a weakness, which is why he falls when he bottles it up and cries when Neo disguises herself as Nora. He needs to learn to accept that part of himself to stop himself from falling. And in Oscar’s case, he is tied to Ozpin, so starting with what happened with Jinn and everyone turning their back on him is a part o Ozpin’s failure, not really his. However, there were a few posts discussing how Ruby was somewhat of Oscar’s mentor in Ozpin’s absence, and that has had an effect on Oscar character too. But, even if Oscar learns how to not fail and not give in to fear, he is not the main character, so he will likely still stumble and will not be the one to get the final hit in, because Ruby is the protagonist. That isn’t to say his character won’t be reconciled, it will be. His arc will be completed and he won’t stumble when the time comes to defeat Salem, but he won’t be able to do it alone, because the show’s themes and its direction hinges on having our hero be the one to do that. And the hero is Ruby and she’s a girl with the most iconic, simplest depictions of femininity in her willingness to embrace her emotions and her strength to keep moving forward where the men fall to their knees.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #oscar pine #ozpin #ruby rose #general james ironwood #ironwood #qrow branwen #lie ren #nora valkyrie #ozma #this is a big mess but lol i dont feel like typing anymore

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mirrorfalls · 4 years

Text

The Alchemist When He’s Full of Metal, Vol. 27

(Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6, Vol. 7, Vol. 8, Vol. 9, Vol. 10, Vol. 11, Vol. 12, Vol. 13, Vol. 14, Vol. 15, Vol. 16, Vol. 17, Vol. 18, Vol. 19, Vol. 20, Vol. 21, Vol. 22, Vol. 23, Vol. 24, Vol. 25, Vol. 26)

And lo, there shall be an ending.

A double-triple-deluxe ending. It’s never an easy prospect, giving everyone something to do in your Grand Finale, but the genre pretty much demands it - even when the finesse needed to juggle dozens of protagonists and deuteragonists in the same room have crushed countless otherwise-talented writers. On the low end of the scale, of course, we have our pick of any Big Two kill-a-hundred-C-listers-cripple-a-couple-more crisis crossover (which, adding insult to injury, never actually end anything apart from the fans’ patience), and on the high end...

... on the high end, this is a pretty good candidate.*

I suppose I’m cheating, since this particular Final Battle started anywhere from one to six volumes beforehand, during which everyone from the Armstrongs to the Curtises to the Xingese to Scar to Marcoh to Yoki got to contribute something. But this is where the not-my-our victory theme truly congeals. Here, a lesser writer would’ve decided everyone else has already done their part and relegated them to cheerleading while Ed pastes the Dwarf solo; here, Arakawa makes damn sure that you know Ed owes it all to the sacrifices of unambiguous friends....

... and supposed foes.

Now, in case you think I’m getting too gushy: I still think the Dwarf in itself is an underwhelming Big Bad, and its actual “death” scene is visually impressive but emotionally not too different from setting the week’s trash out on the curb. I’m also not too unsympathetic to those who came away from this scene deciding Truth is the real Big Bad of the series**, or that the true moral is closer to “Equivalent Exchange rules all... but there’s still a guy at the top who gets to rule on what Equivalent is.”

A point made all too clear by what comes after.

Don’t get me wrong - I love that Arakawa doesn’t let the Epic War story get the last word over the small, all-too-human quest the Elrics started out on. And Ed’s giving up all his powers (and implicitly at least 75% of his combat ability) is still refreshingly unique among Shonen protagonists, even counting those whose powers are literally lethal curses. But I really could’ve done without Truth suddenly deciding to like and approve of the kid like some kind of auxiliary sensei. Even if it’s not a cheat - and I don’t think the manga ever denies that every single Gate Exchange only happened because Truth let it happen - it drains quite a bit of ambiguity and hardship from a scene that could only have benefited from both.

And then you’ve got Mustang’s equivalent to the above:

Okay, so Mustang never willingly entered the Gate - it’s fair enough he’d get his eyes back with less fuss, and on top of that he doesn’t actually get to be Fuehrer. I’ve no complaints on that front, but I wish a bit more space had been devoted to the Ishvalans beyond “Bad Army Men out, Good Army Men make everything okay for you oppressed peons now!” In particular, it feels off for Scar’s final scene to be with the uniforms that wreaked so much havoc on his people; I’m not saying he should’ve turned his backs on them entirely, but tell me it wouldn’t have been more heartwarming to see him rejoining the other Ishvalan refugees, or even Mei and Yoki.

Speaking of heartwarming... okay, I don’t have the time or space to go into all of the different epilogue-threads, but I’d just like to highlight this one in particular, because more than any of the others it lands just the right amount of hope.

Selim is, in the final analysis, a Nina who was saved - an innocent child, involved in repulsive alchemy experiments through no fault of his own, now untangled from it all and allowed to live as freely as he can. And through him, Arakawa raises a question I’d been wondering a while now: why should Homunculi be so feared and hated on sight, to the point where Mustang and friends spend multiple chapters acting like the Fuehrer being a Homunculus should in itself be a career-ending scandal? Oh, the seven Sins have the whole stigma from the Dwarf, fair enough, but they can’t have been the only Homunculi in existence, else the secrecy of their existence would preclude Amestris even having a term for it; and hell, when the chips were down, one of those seven turned around and gave its life to do the right thing.

They can learn. They can change. They can love. Not for certain - but then, a child should never be a promise, only potential. Potential to go higher than the last generation ever dreamed - or lower than it ever dreaded.

And that, ladies and gents, was Fullmetal Alchemist.

Is it good? Definitely.

Is it great? In many parts, yes.

Is it the epitome of everything the Internet says it is? No - at least, not at the stage I read it.

I can say this without hesitation: if this had been my first or second or even fifth Shonen, devoured anytime during my school years, I’d almost certainly be a full-on stan today. It’s a machine with many, many excellent parts - maybe too many to build a properly excellent whole. You’ve got all the talent and ingredients for a first-rate fighting fantasy, or globetrotting political thriller, or horror-fable about the follies of playing God, or goofy-ass romcom, or heartbreaking war drama, or a half-dozen other storytypes. Perhaps a more seasoned author could’ve mined the strongest benefits of each while keeping them all in line; as-is, they compete with each other as much as they complement. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen a perfectly poignant moment cut apart by an ill-timed joke, or how many many potentially interesting plot/character moments were either let down by insufficient worldbuilding or left dangling altogether.

(I’m told that 108 is some sort of sacred number in Japan, so I presume Arakawa had the total length mapped out before she even started the series, But as any author can tell you, no outline survives contact with reality; some characters might have been better off folded into others, some plot-threads trimmed altogether. I, for one, still can’t quite figure out why the heroes needed four chimeras turned to their side.)

At my current age, I suppose my eyes are a little too jaded, a little too impatient with (or worse, eager to point out) shortcomings big and small and subjective alike. But make no mistake: I don’t regret finally finishing this little epic, and if half my mutuals’ accounts are to be believed, it's just the start of the real fun to be had with the series.

Hi-ho, to AO3!

*The midpoints that come most immediately to (my) mind are Harry Potter, Gravity Falls, and Samurai Jack. Which stands atop which is an exercise for the individual reader.

**Y’know, there is still plenty of time for Arakawa to roll out a sequel series where our heroes fight actual God instead of a wannabe. ‘til then, let’s content ourselves with this.

#Lego reviews stuff #Fullmetal Alchemist #It's done #FINALLY DONE #Now I just need to read the remaining 20 Discworlds #And give that Chinese Necromancer drama a look-see #And... and...

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glasyasbutch · 4 years

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Oh, do you want some angst this week? is that what you want? alright bud let's go!! 1, 3, 7, and 28 for whoever has the Most Interesting Answers!!

Thank you for sending this in!!! Under a read more both bc Prose Boy but also because the first question ended up becoming a short story with some themes of body horror in it so! look out!

1. What’s one experience your character had that made them very afraid?

I rolled amongst the characters I haven’t already discussed in depth later in this ask and got Roona. Lovely.

Being a person with near zero impulse control and a penchant for doing it just because someone said not to, I think at some point while barding alone on the road, she ended up in one of those small towns with a big secret that pop up in the thousands in D&D.

One of those places where there’s a house on the outskirts of town with the windows all locked up and the front gate rusted shut, but it’s not dilapidated, and if you listen close enough there’s still voices drifting out through the cracks. And if you ask about it in the tavern, the room falls silent and no one’s gaze is meeting yours and after a tense few seconds the bartender slides you a too-full glass and tells you “You best be forgetting about that place, it won’t do you any good.”

And you want to know so badly what happened there and every answer you get is vague until the coin purse comes out, and then the hushed whispers come out too and you start to hear things about how the family that used to live there would collect all kinds of artifacts, and one day they imported something horribly cursed, and it’s probably still inside, it’s got to be, because no one’s ever been seen leaving with it, and anyone who goes to get it back walks away with blood-drained face and shut mouth.

And so you try to sleep at night but you can’t, because you’re thinking about this fucked up house, and you’ve been to enough roadside tourist traps to know that the value’s in the show, and terror and wonder are almost the same emotion, and you’re pretty sure that this is just some long con publicity stunt that some recluse rich ass family is pulling, because rich people are fucking weird like that. And you’re not gonna call them on it, but you’d like to see for yourself, just to know if your hunch is right.

So you sneak over there in the dark of night, and you hop the fence and press your eye to the shutters of the living room, and you curse your short legs that you don’t have the best of angles, but you’re still able to make out movement inside the place, and you can see the figures milling about in profile, but it’s hard to make out since the lights are off, which granted, is a little bit weird.

But you squirm and shimmy and hoist yourself up by the window ledge and you’re still looking through the slats the whole time and you’re trying to see, you can almost get the right angle of your head and the moonlight to make out something of worth in the room, you just need to get a little bit higher and -

And you kick the side of the house and it reverberates much more than it has any right to, though that could just be the adrenaline pumping in your veins, but it really feels like the whole house has shaken, and the figures in the room all freeze in place, which is a bit worrying, but you don’t see them looking at you, which is almost a relief.

But they are looking at you. The longer you sit and wait for them to go back to their business, the more you realize they’re waiting for you to leave. They can tell you’re here and you’re not supposed to be, so everything comes crashing to a halt, and they’re looking at you, so you know that you’re the disruption.

But you didn’t realize until now that’s what they were doing, because they don’t have faces. It’s smooth skin, no sign even of eye sockets or cheek bones or nose bridges, just blank skin, like a mannequin come to life, but even with nothing there you can still feel them staring and you want to run away as fast as you can but you’re too scared too move.

You become scared enough to move again once one of them begins to move towards the window that you’re at, and you hop the fence once more and high tail it back to the inn, hand on the hilt of your sword the whole while. And you slip back into your bed and wish you’d heeded the warnings to stay away, because even though you checked over your shoulder a thousand times to make sure they didn’t follow you, it still feels like the lack of eyes is staring right at you from the dark of every corner in your room.

And you don’t sleep well again until you’re miles away from that town.

3. Have they ever lost a loved one? What happened to them, and are they the same as before they lost them?

These are d&d characters and I’m a tragedy slut so long answer short, yes, approximately half of my characters have key backstory moments revolving around the death/betrayal of a loved one. Craving, Tov, Stella, Ezra are Supremely Emo, with Gildy and Nissy being lesser versions but still fitting the prompt.

Craving: Her entire life has been a series of deep losses that fundamentally changed the way she grew up. First person she lost was her mother, Kaissa, who died of a mysteriously incurable illness and whose public autopsy was revoked by the city for reasons no one could figure out. It broke her trust in authority, in public figures. The medical sector had refused to treat her mother and then hidden the evidence, it was as good as murder, and she figured every seat of government had as much blood on their hands.

