#the sheer impact and danger of some moves and the speed rounds can go at really makes me think of soulcal or tekken

[thisgodwontforgiveyou]

at the end of the day i do fundamentally prefer the way strive feels no matter what just because it reminds me of 3d fighting games

#the sheer impact and danger of some moves and the speed rounds can go at really makes me think of soulcal or tekken #it would be nice to have a little more complexity but thats mostly just me getting bored with being bad and wanting new toys to bat around

[razieltwelve]

Kill Order (Final Rose)

As the explosion raged against her glyph, Weiss activated Luna’s personal forcefield and all but threw the girl at one of her bodyguards. “Get her behind cover.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

The explosion finally began to peter out, and Weiss began to bark orders at the other bodyguards. “Team 1, you’re with me. Team 2, I want you to split, take the buildings on either side. Sweep the rooftops.” She paused as a low, angry growl filled the air. “Zahn...” The wolf glanced at her, and Weiss gave the order. “Kill.”

X     X     X

What sets Oerban timber wolves apart from most of their lupine kin is not merely their size although they are the largest wolves in the world. Instead, what truly makes them unique is how heavily they make use of Aura during combat. Like chocobos, Oerban timber wolves have learned how to enhance their strength, speed, and durability using Aura.

An adult Oerban timber wolf is more than capable of completely ignoring small arms fire, and more powerful wolves have been known to remain combat capable even after being struck by anti-tank rounds. To maximise their combat effectiveness, the Yun often equip their wolves with collars and bracers that contain personal forcefields and Aura batteries. The objective is to allow the wolf to reach their opponent without sustaining major damage. Once the wolf reaches their target, the result is often largely academic.

X     X     X

Zahn reached the first White Fang assassin and simply clamped his jaws around the Faunus’s head. The assassin’s Aura flared briefly and then shattered like glass. The wolf’s massive jaws closed with a wet thump, and he tossed the dead man aside as a stream of gunfire raced toward him.

Instincts that had been honed by years of training allowed him to zigzag through the oncoming barrage until he reached his next target. This one drew a sword and swiped at his side. The wolf leapt over the blow and crashed into the rabbit Faunus. The woman screamed as he brought one paw down with punishing force. To her credit, her Aura withstood the first blow, so Zahn twisted, seizing her leg in his jaws, and swung her into a nearby streetlight.

The metal bent beneath the force of the blow, and he shook his head and brought her down onto the pavement. Her Aura broke, and the concrete sidewalk cratered. Blood splattered the ground, and he fought the urge to howl as he bounded toward the group of White Fang firing on the members of his pack.

They saw him coming, and he understood immediately that he would not be able to dodge so many attacks. Instead, he would have to rely on his Aura and the defences his pack leaders had given him. Light flashed around him as those defences and his Aura withstood the onslaught. One of the White Fang gestured sharply, and an explosion threatened to drive him back.

Zahn roared and threw himself forward through the cloud of fire and force. He slammed into the closest assassin, and his sheer mass sent the man tumbling back. Rising to his feet, Zahn rammed another Faunus into a car, crumpling the vehicle and crushing the woman against it. A swipe of his paws sent a male Faunus tumbling through the air before he lunged at the one with the most Aura.

Another explosion bloomed to life against him, and Zahn felt the bracer on his rear left leg crack. That wasn’t good, but he still had three others and his collar. More importantly, he had managed to reach his opponent. With a blur of movement, the Faunus drew a spear and stabbed at his side. Zahn dodged as best he could, and the blow skittered off his flank. His teeth closed around the man’s wrist, and he tried to bite down. His opponent’s Aura resisted the attack, so he turned it into a throw, heaving him into the wall of the building beside them. 

“You damn monster!” the Faunus drew a knife with his other hand and drove it toward Zahn’s face. 

The wolf let go of the man’s wrist and jerked his head back before lowering his shoulder and driving it into his chest. The corner of the building broke off, and the pair of them rolled across the road. Zahn was on his feet first, and he struck with brutal force. He seized the Faunus’s left ankle in his mouth and used it to slam him into one of the trees that lined the sidewalk. Wood cracked, and Zahn bit down harder. Still, the White Fang member’s Aura refused to break. A desperate slash of the knife clattered against Zahn’s defences, and the wolf swung his head back around and smashed his opponent back into the ruins of the tree. Finally, his Aura broke, and Zahn darted forward.

“Get away from -”

CRUNCH.

Zahn tore off his head and most of his torso with one bit and then turned to scan the rooftops. One of his pack leaders was leading an assault further down the street. There was no need to go to her side. She was well protected. Instead, he would do what he did best. He would hunt. Movement from a nearby rooftop draw his eyes, and Zahn broke into a speedy lope.

X     X     X

Granite had worked for Weiss Schnee for the better part of five years. He’d been forced into battle several times while serving her, but this was by far the largest conflict he’d been involved in. In a way, he wasn’t surprised. With her wife away on a critical mission, Weiss was far more vulnerable. If Ruby had been here, it was entirely possible that all of their assailants would already be dead. Teleportation and ultra-high-speed movement were absolutely unfair sometimes.

Of course, that was what he and the others were for. Weiss packed more firepower than entire teams of hunters, but she was relatively fragile compared to her teammates. If she got hit - and that was a big if given her defensive glyphs - she wouldn’t be able to simply shrug it off the way someone like Yang Xiao Long could. But as long as he and the other bodyguards could protect her, Weiss was essentially living artillery. 

Case in point: the majority of the White Fang’s forces further down the street were currently being bombarded by bolts of super-heated ash travelling at rail-gun-like speeds. Upon impact those bolts would not only inflict hideous damage due to their speed but they would also explode, completely enveloping their target in ash that had been heated to thousands of degrees.

The only thing he and his team needed to do was keep the rooftops clear. A sniper was one of the only threats that stood a chance of getting Weiss, and they’d already eliminated several as they swept the rooftops. Once this was all over, there would definitely have to be an investigation. The White Fang had been all but destroyed for years. How had they managed to gather the resources for an attack of this magnitude?

However, his thoughts were soon interrupted as something burst out of a nearby roof. Well, crap. That was a war mech, a salvaged and heavily modified Atlas model by the looks of it. 

“Take it down!” Granite shouted. “Don’t let it fire!”

It was impossible to be completely sure of its load out, but the mech had several missile pods and what appeared to be a heavy plasma cannon on one arm. 

“Take out the plasma cannon!” Granite pointed. “Aim for the plasma cannon!”

Missiles filled the air, and he and the others were forced to take cover. He peeked around the corner in time to see the plasma cannon beginning to charge. 

“Damn it.” He raised his rifle and fired, but the bullets simply bounced off the mech’s forcefield. However, he must have done some damage because there was a sound like breaking glass as Zahn crashed through the forcefield and bit down on the cannon hard. “Watch the wolf,” he barked. 

Swinging back and forth, Zahn managed to brace his feet against the mech’s chassis. With a savage jerk of his head, he ripped the front half of the plasma cannon apart. The weapon shrieked and began spewing plasma everywhere. The wolf leapt clear, and Granite gestured wildly.

“Bring it down! Bring it down!”

One of the other bodyguards picked up a piece of rubble and threw it. The other man’s Semblance turned the projectile into a makeshift grenade, and it exploded against the mech’s side. The machine lumbered and then toppled off the rooftop. 

“Don’t let up!” Granite pointed. “Target the cockpit!”

X     X     X

Weiss took a moment to scan the street for any further danger. Good. The White Fang had been dealt with. Even so, she asked for a full sweep of the area before moving to where Luna had thankfully been kept safe. At her side, Zahn walked proudly. The wolf had proven his worth yet again, and nothing made him happier than doing his bit for his pack.

“Good boy.” Weiss reached over to scratch him behind his ears. “Good boy.” She noticed the blood staining his jaws and muzzle and paused. Hmm... she should probably clean him off a little before they met with Luna. 

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

It’s easy for people to forget because he’s so friendly and easy-going, but Zahn is more than six hundred pounds of lupine death that has been carefully honed over generations of selective breeding with years of training to hone his instincts. Backed up by technology, an adult Oerban timber wolf is extremely dangerous. That said, those same things that make him dangerous make him perfectly safe around Luna. The idea of actually harming her goes against all of his instincts and training. What makes wolves like Zahn even more dangerous is that they are also trained to work together if necessary. Together with their handlers, packs of Oerban timber wolves can and have brought down even S Tier Grimm.

The best bit is that after this, Zahn will probably spend his night being used as a teddy bear by Luna. Since she was kept safe behind cover during the whole fight, she wasn’t scared for herself so much as she was scared that something might happen to Weiss, Zahn, or the bodyguards, many of whom she has come to think of as friends since she’s known them for as long as she can remember.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

#final rose #fanfiction #weiss schnee #zahn

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 11: Plummet

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Eleven: Plummet

Note: I loved hearing your comments as always! Glad your all enjoying the fic so far! I think there will probably only be one more chapter of this arc after this. Maybe two. Then we will be returning to the one we were in before this. I need to come up with a name for it. Maybe the Island Arc? No, that’s lame. Give me your ideas lol! And check the endnotes, please. I have something special for you today :D

(-~-)

It felt like a lifetime since the young teenage girl had clambered on board the van, the cramped confines of the interior of the vehicle and the number of strangers she was forced into close contact with only heightening her level of dismay and disillusionment. A thousand and one things were running through her head at every second, dragging the short time that she’d spent in transit to safety into what felt like hours. Never before had she felt so helpless against an opponent who might very well take the life of someone she cared about, not even when her grandparents had fallen dead at her feet. At least she could say that she had tried to save them, bashing one of the strangers who had attacked them in the back with a wooden log that had been laying nearby.

