#Before the Dawn: Redux

[danthropologie]

that christian interview:( when he said daniel lost his confidence and love for the sport and just wasn’t himself the last few years… losing a ton of weight… and how he lights up the room when he walks in!!! it’s sweet!!! and heartbreaking at once. even outside of being a daniel fan, watching anyone publicly lose their self confidence is SO sad to watch. glad hes getting it back:) him saying the return to rb is going even better than he thought

god i know!! through all of this, more than anything i just can't stop thinking about the way he carried himself in australia and that interview where he says coming back to the team is going even better than he expected it to. not to get too ahead of myself but it just feels like. just like he always had to leave when and how he did and it couldn't have gone any other way, it also kind of feels like coming back always had to happen like this 🤧

#darkest before the dawn hero's journey etc etc etc :( #dan #red bull redux #answered #anonymous

[warrior-cats-rewritten]

Warrior Cats Rewritten: Riverstar's Home

Version 1.1: Shadowsight and Whistlepaw have been added in! Also replaced Mossy Pelt's placeholder name.

Flutter is being taught Cool Fun Stuff by her uncle Ripple, she is the only family Ripple has left. Her parent, Squirrel, Ripple's sibling, died the day she was born. Squirrel is a tolly (nonbinary) and cause of death is purposely not specified.

Ripple is (lightly) scolded by Arc for wanting to swim and play in the pond at the Park. It gets him all wet, then no humans want to feed him or be around him. He doesn't care! Water is Cool!

Arc is the leader of the Cats Of The Park. He is a bit gruff, but he has a HUGE soft spot for young cats.

But not all is well, readers, for humans are kind of assholes. Their have been many complaints about the feral cat colony, especially after one of the cats broke into a home and stole some food. Twolegs are coming to capture cats!

A few cats are chased onto a roaring-path (thunderpath) and in an effort to save them, Arc jumps cleanly into the car window, making it swerve and miss the cats. He is thrown from the monster, and before Ripple can get get to him, he is killed by another swerving car, by accident.

In the chaos, sweet little Flutter is captured, and brought away from the Park with a bunch of the other cats.

Ripple jumps into the river, and gets away using a large tree branch, his paw occasionally paddling.

Fishing is hit and miss. He can catch minnows with ease, but bigger fish are escaping him for now. He finds Night and Mist, and learns to get better at swimming in moving water, though his looong fur looks hilarious to Night when she puts her head under.

Deciding to search for the missing cats, he heads out with Mist to search for them, but the Park is empty. They're gone. Undeterred but getting tired, they head home.

On the way there, they meet a handsome golden tabby tom with a single eye, and his young daughter, who looks like an eerie, very uncanny version of him. River Ripple can't look at her for long.

One Eye talks about his ex-make, Sun Spot, and how they fell out of love. Sun Spot took their 2 sons, Blue Eyes and Light. He wasn't bothered, his favorite was always Star Flower.

They bond, heavily. A lot goes unsaid between them that River Ripple will look back on with a mix of longing and horror.

More moons go by, the Sun Trail Followers arrive, Mist and Night are a bit apprehensive... But not aggressive.

They find a little group that was inspired by River Ripple's "heroism" (literally just giving a young cat a fish he caught) and beg to join. ANY side characters from Canon!Riverstar's Home are joining. It establishes that River Ripple is kinda put on a pedestal, but he enjoys being kind.

Any other side characters shown are getting reduxed as well. With lots of changed names. Also, the mythical 'Pumpkinpatch', who apparently doesn't exist, exists now.

Mist finally introduces River Ripple to his kits. He kept the youngsters at the Barn that Barley will one day inhabit. Since there is no obligation to stay in camp yet, he was effectively a proto-Daylight Warrior!

The kits are Smoke, Shadow, and Shine. They are renamed to Dawn Smoke, Deep Shadow, and Dazzling Shine. DS triplets!

River Ripple bonds heavily with them, and cares so much about them, the same way he does for Flutter.