The second to go was her father, Anvan, one of the first victims of a plague that devasted the tiefling population of their city far worse than any other race. He died before a vaccine was developed, but it wouldn’t have mattered any ways, because it was distributed in a horribly biased fashion by the producers which benefitted the human populous first. Not only did this break her trust in money, as a tool for growth and prosperity and caused her to see wealth as possessions as a tool for cruelty (which, you might ask, doesn’t she want wealth? doesn’t she steal impulsively? yes. she does it to be cruel right back at the world.) BUT it also was the moment at which she really lost her youth, because with the death of her father, she had to go into working full time.

The last to go was her brother, Sirris. He was stabbed and burned to death in a hate crime attack on their store. She went into the back room that day as a broken but loving woman, and crawled out of the ashes dragging her brother’s body behind her as a hell-bent, rage-blind servant of eye for an eye retribution. She was going to tear this world down from the inside, and she is still barely starting to learn that there are some things that don’t deserve to be crushed in the wreckage.

Tov: He went to the Shadowfell to get some sorcery powers and when he walked back out he did a little attempted murder on his brother, who funnily enough Did Not Like It, and cast Tov out of his clan and his life, out of everything he’d ever known. Tov stood on the shores as his brother boarded the boat home alone and the second the ship was out of sight, he became a shell of a man that he’s still trying to fill back in.

Stella: Her entire community got burned to the ground and only a handful of survivors made it out, and she had to go from balance-oriented hippie kid to Literal Fucking Assassin to survive so uh. She got lost in a world where she had to become mean and cold and emotionless in order to stay living, and if she’s being honest, made it a lot easier to deal with the fact that Literally her Entire Life was irreparably gone.

Ezra: His sister died on a quest for his God, after being promised saving by his God, and failing to be resurrected by clerics of his God. It made him stop believing in God. Like that one’s super duper straightforward.

Gildy: Not nearly as emo, but her spouse passing of old age and leaving her alone in the house made her finally realize that her life is. Hers. And that’s it. And kicked off her quest to do things that actually interest her and get into 3D art and forging and eventually a lifestyle of travel and adventure in the name of her art. She focused on herself for the first time in her life and maybe its just it being 1 am but I am a little bit soft about how that deep deep loss of a spouse was a catalyst for one of the most unabashedly happy times in this woman’s life because she finally didn’t have to care about pleasing anyone but herself! Nissy: He eloped with his girlfriend and then got dumped by her and he realized he kind of sucked shit on his own and decided to go adventuring to prove himself about it. At the time I played him he was fresh out of the breakup so he hadn’t changed much, but I feel like by the time he gets back home he will actually be much more sure of himself as a person who has value and worth and deserves a place at the table as he is, because that’s what being with Mavy had started to teach him, and after she left he was able to internalize it better bc there was no external source to pass it off onto.

7. If your character was allowed to murder one person without any consequences, who would it be and why?

Stella would kill Geran, the man who caught her assassinating and promised her a clean wipe of her criminal record in return for a year of SUPREMELY sketch and manipulative personal guard work. She knows she can’t do anything to him because if she fails he turns her in himself, and if she succeeds one of his lackeys does, but he’s also an absolute creep and a sleazeball and she hates his guts and the world would be better off without his freakness in it. Hey actually Rebekah this guy would make a great fourth character for Ludo.

28. What is your character’s greatest strength? Is it not the essence of a queer person’s D&D game that every character’s greatest strength boils down to a unfathomably deep love and devotion to whatever persons or tasks they deem worthy?

#roona #craving #tov #stella #gildy #ezra #nissy #asks

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terramythos · 4 years

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TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 1 of 26

Title: The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea (2018)

Author: Various (edited by Ellen Datlow)

Genre/Tags: Short Story Anthology, Horror (Various), Female Protagonist(s), LGBT Protagonist(s).

Rating: 7/10 (note: this is an average of all the stories)

Date Began: 1/1/2020

Date Finished: 1/6/2020

I don’t usually read short story collections. But since I kicked off 2020 with a trip outside the US, I wanted something that could easily be picked up and read in short bursts. So I dove into a short story anthology @mistressofmuses gave me for Christmas. Since I was staying on the coast, this seemed like an appropriate choice.

This anthology is a collection of 15 original horror stories by different authors, each somehow associated with the sea. Like any anthology, they were pretty hit or miss, but there were some I really enjoyed. Honorable mentions (scoring 8/10 or higher):

Fodder’s Jig by Lee Thomas (9/10)

The Whalers Song by Ray Cluley (9/10)

A Ship of the South Wind by Bradley Denton (8/10)

Broken Record by Stephen Graham Jones (8/10)

A Moment Before Breaking by A. C. Wise (9/10)

Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show To You The Sea by Seanan McGuire (10/10)

He Sings of Salt and Wormwood by Brian Hodge (10/10)

For a brief summary of all the stories and impression of each, see below the cut. These are in the order they appear and contain minor/implied spoilers.

1. Deadwater by Simon Bestwick - 4/10

Summary: A man living in a coastal tourist town is found dead by the shore. When her cop boyfriend rules it a suicide, the man's best friend Emily investigates the death on her own.

Thoughts: This one was very predictable. I'd figured out the "twist" and exactly how it would end by the half way point. It wasn’t super exciting and the writing just wasn't engaging for me. I did appreciate the occasional thematic callback and the whole thing about broken people needing to stick together, but there wasn’t enough of that in the actual story to sell me on it.

2. Fodder’s Jig by Lee Thomas - 9/10

Summary: Two men in their 60s fall in love with each other and try to form a life together. However, amid one’s rough divorce, a bizarre disease emerges that causes people to dance wildly and speak in tongues after exposure to the ocean. When one of the two men begins to exhibit symptoms of the disease, everything changes. Thoughts: Well done, creepy cosmic horror, and the ending was phenomenal. I loved that it was about two old gay dudes trying to find happiness late in life, struggling with manipulative family issues, and how all of it seamlessly blended with the horror. The prose was great too, and the zinger when you fully understand the title is... an experience. I thought it was interesting that the flashback scenes were in present tense and the current scenes were in past tense, but it sort of makes sense with the themes of the story.

3. The Curious Allure of the Sea by Christopher Golden - 7/10

Summary: A woman's father is lost at sea. To honor his memory, she tattoos herself with a strange symbol found in his abandoned boat. However, afterward, sea creatures and people alike find themselves drawn to her. Thoughts: It was moderately creepy. The part where Jenny burns off the tattoo (spoilers) was viscerally horrifying. Beyond that, it didn't stick out a whole lot. Sort of like a “wouldn’t that be fucked up?” Twilight Zone episode.

4. The Tryal Attract by Terry Dowling - 5/10

Summary: After a conversation with his neighbor, a man agrees to spend several nights in the neighbor's house to commune with a talking human skull which he has recurring dreams about.

Thoughts: The prose was good enough, but the actual horror element was sort of like one of those creepypastas that’s just unintentionally funny. It felt very Scooby Doo and I don’t think that was the intent.

5. The Whalers Song by Ray Cluley - 9/10

Summary: When a Norwegian whaling ship sinks after a catch, the small crew manages to escape. On shore, however, the eerie artifacts they find of old whaling ships are more than they bargained for.

Thoughts: Way way way eerie, and the prose was great; very stilted yet beautiful. There was an underlying theme of the past and present, which Cluley explores in multiple ways. It has a slow start but it pays off. One of the more haunting ones in the collection.

6. A Ship of the South Wind by Bradley Denton - 8/10

Summary: Three years after the Civil War, two Native Americans -- a boy named Charley and his uncle JoJim -- are accosted by a group of travelers in the plains of Kansas. They find that help comes from an unexpected source-- an eccentric, quasi-supernatural figure named Captain Thomas, whom JoJim met decades ago.

Thoughts: Honestly, setting a sea-themed horror story entirely in Kansas was a power move, but I think it worked. Did a great job building and maintaining tension. I loved the small details, like keeping the villains as "Red-beard" and "Black-beard" even after we learn their real names to keep things nautical. It's kind of like if No Country for Old Men crossed over with a pretty good episode of Goosebumps with some pseudo steampunk elements.

7. What My Mother Left Me by Alyssa Wong - 6/10

Summary: Following the death of her mother and breakup with her abusive boyfriend, Emma and her new girlfriend visit her mom's old beach house to collect her things. However, things get weird when they discover partially decomposed, yet still living fish along the shore.

Thoughts: I’m torn on this one. The writing was really good, but it felt like the story couldn’t decide between being a straight-up slasher flick or a deep, heartfelt exploration of family and surviving domestic abuse. I really felt like it needed to be longer, as both elements felt underdeveloped.

8. Broken Record by Stephen Graham Jones - 8/10

Summary: A man is trapped on a deserted island.

Thoughts: I do not want to spoil the "twist" of this one but it's good and a fun scenario to imagine. Toed the line between humor and horror well.

9. Saudade by Steve Rasnic Tem - 5/10

Summary: A man agrees to go on a senior singles cruise at the behest of his daughters, but feels awkward and out of place. He is drawn to a bizarre woman who occasionally appears and causes something strange and unsettling to happen.

Thoughts: The writing is good, but Tem spends the bulk of the story focusing on protagonist Lee wandering a cruise ship and being sad about it. I loved the ending and its callback to an earlier, seemingly unrelated scene, but beyond that I feel there’s way more you can do with the inherent horror of a cruise ship.

10. A Moment Before Breaking by A. C. Wise - 9/10

Summary: While a little girl and her mother are immigrating to the United States, the ship they are on suddenly sinks. The girl is captured by cultists who perform a strange ritual, binding her to a creature called the prince of the sea.

Thoughts: I really dug this one-- it's just so weird. I loved how the narrative treated the shared body between Ana and the prince, and that we get to see Ana in various stages of her life. The prose was gorgeous. Definitely one of my favorites in the collection.

11. Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show To You The Sea by Seanan McGuire - 10/10

Summary: When her little sister drowns her in the tide pools by their Washington home, a teenage girl makes a deal with an eel-like entity of the sea to get her revenge. Thoughts: "Holy fucking shit" was pretty much all I could say when I finished this one. Visceral body horror at its finest, and I'm always a sucker for revenge. The prose was beautiful and horrid in the best way. I'm a big fan of the author already but this exceeded my expectations.

12. The Deep Sea Swell by John Langan - 3/10

Summary: A couple is traveling by ship. One of the two, Susan, recalls a few supernatural stories their mutual friend Giorgio told them before she has her own supernatural encounter.

Thoughts: I found myself begging the author to press the enter key on his keyboard a few times. Beyond that, this was the first story that actually challenged my suspension of disbelief with what happens and how it relates to the main character. I didn't find the horror element very scary at all. There were some cool visuals but that's about all I got out of it.

13. He Sings of Salt and Wormwood by Brian Hodge - 10/10

Summary: During a deep sea diving exercise, a competitive surfer comes across an old, sunken yacht. He is horrified by the strange worm-like creatures devouring the wood. However, when he returns home to his wife, they begin to find strange, humanoid carvings every day on the Oregon coast. Thoughts: GOD was this good. Superb voice and writing, very creepy, and everything comes together so well in the ending. I felt an emotional connection to the love and longing between Danny and Gail, which is always hard to accomplish in a short story. Just a stellar read.

14. Shit Happens by Michael Marshall Smith - 3/10

Summary: A higher-up from a tech conglomerate attends a company conference aboard a converted boat-hotel, but things go south when guests start to experience acute gastrointestinal distress. Thoughts: This gets like 3 points for making me genuinely laugh a few times and -7 points for everything else.