But when V had told her that he wanted her to leave, she had frozen. And in her panic, she had honored his request. That was something that she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life, and something that she didn’t know how she would cope with. There was a certain level of expectation that people had towards the possibility that their family would at least try and protect them, but for a stranger to risk everything time after time to help someone that they had only met that day? Unheard of. Despite her young age, there was a part of her that genuinely wanted to do something about what had occurred that day, a deep, buried part of her crying out for the justice that they both deserve.

“He didn’t even know me, and he still was willing to die to save me. And I just left him behind. What does that say about me?”

Morgan hadn’t noticed that she’d said that out loud until one of the other people in the vehicle with had shaken their head and shrugged nebulously. “Well, if you didn’t know each other, then why are you beating yourself up about it? Why do you care so much?”

The statement was enough in of its self to make her get out of the car and walk the rest of the way. A feeling of profound disgust rose up in the pit of her stomach, the entire van suddenly being far too hot for her liking. If she was willing to guess, and she was, the passenger that had spoken to her just now was far from the type who would have willingly pulled over their car to assist her. And while there was a part of her that understood their viewpoint and the concept of self-preservation at any cost, she couldn’t help but feel abject horror at the thought of being so selfish. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t smart enough to stay quiet about it lest she risk being kicked to the curb. She didn’t know these people, and she had no idea what they were capable of.

“Ge, I don’t know, because he cares about me, ya know? Because he saved my life more than once today! Because I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him!” Morgan huffed in frustration, trying to hold back the frustrated tears that were trying to escape her eyes. She refused to sit there and cry in a van with a bunch of strangers like a little kid, no matter the context. “You don’t have to know a stranger to help a stranger. He’s proof of that. I mean, if you saw a kid about to get hit by a car, wouldn’t you try and save them?”

The stranger shrugged. “Can’t say that I would. I’m not trying to get hit by a car. I have a family, too. Maybe I’d call the ambulance afterward or something, but I’m not running out into the street for a stranger. It’s not like I don’t care, I just care less about them than I do myself. Nothing wrong with that. And besides, they probably wouldn’t even appreciate what I did for them, knowing my luck. That’s just how it is.”

Morgan sighed sadly. “I don’t need them to feel thankful to know I did something right. I just need to know that I did my best. I can live with that.”

It occurred to her at that moment that maybe she wasn’t as good at hiding what she truly thought as she had thought she was. There was a part of her that was deeply frustrated by the fact that her newfound companion had stayed behind to buy them time, and that some of the people in the car could have such a devil may care attitude about it. “Better him than me” they were probably thinking. And she couldn’t abide by that. As soon as she made it to town, she was going to find the police, and she was going to do her very best to get help for her friend. That was all she could do now, and she knew that regardless of how much she didn’t want to, she was going to have to live with that reality for the rest of her life. 

Deep down she wanted to believe that she had done the right thing, but she couldn’t be sure, and the not knowing about what had become of him was probably the worst part. After all, it would be pitch black outside in a short while. It would be cold and desolate, and he was alone against everyone who was out to get them both. How on earth would he contend with such staggering odds on his own? He didn’t come off to her as the survivalist sort.

What on earth was V going to do now?

(-~-)

Once the unfortunate reality of the situation that he’d gotten himself into truly set in, so did the panic. But thankfully, so did the instinct to turn that insurmountable fear into something that he could use against his opponents. He was moving through quick-drying cement, and he knew it. Now his best course of action was to try his very best to get out of it before he was locked into place and couldn’t escape.

In a strange mixture of initiative and calm, especially given the dire situation that he found himself in, V decided to get to work coming up with a solution. The authorities had already been contacted. Now what he needed to do was make it somewhere somewhat safe and stay out of the realm of detection of his enemies. The fact that they were armed and fully willing to kill him did make that considerably more difficult, but that was just something that he was going to have to deal with accordingly.

“Morgan said that the bag was somewhere over here,” V said quietly under his breath as he dug through the pile of snow nearest to where he and Morgan had fallen down the mountain. Despite the fact that he had literally never been in the town before that day except when he’d passed through to move to Lympha, he understood the layout somewhat. It was a tiny place with mostly log cabins, and the hill that they had come down held a domineering position behind the place. When they had said that they had been living in the shadow of the larger town for as long as they could remember, he had to believe that they meant that literally. And he’d feel bad for them in that respect if they hadn’t just tried to kill him.

What kind of desperation and madness drew people to commit the kinds of acts that these people had decided to commit? He hoped that he would never understand. He didn’t want to. That would mean that at least once he would have to stand in their shoes and think as they did. V liked to think that he had more dignity and self-respect than to lower himself to that kind of level. He liked to think that he would never do something like what they had done, and although he was nearly certain that he wouldn’t, he had never been put in such a situation. But at the very least, he wouldn’t have done so willingly, and he would have done so as a last resort. From what he could tell, they had been more than happy to go along with the demands of their adversaries for whatever reason.

To his satisfaction and relief, a moment later, V located the bag that he’d brought with them and sifted through it. There would be a time and a place to bring it back with him, but this wasn’t it. At this point, it would only serve to slow him down. No, he would leave it there, hidden in the snow until he returned. But he was going to bring one thing that he’d seen Morgan slip into the bag during their trip.

It seemed that the knife might be a good idea after all. 

He hoped that he would get the opportunity to tell Morgan that.

As soon as he rounded the corner and stepped into the middle of the intersection again, an all too familiar vehicle rounded the corner from the top of the hill and came barreling at him. It was the truck that they had escaped earlier. The instant they saw him, the driver floored the gas, barreling at him at top speed. From what he could tell, they were planning to hit him, apparently so angry that he had managed to escape that they were fully ready to just kill him and be over and done with the entire situation. Things had just escalated to a degree that he hadn’t expected them to.

With a level of reaction time that he didn’t know he possessed, V dived across the street into the snow and out of the reach of the truck, the old vehicle hitting the breaks a few seconds after passing him, but sliding on the ice instead. The sheer momentum caused by the speed that they were going send them sliding sideways at a dangerous speed, the truck flipping onto its side and rolling before making impact with one of the buildings nearest to the road. From what he could tell, it was a bar of some sort.

Shards of wood rained down and the truck tore a massive hole through the side of the well-worn building, eliciting shouts and curses from its passengers. One could only hope that the building was empty at that moment, but he couldn’t’ find the mental energy to care that much. He was torn between waiting to see if they were still alive and running for his life, the logical center of his brain not so subtly reminding him of the fact that the men in the truck were not the only ones hunting him down.

Just then, one of the doors to another building close to them popped open, a hooded head sticking out followed by two others. While the first two ran over to the truck and attempted to force the truck doors open on the side that was still accessable, the other taller individual looked directly at him. For a moment, they stared at one another, V’s breath coming slowly as it threatened to catch in his throat. The only sound he heard was the dull doubled up rhythm of his heart beating in his chest as he stared down a man that he knew without question or hesitation wanted to end his life. And despite the fact that he couldn’t make out the individual’s face, he could see their eyes.

And he could feel their hate.

In a strange turn of events, they both acted at the same time. It was as if they were both on a starting line and the gun that signaled the start of the race had been fired, sending them both into a flurry of activity. Without much thought as to where he would land, V instantaneously overcame his fear of heights for a moment and tossed himself down the snow-covered hill, knowing somehow deep down that he could roll down the hill much faster than he could run down it. After all, he had done so earlier that day. It would put much-needed distance between him and his pursuers, even if his sore cut and bruise covered body didn’t exactly appreciate it at that moment.

Enough adrenaline to kill a humpback whale flooded his bloodstream as he clambered to his feet at the bottom of the hill, his heart hammering in his chest as he rushed forwards towards nothing in particular, hoping that he would be fast enough to make his escape. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that the mysterious man had yet to even reach the edge of the ridge, a strange and intriguing thing coming to mind as he considered the fact that he had covered much more distance in that short time than he ever had. V decided to simply pin it on the fact that he was most likely running faster than he ever had in his life, but the distance still seemed impossible to him. He had cleared at least three hundred yards in the time that it took him to register that he’d managed to get up and keep going, and he wasn’t going to complain.

Maybe greater speed and perseverance were granted to those in pearl, much like those in dire straits were sometimes able to lift egregious amounts of weight in order to save those that they loved. That was the only thing that he could think of. After all, he’d been athletic, but not in that kind of way. The only thing that years of ballet had probably imparted on him that would be helpful at this moment was endurance and balance. The ability to push himself to keep going beyond exhaustion, reason, and rationality was something that he’d always had to some degree, his mind working in microcosmos. If he looked at the entire situation as a whole while he was still in it, then he would more than likely falter due to the sheer magnitude of the existential horror that he’d find himself within the grips of. And in a situation like this, there was no time for that sort of thing. No time for anything aside from clear and decisive action at all costs. That was the only way that he was going to survive this.

Bruises would heal. Cuts would heal. His burning lungs and aching bones and feet and legs would be able to rest and he would recover. But he had to make it through this first. That kind of single-minded focus was the only thing that would keep him alive in this kind of situation. Whatever gods there were only knew that it sure as hell wouldn’t be his combat prowess. That was nonexistent, to say the least. No. He would run and run and run until he either escaped or dropped dead trying. Then their intentions for him wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

No, if they wanted him, they would have to kill him first. That was all there was to it. He utterly refused to go quietly. He would go kicking and screaming and hopefully take them with him. Because as full of pain and suffering and misery as his young life had been, he wasn’t willing to take his with the same level of silent acceptance that he had taken every other injustice that he’d been forced to deal with thus far. He’d been a child, incapable of doing anything meaningful about his situation then. There had been no recourse to try and alter his position. But he wasn’t a child anymore. He might barely be an adult, but that didn’t change anything as far as he was concerned.