After The First Battle, he promises to the lost cats that he WILL find them. He starts talking with Hawk, who, while he hates them, can't resist the idea of fucking up a twoleg's day. He leads River Ripple to a shelter cageplace, where the Cats of the Park are kept.

Trying to get them out is almost hopeless, until they crash into 4 loners. The first introduces himself as Nightheart, which Night loves the sound of. The second is Shadow Eyes, a very beaten up looking tom. The third is a small, skinny molly who just calls herself Whistle. The final cat is too shy, and her friends introduces her as Frosty Paws. Though Whistle and Frosty Paws are still very young, the group are clever and crafty, knowing stories about how other cats have been freed from cageplaces before!

They get into the mall, River Ripple gets trapped in the elevator of it, but Nightheart accidently pulls on a shiny red branch, and it rains in the building! A loud noise sounds! The twolegs panic and scatter, and the 5 get into the cageplace, freeing the Cats of the Park.

Nightheart, Whistle, Shadow Eyes and Frosty Paws say they have to leave for a while, heading down to Highstones.

Flutter is happy to be in the group, but sickness is spreading. She catches it after hunting a sick mouse [but she was so happy to use the skills her uncle taught her :( ] and it forces him to co-operate with the Clans. In the meantime, Gray Wing has joined and is becoming a problem. He is rude to Flutter about the Park culture, and trying to flirt with Storm Bird. Storm Bird and Night (who seriously thinks the name of that weird black cat was cool) are courts. Not yet mates, but flirting.

Star Flower gets cats killed, Flutter and Dawn Smoke nearly die until Thunder BURSTS in with the cure. He has found the correct Blazing Star.

After bringing Gray Wing with him to fight for their border and keep cats safe, watching Gray Wing defend Clear Sky with one breath and damn One Eye in the other for doing the same thing, River Ripple begins to put his foot, only to get slashed on the ear, ripping it badly. Storm Bird and Night kick him out. The rip in his ear is so bad that it completely changes the way his ear moves, almost like a river changing course...

(Book 5) One Eye is facing down River Ripple during a horrific blizzard. It's about the what if, the what could still be, the what must never be. When One Eye threatens Dazzling Shine, saying she isn't his real daughter, River Ripple lunges. The 2 toms break through the frozen river, and it is only due to his sheer love for the river, having studied its current and knowing every inch of it that River Ripple survives. He brings up One Eye's body, and Star Flower screeches at him, swearing vengeance.

(Book 6) Mist and River Ripple are basking on Sunningrocks when Deep Shadow swims up to them, the poor boy screaming about something horrible.

A cat they let in was working with Star Flower, and has just killed a young cat by poisoning food. River Ripple chases a cat fleeing camp, a Rogue they had let in who seemed to want to get close with Deep Shadow.

River Ripple chases the cat down when he notices they flee camp, calling for Star Flower, but when they get to the stepping stones, the cat slips, breaks their jaw, and drowns.

River Ripple swears this is the last time he is gonna have a meeting with the other cats to Tall Shadow, but he isn't completely sincere. On one hand, he is becoming bonded friends with plenty of others, on the other hand... He is having dreams of being dragged towards Highstones by his tail every night. He knows he isn't getting out of this, no matter how much he wants to stay out of things and remain peaceful.

They talk about the spirit cats message, all waiting for Thunder to arrive. When he does, he and Clear Sky get into a fight, and clouds cover the moon, beginning to pour rain. Flutter tells River Ripple that she is scared of what is coming, she can feel something bad is about to happen. She points out that Thunder is looking at Star Flower with a rage she's never seen from any cat. Star Flower is behind the assassinations, but Clear Sky won't believe it. Sky Petal is more reasonable, but she is taking care of 3 kittens, she is BUSY.

River Ripple is a witness to Thunder killing Star Flower, but he promises he won't say anything. They bury her near Sunningrocks while the river is still near frozen, accidentally digging a little too deep. One of those boulders is kinda loose...