15. Haunt by Siobhan Carroll - 6/10

Summary: In 1799, a cargo ship is troubled by a ghost ship on their trail. When the passengers and crew are stranded in the middle of the ocean, the dark pasts of the crew slowly come to light. Thoughts: The writing was good, the author clearly knows her shit, and I can admire what she is going for. However, the whole thing was just a bit too brutal and graphic for me, especially knowing that some of the things described were based on real events. I guess that was probably the point based on her author’s note, but I can’t recommend this as an entertaining read.

#taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #7/10

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tyrantisterror · 5 years

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TT Liveblogs Evangelion Masterpost & Final Thoughts

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Final Thoughts after the cut!

By reputation, I had a strong feeling that Evangelion was not going to be my kind of story, and now that I’ve seen it I can say that both kind of is and kind of isn’t the case. The character writing is incredibly strong (even if I feel End of Evangelion has a few major wobbles), its approach to its cosmic horror conflict and uncanny monsters is incredibly interesting, the animation is gorgeous, and the plot is compelling. It’s way more tragic than I usually prefer my stories of this length to be, but I feel it earns that tragedy and has a point to it. At the very least, it ranks among works like Heart of Darkness and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I respect for their artistry even if I struggle to stomach their content. I would say it’s objectively great, even if subjectively it doesn’t always suit my personal tastes as far as stories go.

Given the two endings Evangelion (both the original show’s last episodes and the alternate ending offered by End of Evangelion) has both explore the idea of there being different realities than the one we’ve watched, I almost wonder if my discontent is a feature rather than a flaw. I feel like Evangelion invites you to consider the possibility of this story going very different ways - if we’re supposed to leave it longing for a better version of these events, like a player hoping there’s a new game plus after watching the depressing ending of a JRPG.

As a person who’s struggled with self loathing his entire life, this series spoke to me in its analysis of that particular psychological problem. As the final episodes of the show take great pains to make clear, this is a show about how we understand and define ourselves in the context of others, and the myriad reasons why our self definitions can become toxic and hateful. Hating oneself should, after all, be rather counter-intuitive, so why are we prone to it?

Evangelion posits that it comes down to the Hedgehog’s Dilemma - this (probably not biologically accurate) idea that hedgehogs want to huddle together for warmth when it’s cold, but can’t because their spikes will stab each other if they do. They need their spikes for defense, of course, but those same spikes can also hurt people trying to help them, and thus the hedgehogs suffer alone in the cold. Every character in this show - human and, I would argue, angel alike - is this allegorical hedgehog: they crave warmth and affection, but are kept lonely and cold by the defenses they deem necessary. The problem isn’t just that they’re denied warmth by others, but that they also fear hurting others in the process of seeking that closeness - that they are both helpless and incapable of helping those they wish to protect.

Every character in this show has different spikes, and every character is desperately hoping that someone will reach out and understand them despite their defenses, or that maybe, just maybe, if they reach out to someone they won’t end up stabbing them in the process. That’s the real crux of this two-fold problem: people hate themselves both because they have been denied both love and the act of giving love to others in turn, all while knowing deep down that they are the reason they have these damn spikes in the first place.

And yes, I extend this to the monsters as well. While most of the angels in this series are destructive and openly antagonistic , three actually try to communicate with humanity in their “attacks.” The first two are unsuccessful because the humans are incapable of understanding them, but the third actually manages to speak humanity’s language. He expresses regret at the fact that angels and humans can’t coexist, and even urges Shinji to destroy him because it’s the only way Shinji can live - and the angel, despite knowing it means his death, prefers the idea of Shinji surviving their conflict. While we ultimately don’t learn enough about the angels to say anything concrete about their motives, the glimpse that Kaworu gives into their psyche paints them in a similarly depressing light as humanity. They lash out with their figurative (and sometimes literal) spikes not because they hate humanity, but because they believe they have no option. They can’t have warmth. There is only the path of spikes, the act of violence. Whether they want to or not, only one can survive. They have succumbed to the bleakness of the hedgehog’s dilemma.

I love the ending of the show because it focuses on its psychological problem which, ultimately, is the true conflict of the story, and examines it in depth with all the main characters, and especially Shinji (which makes sense, as his psycholgical state is the most detailed and well developed of the entire cast). In the final episode, Shinji finds the solution to the hedgehog’s dilemma that no one else was brave enough to come to. He realizes that, yes, it is impossible to interact with others without both getting hurt and hurting others in turn - that he can’t get rid of his spikes, nor can anyone else get rid of theirs. But as much as he hates the pain he’ll both experience and inflict, he realizes that he has the courage to try to reach out anyway - that though he may hate himself now, he might be able to love himself as he loves others, and that being imperfect doesn’t mean he’s worthless. Despite all the pain and the guilt, despite the prick of the spikes, Shinji decides to keep trying to find the warmth that he and those around him need, because if they all keep trying together they can find it.

Evangelion ends with Shinji, surrounded by his peers, determined to recover. He refuses to be destroyed by his depression. He refuses to die in the cold, and everyone is there with him when he does. It’s not an incongruous moment - for all the angst that people tend to define this show by, there are always moments, small but notable, impactful moments, where they come together. Few people on this show are beyond saving, and in at least one ending - esoteric and weird as it is - they have that chance.

I’m less keen on End of Evangelion as an alternate ending. Where the original show gave Shinji that moment of recovery, End of Evangelion seems deadset on destroying him and every other character in the show as utterly as possible. Shinji gives in to his absolute worst impulses in this movie, and every other character is similarly destroyed by their faults - Misato tries her hardest but fails to ultimately protect Shinji from doom, Rei is used as a tool for someone else’s designs without ever truly understanding what they are or claiming her own independence, Asuka dies trying and failing to prove her worth as a warrior, and on and on it goes. The most iconic scene of the film is scored with a song whose lyrics are a suicide note, which is fitting for a movie about depressed characters succumbing to their worst impulses and being destroyed for it. Though Shinji once again gets to survive the end of the world and create something new from the ashes, it’s not uplifting as it was in the show - instead, with only Asuka by his side (who he then tries to strangle), he slumps down into a puddle of self misery. The last word he hears isn’t “congratulations” this time around - it’s “disgusting.”

I’m not saying this is a wrong ending, or an objectively bad one. You could argue this is just as much where the story might have been heading as the show’s ending - or even that it’s more congruous, that this was always going to be a story about failure and self destruction, and that any hope these characters could have for a better life could only be achieved by fucking with the nature of their reality on a fundamental level. Objectively, End of Evangelion is valid. But for my personal tastes... I liked those kernels of hope. I’ll take Congratulations over Digusting. I want these kids to heal.

One final bit: a common thing I’ve heard about this series is that the allusions to Abrahamic religion and folklore are purely aesthetic and have no actual deeper meaning, and having watched the series I think this is at best an over-simplification and at worst completely wrong. Like most allusions in literature, I don’t think they work as a direct 1:1 comparisons - Adam in Evangelion is not literally the same as Adam in the Bible, Angels in Evangelion are not literally the same as in the Bible, etc. But there’s still a lot of meaning behind how these Biblical references are used that can’t be mere coincidence. For example, towards the end of the series it’s revealed that human being are actually half angel (or rather the spawn of a different angelic being than the angels in canon, it’s a bit more complicated than this but let’s simplify it for the sake of making this intelligible), which is why the “pure” angels are trying to wipe us out. In the book of Enoch, a fairly obscure non-canonical Biblical text, some rebel angels come to earth and crossbreed with humanity, creating the nephilim, a race of half human/half angels. Enoch posits that this is the specific crime that makes God destroy the earth in a flood. Now, how does End of Evangelion end? With humanity being destroyed and the earth flooded with their liquid remains, save for one surviving pair that is composed of one boy and one girl. It’s not a 1:1 allusion, but it would be one HELL of a coincidence that this story is so similar to an obscure non-canonical Biblical work.

And if we do accept the allusions as having some meaning, they actually work with the show’s themes fairly well. The Book of Enoch’s whole purpose is to explain why God hated humanity enough to destroy it, and the feeling that a higher, cosmic power hates us for some inexplicable reason is at the core of Evangelion. Evangelion’s whole purpose is to find an answer for why we hate and destroy ourselves, and how we, like Noah, might find a way to save ourselves from this seemingly inevitable flood of doom. Making an allusion to another stories that try to explain that - not just the Book of Enoch, but to similar Biblical stories about the origin and nature of humanity’s sin and God’s scorn, like the Genesis tale of Adam and Eve (or, as Evangelion substitutes, Adam and his semi-canonical first wife, Lilith) - is inherently meaningful. It’s on topic, and in the context of these allusions we get a clearer view of what Evangelion is trying to say about human nature. It’s not necessarily a Christian story, but its allusions to Abrahamic religion aren’t devoid of meaning.

#TT Liveblogs Evangelion

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quinzelade · 5 years

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Making One’s Bones (chpt 6)

Chapter List

Porter Gage is in a pickle. Nuka-World needed a new boss and some woman just killed her way to the top. But a pre-war Mafia boss on the theme park's throne? Well...at least she'll have experience.

History Lessons

The night in the Primate House was a long and uncomfortable one. Gage shifted in his spot on the floor, slowly became aware of a damp spreading through the seat of his pants, and made a noise of disgust. He'd been trying to put off his next wash for a few more months, and didn't want ape shit speeding up the process, but what could he do—sleep standing up? The whole place was covered in muck. Still, it was worth a shot, and so Gage got to his feet, testing the ground for a less soggy place to sit. Bossanova watched him silently from her own corner. Perhaps she'd noticed his pants sticking to the back of his legs.

The ghoulrillas were snoring all around him, Cito snoring loudest of all. He exclaimed loudly when he'd realised his little nest had been disturbed, but thankfully decided it must have been 'one of the monsters' sneaking in and disrupting his things without trying to eat any of his family in the process. Gage was happy to let him think that. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of Cito's piece of pipe.

As the combined rumblings of the sleeping idiots filled the air, Gage considered their new enemies. The gatorclaws were no laughing matter. He'd fought one or two deathclaws in his time, each battle a close call. But a park full of them? Not to mention the gatorclaws seemed even more vicious than their horned cousins.

Gage shifted around a little, noting with some relief his pants had dried off a bit. Not only that, but this spot near Bossanova seemed a little less damp than where he'd been before. Gage dropped down with a soft flump and watched a ghoulrilla scratch its ass in its sleep. The boss had been playing on his mind all night. Not the way she'd held a knife to his throat—he'd deserved that, he knew it—no, what bothered him more was their first gatorclaw fight, when she'd saved his life by pushing him out of the way.

Raiders, he understood. Kill or be killed. Loyalty only carried you as far as where the next meal came from, and if shit got bad, you took care of yourself first. Gage knew this. The only certainty about a raider was the fact they would turn on you.

Gage stared down the enclosure, watching Bossanova. He could see the glint of her eyes in the darkness, could just make out her hand resting on her sword, which she'd finally stopped trying to straighten out.

The stupid woman hadn't even hesitated.

"Boss…?"

"Yeah?"

Several seconds passed before he realised he'd spoken. Bossanova was sitting up straighter now, her head turned to him. He looked away from her, his heart quickening. When the gatorclaw grabbed her, he could have turned tail. Left Nuka World forever. He wanted the park working more than anything, but the situation was fucked long before Bossanova arrived. It wasn't worth his life. If Cito hadn't caved the thing's head in, he'd have died there and then. It shouldn't have got to that point. Gage knew when to cut and run.

So why hadn't he?

"Gage?" Bossanova tilted her head to the side. "Is everything okay?"

"Why the fuck do you care?" Gage snapped. He regretted it instantly. He sounded like a kid. He quickly changed tack. "Just...about Colter," he lied, finally looking up again. "You mentioned him back in the Welcome Center. It's...I can tell it's gonna be a sore spot."

"Maybe. Depends if there'll be a repeat performance." She gave him a wry smile just visible in the dim light. "Feeling guilty?"

"No, ain't no guilt over that call. Colter was a piece of shit. I've been real clear with you."