V had no idea how long he had been running. Time was irrelevant to him at the point. He was beyond exhausted and cold and tired and hurt and all he wanted to do was stop. But if he stopped, then he was dead. The snow stung then he inhaled it, and his eyes burned as he tried to blink away the burning sensation that came from the bitter winter’s air. It was dark now, and he was certain that they were closing in on him. He had to be slowing down. There was no way that he had been able to upkeep that kind of relentless speed. But a quick glance over his shoulder told him that that wasn’t the case. His pursuers were barely visible behind him, meer black dots in a sea of white. And yet, somehow that only made him want to run faster. He was certain that he probably could if he wasn’t dredging through at least two feet of powdery snow.

And then he heard the crack followed by the echo, and dread hit him.

It didn’t take much to be able to tell that he had just been fired upon. He wasn’t that dense. The distinct crack of a rifle was something that he had heard many times before. The locals used them frequently to keep whatever came from the forest at bay. That and fire seemed to be the only things that warded of their fears. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he’d had to worry about little things like that. What a shame that it had come to this. Things had been so quiet once, even when they weren’t. And now he could never go back to that.

The open nature of the sprawling space that he found himself within meant that he had little in the way of cover. Running side to side was an obvious choice, but it caused extra leg work that he didn’t have time for. Maybe he could get lucky and they would just hit one of their own. But as he continued forward, the dull thud of something hitting him from behind took him off guard, tripping him up for a moment and nearly causing him to fall over. V inhaled sharply, mind discomfort numbed by the freezing air and the blinding snowy wind. He had no idea what to make of his situation, but he knew that it probably wasn’t good, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stop to see how bad he was hurt. No, he would just tell himself that it was a simple graze and keep going. That was all he could do, and at least it didn’t hurt yet.

In a sudden and unwelcome turn of events, he happened through a small smattering of half-dead trees, the thin spindly branches serving as nothing but a barrier when he needed it least. As he passed through them, he suddenly found himself stuck, his coat having become snagged on one of the branches. As he attempted to pull free, he remembered his knife, pulling it from his coat pocket with what little mobility he could muster before attempting to use it to cut himself free. To his shock and dismay, the black-hooded man had finally caught up with him. Although the others were nearly a mile off in the distance, he knew that this wasn’t good. But at least they were on somewhat equal standing.

“You put up quite the chase, but you should have saved your strength. We need it for what is to come.” The hooded man reached out towards him, gripping the space between his neck and his shoulder. “Now stop. Were running late, and we are not the sort to be kept waiting.”

As if from nowhere, a second wave of energy hit him and he pulled away as hard as he could, crying out in fear. No, he would not go with him. Absolutely not. As if his hand were guided by a secondary source, he plunged the blade forward, catching his opponent dead center across part of their face. The blade hit against the tree behind him, snapping like a cheap lock as it embedded itself deep into the wood, nicking V’s hand in the process. The young white-haired man simply shrugged off his jacket at that point and ran, unwilling to try any longer to pull himself free. His momentum would hopefully be enough to stave off hypothermia. Anything was better than allowing this man another chance to take his life. As the man screamed and gripped his face, doubling over in the snow in pain, V gathered what remaining strength he had left and bolted forward into the unknown. 

From what he could tell, there was a ridge up ahead. He could hear the sound of rushing water, something that he hadn’t noticed before in his haste to escape. There were several things that he hadn’t noticed, like the fall leaves mixed in with the snow and the tall trees that bordered him on either side. This would be beautiful if not for the circumstances surround them. Another sort of terror gripped him as he tried to remain calm, his composure slipping. This was all too much at once. How on earth had he ended up in such a dire situation? There was no way that he could escape with rushing water in his path. A waterfall could be the end of him. Had he come this far just to drown at the very end in the freezing water? Was that all he could hope for? A better worse end?

The air held its chill in silent occupation as the light breeze kissed the powdered snow below his feet. Between his eyes, his hair stuck to his face. How uncharacteristic of him to sweat in the snow, especially with no jacket. The tall cypress trees proved to be a lively contrast to the towering evergreens that the shared space with, gently scattering leaves in every direction. They had been falling, much as he would be soon enough. It would either be here or at the hands of his pursuers.

During the time preceding this waking nightmare, everything had been silent. Simplicity and serenity had been all that he had sought out in this place in the first place, and much to his elation, he'd found it. But after a brief honeymoon period during which he'd grown quite fond of this little hamlet, everything had come crashing down around him like it always did. In the place of silence, there had been a sudden rush of sound. He hadn't been able to hear it from where he'd been, but he had seen it, and the growing guilt that he now felt as he stood at the precipice of his likely demise consumed everything inside him. He had been spared their fates only to meet his at the bottom of the rocks.

He told himself that it was thin ice. It was rushing water, after all. Somewhere beneath the surface was a small glimmer of hope that perhaps if he only dared to take the plunge he would have his liberation. He had to for the rest of them. After all, that was why he was standing there in the first place. Their sacrifice had been profound and selfless, and now he had a responsibility as the only one left to bring justice to those who had paved the path before him with their very blood.

With a last tentative breath, he glanced back fearfully, and then felt air rush past him. His descent had begun. As he approached the glowing white below him, everything went black. He hoped for the chance to open his eyes just one last time. He’d promised Morgan as much. But as his feet broke through the ice and a rush of blisteringly cold water engulfed him knocking every last ounce of air from his lungs, he was granted just enough time to wonder if he would ever get a chance to fulfill that promise before he lost consciousness.

(-~-)

Well, at least this is a prequel! I’m sure V will be alright *cries*. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter! See you all next week and in the comments where I’m happy to answer any questions you might have! Also, I’ve decided to do something fun to lighten the mood and because I love interacting with you all: A STORY IDEA SUBMISSION FORM!

I’ve gotten so many cool ideas for side stories for Saudade from you guys that I’ve started to lose count! Feel free to go to the link below and add your suggestions. If I can find a way to fit them in, then I’ll be happy to do so! Also, they don’t have to be for that story. I’m still planning to go through the comments and see if I can find most of the requests, but if you’ve made one before, I’d love it if you added it here so I can find it easier. You can also put your username if you’d like so that I know who to gift/credit it to, but that’s up to you! Please check it out. It lakes about 2 minutes and only has like 5 questions. Thanks, everyone!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qCTCUvavsjnrOsnpWG_tahlX4FOZtDsR5p_q213FQ7o/edit?usp=sharing

#V #Vitale #V's Backstory #My AU #Post Devil May Cry 5 #DMC #Hiraeth

[jungcupid-archive]

a really bad drabble that i decided to base off of real events. for the sake of the story, let’s pretend they filmed the run ep. right after muster in seoul. it’s stupid, but go with it.

+

   Jungkook is giddy with happiness and he feels likes all his blood has been replaced with liquid adrenaline. Even though it’s the last day of Muster, he can’t quite bring himself to be upset. It doesn’t feel bittersweet either. No, he’s just insanely happy for some reason. Maybe it’s something about being back in Korea, or feeling the full impact of everything BTS has done in the past 6 years, or just him getting 10 hours of sleep last night – whatever it is, Jungkook is glad it’s making him feel this way. Right now, Jungkook feels like he could create galaxies and bottle universes.

   It’s busy. They’re all getting their makeup re-touched and changing wardrobe and fixing mics and fumbling with new accessories all while keeping an ear out for their cue to get on stage for Boy With Luv. Jungkook has this smile on his face that screams contentment and he tries to stay still while the stylist fiddles with his wet hair. Someone else is standing behind him, blow-drying. Jungkook is, at the moment, contained energy and he’s just waiting to let it fly once he’s out on stage. He buttons up his shirt as quickly as possible and when the stylists are finally done with his hair, Jungkook darts away to grab some accessories.

   Jimin is holding his right hand away from him and examining the rings on his fingers when Jungkook comes up behind him and yells “Park Jimin!” right in his ear. Jimin jumps and turns his scandalized expression onto Jungkook.

   “First of all, ow, and secondly, what has gotten into you?” Jimin asks, absentmindedly slipping the rings off his fingers and letting them drop into the jewellery box. The box is situated on the table beside him and Jungkook glances at Jimin’s pretty fingers dipping into it once again to find the perfect ring.

   Jungkook grins and grabs a hold of Jimin’s hips, twirling him around so that he has his lower back pressed against the table. “I’m just really, really happy, hyung!” Jimin is trying hard to look annoyed but a smile keeps tugging at his lips.

   “You need to calm down before you get too excited on stage and end up breaking your leg or something,” Jimin remarks with a fond look in his eyes. He gently pulls Jungkook’s hands away from his hips and tries not to think about how his heart immediately speeds up when Jungkook’s fingers catch on the waistband of his jeans.

   Jungkook is practically bouncing now, he pulls his fingers forward and in doing so, brings Jimin flush against him. Jimin looks over Jungkook’s shoulder and notices nearly every member very obviously looking away from them. Yoongi, on the other hand, is staring outright and rolling his eyes. When Jimin looks at him, Yoongi just gives him a smirk and turns back to adjusting his mic under his shirt. Jimin wants to kill him.

“Jungkook,” Jimin says so lowly that only Jungkook can hear, “I’ve gotta pick out some rings and find my hat. Come on, let me go.” Jimin feels Jungkook shake his head and tighten his grip, a breathy laugh reaches his ear.

   Now, they’re running a little bit late. Staff members are beginning to drop by and give them the 3-minute warning, so when Jimin makes his next move, it’s purely out of desperation (and okay, fine, maybe he also just really wanted an excuse to do this). Before Jungkook can hold him there any longer, Jimin tilts his head forward and tugs on Jungkook’s earlobe with his teeth.

   Jungkook, who hasn’t stopped moving since the day began, goes completely still and his arms go slack. Jimin takes the moment to detach himself from the other and as he desperately wills the blood to stop rising to his cheeks, he fumbles out an awkward “I told you to let me go” before speed-walking into another direction. Any other direction. As long as he can get away from Jungkook.