She glanced up at the ceiling, now concealed by darkness, and then dug into her pocket, producing a small candle and a packet of matches. She lit one of the matches, the surrounding ghoulrillas stirring in their sleep, and cleared a circle in the grime and straw, setting down the candle. She put the match to the wick, and the room filled with warm, flickering light.

Bossanova blew out the match. Then she drew her knees to her chest, rested her chin on them, and said. "How do you know I'm better?"

"I don't," Gage said, frowning at her. "But I ain't got a choice. After Colter, I'm livin' on borrowed time."

"Smart man like you, you should have seen him for what he was."

"Hey, I don't know what it was like in your time," Gage snapped, sitting up straight and glaring at her, "but out here, Colter had the qualities that mattered." She'd hit a nerve, and goddamn if he didn't know it. "He was big, strong, and didn't take no shit. So I talked him into being overboss, thinkin' he'd listen to me, let me help him. I thought...I thought I'd be able to keep him in line. But..."

Bossanova's expression shifted into something painful. Her voice sounded strained as she said, "It went to his head?"

Gage tried to reply, but the words caught in his throat. He settled for a single nod. She knew. She knew.

Bossanova gazed past him, her expression distant. "People like Colter... you trust to do as you ask, as they're expected." Her tone grew harder with every syllable. "But greed, power, drugs—it twists them, strips them of the person you knew, until all you're left with is a shell. A shell you have to put down yourself…" She breathed heavily through her nose cavity. "Because you created them."

Ringing silence followed. Gage was at a loss for words. Eventually, he managed a weak, "Shit, boss."

Bossanova shook her head, still not looking at him. "I know how gangs work. I know how they end. And I know why you're making me the target instead." Their eyes met. "I'm fine with that."

Gage wanted to know more, but something in her stricken expression told him it was a bad idea. She hadn't meant to say it. He swallowed, dragging the subject back into familiar grounds. "You ain't like Colter. That's what I'm getting at. You ain't like the other raiders I've run with. This place is about to go off like a goddamn grenade, but so long as you don't pull another stupid stunt like you did with Mags, we could make this work." Gage hesitated, aware he was getting a bit too sentimental. But the fact they were even in Safari Adventure at all spoke volumes. He swallowed his pride and charged on. "You've got the smarts and the drive to make a pretty damn good overboss."

Bossanova snorted with laughter. "I've barely done anything yet."

"More than Colter."

"God, he's made your expectations low."

It was Gage's turn to laugh. "I'm just saying, I'm...I'm starting to be glad we teamed up, is all."

The odd thing was, despite their earlier fight, he wasn't lying. Gage sat in stunned silence, his brain blank. Where the hell had that come from?

Bossanova didn't seem to notice his sudden apprehension, because she smiled broadly and settled back in her corner. After a moment, Gage did the same. As soon as her eyes shut, he scowled. Yeah, he was impressed with the way she'd taken charge, and she clearly knew what she was doing. But he couldn't quite wrap his head around what was bothering him.

It kept coming back to the fight. How Bossanova pushed him aside, took the blow instead. And how he, Gage, then followed her example.

She's no raider.

The realisation hit him like a gut punch. Bossanova didn't do things the raider way. She didn't just slit his throat when he overstepped his bounds, or abandon him in a sticky situation to save her own neck. She kept him for his usefulness, yes, but seemed to enjoy his company as well. Why else would she be making fucking breakfast in the morning for him?

But whatever she was doing, it was working. He'd never thrown himself at a deathclaw—Gatorclaw, Bossanova's voice corrected inside his head—for anyone before. Gage's scowl deepened as he remembered the talk she'd given him about trust the previous night, a strange anger bubbling away in the pit of his stomach.

She's no raider, Gage thought bitterly. But then he paused, his agitation calming down to a simmer. Was that really a bad thing?

For the first time in years, his thoughts drifted back to Connor.

Connor, who relied on him for advice. Connor, who said he trusted him—that he, Gage, was an important part of the gang. Connor, who took what he needed and then tried to kill him.

A raider through and through, and Gage had learned the lesson well. Never trust, never linger if shit hit the fan. And if Bossanova didn't play by the raider rules, both she and Gage were in for a world of trouble.

Maybe she was more raider than he realised; trying to lull him into a false sense of security, make him weak and complacent. Just like a slaver, before they snapped the collar on. Well, she was in for a nasty surprise if that was the case.

But...why risk her life just to trick me?

Gage massaged his forehead with his knuckles and decided to shelve the worries for now. There was nothing he could do about it here, surrounded by gatorclaws and ghoulrillas and the idiot Cito. Get the job done, go back to Nuka World, reassess. He'd used up all his chances with the other gang leaders—there was no way he could bring in another overboss now. But maybe he could still leave, before Bossanova ran him or the entire operation into the ground.

Sighing, he shut his eyes, hoping the morning brought a better day.

It did not.

Gage spat out a mouthful of blood as he staggered to his feet. A tremendous roar echoed from the dizzying heights of the Angry Anaconda track above, and he glanced up in time to see the snapping jaws of the gatorclaw miss Bossanova's heels by inches.

She lost her footing, and for one heartstopping moment Gage thought she would fall. But Bossanova clung on, scrabbling up again and ducking to avoid the beast's claws. He wondered whether he could shoot it without hitting her, but as Gage stepped forward, his head spun and he struggled to stay standing. The sixth gatorclaw fight was taking its toll.

Bossanova climbed higher and higher, every slip of her hands and feet sending a jolt of panic through him. She reached the peak, a wide chasm of collapsed track, and edged back, her arms flailing. The overgrown lizard pulled itself up, causing the whole structure and Bossanova to wobble dangerously.

The gatorclaw stared at her as it struggled to stay on the narrow rails, its huge, clawed feet sliding around, rattling everything further. Gage could hear its low, guttural growls all the way from the ground, and held his breath as he watched the teetering standoff.

The gatorclaw lunged.

Bossanova dropped through a gap in the track, catching hold of a bar at the last second. The gatorclaw barrelled on, throwing itself into open air and plummeting, while Bossanova held on with one hand. It seemed to take an age to fall, its muscular limbs flailing as a long, shrieking howl escaped its terrible jaws, before hitting the ground with a sickening thud. Bossanova dangled precariously over the drop by one hand, swiping up to the rails fruitlessly with the other.

Gage swore, setting off at an unsteady run. Would he be able to reach her in time?

Two figures streaked past him before he'd taken more than two steps; Cito and Chris the ghoulrilla leapt onto the metal structure, climbing with fluid ease. By the time Gage put his foot on the first rung, the ghoulrilla scooped Bossanova under one arm and swung casually back down. As Cito followed, Bossanova was dumped unceremoniously at Gage's feet.

"You alright, boss?" he said, ignoring both his racing heart and her two idiotic saviours.

"Fine," wheezed Bossanova, massaging her chest and standing up. She looked paler than usual, a slight tremble to her hands. But then she shot him a mischievous grin. "Still looking out for me?"

Gage scowled and turned away, his cheeks hot. Fuck her then. He stomped off, making sure she knew his displeasure, before stopping at the gatorclaw. It was impaled on some old pieces of track sticking out of the ground, its yellow eyes blank and unseeing.

He kicked the dead beast fiercely with his foot. How many more of these things would they have to fight?

Gage forced his attention to the Angry Anaconda. Somewhere in this mess of metal and dead greenery was the password for the Welcome Center—their only chance of dragging this hellhole under raider control.

He paused, wondering what would have happened if Cito and his 'family' hadn't been with them. Gage shivered, thinking of Nisha's well-used knives. He stole a glance at Bossanova when he was certain she wasn't looking, and then at Cito and the ghoulrilla. He would have killed them to make sure the park was clear for the gang. Bossanova talked them round instead.

Maybe Old World tricks had their place after all.

"Boss," Gage said, suddenly reminded of their first meet with the Blacks. "What was that shit you were talking about with Mags?" Bossanova paused, looking up from the decaying roller coaster cart she'd been sifting through. Gage took this as a sign to continue. "You said 'Cozy Nose...Tra.' And then 'mafia.' The first bit I don't get, but the second—"

He broke off as she erupted into a fit of giggles.

"What?" he snarled, nettled.

Bossanova shook her head, still laughing. "Cosa Nostra was an Old World Italian phrase adopted by the American Mafia. It roughly translates to, 'our thing.'"

She might as well have been speaking another language for all the sense this made to Gage. Or maybe she was? He stared at her, and she smiled.

"You want a history lesson?"

"Well…" Gage frowned at a dirty old skeleton on the floor. He was interested, despite himself. "Fuck it. Sure. It'll pass the time."

Bossanova nudged an upturned trash can with her foot as she unsheathed her sword, fussing over the bend in the blade again. Cito and the ghoulrilla licked each others wounds, apparently disinterested in the conversation. After a moment, Gage kicked aside an old skull and picking his way through the skeleton, deciding he might as well keep looking for the stupid passcode while she talked.

"What do you know about the Mafia?" she asked, not looking up from her sword.

"As far as I know, they were some pre-war gang who rolled in caps and did whatever the fuck they wanted." Gage stared off into the distance, lost in visions of wealth, luxury, and power. The raiders talked about them like the religious talked about Atom. He was brought back to earth by a loud sniffing in his ear. Cito was picking bugs out of Gage's hair and eating them. "Fuck off, Loincloth!"

Bossanova looked up as Gage waved Cito away with a hiss, and laughed again.

"You're right," Bossanova said, returning to her weapon, "for the most part. They had wealth and power, but they still had to navigate around the law, like I said. And they were mired with toxic tradition—only allowing Italian men into their ranks for most of their existence. By the time I joined, they realised they needed change to survive. In the end, if you could prove you had Italian heritage, it was irrelevant what was between your legs."

Gage frowned. Why would that matter to begin with? So long as you were good at killing, raiders didn't give a shit.

Bossanova gave a knowing smile at Gage's confusion, which must have shown on his face, and went on. "But non-Italians were still taboo. My attempts to bring the Irish Mob under mafia control were disastrous, and as a result I...retired. Organised crime floundered in the years after my departure. Only had a resurgence when the bombs fell."

Gage frowned. "You make it sound like you were old."

"I was old. Had my pension when the world ended, much to the annoyance of the cops. Being a ghoul does wonders for creaky joints."

Gage wasn't sure what 'cops' or a 'pension' were, nevermind whether he believed her claims or not. He decided it didn't matter.

"The Mafia was weak after I left. Turns out letting the Irish Mob butcher your leaders doesn't do much for keeping your hold on the city," she said bitterly. "Eddie Winters carved his way to the top of the Mob and put a puppet in my place. I changed my name and moved to the suburbs. Made friends. Kept my sword collection sharpened, just in case. By the time Raymond Patriarca got things back under control, the bombs dropped."

Bossanova shivered, her black eyes staring off into the distance, and for a moment it looked like her mind had been transported far away, swallowed by the horrors of her past. "I'll...I'll never forget it. The sky choked with dust and debris and radiation. I was miles from the epicentre, but I still felt my skin bubble and peel away. My neighbours melted in front of me. And the pain…"

She went quiet, gripping tightly at her sword. "Buildings were crumbling at random, people trapped beneath the rubble. Craters in the sidewalks. Bodies everywhere. The city reeked of the dead, and the living…" Bossanova motioned to her own face. "Most looked like me before they passed. Rotting from the inside out. I took refuge in a burnt out building. Too hurt to do much else, really."

Gage paused, his hand half in the pocket of the ragged remains of the clothes still clinging to the skeleton, listening intently. He'd never been one for the past. It was old and dead, and no use to anyone except scavenging. But this was...different.

"Old Ray became a ghoul, along with a good chunk of the family and the Irish Mob. Winters was nowhere to be seen, so the family took back its city." Bossanova smiled, holding the sword loose by her side. "They brought order to the apocalypse."