   Jungkook watches Jimin bolt away from him and he turns to confirm with the members that he hadn’t just imagined that moment happening. Yoongi has an eyebrow raised, clearly impressed. Taehyung is struggling to put his phone (that was pointed at Jungkook) away before Jungkook catches him and Namjoon is shaking his head and smiling at Seokjin, who seems to also sport a knowing smile. Hoseok has the decency to pretend he wasn’t looking but when he comes to pick out his rings, he grins at Jungkook and says, “Finally!”.

   The atmosphere has gone from busy to a relaxed sort of buzz. Everyone is ready to go out on stage and the only thing filling the room now is their anticipation to perform. Jungkook, surprisingly, has gone into some sort of shutdown. He touches his earlobe with the tips of his fingers and a wide smile suddenly splits across his face. So he hadn’t been delusional and he did have a shot. He has to find Jimin. Now.

   After looking all over the prep rooms and not being able to locate, Jungkook heads to the restrooms and sure enough, Jimin is standing in front of the sink and shaking his hands free of water. Jungkook hears mutterings of “…stupid…embarrassing…” and closes the door behind him as softly as he can. It’s not enough, apparently, because Jimin whips his head around and his face instantly colours.

   “Listen,” he starts in what is supposed to sound like a nonchalant voice, “Sorry about earlier. I don’t know what came over me. Just forget it, okay?”

   Jungkook wonders how Jimin can stand being so adorable 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. Year round. Every year. Didn’t it get tiring? Jimin is standing with his arms crossed over his chest now and he stumbles back into a wall when Jungkook approaches the sinks so that he doesn’t end up doing anything stupid again out of sheer proximity.

   Jungkook turns on the tap and begins washing his hands, he looks at Jimin through the mirror and raises a teasing eyebrow at him, “And if I don’t want to forget it?”

   It’s like Jungkook can see the embarrassment leave Jimin’s body. He looks like he just got hit with a frying pan, of course, but overall his posture is much more relaxed. Jimin clears his throat, trying to be casual.

   “Well, that’s up to you. Just don’t expect me to always escape that way when you hug me,” Jimin’s eyes are lighting up and Jungkook doesn’t think he’s seen anything more enticing in his entire life. Some of his previous energy floods back into his body and he turns off the tap roughly, wipes his hands carelessly on his jeans and gets dangerously close to Jimin, holding him lightly by the waist.

   “Tell me I didn’t waste literal years by never telling you that I liked you. Tell me that what I thought were mixed signals were really just that and that I’m not a dumbass for holding out for so long. Tell me you don’t like me that way, and that me wanting to get together with you is just some really, crazy fantasy,” Jungkook is looking right into Jimin’s eyes with his teeth biting his smile back. He knows what he’s going to hear, and he thinks he’s falling in love all over again.

   “I can’t,” Jimin finally says with a teasing smile on his face. His hands go up to cup Jungkook’s face and just as he leans in, someone knocks on the door.

   “1 minute! Let’s go, guys!” A muffled staff voice says from outside.

   Jungkook ignores the command and goes in for a kiss anyways but Jimin pulls out of his grasp and leaves Jungkook leaning into air.

   “I hate concerts,” he mumbles while glaring at the wall, then turns his head to Jimin.

   “No you don’t, you big baby,” Jimin laughs and grabs Jungkook’s hand, pulling him out of the restroom. “We have time. That can wait.”

   And they get on stage and put on a show for everybody in the audience. The members see a slight shift, but don’t comment on it. Even when Jimin jokingly punches Jungkook in the arm during Boy With Luv and Jungkook can’t help but let a smitten grin be painted onto his face. Even when, during their ending bows, Jungkook pulls Jimin up from the floor and nearly forgets where they are and plants one on him right then and there.

   Even when, later that night, they see Jungkook sneak into Jimin’s room and hear giggles, kisses and voices heavy with sleep reluctantly saying three words they’ve all said to each other. But not like this, never like this.

   No, the members don’t mention it. Until, of course, they’re filming for Run BTS and Seokjin just can’t handle the two and their nauseating cuteness.

   “Are you two together, or something?” Seokjin asks incredulously. Knowingly. The rest crack up but Jimin and Jungkook can’t stop grinning at each other and Jimin steps away only to look back at Jungkook.

   Or something, his eyes say.

   Jungkook is definitely, undeniably in love.

 +

#i need a beta reader lmao bc i didnt edit this so if there are mistakes sorry sdkljf #not including this as an official ''work'' bc it's badly written :))

[eternityunicorn]

Elijah’s Eternity: New Orleans Part Fourteen

Author: eternityunicorn 

Genre: Romance/Drama/AU

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Warnings: Violance, Smut (*Smut chapters marked +18)

Summary: Sequel to the AU Elijah’s Eternity - Ten years have passed, a mournful Elijah has finally started to move on without his lady. In that time, he has gained a reunited family and has also found a new lady love. Yet, all is not well as danger comes for the smallest member of the Mikaelson family: Hope, and it prompts Niklaus to call upon the white goddess, drawing her back into Elijah’s life. As they reunite, can Elijah really say he’s truly moved on?

NOTE: OC and original elements are from my up and coming novel series!

———————————————————————————————————

The newly engaged pair headed down into the courtyard where they heard the voices of Kol, Rebekah, and Freya. The three of them were surrounding one of the outdoor couches and there was a young woman sitting before them, speaking in a language that they didn’t know. Elijah’s siblings were arguing over what language the woman could be speaking, as he and Eternity came to join them.

“Ah, finally through shagging long enough to help out, eh?” Kol said crossly, upon noticing the new arrivals. “Well, it’s about bloody time,” the younger Original shouted. Then he leaned over closer to his big brother and his brother’s lady to whisper lecherously, “Good show though. Quick the riveting performance.” He winked at them, earning a smirk from Eternity and a deep, murderous scowl from Elijah.

Kol immediately straightened at the sight of the latter’s reaction and had enough sense to look down sheepishly in response to it. 

“We’ve been trying to figure out what this young woman is saying,” Rebekah explained as she turned to Elijah, after having effectively ignored Kol completely. “She stumbled into the compound deliriously, shouting bloody murder in a language we can’t recognize. We thought it might be a dialect of Spanish or perhaps Italian, but when we tried to speak in those languages to her, she just stared at us strangely before carrying on as if we hadn’t even bothered.”

Eternity stepped up to get a closer look and gazed at the strange woman contemplatively. It wasn’t long before she became alert and taunt. “Everyone get back!” She shouted quickly, in that authoritative way of hers.

The moment she said that, the stranger began to twist and snarl as if she were possessed. Then her eyes fell upon Eternity, whom had pulled Elijah,  Kol, Freya, and Rebekah all behind her protectively. Before their very eyes, the woman turned into a gross, grotesque creature. Having had experience with these types of things, Elijah recognized that the woman had transformed into a demon right away.

“What the bloody hell is that thing?” Rebekah shouted in alarm, as she backed away with the rest of her siblings. 

“It’s a possession demon,” Eternity replied calmly. “A parasite that attaches itself to it’s host, in order to hide in plain sight, while feeding on the host’s life force.”

“Fascinating,” Kol chimes in. “How do you kill it?”

The immortal queen turned to look back at him, “You don’t, not unless you wish to kill the innocent host too. No, an exorcism is required here. Just keep back and let me handle this.”

“Be careful, Sweetheart,” Elijah called to her, just as Eternity took steps toward the possessed woman. 

The queen nodded back at him, before zeroing in on the enemy before her. She moved cautiously toward the fiend, as it snarled and hissed at her in response. It could instinctually sense the threat, knowing that Eternity meant to harm it.

“If you try to kill me,” the creature hissed in a voice blended of the host’s and that of the demon itself, “I will simply jump into a new host. Perhaps one of your supernatural friends, of whom you protect? What power I would have, if I take control of one of their bodies. Excuse me, while I drool over the very idea.”

“You were sent by your master Bruno,” replied Eternity in an almost bored tone, “as a threat to those I care for in a temper tantrum because I outmaneuvered him, keeping the child out of his reach. Rather pathetic really. Besides, do you, demon, actually think that I haven’t dealt with one of your kind before? That I don’t know how to dispose of you before you can jump bodies?”

The creature grinned toothily, “Well, what if I take control of you, queenie? How would you deal with me then?”

Eternity scoffed, “You are not at all intelligent at all, are you? If you were to invade me, you’d be torn apart, if not by my sheer power, then by the demon that already occupies this vessel. No, to possess me wouldn’t be a good idea at all.”

The creature’s grin faded into a snarling hiss again. 

“Perhaps, it is best that you simply...disappear,” she told it.

As if those words were a cue, the demon attacked Eternity, grabbing hold of her and throwing her across the courtyard against the wall. It wasn’t by miscalculation that this happened. The immortal queen allowed rage demon to throw her, Elijah realized as he watched the fight unfold. It had been strategy, he knew, because the direction in which the demon threw her was away from him and his family. 

Smart, he thought proudly.

The throw had been quick hard. It had caused a large cloud of dust and debris from the impact against the stone walls of the compound. For a moment, Elijah couldn’t make out anything. There was nothing but the heavy cloud. 

With anticipation, he waited and waited and waited some more to see Eternity come back. 

Then finally she came through. At first, she was just a shadowy figure, but quickly did she materialize out of the dust cloud. Eternity was no longer in her dress, but her warrior’s garb of corsets and leather leggings. She remained weaponless however, as she wasn’t trying to slay the beast. She was also dirty from the dust, but it seemed that she otherwise remained unmarred. 

Elijah’s lady moved with speed that was nearly impossible to follow, as she engaged the demon in a round of hand to hand combat. She moved with precision, while the demon was more wild and animalistic in it’s movements. There wasn’t as much focus in the beast, which Eternity used to her advantage, swiftly knocking the demon onto it’s back with her booted heel in it’s throat in a short sequence of moves. 