"Wait, what?"

Bossanova nodded. "Ray kept the chems out, and set to work on food, water, and the injured. People flocked for miles when they heard, all bending the knee to the wasteland's first godfather. Even the remnants of the police fell into line when it became obvious the military wasn't coming back."

"And where were you?"

"Kept out the way so I wouldn't waste their precious resources. Every day, lying in a burnt out building, waiting for the pain to just kill me, or the ceiling to collapse on me in my sleep. Every day I waited, and every day it never came." Bossanova bowed her head. When she looked up again, her gaze was sharp. "I got over myself quickly. Stopped being so pathetic—"

Glad we agree, Gage thought.

"—and went to see what I could do. If there was a price on my head, I'd make them remember who I was, and what happened to those who crossed me. I was reborn. But..."

Gage snorted. Always with the 'but.' "Lemmie guess—the guys with the guns weren't scared of a sword?"

Bossanova tilted her head and gave a strange smile. "You'd be surprised how many people hesitate when you run at them screaming and swinging a sharp bit of metal around. But no. By the time I'd pulled myself together, everything had fallen apart."

"Even by raider standards, that's impressive."

"Well, not everyone in the city was a ghoul. And those lucky enough not to be a walking corpse began to…grow suspicious of us. Didn't help that the first cases of ferals were cropping up. Ray was assassinated. Any ghouls not quick on the uptake followed him. The lucky ones went into hiding near the foundations of Goodneighbor. Today they are the Triggermen."

"No shit?" Gage mulled this information over in his head. He'd never really thought about where the Triggermen had come from before. He knew they were separate to the other ghouls in Goodneighbor, but…

He was snapped out of his thoughts as Bossanova went on with her tale.

"Frank Salemme was the one who whacked Ray," she said darkly, her expression sour. "He was nasty, even by Mafia standards. A pain to deal with in my day—making everything bloody, messy—bringing down the heat through his carelessness. He took over after he murdered Ray, and that's when things really went south.

"Frank decided the old ways weren't good enough anymore. If you wanted to be a made man, you played by his rules."

"What's a made—?"

"Mafioso. One of the family." Bossanova glanced over at Cito and the ghoulrilla, the former of which was stuck from the waist upwards inside a park trashcan. "Used to be you just took someone—almost anyone—out. Simple. Effective. Stopped the cops sneaking in, like Donnie Brasco near did. But this wasn't good enough for Salemme, oh no. Making one's bones was pointless in the new world. Anyone who wanted in had to kill a ghoul, and they had to bring proof. And if you weren't in Selemme's gang, you didn't get food or water or nothing."

"Smart," replied Gage without thinking. He shot Bossanova a sharp look, wondering how she would react, but she nodded thoughtfully instead.

"Yeah, it was smart. Made me prey for a while, though. Or so they thought. I hunted them down instead—slit some throats, skewered the rest, depending on who they were." Bossanova grinned. "Kept me on my toes and got me back into shape. In the end, Salemme was running on borrowed time anyway."

"Killed by a ghoul?"

"Killed by one of his own." Bossanova's grin widened. "Radiation gets everyone eventually. He rotted, and when his skin peeled away and his eyes blackened and his fingernails fell out—when he stood there, rasping like the rest of the ghouls—someone put a bullet in his head."

Gage snorted. "I'm sure that went down well."

"Naturally," Bossanova said with a mirthless laugh. "They'd had the power to keep things in order and they messed it up. Soon as they killed Ray, the city was doomed." She stretched her arms, and then turned her sword over in her hands. "Once Salemme got what was coming to him, the in-fighting began.

"New leaders declared every other day, food becoming scarce, and the water so irradiated people were dropping dead or turning to ghouls left, right, and centre. Finally, it all collapsed. The survivors splintered off into factions and began attacking anyone who crossed their paths." Bossanova paused, her gaze boring into Gage. "They were the first raiders."

Gage stared back, lost for words. Eventually he managed, "Raiders?" Bossanova nodded, and he hesitated before saying, "Raiders came from the Mafia?"

She nodded again.

"Well shit."

Bossanova burst out laughing. "Profound as ever, I see."

Gage grinned and shrugged. "What you want me to say? Ain't never expected raiders to have grand beginnings. I thought people were just good at being shitty to each other."

Bossanova shook her head. "That's all the Mafia has ever been." There was a moment's silence, then she strolled away.

Gage remained where he was, thinking. He watched Bossanova approach a rusting trailer and begin rattling the locked door. Gage had never thought about the origins of raiders before, and in all honesty, he'd never really cared. History wouldn't keep him alive. But when Bossanova spoke, he'd found himself enthralled. There was something about her that compelled him to listen.

Picking through the clothes again, he contemplated the power of her charisma when she'd had a nose.

A bang made Gage look up. Bossanova had apparently kicked the trailer, judging by the large dent in the door, and a bag had fallen off the roof. The contents were scattered all over the ground. She crouched down, picking through the debris, and then held up a small, silver something.

Gage got to his feet and drew closer. It was a key. Bossanova turned back to the trailer and tried the lock—the door swung open with a horrible, drawn out metallic scrape that set Gage's teeth on edge. Apparently unperturbed, Bossanova went inside leaving Gage to follow her. Amongst the debris was a skeleton in a lab coat and an orange toolbox on the side. Bossanova began patting down the skeleton, rooting through all the pockets—meanwhile, Gage was drawn to the toolbox. He flipped open the latch and threw back the lid while Bossanova continued her search, and spotted a holotape sat neatly on top of the tools inside the box. He picked it up, looked at the label, and smiled. "Boss?"

"Yeah?"

Gage held up the tape and tapped the peeling label so she could see the spidery, looping handwriting. "It's the Welcome Center passcode."

Bossanova stared from Gage to the tape and back again, her mouth slightly open. She blinked several times, as if hardly daring to believe what she could see. Then she said in an awed whisper, "You can read?"

"Yes, I can fucking read!"

"But...you can read cursive?"

"Oh fuck off."

They returned to the Welcome Center with no more interruptions. Gage watched as Bossanova tapped her way through the console outside the sealed door. She propped the scrap of paper she'd scrawled the passcode on against the screen and copied out the digits carefully, glancing around as she did. The terminal beeped and the door slid open.

The darkness beyond waited like an open maw. Gage shivered, staring into the heavy, compressing blackness. Bossanova hesitated, her sword at the ready, and held out a hand to keep Gage and the two idiots in their place. She stepped forward, each slow step barely making a sound, her weapon raised.

The source of the monsters were in here. For all they knew, they were walking into a teeming nest. If that was the case, Gage doubted they'd be able to clear them out alone.

Bossanova continued through the door, glancing from side to side. The darkness swallowed her whole.

Gage shifted on the spot, gripping his gun tight. A terrible, heavy silence was smothering him, raking at his nerves. She'd given clear instructions—stay here, keep watch while she scouted ahead. He'd argued Cito could do the honours, but Bossanova had cut him off with a, "Do you trust him to be our scout?"

No. No, he did not.

But the few seconds of silence were torturous. He wondered if the gatorclaws had caught her with no time to scream, or even—

"Gage," Bossanova's voice whispered, and he sighed with relief.

"Yeah?"

"There's a gatorclaw ahead. You ready?"

Gage aimed his rifle down the tunnel. "Nope."

The only positive of the battle was its shortness.

Gage contemplated how quickly it would take for a gatorclaw to shit him out, before the thing's tail hit him in the chest and sent him flying through a set of double doors.

He stared up at the ceiling, dazed, when he felt the crushing grip of the gatorclaw at his ankle, and yelled in pain as the back of his head scraped along the ground. Then Gage was dangling in the air, the beady yellow eyes piercing him as the thing opened its mouth.

Gage grabbed a grenade from his belt, primed it, and tossed it down the gatorclaw's throat.

The eyes widened, and it made a choking noise before dropping him. Gage anticipated the fall just in time, crashing painfully onto his shoulder instead of his head, and quickly scrambled away. The blast flung him off his feet again, and he felt something hot and wet splatter all down his back.

"For fuck's sake," he muttered, peeling himself off the ground and gingerly sitting up.

Bossanova ran over sporting a bloody lip and a tense expression. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Gage muttered, batting away her helpful hands. "I'm fine. Jus' gimme a minute, damn." She crouched down next to him, worry etched into every line of her features, and he felt his anger simmer. "I appreciate the concern, boss, but I'm okay."

He stared at his stinging hands, which were raw and grazed, and then waved her away irritably, and she stood up, wandering over to the terminals in the back of the room. Cito and the ghoulrilla—both unscathed—were sitting near the entrance of this dingy, underground atrium, eating the glowing plants in the dilapidated flower bed. Gage was surprised they weren't poisonous.

Bossanova disappeared through the set of double doors he'd been thrown through, and came out a few minutes later clutching Gage's gun and a couple of holotapes. She thrust the gun into his hands and walked over to the terminal, inserting one of the tapes into the machine.

Seconds later a voice filtered out of the sputtering speakers. Gage barely paid attention, checking his gun wasn't damaged instead. It was the same guy who had created the gatorclaws—McDermot or whatever his name was—and he liked to talk. But then something caught Gage's attention.

"...continuing to modify the Nuka-Gen Replicator to provide a source of food."

"Gage," Bossanova said from across the room, her face lighting up with delight, "do you know what this means?"

"Mm?"

"Weren't you listening?"

"Nope," Gage lied. He took a strange delight in annoying her.

"This could mean food for Nuka World forever," Bossanova snapped, glaring at him. "The amount of trade we could generate with this alone—"

"—as long as the Nuka-Gen Replicator continues to function, I'll have an endless supply of food for—"

"An endless supply of food so long as the power supplies hold out," Gage interrupted lazily, earning himself an irritated scowl.

"So you were listening!"

"Don't matter whether I was or I wasn't, if we can't control what this thing makes, and if it ain't got no power."

"—Dr. Hein would be proud of my accomplishment. It's sad—"

Bossanova opened her mouth to argue, when she froze. Her entire body stiffened, her hand gripping her sword once again.

—it's been so long, I've almost forgotten what he looked like. My God—it's been decades now, maybe even a century or more, hasn't it? Has it been so long? I...I'll...I'll continue recording later."

Bossanova slowly looked down to stare at the terminal, as if lost in another world. Gage gave her a good ten seconds out of bewilderment at her sudden silence, and then said, "Boss?"

She turned to him, blinking as if surprised to see him there, and then slowly shook her head. "I've never thought about it before," she said weakly, gazing at a distant point over Gage's shoulder, "but I don't remember what...I don't...I never had photos after the bombs…"

"Nicky?" Gage asked, startling himself that he'd remembered. Bossanova looked equally taken aback, but she nodded.

"Yes. Nicky." Her face became blank, and she shook her head. "Hurry up with your weapon checks. This place won't clear itself out." She strode off, her gnarled hands clutching tight around the hilt of her sword.

Gage sighed. He was almost getting used to her mood swings now. But he decided to sit and glower a bit longer to emphasise his displeasure.

After a few minutes of being sufficiently grumpy, he got to his feet, wincing. Everything ached and stung, and they still had plenty to do. Not for the first time, he suspected they wouldn't be finishing this job in one go. But at least if they figured out where the gatorclaws were coming from the rest could fall into place later.

He poked around the atrium a little, using a console to unlock an old cold storage room. All the fridges inside were empty, but he noticed an open vent near the top of the room, its grate hanging on by one rusted bolt.

All in all, not much loot to be had.