As the creature struggled beneath her, the queen leaned over and growled, “Be gone, demon.”

Instantaneously, the demon was extracted from the human woman in a cloud of green gas. It floated there above it’s former host’s form, as of it stubbornly refused to leave. Then without another word from Eternity, the gas suddenly combusted in a small, controlled explosion. The immortal queen quickly removed her foot from the unconscious young woman’s throat and healed any wounds that had been inflicted in the confrontation before the girl could waken.

The vessel had been returned to her normal human self, as if she had never been possessed in the first place. It only took a few moments for the girl to regain consciousness, dazed and confused as she sat up and looked around her fearfully. 

Eternity, in a rather motherly way, interacted with the frightened woman, telling her that she had fainted on the streets, but the nice people around her had helped keep her safe until she awoke. The girl wasn’t sure if she bought the words of the kind immortal, but she did relax a bit, giving thanks in Spanish to them, if a bit hesitant to do so.

Elijah couldn’t blame the young woman. He wasn’t sure if ‘nice’ would be the word he would use when describing his family, especially where humans were concerned, but he supposed it was for the best to do so, in this case. Frightening the already frightened wasn’t exactly good manners, at least not in his opinion. Kol might feel differently on the matter, which was why it was good that it wasn’t up to him to deal with the little human whom had stumbled into their compound. 

After sending the frantic human on her way, Eternity rejoined Elijah’s side, taking hold of his hand as she did. There was a tension in her hold that had him worried immediately. He turned to look at her profile, noticing the worry there upon her delicate and somewhat dirty face.

“What is it, Sweetheart?” He asked her.

“I cannot stay here,” she replied quietly. “It’s too dangerous. Bruno is angry with me over ensuring young Hope was out of his reach. This attack of his, I fear it is only the beginning of his retaliation. I cannot stay and let your family potentially pay the price. He sent a possession demon to turn one of them against me so that I might have to kill them.”

Elijah felt his heart drop into his stomach with dread at her somewhat frantic words. “You’re not leaving me again, are you? Not after you just -.”

“I’m not leaving you,” smiled Eternity reassuringly. “Never, ever again, will I be doing that. No, but we can’t stay here. I suggest a new location. Perhaps one near your family, but distant enough not to put them in harm’s way, at least for a time? It won’t necessarily keep us safe from Bruno’s antics, but it’ll be better for everyone else. We do still have other business as well to tend to.” She looked pointedly at him, and her knew that meant she was talking about Céleste’s ghost.

He felt relieved that she wasn’t going to disappear on him. He also felt a little foolish for thinking she might, especially after their incredible night and morning together. She did just agree to become his wife, after all. It was a pretty good indication that she wasn’t going anywhere. 

“I have a place across the river that we can go to,” he told her.

“Ah yes, the loft where you went to sulk when Hayley chose Nik over you,” Kol chimed in with a mischievous grin, having listened to their little conversation, along with their sisters. The younger Mikaelson laughed a little and turned to Eternity, “You should have seen it. He was the biggest pouting ba-.”

“And that’s enough out of you,” Rebekah moved to intervene, simply by putting her hands on Kol’s arms from behind to get him to stop talking. “I really do not want to have to clean up the mess our brother would make with your insides, should you decide to keep talking, Kol.”

Kol looked at her and then at Elijah, who was unamused by his little brother’s amusement. He looked at them both with confusion, as if he didn’t understand. “But I was just -.”

Rebekah interjected again, “You were doing nothing, but going somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

Eternity grinned and giggled slightly in an amusement of her own at the scene. 

Kol went to protest, but Rebekah was having none of it. She showed him away and they all watched as their brother obeyed disappointedly, going to stand by Freya to sulk. 

“So, you two are going across the river,” Rebekah said to both Elijah and Eternity. 

“Aye, it’s the only way to keep you lot safe from forces you cannot contend with,” nodded Eternity. “That incident just now could have gone sideways very fast, had I not been here to intervene. What comes next will only be much worse, I fear, but the target is not any of you. It’s me he seeks to reign his anger down upon. Therefore, wherever I go, the danger will follow.”

“And wherever she goes, I follow,” Elijah interjected, smiling at his lady.

Rebekah looked between them with happiness, “Well then, I suggest you two get a move on. If it’s as bad as you say, you shouldn’t dawdle.” 

“There is one thing I wish to tell you all before we go across river,” he said, just as Freya and Kol came closer to here what he had to say. With a deep breath and a quick flash of a smile at his lady, Elijah told his present family, “I have asked Eternity to marry me and she has accepted.”

Elijah looked down at Eternity happily, while she beamed up at him in return. 

The rest of the Mikaelson siblings looked at each other with surprise, having not expected him to make such an announcement, especially so soon after parting ways with Gia. It probably seemed sudden to them, and maybe it was. However, to Elijah, it had been anything but sudden. He had pinned for Eternity for ten years, he wasn’t about to let her go again and marriage was one way he could ensure that she’d stay with him this time. Still, he could understand their surprise about the situation. They hadn’t been the ones pinning for ten years.

“Well, congratulations to you both,” Kol stepped in with a grin. “Does this mean that you’re going to be a king, Elijah? Better yet, does that mean that we’re going to be considered royalty of the highest order? Is this marriage going to turn me into a prince? Am I going to have a castle and servants and a court of my own?”

Eternity laughed and shook her head at Elijah’s little brother, “Well, the Universal Kingdom is rather matriarchal. We haven’t ever had a king, only a queen. So, no, Elijah won’t be a king, but he will have great influence over others as my spouse. As to your other point, you lot will certainly move up in status, though not as princes and princesses. More like lords and ladies. Again, your influence will be great, so long as you don’t abuse it, of course.” She looked pointedly at Kol in warning. 

The younger Mikaelson threw his hands up in surrender, “Hey, I promise to be on my best behavior.”

“Aye, you will, because if not? You’ll deal with me and you don’t want that, my friend. Trust me,” Eternity responded.

Elijah’s brother swallowed thickly in nervousness, “Message received. Do not piss off the queen.”

Eternity shrugged and smirked, “That is the first rule when dealing with me.”

Kol grinned at her and chuckled a bit, relaxing. “Well, isn’t that the truth for all of us here. You’re going to fit in just nicely, I think. So, welcome to the family, love.”

“Thank you, Kol,” she replied with a genuine smile.

“Yes, welcome and congratulations to you both,” Freya echoed those sentiments. 

“Bloody time, I’d say,” Rebekah added happily.

It was after the circulatory congratulations from his siblings, and more annoying questions from Kol about his raised status-to-be, that Elijah pulled Eternity away from them. It was time to get going, he had decided. They had to repair the study before they left. He didn’t want to leave the mess for his siblings to deal with, especially knowing what has caused such disarray. After all, Eternity had said she’d repair the room, after their adventures the night prior.

They went to the upper level of the compound and returned to the study, observing the mess there together with admiration. They both reminisced pleasantly about all that had transpired there, grinning filthily at each other as they took in the sight. Each broken or overturned piece of furniture held a special memory, the same was true of the scattered books, the claw marks in the hardwoods, and the broken curtains.

Yes, it had been a great night indeed. Alas, it was time to put it all back together, as if their escapades hadn’t happened at all.

Elijah allowed his lady to use her magic to right everything broken or out of place in the room. It was an easy fix. She did this with a simple wave of her hand; nothing more, nothing less. Everything in the study was back where it should be with swiftness, without any evidence left of their wild intimacy the night before. 

He was rather disappointed by the fix, more than he thought he would be. He had been rather proud of the wreckage and how it had happened, feeling as if precious memories had been wiped away. However, he knew well enough that they could do it all over again across the river, if they so chose, a most likely endeavor to be sure.

Once the room was back in order, Elijah lead his lady away. It was time for them to leave the Mikaelson compound, something he hadn’t expected they would be doing this morning when they had gotten up. Yet, desperate times called for desperate measures sometimes and this move was for the best, if his siblings would be made all the more safer with their absence.

It was only for a time, he reminded himself, and it wasn’t as if they were leaving the city. 

After they had said their goodbyes to the other Mikaelsons one last time, Elijah and Eternity left the family home. Elijah helped his lady get into his Bentley that he had stored away, and from there, they headed across river where they could keep watch out for trouble without the distraction of having to keep the others safe as well.

To Be Continued....

#elijah mikaelson #daniel gillies #original character #elijah x eternity #elijah’s eternity #the originals fanfiction #the vampire diaries fanfiction #klaus mikaelson #hope mikaelson #hayley marshall #klaus x hayley #rebekah mikaelson #kol mikaelson #finn mikaelson #freya mikaelson #romance #vampire romance #drama #alternate universe #alternative universe

[coimeadaisiochana]

When it comes to a straight fight, Lilian is probably the most capable of the 8 OCs I have slated for this blog. While one of the unfinished ones is more capable with magic and subterfuge, and Ari-El is pretty all-around, in a direct confrontation, Lilian is definitely the most dangerous, as her abilities and biology make her difficult to take down unless someone just straight-up overpowers her or overwhelms her with sheer numbers, while being just as capable of incredible damage.

In terms of strength and speed, Lilian is definitely superhuman. She can lift about 200 tons over her head without any real struggle, while 300 seems to be her upper limit. She can shatter a brick wall with a punch or a kick, and her grip strength is strong enough to crush a human skull. She’s also fully capable of exceeding Mach 1 (~767 mph/~1235 kph) on foot, moving faster than the eye can see, though this level of speed limits her to moving in almost completely-straight lines - she has trouble turning corners at this level of speed, and usually just uses it to clear distances in as short a time as possible. In terms of land speed that she can move effectively at, around 500 mph/805 kph is where she starts having trouble rounding corners or otherwise changing trajectory/stopping.This also means she has the reflexes to anticipate objects, creatures, and people moving at similar speeds.

When it comes to durability, she’s notably less superhuman, but can still take more punishment than any normal human. Her skin is thicker than a normal person’s, so cuts and stabs without enough force will simply glance off or leave small scratches that won’t even draw blood. Enough force will break her skin, though, and it provides pretty much zero difference to a normal person against even small-caliber firearms. Meanwhile, her bones are firm, but capable of surprising give and flexibility, not only allowing her to absorb impacts that would shatter a normal person’s bones, but also allowing her a greater degree of flexibility.

Lilian is also resistant to nearly all types of elemental damage; she’s outright immune to mundane and magical fire and heat, and can tolerate very low temperatures and continued exposure to ice and the cold for up to about three hours without feeling cold. Most forms of acid are simply normal liquid to her, and even the most acidic substances require lengthy exposure of at least half an hour to cause notable damage. She is also capable of absorbing and nullifying moderately-powerful electric currents and can even take a bolt of lightning with only minor burns.

Even if she’s damaged, however, Lilian recovers from injury at an accelerated rate, possessing powerful regeneration. Shallow cuts and small stab wounds heal within seconds, larger open wounds, mangled limbs, or small to moderate burns or frostbite can take anywhere from one to a few minutes, and she’ll even regrow lost limbs or organs within a few days. The window for taking advantage of her in an injured state is very small, unless one uses blessed magic or weapons (see weaknesses, below). This powerful regenerative ability also renders her immune to poisons and difficult to make ill with disease.

Speaking of her blood, I’ve already written up a post about its dangers and benefits here, but for more detail, it’s not just black, but also thick and tar-like. Injuries that draw blood won’t cause it to splatter or spray, but rather to ooze out, as if you slashed open a bottle of glue. This makes it a poor defensive measure against anyone trying to attack her, especially against weapons or from a distance, so she often instead opts to cover her hands and/or claws (depending on form) in it once she starts bleeding and use it as a weapon. In addition, the amount and time needed for its more lethal and dangerous effects is more than a few droplets; it takes about four ounces of the blood (not just a few droplets or a small smear) to do more than cause intense pain, and it has to linger for at least a few minutes to damage the skin and flesh - it takes hours for it the corruption to spread and begin damaging other areas of the body.

For other aspects of her biology, Lilian has three sets of natural weapons that she tends to utilize when fighting in her devil form: her teeth, her claws, and her tail. In devil form, all of her teeth become sharp canines and actually bend inwards to make them harder to remove once they’ve sunk into something, and attempting to pull her off will only tear into it more. Her claws are her most common weapon, meanwhile, and can slice through concrete with enough force (which she is easily capable of exerting, see her strength, above). She can also use her magic to enlarge her hands making each one about as large as a typical human torso, and turning each claw to a deadly foot-long sickle. In addition, her tail has been conditioned to be just as powerful as her other limbs and can be a dangerous surprise to anyone not expecting that sort of power from a secondary appendage. She frequently uses it to support herself when she cannot use her legs or otherwise loses/sacrifices her balance, such as leaning back to dodge an attack.

Lilian’s black blood also affords her some magical abilities, as mentioned above. In addition to being able to perform minor shapeshifting, much of Lilian’s magic revolves around blood or curses. She can cause someone’s minor cuts and wounds to open and potentially become worse by injuring herself and enduring a similar open wound, or turn spilled blood into hazards such as caltrops or barbs on a surface. She can also ingest someone’s blood and use that to know their exact location for one week - a fact that someone becomes immediately aware of as soon as Lilian places the curse on them, potentially sowing paranoia and fear in the target.

Of course, for all of these strengths, Lilian has her fair share of weaknesses, as well, though not all of them are immediately apparent.

One of Lilian’s main weaknesses, and probably the easiest to exploit, is her relative lack of stamina compared to all of her other superhuman abilities. She possesses no more stamina than a typical human of her fitness level, and when forced into an extended fight, especially against something with far more stamina than her, it can turn into a battle against time for her, endeavoring to finish the opponent before she exhausts herself. This is especially notable, considering her magic also drains her of her stamina, and her black blood is directly to blame for this; a half-devil would normally have more stamina, but due to the thickness and consistency of her blood, oxygen is slower to reach parts of her body, making it harder for her to keep going… and even harder for her stamina to recover than a normal person.

In addition, despite her own magical abilities, Lilian is just as equally vulnerable to magic in return. Most forms of magic that do more than evoke elemental effects affect her just as equally as they would anyone else, though she’s particularly vulnerable to a few specific types. First is holy magic, used by angels, angelkin (such as aasimars or half-angels), and blessed spellcasters, and weapons or people blessed by holy magic will outright burn her on contact and suppress her enhanced regenerative abilities. Second is blood magic, which preys on the particularly magical nature of Lilian’s black blood, amplifying the effects of any sort of blood magic used on her, beneficial or not. These types of magic will outright bypass most forms of magical warding used on her and if used to create elemental effects, they will affect her despite her usual resistances to them. Third, and perhaps the most difficult of the three to exploit given its nature, is antimagic. Due to deriving most of her powers from her blood, antimagic is capable of suppressing nearly every aspect of Lilian’s strength, from her superhuman powers and magic to her regenerative abilities and elemental resistances. The only things it doesn’t remove or suppress are her durability and her natural weapons, as they’re a normal part of her biology, not fueled by her black blood.

In a similar vein, Lilian is vulnerable to just about anything that affects devils, and even just the presence of anything blessed by the divine nearby can instill a sense of dread and a desire to flee in her, though she is capable of standing her ground; however, she will be caught in a demoralized state so long as the object or person remains present. She also finds it difficult to come into contact with such objects willingly, as holy objects will burn her on contact, as mentioned above; in fact, such blessed items or people are more resilient to her attacks to the point of near-invulnerability, and are nearly impossible for her to affect with her magic. Often times, her best option when confronted with those so blessed is to indulge her fear and run.

Finally, her hardest weakness to exploit is her connection to her father, Haziel. Only the pit fiend himself can reliably exploit this weakness for his own gain, as he can command her as though she were simply another extension of his body, or even use her as a scapegoat when he would otherwise come under magical compulsion - such as in the case of being bound to a mage, like her current situation. However, as he is only vaguely aware of her existence (as he has multiple Blackblood children he uses for such ends), she is luckily spared from him regularly exploiting this connection. For now.

#scanning the dossier || about the muse #devilblooded contract enforcer || lilian

[entergamingxp]

what do you gain by modding and overclocking? • Eurogamer.net

We’ve looked at the process of overclocking the Nintendo Switch in the past. We know that Nintendo chose to use Nvidia’s Tegra X1 below its stock specification to preserve battery life and to more effectively manage thermals. But once you’ve overclocked a compromised unit, you can’t help but wonder just how much extra performance you can unlock in any given game – and few titles challenge the Switch more than Saber Interactive and CD Projekt RED’s port of The Witcher 3. Adding further spice is that a range of mods have emerged for the Switcher port, meaning that we can actually scale the game along with CPU and GPU clock speeds.

First of all though, let’s be clear. Even without mods, The Witcher 3 is something of a miraculous conversion bearing in mind the limited capabilities of the Switch. Coders of Nintendo’s hybrid have become quite accomplished at scaling down graphics to the Maxwell-based mobile GPU but smart coding has seen the game somehow squeezed into running at a respectable frame-rate on just three available ARM Cortex A57 CPU cores running at a seemingly paltry 1.0GHz. If you own a Switch, we highly recommend this conversion as a handheld experience, though blown up large on your 4K TV, the blur factor in the visuals is just too much. But perhaps with some mods and an overclock, we can actually improve the docked experience? At the very least, perhaps we can get more of an idea of the kind of Witcher experience possible if Nintendo had stuck to Nvidia’s stock CPU and GPU clocks – 1785MHz and 921Mhz respectively.

Before we go on, you should be aware of the dangers and challenges in overclocking Switch hardware. Only select models can be exploited, for starters, and once you start delving into areas of the Horizon OS and its software that you have no business meddling with, Nintendo is will within its rights to ban your console from access to its online services. Also worth mentioning is that overclocking obviously draws extra power and creates extra heat that the Switch may have trouble dissipating. I mean, we are talking about an extra 75 per cent of CPU power paired with a 20 point upclock on the graphics core.

Modding The Witcher 3 on Switch – and overclocking the system to the max. There are some impressive results here.

My first test was all about using a mod to remove the 30fps frame-rate cap and to run the game at stock clocks and with the full-blast OC engaged. In addition to removing the cap, further mods can engage the game’s internal fps counter and reveal the exact resolution employed by the DRS system. It’s fascinating stuff, showing just how dynamic the dynamic resolution system truly is and how rarely the stock Switch hits native 720p. More often than not, in docked mode, we’re lurking at 548p in places like Crookback Bog or 636p in the early Griffin battle. Resolution is always in flux, showing just how much stress the GPU is put through.

With access to these stats, we can see just how crucial dynamic resolution scaling is – it’s the key to the mostly decent performance we see in the final game. However, DRS is all about scaling load for the GPU and doing something similar for the CPU is a lot more challenging. That’s why visiting Novigrad – our old benchmarking stomping ground – can cause real performance issues. The sheer volume of NPCs (matching PS4 and Xbox One) is an challenge for a tri-core 1GHz mobile CPU – a factor in the game dropping to 25fps. Changing the resolution won’t do anything; this is a fundamental aspect of the game’s design that can’t be swapped out or changed. The only way around these drops is to overclock the system, something we couldn’t wait to try out.