Disappointed, he made his way back down the stairs and towards Bossanova, who was reading through something on one of the other terminals. She didn't say what it was, and Gage didn't trouble himself to ask. Instead, he whistled through his teeth at Cito and the ghoulrilla, Chris. They loped over, alert and ready, and Gage begrudgingly admired their tenacity. Bossanova straightened up, glancing towards the doors leading to the next room, and caught his eye. She gave a slight nod, an unspoken agreement passing between them as they hung back and let Cito move ahead. Best to keep the meat shields up front.

Just in case.

#nuka world #porter gage #fallout 4 #fallout #mob #Making One's Bones

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justforbooks · 5 years

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Harold Bloom, author and literary critic, dies at age 89

He prided himself on making scholarly topics accessible to readers and wrote the bestsellers The Western Canon and The Book of J

Harold Bloom, the eminent critic and Yale professor whose seminal The Anxiety of Influence and melancholy regard for literature’s old masters made him a popular author and standard-bearer of western civilization amid modern trends, died on Monday at age 89.

Bloom’s wife, Jeanne, said that he had been failing health, although he continued to write books and was teaching as recently as last week. Yale said Bloom died at a New Haven, Connecticut, hospital.

Bloom wrote more than 20 books and prided himself on making scholarly topics accessible to the general reader. Although he frequently bemoaned the decline of literary standards, he was as well placed as a contemporary critic could hope to be. He appeared on bestseller lists with such works as The Western Canon and The Book of J, was a guest on Good Morning America and other programs and was a National Book Award finalist and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

His greatest legacy could well outlive his own name: the title of his breakthrough book, The Anxiety of Influence. Bloom argued that creativity was not a grateful bow to the past, but a Freudian wrestle in which artists denied and distorted their literary ancestors while producing work that revealed an unmistakable debt.

He was referring to poetry in his 1973 publication, but “anxiety of influence” has come to mean how artists of any kind respond to their inspirations. Bloom’s theory has been endlessly debated, parodied and challenged, including by Bloom.

Bloom openly acknowledged his own heroes, among them Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson and the 19th-century critic Walter Pater. He honored no boundaries between the life of the mind and life itself and absorbed the printed word to the point of fashioning himself after a favorite literary character, Shakespeare’s betrayed, but life-affirming Falstaff. Bloom’s affinity began at age 12 and he more than lived up to his hero’s oversized aura in person. For decades he ranged about the Yale campus, with untamed hair and an anguished, theatrical voice, given to soliloquies over the present’s plight.

The youngest of five children, he was born in 1930 in New York’s East Bronx to Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Russia, neither of whom ever learned to read English. Bloom’s literary journey began with Yiddish poetry, but he soon discovered the works of Hart Crane, T S Eliot, William Blake and other poets. He would allege that as a young man he could absorb 1,000 pages at a time.

He graduated in 1951 from Cornell University, where he studied under the celebrated critic M H Abrams, and lived abroad as a Fulbright scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After earning his doctorate from Yale in 1955, he joined the school’s English faculty. Bloom married Jeanne Gould in 1958 and had two sons.

In the 50s, he opposed the rigid classicism of Eliot. But over the following decades, Bloom condemned Afrocentrism, feminism, Marxism and other movements he placed in the “school of resentment”. A proud elitist, he disliked the Harry Potter books and slam poetry and was angered by Stephen King’s receiving an honorary National Book Award. He dismissed as “pure political correctness” the awarding of the Nobel prize for literature to Doris Lessing, author of the feminist classic The Golden Notebook.

“I am your true Marxist critic,” he once wrote, “following Groucho rather than Karl, and take as my motto Groucho’s grand admonition, ‘Whatever it is, I’m against it.’”

In The Western Canon, published in 1994, Bloom named the 26 crucial writers in western literature, from Dante to Samuel Beckett, and declared Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo among the contemporary greats. Shakespeare reigned at the canon’s center.

Many, however, had their own harsh criticism of Bloom. He was mocked as out of touch and accused of recycling a small number of themes. “Bloom had an idea; now the idea has him,” the British critic Christopher Ricks once observed.

Bloom’s praises were not reserved for white men. In The Book of J, released in 1990, Bloom stated that some parts of the Bible were written by a woman. (He often praised the God of the Old Testament as one of the greatest fictional characters.) He also admired Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, George Eliot and Emily Dickinson and the hundreds of critical editions he edited include works on Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Amy Tan. Bloom did write a novel, The Flight to Lucifer, but was no more effective than most critics attempting fiction and later disowned the book. In The Anatomy of Influence, a summation released in 2011, Bloom called himself an epicurean who acknowledged no higher power other than art, living for “moments raised in quality by aesthetic appreciation”.

His resistance to popular culture was emphatic, but not absolute. He was fond of the rock group the Band and fascinated by the Rev Jimmy Swaggart and other televangelists. He even confessed to watching MTV, telling the Paris Review in 1990 that “what is going on there, not just in the lyrics but in its whole ambience, is the real vision of what the country needs and desires. It’s the image of reality that it sees, and it’s quite weird and wonderful.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Harold Bloom

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zeciex · 5 years

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Obsidian & Angelite Ch. 6 (M)

Oya has spend centuries bound to one single plot of land when one day a stranger with a voice of velvet and presence that can only be described as dark and outmost interesting. He comes with an offer she can’t refuse and suddenly her entire world changes, both for better and worse.

But what does Langdon need of her? And how can she use him to get what she want? Maybe they’re bound by something bigger than fate.

Warning: Dark themes, Strong Language, Rape,

A/N: Since tumblr kills everything with links, I’ll reblog this post with the links to previous chapters and archive link

When the spirit wanderers things does not go unseen

Placed on the bedside table were a thin yellow candle. It was the first thing that had been done as soon as she had settled in. The yellow candle with a matching flame were to be kept there, to be kept an eye on. It linked in with the spell she had placed on the old house so that if any supernatural being were to cross over into her land she’d know. For weeks now it had been lit.

And then it wasn't.

It left a gnawing feeling deep inside, something nagging at her to make her realise something. It was important and it was frightening.

And so she decided that a simple vision wouldn’t suffice. Visions were scattered, they were focused on snippets out of place and mostly they were left for interpretation. For simple visions like that you’d need to touch something that were there in the moment you needed to see. She had nothing.

So she began plucking herbs from her garden, crushed it in a mortar to release its juices. Mugwort for scrying, Star anise for clavoyance, Bay Leaf for its sanctity and visions all mixed together with soil from her garden, bone from a raven and ash from a burned oak. From it she derevied a small potion to be poured in a body of water and that’s exactly what she did.

The bath were filled up to a critical point, the potion mixed in long ago. In the water she drizzled Catnip, the green leafs floating at the surface, and essence of Eucalyptus for the rituality of its cleansing powers. Blossoms of blue rosemary and the stalks of it floated in the water too. It worked as purification. Whatever was on the other side, she’d rather not drag pieces of it with her, nor did she want to get lost to the inbetween.

“What are you doing?” Michael questioned leaning against the entrance of her bathroom with his arms folded over his chest. Oya remained on her knees, drawing symbols on the floor with white chalk. They looked like disfigured stick men or as if a 3 year old tried and failed to draw any form of animal.

“My place got a visitor,” she said while finishing up the last symbols. Michael had impeccable taste when it came to baths, this tub was perfect for these sort of things, standing at enough distance from everything else to make a circle around it. With the small bundles of herbs, in between the marks, were emeralds and moonstones placed. “Or visitors, I don't know yet but I intent to find out.”

“There are other ways to find out than this,” Michael commented. The way he looked at the set up told her that he had never seen or done anything like this and it made her wonder.

“This is how I learned to do it,” she brushed off her hands on her silk robes, standing up. She tied her hair up in a mess that made it look more like an unkempt bush than anything else, with stray tots falling down her neck. “Many of the herbs open up your mind and lets you wander through the inbetween, the symbols are for warding and protection as well as helping the door open and the stones helps with protecting energies. I’m sure the ritual has developed over the years but this is what I know, what I remember.”

Michael remained standing in the doorway, his face in an unreadable mask that she couldn’t quite see past. It almost seemed as if he wary of it. Maybe he had to be, walking through the inbetween weren't easy, if you were lead astray you’d remain atray. Even if you’ve done it before it could be dangerous.

The ritual she had done when she came here were one akin to this, and it left her drained and with bruises. Worse thing could happen.

But as with all other things, worse things could always happen, letting that stop you would effectively stop you from doing everything, anything.

A little thought planted itself deep in her mind, at the very outskirts. What if there were something he didn’t want her to see?

“Haven't you ever seen a ritual like this? Who taught you magic?”

“My teachers were far more focused on getting me through the seven wonders than to teach me witchcraft,” he said with a frown. Oya looked at him in surprise.

So his teachers had focused on passing the supreme tests rather than teaching ways to use his magic. Even if he were naturally gifted and incredibly clever, raw power like his could reach so much further if he had been taught the ancient crafts. Everything he knew he had taught himself, she realised. Like her.

She folded her arms over her chest like him. “Did they know?”

“That I was the antichrist? No, mostly they didn’t question my powers, they were far more occupied with making me the new supreme, the alpha,” he said with a hint of a smile on his lips that were quickly turned into a frown.

“A male supreme? Unlikely, history has shown that the only supremes that can exist is female. You’re the antichrist not a witch or a wizard or whatever they call themselves, the supremacy wouldn’t be passed to you.” There were something alarming about this mask of his, eyes forming a wild storm and by the way he withheld his tendrils of magic she knew she was on thin ice.

“It didn’t matter, I won, will win regardless.” She walked to him and caressed his cheek.

“Because you have devil juju on your side,” she teased trying to ease his demeanor. It helped, he dropped his arms and leaned into her touch. “And you also have a goddess who owes you a favor.”

Oya turned and felt his hands come to her shoulders, fingers slipping past neck and holding onto it as she stepped out of the silk, naked. He stood with her silk in hand, letting it fall over his arm for her to take when she returned from the bath.

She sunk into the warm waters, the already critical water line rising even higher. Warmth engulfed her body. Before sinking further into the water, she looked over at Michael who stood patiently outside the ritual circle and watched.

“How did you learn? Your teachers were as unlikely to teach you anything like this as mine were,” he asked.

“When you’re not the prodigy you tend to live in the shadows. I stole a whole lot of my mother's books and read them in secret. The things I remember are the rituals I now know, it’s by far everything but it is something,” she answered. Most of the rituals had ceased to work, things get forgotten over time or changed. What she knew she had worked for, she had tested her way through it and if it worked, well then it fucking worked.

Like many things throughout time pieces of magic dwindled. The gods that were had fallen and things changed. That was how time worked. Witches themselves are said to be going extinct, their blood beginning to run thin with magic.

Oppose to them, being a goddess meant you had the possibility of so much more and with that you were a threat, to be hunted and locked away.

Michael would fall into the same category, wouldn’t he? Or just maybe he had the fate of something bigger than one of the last gods on earth.

“Whatever happens do not break the circle before I resurfaces,” she warned moments before diving fully into the water.

Like before there was nothing to begin with. Then slowly she began forming in that nothingness. Everything above the waterline nibbling at her ankles were dry, her hair now free and falling over her naked body. Around her were the emptiness, the abyss. She hated this place, the thought of being trapped there for eternity send shivers down her spine. It was a perfect limbo of nothing.

Oya began to walk, invisible theaters guiding her towards where she needed to be. The soil helped with that, to keep her from going astray and focus on finding the path to her old prison.

She stopped and looked sideways. Even though there were nothing there, she felt her soul being pulled, the back of her mind hearing a whisper that so dearly wanted to be heard. It made her heart speed up in fear. The inbetween called to her and something inside wanted to follow, to see what it wanted to show, what that little part of her told her she needed to see.

Ripping her eyes from the spot of black she had been captured by, she continued to walk a straight line forward. Water became soil, still air became warm and windy, around her formed so familiar and haunting scenery that made her heart stop for a moment in fear that being released from this place had been a dream.