Performance gains via the unlocked frame-rate are fairly minimal, but what you do get is the DRS system tapping into the extra GPU power to interesting effect. Resolution is higher across the board, to the point where in one extraordinary scenario, pixel count increased by 45 per cent. Elsewhere, while performance gains are limited, they are still there – anything up to 4fps. It’s still an upgrade, but as you might expect, the much higher gain in CPU clocks via the OC yields more impressive results with the Novigrad market run now delivering an 8fps advantage. Not surprisingly, running the Switch flat-out like this sees the fan ratchet up to a degree I’ve never seen before – you can’t help but worry a little about the extra loud fan speeds and the extra heat the system must be kicking out.

The overclock solves one big problem: sub-30fps drops in CPU-bottlenecked environments. However, the extra power can also be deployed elsewhere via the various mods available online, in order to tackle other challenges the stock Switch has to contend with. The DRS system can be disabled completely, locking the output to native 720p (I even tried pushing higher than this, but the game tops out at this pixel count). Regardless, what you get is a clear improvement in image quality. Especially in the stress points where the res would buckle to its lowest, we get a huge gulf in clarity all round. The zoomer images directly below give some idea of the improvement but seeing it in motion is something else.

Is the overclock providing a free lunch then – a better experience with no drawbacks? Well, the improvement is palpable but it does come at a cost. Regardless of the system clock speeds, The Witcher 3 is a challenging game built around dynamic resolution for a reason – it’s really heavy on effects and the system really does need some level of scalability in its pixel-pushing. In most cases it’s fine, but honestly, forcing the max pixel count is a recipe for disaster if you want to hold 30fps in spots like Crookback Bog. Frame-rate can drop to the low 20s at that point, a performance level lower than the stock experience.

Getting the game to render at 720p is an interesting experiment but there are more direct ways to boost visual settings. Thanks to an enhanced settings mod, you can actually play with a more fleshed-out graphics options menu. This is still work in progress and most of the toggles you’d find on PC don’t work much – or at all – on Switch. The textures, for example, are locked in place at one setting since there aren’t better assets present on the cartridge or in the download. What this enhanced settings mod does add are toggles for foliage visibility, light shafts, anti-aliasing, water quality, depth of field, sharpening, and bloom. That’s on top of the existing motion blur options, included out of the box by the developers. Admittedly, most of these are post-process effects with only a fractional impact on performance – but the foliage setting is extremely powerful. It aims to fix one of the issues I had with the game: the level of pop-in.

Comparing Switch’s stock clocks against the overclock shows CPU-constrained areas like Novigrad benefit most – in this case running up to 8fps faster.

You get four presets, from low to ultra, though Switch runs at the high setting by default and so the scope for improvement isn’t huge. Even so, the jump from low to medium shows how it affects grass tuft density on the ground, as well as the rendering of trees on the horizon. Moving to ultra fills out the scene with more foliage over the base game and you can see a little more detail added across the board. Perhaps not surprisingly, this most dramatic of modded settings has the highest impact on performance. Going from low to ultra, you can lose around 3-4fps on average – so this is not a choice to take lightly. Still, it’s fascinating to see the game being tuned like this. The mod is only adding an option, the actual code for scaling this setting is seemingly baked into the game itself – it’s just that the developers don’t use it.

Another tweak that makes a tangible change is the sharpening filter. It’s popular in the modding community and the performance hit is minimal, really. High contrast points are boosted when enabled, it gives the impression of a sharper image at 720p – something you’ll see on the comparison images on this page. There’s more shimmer as a result but it’s a neat option to have nonetheless. The anti-aliasing toggle is there too if you want to go all the way – it’s not recommended, but it is an option if you want to see the game ‘raw’.

There are some interesting effects here but fundamentally, the Switch version has compromises that cannot be mitigated with existing mods. While the original, less compressed audio can be modded back in, textures will always be equivalent to the PC’s minimum – the Switch doesn’t have the memory to deliver much more. CPU optimisations like half-rate animation on distant NPCs are also hard-coded in. However, we do have some level of scalability in terms of meddling with the DRS system, tweaking visual settings and of course, ramping up CPU and GPU clock speeds. All of which raises the question: could we get The Witcher 3 running at 60fps?

This seems impossible from the outset given that 30fps is enough of a challenge but with an overclock in place we are closer than you might think. Dropping the post-process effects settings doesn’t help much but the foliage draw mod definitely does boost performance, so I ran that at the low settings. DRS is tweaked to a nigh-on constant 832×468 with only minor fluctuations. The results are obviously blurry to the extreme, the lowest point the DRS can drop to while docked. From here we have our best shot at hitting a full 60Hz refresh.

You can see the results in the embedded video. The White Orchard area is the most impressive showcase for how close it gets: as The Witcher 3 operates mostly between 55-60fps. Yes, it looks somewhat plain and barren, but it’s still remarkable how smooth the game suddenly becomes. Where the experience starts to unravel is in later, more challenging areas. The outskirts of Novigrad run between 45-60fps but even with the fluctuation it still feels better to play than the regular setup.

All of this is predicated on the game being GPU-bound and using the lower resolution as a crutch to get a better frame-rate. It’s a flawed approach across the whole game when you factor in big towns and cities, where the CPU time is the bottleneck. At lowest we’re back down to 30fps anyway in the busiest areas of Novigrad, and likewise for the village in the White Orchard. Even with max horsepower via overclocking, the Switch just can’t pull this off – but the fact we’re getting results like this at all is quite astonishing. After all, there was a time where even the concept of The Witcher 3 running on the system at all seemed almost ludicrous.

This isn’t the first time we’ve overclocked the Switch – take a look at some of our results across a range of challenging titles.

And as much as we pushed the Switch’s clocks to the limits, pushing resolution, frame-rate and visual features to the max, perhaps the biggest takeaway from our experiments here is just how solid the port running on standard hardware actually is, especially in handheld mode where the blurry image quality isn’t quite as impactful on the experience. The core fundamentals are there – the value of the mods is actually fairly limited and perhaps the biggest win comes from how the OC augments the existing tech via improved performance and noticeably higher resolution.

All of which brings us to the continued stories about a mooted Switch Pro – a unit Nintendo has categorically ruled out for 2020. Even without next-gen silicon, the latest Mariko chip in the latest Switch kit is specced to push max GPU clocks to over 1.2GHz – it’s just that Nintendo has chosen not to access this extra performance, opting for improved battery life instead. The option is there for an improved model though, maybe even a micro console – and our experiments with The Witcher 3 prove two things. First of all, extra power can benefit existing games with no extra development effort required from the developer. Secondly, overclocking the Tegra doesn’t seem to cause any compatibility or stability problems – we’ve tested a range of games with no problems. Whether any of our conclusions will ever translate into an actual official product though remains to be seen.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/what-do-you-gain-by-modding-and-overclocking-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-do-you-gain-by-modding-and-overclocking-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[talabib]

Leadership Journey: Hot Air Balloons

Hot-air balloons shouldn’t be thought of as just something that tourists use for fancy sightseeing. They have, in fact, fired the human imagination for centuries. They have both saved lives and contributed to victories in bloody battles and given us new forms of literature and helped citizens escape from peril. They are, in short, a testament to human ingenuity and a reminder of what it took for us to take to the air.

The history of ballooning is an inspiring one. Sure, these days you’re more likely to associate hot-air balloons with the Pixar movie Up or with slightly eccentric hobbyists than with real adventure or feats of daring. But in their heyday, balloons weren’t just inspirational in the abstract; they really impacted the world around them.

It’s even more incredible when you consider that the basics of balloon technology not only gave rise to new forms of literature, but enabled people to escape totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century.

Ballooning is not for the faint of heart.

Piloting a hot-air balloon is by no means a whimsical whooshing amid the clouds. Getting airborne and flying off into the sky is risky, even to this day.

In 2008, a Brazilian priest and experienced balloonist, Father Adelir Antonio de Carli, had an idea. He wanted to raise money for the poor. His means were unconventional: ballooning for charity. He strapped himself into a chair lashed to hundreds of colored helium balloons and started his ascent.

At first, all went well. Father Adelir climbed to 19,000 feet. But then his GPS navigator failed and he lost radio contact. The wind drove him out to sea. A rescue party was dispatched, but to no avail. In July, the remains of Father Adelir's body were found floating about 100 kilometers off the Brazilian coast. In all likelihood, some of the helium balloons had burst at high altitude. Father Adelir would have descended gently to the ocean, where sharks swam waiting for him.

And, of course, what’s risky now was dangerous in the past, too. In fact, even Father Adelir’s charity balloon flight wasn’t the first of its kind. In 1875, Major John Money took to the skies in his balloon in England for the local Norwich and Norfolk hospital.

The major’s experience was similar to the priest’s. The launch was pitch-perfect. Once in the air, however, the balloon was caught by a gust and pulled out to sea.

Thankfully, however, Major Money survived. When the rapidly deflating balloon sank to sea level, he cut off the weighty basket and hoisted himself into the balloon hoop. Like a modern day kite surfer, he was dragged through the water. Hours later, a rescue boat found him. Needless to say, the donations to the hospital were substantial.

Balloons can be used to make daring escapes, though sometimes multiple attempts are needed.

The sheer simplicity of a hot-air balloon’s design means that even the most enthusiastic amateur can build one. That’s especially true if your motivation for flight is driven by a need to escape.

In 1978, two families living in the East German countryside attempted to escape to the West using a balloon. Peter Strelzyk and Günter Wetzel, both handymen, decided to attempt to construct their very own balloon in a hidden attic.

After a few unsuccessful tries, a frightened Wetzel resigned himself to failure. Strelzyk, however, kept going, and on July 4th, 1979, he and his family attempted to fly over the border in their small balloon. But the balloon wasn’t up to the task. As the rain poured down, it became increasingly sodden and they began to descend. They came to earth in a no-man’s-land in front of the frontier fence.

Thankfully, the rain also diminished visibility and they weren’t spotted. They made it home, more determined than ever.

Successful balloon launches often take multiple attempts and this was no exception. Wetzel and Strelzyk joined forces again, using old clothes to make a much larger balloon. Once inflated, the balloon stood at nearly 90 feet tall. It needed four gas tanks to power it.

In the early morning on September 16th, 1979, the families took off from their secret location in the forest. One huge blast took them up to 6,500 feet. But surrounded by darkness, they lost all sense of orientation. When they spotted searchlights below, they risked firing the burner to avoid being caught, even though the flame was sure to make them more visible.

At that point, the top of the balloon burst. They sank, rapidly, crashing to earth once more. They were lost. Had they made it? An electric pylon marked with the name of a West German company provided the answer: they were safely in the West.

Shortly after they were invented, hot-air balloons enjoyed a brief period of military glory.

In 1783, the first successful hot-air balloon flew over Paris. It was manned by Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Francois Laurent d’Arlandes. And soon enough, the French realized that their balloons might also be useful as strategic military weapons.

In June of 1794, at the Battle of Fleurus, the French faced down a coalition of armies drawn from across Europe. A French balloon, piloted by Captain Charles Coutelle, ascended above the battlefield.

The balloon’s vantage point gave the French army vital information. They could trace enemy movements and positions. The French employed this tactic in several subsequent battles, and thanks to the strategic use of balloons they emerged victorious.

The scheme was not without its problems, though. If the wind was strong enough, it proved impossible to keep balloons securely tethered to the ground. Furthermore, getting information from the balloon to the ground, or vice versa, was slow. First, the balloon had to ascend, and then it had to descend so the balloonist could communicate his observations to his commanders.

On top of that, it was a perilous situation, since the balloon attracted fire from enemy troops down on the ground. And with good reason. Hot-air balloons not only provided intelligence; they also acted as effective psychological weapons.

Soaring on high, they gave the impression that they were watching every enemy soldier’s move. Soldiers found this demoralizing. Consequently, as soon as a balloon was launched, it became the target of anything that fired projectiles, from pistols to cannons.

In many ways, this danger simply added to the glamour of being a military balloonist. Nonetheless, no perfect solution for effective use of balloons on the battlefield was found. They remained an imprecise instrument. By the end of the nineteenth century, their day was over, and in the twentieth, airplanes proved much better suited to the task.

Sophie Blanchard delighted crowds in the early nineteenth century with her ballooning antics.

In their heyday, the popularity of balloons wasn’t limited to military affairs. In nineteenth century France, air balloons were used in aerial shows. Acrobats, for instance, performed daring parachute jumps, throwing themselves from balloon baskets.

Of all these performers, the bravest and most celebrated of all was a woman named Sophie Blanchard. She was born in the French port of La Rochelle, in 1778, and later encountered the famous balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, whom she went on to marry.

Blanchard, usually so timid and frail when earthbound, changed the moment her future husband took her up in his balloon. She was overwhelmed with excitement. Once aloft, she became a confident commander, and a charismatic entertainer with a streak of recklessness to boot.

News of her abilities soon caught the ear of the Emperor Napoleon, who thereafter engaged her services. On the birth of Napoleon’s son, in March of 1811, Blanchard was commissioned to fly over Paris and throw out leaflets announcing the occasion. She took to the skies once more for the boy’s baptism, this time dazzling the masses by shooting off fireworks from her basket.

Blanchard actually developed a style of ballooning all her own. Rather than a large basket, Blanchard used a miniscule, beautifully crafted silver gondola. The silk balloon was small, and the edge of the gondola barely reached her knees. All this meant that, when flying, Blanchard was exposed to the terrifying abyss below.

To round off the image of vulnerability, Blanchard dressed herself in white, and perched elaborate feathered bonnets atop her head.

Then, in 1819, it all came to a sudden – and perhaps unsurprising – end. Blanchard’s balloon caught fire and she came down like Icarus upon the Parisian cobblestones.

The growth of the railways relegated ballooning to a purely recreational activity.

By 1830, balloons were no longer a novelty. And earlier hopes of global balloon navigation had been dashed.

At a stroke, the growth of railways put an end to that dream. In 1825, the first 26 miles of track were laid between the English towns of Stockton and Darlington, in England and by the 1830s, railway travel proper had arrived in the shape of the passenger line between Manchester and Liverpool.

Consequently, it was the steam engine of Victorian England that became synonymous with travel. Its robustness, revolutionary speed and dependability all meant that a reliable timetable could be developed.

The train stood in stalwart contrast to the yielding and unpredictable balloon. Railways became the instruments of business and urban life. By comparison, ballooning exuded an almost bucolic romance.

So it was that the second half of the nineteenth century came to represent the epoch of recreational ballooning.

Increasingly larger, more comfortable and more reliable air balloons were developed. These carried groups of passengers over the countryside – at a price, of course. However, though these enterprises were commercial at heart, they nonetheless had a romantic and nostalgic air about them. Interestingly, it was fashionable to name these balloons after Queen Victoria, who was crowned in 1837.

Previously, balloons had been fueled by hydrogen, which is volatile and unreliable. Ironically, commercial ballooning was only able to succeed because of the cheap and reliable supply of coal that supported the railway industry.

The fashion for recreational ballooning was soon adopted in several large European cities. For the first time in history, people could enjoy a bird’s-eye view of their hometowns.

It was a depressing as well as a beautiful experience. You could see the sprawl of factories and slums surrounding churches and parks, and the vein-like railway lines radiating from booming metropolises. Ballooning provided ample proof that the divide between rich and poor had never been wider.

The romance of ballooning helped create the first science fiction of the modern era.

As the nineteenth century progressed, ballooning continued to capture the popular imagination. Charles Green’s crossing of the English Channel, for instance, was an inspiration to many. Such feats of prowess even galvanized the creation of a new form of literature: science fiction.

Let’s consider a famous example. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall was published in The Southern Literary Magazine in 1835.

It tells the story of a man who supposedly flew to the moon in a gigantic air balloon. The specificity and realism is incredible, and the narrative is laden with technical details.

The construction of the balloon is reported in minute detail. Poe describes the instruments used to measure temperature and pressure. The craft has trumpets and bells to facilitate communication with vehicles that might appear and fly alongside during the journey. Poe even mentions that a cat and a pigeon are brought along.

As the balloon ascends, an explosion throws Pfaall out of the basket. He is left dangling from a rope. Pfaall, though, manages to climb back in. Once the balloon is beyond the reach of Earth's gravity, a machine that condenses air assists Pfaall’s breathing.

We’re told that Pfaall lands on the moon, where he encounters its inhabitants, frightening small creatures with lopsided grins, with whom he can barely communicate.

There, from his vantage point amid the stars, Pfaall can see the Earth rise. There is a poetic beauty to the image. Pfaall ends up staying on the moon for five years. In an ironic twist, he’s unable to persuade the moon creatures that the Earth is inhabited. Once he returns back home, of course, the humans are equally dismissive of his stories.

The tale did have some impact, however. It’s quite possibly the first story to contain all the qualities of the modern science fiction genre.

In 1871, Prussian forces encircled Paris, and balloons gave hope to the besieged French.

We’ve already seen how balloons made escape from East Germany possible, but that wasn’t the first time such a daring escape had been made. Over a century earlier, the French army in Paris found itself in a similar dilemma.

In 1870, Emperor Napoleon III of France declared war on Prussia. However, the French army was quickly crushed. As a result, Napoleon fled to England, and the Third Republic was declared. Given Prussia's clear position of superiority, General Bismarck offered the French leaders terms for an armistice. Incredibly, though, they refused.

Consequently, Bismarck gave the order for the Prussian army to invade France. The Prussians stormed through the French countryside, and the local population retreated to Paris. Within two weeks, the Prussians had surrounded the city. Paris was under siege.

French morale could not have been lower; Paris was cut off and Prussian disinformation about the situation was spreading fast. However, at this low point, hopes were lifted by the possibility of balloon assistance.

In September 1871, the Parisians remembered they had a stock of air balloons in the city. They dispatched them over the surrounding Prussian army to communicate with the outside world.

Jules Duruof manned the first balloon sent out. He managed to avoid Prussian fire by cutting away his balloon’s ballast as soon as possible. This sent him hurtling up into the air.

Duruof was successful. He even managed to evade the pursuing Prussian cavalry by flying over rivers they could not easily ford.

Even though the French ultimately lost the war, the boost to morale provided by these symbolic air balloon flights, as well as the effect of re-establishing communication with the rest of the country, allowed the French resistance to continue for far longer than anyone had thought possible.

In the face of rapid technological advance, ballooning’s impending decline was clear.

By the end of the nineteenth century, it was plain that the impact of the industrial revolution was monumental. Technology had advanced rapidly, and it was obvious that powered flight would be the next great step for air travel.

For generations prior, people had tried to take to the skies by imitating birds. They’d affixed wings to their arms and jumped to their deaths. But it was only after the structure of birds’ wings was understood that flight became a real possibility.

Birds’ wings are naturally concave in shape. This means that the top surface area of each wing is larger than that of the underside. This ensures that air passes faster over the top surface of the wing, and slower under it.

This results in a natural buoyancy. Even heavy machinery such as planes can benefit from this natural lift.

The other great advantage to this form of flight is that it’s less dependent on the vacillations of the wind. By subtly changing the curvature of their wings, birds can alter their flight, as can planes.

There was no way ballooning could compete. By the early twentieth century, ballooning had become merely a hobby for the well off. It was an old-fashioned sport, reserved for eccentrics and aristocrats.

Balloon races and champagne parties in the sky became quite the thing in aristocratic circles. Think of it as the equivalent of yachting or golfing today.

By the end of the twentieth century, ballooning had become merely the preserve of hobbyist. It’s still with us, however – a reminder of our early aspirations to flight and the progress we’ve made since.

#hot air ballons