The fine rows of herbs had fallen victim to weed. It looked disheveled and messy, many of the plants now sporting withered parts if it had not died at all. The soil that she had always kept perfectly balanced with water were now dry. Time had really passed.

It wasn’t what she came for.

Oya looked up and observed as two hooded figures entered the premise with a wave of the hand. The spell she had placed on the house from keeping being robbed, broke, the bowl with dried old herbs breaking into. That was the moment her candle went out.

They walked silently through the garden and into her house, hoods still covering their faces. Oya followed at a distance, strangely fearful of their presence. The gnawing feeling returned as nausea, adrenalin beginning to spike in her blood as her heart began drumming. If they were who she thought they were…

One hooded figure revealed themselves. Black hair that were once kept long were now cut to the shoulder, small traces of silver shining through in the light. Her mother turned and revealed the fine turning of time had left small lines upon her face, around her mouth and eyes, and yet she looked youthful. Oya fell to her knees outside of the door, hands gripping onto the wall as a way to keep fast.

“How?” Questioned the other person, her voice soft and young. She pulled back her hood and revealed light blond hair in a braid, eyes that used to be black now a crystal blue. Her sister had much finer and friendlier features. Soft lips the color of pink and a kinder bow to her jaw.

“I don’t know,” Haesoo answered her daughter, bewildered by her other daughters disappearance. “The spell was meant to last, she shouldn’t have been able to break it.” “Maybe it wasn’t her that broke it,” Ina said and kicked at a pillow on the ground. She walked around the room, fingers trailing over everything in an attempt to bring forth a vision.

“There’s no one powerful enough for that,” Her mother voiced in frustration. Worry made her look older.

“What if there were a lot of them then? We were many when we bound her so what if it is a coven we have to look for and not an individual? Maybe the New Orleans coven were desperate enough.”

“It’s not,” Haesoo said and walked towards the cup placed on the table. His cup. She bend down and took it, eyes looking at it as if she read a book. Oya felt herself begin to shake, the tether between this place and her body getting pulled together. It wasn’t long before she had to return. “If it were a coven there’d be left a bigger imprint, of something recognizable. The residue here is… strange, dark. It’s an individual.”

“It's quite similar, isn't it?” Ina asked and came to stand beside her mother.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she clutched the cup and closed her eyes. “Whoever released her is darker than anything I've ever felt and far more dangerous. If they have her by their side then… We have to get her and we have to make sure she’s permanently incapable of being a threat.”

Haesoo turned and looked directly at Oya. No, not directly, through her. Nevertheless Oya felt as if the world pressed in on her, air not getting to her lungs. Scrambling back she fell off the porch in a mess of arms and legs. The ground only seemed to swallow her up just like the fear. She sank, fighting against the soil, hands grabbing onto clumps of dirt and leaves until her head was covered and everything went black.

“Why exactly is it so important to get the ginseng when it’s full moon?” Oya asked her sister that had somehow convinced her to join her on her trip up the mountains. Now they were surrounded by woods, the lights of the city gone, replaced with silver moonlight that only cast an eerie veil through the crown of the trees. She rode beside her sister, accompanied by two armed guards.

“It’s said that if you dig up the ginseng that grows on the side of a mountain in the light of a full moon it’ll improve its qualities,” Ina answered, steering her horse further up. “Mother wanted us to get it.”

“Is it because of what happened?” Oya couldn’t help but ask. Since that day things had been different and why shouldn't it? She killed an entire village. They say it was something in the water but in reality it was her. The power within her had lashed out, she had felt positively euphoric. Even she was afraid of what hid beneath her skin, the monster clawing at her insides, the darkness that wrapped around her soul.

Ina looked at her sister with strange sympathy. “She’s afraid you will lose control again, that’s why we moved.”

“I’m trying. I don’t know what more I can do. I didn’t want to kill them,” Oya pleaded and felt some sort of remorse over the lie. In truth it had scared her how indifferent she felt towards what happened, not the act it self.

“But you did,” Ina said with a cold voice that struck her. “We’re here.”

They unseated the horses and brushed the ruffles out on their skirts. Ina made the guards remain, her powers latching onto them and controlling their minds. Oya followed her sister out into the clearing, carrying the basket on her arm. She frowned, eyes looking for the plant but found nothing but a house surrounded by a stone fence.

“Wha-.” A hand wrapped around her from behind, the basket being ripped out away from her with force. Closing her eyes she searched for her powers but found them as subdued as she was, forced passed the stone fence, into an overgrown garden. In the middle were a table, one she was thrown against moments before hitting the ground. Pain broke through her head, the feeling as if it was split open, she screamed.

“Get her on to the table, we can only hold her powers so long,” a familiar voice shouted. Oya felt hands around her arms, lifting her up and onto the table. Rope were tied around her wrists and ankles but just for good measure she was held down with bruising force.

“Let go of me! Help! Ina!” She screamed for her sister, kicking with all she could against the restraints. A power forced her still, the only thing she could move was her eyes, frantically looking around through blurred tears. Her mother stood beside her, face of stone and eyes as cold as ice. Above her holding her wrists were her sister, with a worried frown on her face.

She wanted to scream her throat raw, to let her powers run through her with vengeance.

“Cut her hanbok off,” her mother ordered. All Oya could do was watch as her fine silk hanbok was cut through, the fabric torn off her body and leaving her revealed and bare to the world. Her heart stopped, the shame of being left so unprotected clutching tightly around it.

She fought the magic stilling her, fought against its restraints until her body began to tremble. Around her gathered hooded figures with lit candles in their hands. They chanted lowly, the words seemingly making the air hum just like it did before a storm would tear through the skies.

“W-what?” was all she could get past her lips. With eyes as empty and cold as staring into a skull, her mother stood above her, knife catching the light of the moon.

“Mother,” Ina said before being stilled by their mothers cold snap of her eyes.

“We were fools for thinking that we should bring back gods,” her mother said. “We were greedy and foolish for thinking we could control something like that. You are by far my biggest regret and this…” Haesoo’s hands levitated above her daughters naked body, paled by the moon as if all colour had left the once sunkissed skin. “this will make sure you can never hurt anyone again. This is our way to make things right.”

Oya finally broke free of the spell that held her still. She screamed like a wolf in the night, the sound tearing through her throat with merciless claws. The rope burned her skin, dug in and left marks that felt like they’d never go away, and in a way they didn’t.

Haesoon began to chant, her words slurring into a language Oya didn't understand. Then her sister joined, her eyes never leaving her mother's form, even when her sister begged for her to help, begged to be released.

The surroundings began to blur into shadows and fine flames, the forms lengthening and twisting to something monstrous. The trees sang a sad song, one of pain and sorrow, maybe if was for her, maybe it sang of this very moment when Oya realised that the ones who should have loved her only saw her as a monster, saw her as something to be kept locked away with betrayal and bindings. Or just maybe it sang the song of all the souls she had taken from the world.

Warm liquid fell onto her body, drawing dark lines over pale skin, smearing and sticking to her. It turned freezing. Above her were now a dead snake hanging limp in her mother's grip, its blood spilled onto her body. Blood of the serpent, symbol of the goddess Ereshkigal, of her.

“Mother, please!” She cried but found her pleas were nothing but empty words to her mother. The screaming had left her throat raw, voice almost burned out of her but her tears kept coming, the tickled down the sides of her face. They meant nothing to them.

Her mother called in someone, one of the guards, that came to stop at her feet. Never had she called so loudly on her powers, never had she screamed into the abyss and found nothing. Never would she have thought that her own flesh and blood would do something like this.

She wanted to throw up, her stomach turning when his hands trailed up her legs and parted them for him. The pain were almost as bad as the betrayal, the uselessness she felt, the utter and total embarrassment. The pain resonated within her and she felt as if she was truely trapped. Burning chains formed around her, searing themselves into her skin with fine imprints.

There were nothing but pain, feeling half of her being ripped from her body, feeling bound to something agonizingly fragile. A part of her wished her dead, wished her gone from it all.

Another part of her burned with reckoning. It cursed them all, saw all those who had anything to do with her binding and rape to die a painful and slow death. She cursed their children and their children's children. She cursed their entire bloodline. But curses from someone who was split in two, whose powers were locked away, were nothing but words.

In a still moment where time slowed down, she looked into the darkness and found a boy the same age as she, with strange clothe and even stranger features. His hair were in golden tossels around his head, golden hair she had never seen before. Maybe he was a spirit, someone who’d help. Their eyes met, obsidian orbs meeting blue angelite. They were beautiful and they were sad.

Pain surged through her once more, feeling as if she were about to explode, she screamed and attempted to kick the man off, to tear her wrists from the bindings even if it tore off her skin.

In the end she was left entirely powerless. In the end she was left entirely alone.

In the end there were nothing but the seed of hate setting root.

In the end the boy haunted her.

With a jolt Oya sat up, water that had been still now violently spilling everywhere, the candles put out and knocked over with force, the herbs washed away and symbols cleaned off. She screamed despite the lack of air, body filled with a hollow pain while her mind was scattered to the then, the inbetween and the now.

She was still being suffocated in the soil, still screaming in the inbetween and in total pain in the now.

Michael had thrown the robe and rushed to her side, his arms sinking into the water and wrapped around her to keep her from sinking in once more. He shushed her with soft words, his hands coming around to hold her face up as she jittered in pain, lips quivering violently and eyes trying to focus.

“Oya! Oya!” He said, trying to calm her. “You’re back, you’re here, I’m here!”

The words she tried so forcefully to from in her mouth came out as strange stutters with no actual words forming. With her mind shattered like this everything felt out of place. She felt out of place.

His eyes were so blue. Angelite. She couldn’t remember were she’d seen them.

It took several moments before her body stopped sizing, before she felt in control of it enough to reach out to Michael. Her hands shook when they grabbed onto his jacket that had become soaked. The pain dwindled, her mind falling into place, leaving behind the then, the inbetween to fully be in the now.

Michael lifted her out of the water and cradled her against him. Without any concern to his attire he held her, softly brushing wet hair out of her face. He felt warm as always. She could hear his heart drum in his chest and slowly she found her way back, her own heart starting to beat with his.

“They’re alive,” she croaked. “They’re alive and they know I’m not there anymore.”

“They won’t be able to find you,” Michael reassured. There were something there, something pulling at the corners of his sincerity, something that nudged the doubt that had been planted in her. There was a carefulness.

She pushed away from him, hand on his chest. “Did you know? Did you know they were alive?”

“I had my-,” he started after being quiet a moment too long. How easily he lied.

“You knew.”

“Yes,” he admitted. Oya pushed away from him entirely, her skin getting in contact with the wet floor as she pushed over it until they were not touching anymore. There were a callousness to him, like there always were. Another mask, another layer, another shield.

Fear turned to anger and anger burned. It was there to begin with, simmering in the distance and always getting closer and now she were engulfed in it. Rage pure and simple, that left no room for fear or anxieties.

She hated them enough for her to go through him if she had to.

Her powers lashed out and pressed against him until he had scootered over the floor and pressed against the frame of the door. Lights began to flicker, a strange sound filling the room as a gash began to drag over the mirror while it vibrated. The air was windy with magic.

Michael’s eyes flared up with a familiar anger, one she had seen before on him. In contrast to her burning rage his was cold and contained. It made him far more frightening.

“You knew!” She hissed at him, hands balling against the floor so much that her nails cut into the skin of her palm.

Michael simply dried off drops of water before leaning to rest against the frame. Pieces of his hair was wet, the sleeves of his black jacket was wet, his pants were wet. His eyes were cold flames. “Yes, I knew.” He scoffed with cynicy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d go after them without a second thought,” he answered with a cool drawl. They both stood, glaring at one another. The robe were supposed to bring her some warmth but none were to be found. It covered her up and yet the feeling of being bare lingered.

“You’re goddamn right!” She cursed at him. “You have no idea what they put me through. You couldn’t possibly understand what they did!”

“I understand betrayal, I’ve had my fair share of it,” he countered. Weather it was anger or attraction they always ended up being slowly pulled towards one another. Something about him was restrained, carefully concealed. He moved in an elegant way that no one else moved in. “Understand that it was-,”

“If you way it was for my own good I swear I’ll tear this house down with you in it,” she threatened. Weather she were able to fight Michael head on and survive would remain a mystery, the same goes for him. “Were you afraid I’d leave you?”

“No,” he said in an almost cruel way, slow and drawling, with his eyes narrowed at her. It shouldn’t have surprised her and it didn’t, but it did strike something.

“I want to watch them burn. I want to watch them suffer for what they did to me and you want to stop me,” she hissed and took a step back as he began to press her further back with his presence. It infuriated her, the way he always closed in on her as if she was prey.

“I don’t want to stop you.” His breath hit her face and tickled over her skin. “I want you to get your vengeance. You can leave whenever you want.”

Words that should seem reassuring felt quite opposite. The anger that filled her up ran down her cheeks as evidence, how weak it must seem. A goddess trembling with anger and painful tears tainting her cheeks. The pain lingered in her body and the memory of it haunted her. The shame haunted her.

“I didn’t tell you because you’d act rash. You’d let the anger consume you-,”

“And you wouldn’t let it consume you!” She yelled in frustration. Behind her spiderwebs formed as the mirror continued to vibrate, the lights flickering. The rage burned in her blood, made every breath she took feel strained and painful. It felt as if she’d lose control, even if she tried to remain as collected as Michael, the energy whirled around them.

“I’ve learned to think before I act, to take in every possibility and make plans for every outcome so that whatever that happens I’m the one in control.” He didn’t touch her but his hand followed the line of her cheekbone. “When you were in full control I’d tell you. So that you could think clearly.”

“What do you want from me, Michael?”

“I’ve told you. I want you to reach full potential,” he said with an ease unlike any other. If he lied she wouldn’t know and if he spoke the truth… It was hard to figure out if it were all part of a bigger game, of something she hadn’t yet realised or if it were something sincere. At times he were exactly what he showed her and at other time a cypher she couldn’t figure out. It was infuriating.

“And I want revenge.”

“Then take it but be clever,” he said. With carefulness he touched her cheek and dried off her tears. The fire that burned towards him burned out leaving dust and ashes behind, in the form of a hollow feeling. Pain lingered, however. The memoried burned into her mind.

“For the pain they have caused you I will make sure their stay in hell will be worse than they ever thought possible.”

Oya placed her hand over his and looked into his eyes with undoubtful determination. “In this I don’t need your help. However, I ask that you stay by my side as I take my revenge.”

“Seeing you take revenge would be my biggest pleasure.”

#michael langdon #michael langdon fic #michael langdon imagine #mine: fic #obsidian & angelite

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cwtwheely · 5 years

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Pokémon Let's Go Review

Well... this has been a contentious Pokémon game, hasn't it?

While fans were excited that Pokémon was going to be released on the Switch (even if some were disappointed that there would be no more main series games on the 3DS), knowing that the first would include Go elements put some off entirely. Which is understandable; it took about two years for the app to fully form, and its "gameplay" is rudimentary.

But I like Go regardless, and I was looking forward to Let's Go, especially after learning that it was a remake of Yellow (which desperately needed a remake, as the original is incredibly dated).

As for this? I love it. I've been playing it as much as I can since it was released, and I've been having so much fun.

First off, let's talk about the Go aspect. Yes, you no longer battle most of the Pokémon you encounter, but they make sure you have enough of an incentive to catch them other than filling the Pokédex. And it all comes down to catch combos.

Catch combos are earned by catching one species of Pokémon over and over again (you can encounter another Pokémon, run from it and not break the combo). The higher the combo, the more candy and berries you earn.

Candy, which can also be earned by transferring Pokémon to the professor, replace the God awful medical based boosters from the other games which were so expensive and scarce to find in the wild. There are 6 different candy you can earn:

Health - raises HP

Mighty - raises Attack

Tough - raises Defence

Smart - raises Special Attack

Courage - raises Special Defence

Quick - raises Speed

These candy come in normal size (can be used on any Pokémon), large (only work on Pokémon above level 30) and extra large (only work on Pokémon above level 60). There are also Pokémon-specific candy (like Go) which raise every stat of that Pokémon and its evolutionary line (eg: Charmander candy works on Charizard), and the rare candy retains its main series effect of raising the level of a Pokémon.

With these, it's never been easier to unleash the true potential of your Pokémon. It's gotten me into competitive battling a lot more than I thought. And if any system needs to bleed into the main series, it's the candy system.

That said, if it does become a mainstay, it needs a tweak. While I'm not too fussed about grinding for the candy, using them can be incredibly tedious and unnecessarily time consuming. It takes, at most, 10 minutes to fully raise a Pokémon, and that's if you have enough candy to get it that far.

In Go these days, if you have more than one rare candy, and you want to give them all to one Pokémon, you can do so in seconds. It would be nice if that was possible with the Let's Go candy system too, especially with the Pokémon specific candy.

Catch combos offer more benefits than just candy. The further along a chain you get, the more likely you are to find one with the best base stats. You can check these with the Judge feature, which is given to you once you catch 30 different species and talk to an aide on the eastern building out of Fuschia City (heading to Lavender Town). It's another feature that makes it so much easier to invest in getting the best out of your favourite Pokémon (and another feature that needs to be kept).

And, yes, chain combos make things easier to find shiny Pokémon. With a combo over 30, odds are slashed from 1 in just over 4,000 to one in 341. And these odds are made better if you set a lure off and (once you've registered every Pokémon in the Pokédex) the shiny charm.

Also, the higher the combo, the more experience your Pokémon get. While that's great, as is the even distribution of EXP for every Pokémon in your team, it's not ideal. Say you've built a team that you're not entirely happy with. You find a Pokémon you want to include, but realise it's at a much lower level. The only way to build that Pokémon up is to remove all of your current team and grind it up, which is the only major flaw with the catching mechanic. Fortunately, this could only be an issue with any future Let's Go games (if they make more of them).

Yes, some will say "just send it out first in trainer battles!"

You need your stronger Pokémon to support that weaker one, so all the EXP your weak Pokémon gets, your stronger one gets, too (actually, the higher level one gets more, I think). Y

Your team still shares EXP from trainer battles, so you have the same problem.

There aren't as many Trainers as there are wild Pokémon.

Whether they stick with Go catching mechanics, revert to normal, allow players to battle, beat then catch Pokémon (like they do with Snorlax, the Electrode in the Power Plant or the Legendaries) or allow players to choose the best option for them, chain combos should be kept, especially if they're wanting to double down on the competitive scene and allowing everyone a chance to get involved in it.

The catching itself is... alright. While I do like using the Poké Ball Plus, the gyroscope technology in handheld mode is also really good. That said, in a game made to be as accessible as possible, disabled people are abandoned by them.

As someone who is disabled, I'm incredibly fortunate to have little issue using them... for now. One wrong move, however, and I could probably never play the game again. Granted, that's a worst case scenario, but with my condition, that is also a possibility. For a full report on this, I'll refer you to this Kotaku article:

Seriously Nintendo, stop forcing us to accept motion controls! They utterly destroyed Star Fox Zero and they are restrictive as all hell for a series that's meant to be universal! Make them an option if you must, but for God's sake, motion controls should never be the only way to play on a home console!

With all of that out of the way, the story is... well, pretty much the same as the original Yellow version. There are some tweaks; your rival is friendlier than Blue was, Lorelei helps you with Team Rocket on route 10, you see the Cubone try and interact with its dead mother (the most heartbreaking scene in media since Up), you see Blue take over the Viridian City Gym after you beat Giovanni (explaining why you faced him in Gold, Silver and Crystal).

But on the whole, it's simple yet effective. Frankly, it's a better story than Black and White because it doesn't reek of hypocrisy (they're using Pokémon to try and push a message to not abuse animals) and never takes itself too seriously. Besides which, the twist of Giovanni being the Viridian Gym Leader as a means to boost his operation is so unexpected and well handled that it's never been matched.

But on the whole, you beat the Gyms, catch the Pokémon and be the best. It's a formula that works.

Where the game truly shines, however, is the graphics. By the end of the game, I was thinking "why hasn't Pokémon been on a home console before now?" Sure, they wanted people to come together, which was more likely with handheld consoles. But frankly? It held the visual storytelling back so much. And this game is proof of that.

I've mentioned the Cubone moment before, but that whole subplot is the best, most heartbreaking storytelling the franchise has ever had to offer. But the only time that actually worked, and was properly felt, was in this game.

The Gyms also got an upgrade. Most of them were slight updates, but two (Saffron and Cinnabar) have similar mechanics, but a much different feel. Cinnabar especially is so over the top with its quiz theme is just brilliant. I loved it. Saffron's, however, was just breathtakingly beautiful. It was also TARDIS-like in that it's much bigger on the inside. But it's another example of why the Switch makes the game look so much better.

That said, there were a couple of times where I experienced significant frame rate drops in handheld mode (I can't say if it's the same in docked mode as I don't play it that way). It mainly happens at the start of Viridian Forest when there are a lot of Pokémon on screen (be careful when setting a lure off there). I didn't experience any major bugs or glitches other than that, though.

And yes, your Pokémon can (finally) follow you around again. Some (Arcanine, Persian) you can ride on to traverse the world faster. And you can fly over the overworld on a Charizard or Dragonite once you beat the Elite Four (it's tougher to enter buildings though, so you have to spend a couple of seconds trying to land).

Hopefully this means that this feature will be a mainstay. Not only is it fun to interact with your buddy, but they also help you find hidden items in flowers or rocks.

The only Pokémon you can fully interact with is your starter: Pikachu or Eevee. It's similar to Pokémon Amie from X, Y, Sun and Moon, and... well, it's so charming. I often went in just to see her reactions and I wasn't disappointed. She danced, she got excited, she even gave me presents. It's just adorable! Hopefully this stays as well, only for every Pokémon that follows you around.

The menus are fine as well. But in handheld mode, it is rather cumbersome to use the buttons to navigate through them. The touchscreen can be used to interact with your partner Pokémon, so why it couldn't be used to navigate the menus I don't know. Maybe this is one of the aspects they intentionally stripped back? Either way, all us handheld players to use the touchscreen more for the next game please, Game Freak.

Also, the move selection boxes in battle seem... a tad small. It would be nice if they, and the font in them, were made a bit bigger in future games for those with poor eyesight. It's not like they're working with a small 3DS screen any more.

Overall though, I love this game. Yes, it is a stripped back game compared to Sun and Moon (no abilities, less moves). Yes, it has levelling issues. Yes, it has accessibility issues. But the things the game adds make them a fantastic entry point to the series, and competitive battling as a whole.

Plus, it was nice to experience Yellow with a fresh coat of paint. The hardware really helped to enhance the story (again, the Cubone subplot is heartbreaking), the return of travelling partners was great, seeing the Pokémon in the wild made the world feel more alive than it's ever felt.

I'm really looking forward to what they do with the franchise for generation 8. But to tide people over, this was a great instalment. I'd honestly go as far as to say it's one of my favourite Pokémon games ever, just behind HeartGold, SoulSilver, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Is Let's Go perfect? Absolutely not. But I've had more fun with this than I have with a Pokémon game since ORAS. It just puts you in the world and explore everything it has to offer. And for a Pokémon game, that's all I really want. It's a lot more fun than sitting through nearly an hour of cutscenes to actually do anything, only to do it again in "follow up" games that could easily have been sold as DLC rather than another full price release.

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