He is given Bubbling Stream, and she teaches him about her Starclan connection. He teaches her about fishing, which she takes well to, but her true passion lies with shaping clay. Together, they create a little bowl and put herbs in it for Dappled Pelt, who is experimenting with everything she heard about from Frosty Paws and Whistle! Science lady meets young heaven-bound girl and who NEEDS to take a vow of no kits? Dappled Pelt absolutely loves Bubbling Stream immediately. River Ripple himself swears that he will personally train her the same way Arc trained him. He will raise her like a daughter, alongside his stepkids.

Flutter pulls him aside, telling him that she saw Nightheart and Frosty Paws again, and that she and Pumpkinpatch are going to go with them on their journey. River Ripple is sad, but he loves Flutter enough to let her go. He thinks of how proud he is of her, how much she's grown. She leaves with them, and her new mate, Pumpkinpatch.

He goes to Highstones and... Turns around. He can't do this. The dread is welling up inside him, maybe he should give the Leading Role to Night Hear-

He feels a hard pull on his tail.

Something unseen in the darkness of Mothermouth is dragging him to the Moonstone.

There, he receives his 9 lives, and vows to use them to help Riverclan how HE wants to with his OWN ideals. They may have blessed him but they don't own him.

He gets home to a happy announcement, Dazzling Shine is expecting kits with a lovely tom named Tulip Ear. Dazzling Shine is a pale gray dappled molly with short legs and bright yellow eyes. Tulip Ear is a thick furred gray speckled tom with amber eyes, a white belly, and curled ears.

Riverstar realizes that, though he has lost his home at the Park, he has made a new one, and his new family is flourishing. He might attend a Gathering later, maybe not. But he begins to formally train an Apprentice.

Epilogue: Riverstar is extremely old, on his deathbed. His great grandson, Shining Reed, is telling him all about the fun things he did on his first day out of camp when he suddenly begins to feel weak. He calls the little dark orange tom over to have a nap with him. Shining Reed cuddles up to him, and they fall asleep. At least.... Shining Reed does. Riverstar loses his last life as he drifts off.

He sees Frosty Paws when he opens his eyes, pacing and fretting over what to do. When she leaves the den, Riverstar gets bored, and rips up a dock leaf into the shape of a star, a little gift for the cat who helped him build his home. He puts it into her nest, and watches her shock when she finds it, shouting out to a cat named Mothwing that she found an answer.

#warrior cats #warrior cats rewrite #wcr #warriors #riverstar's home #riverstar's home spoilers #riverstar #frostpaw #river ripple #tall shadow #one eye wc #wind runner #thunder wc #clear sky #gray wing #star flower #bubbling stream #moth flight #nightheart #shadowsight #whistlepaw #wc flutter

[bonefall]

I just started a reboot of my old rewrite au like a day or two before that article dropped and am now very confused. It’s hard to understand with all the backwards talk in it for me. Does it mean rewrites need to further themselves from the canon material? Do specific characters, deaths, scenes, arcs need to be changed?

What’s your plans with the Better Bones au and specifically changing it from a rewrite to a fixit au? (Love the name btw it’s perfect)

The FAQ update is vague and it is definitely on purpose. They are making it clear they will threaten legal action if they feel it "interferes with their ability to branch out".

So that probably means the large and impressive animations that seek to tell large parts of the story, like Little Dragon Studio's ITW or SSS Warrior Cats. It's unlikely that it also means rewrites like what we do on Tumblr; HOWEVER we can't know for sure.

And I don't want to be the one who finds out, so I am furthering my project to be safe. My old goal was to try and stay close to canon, and it's not anymore.

A couple things I'm planning;

I will be including more cat behavior, generally.

I'm revamping patrols to make 4 types, based on cats being crepuscular animals. Dawn, Noon, Dusk, Midnight.

More emphasis on cooking, culture, and how the cats manage their environment.

Human researchers are canon now.

Tunnelling will be coming back in AVoS.

I'm less concerned about reduxing characters and utterly changing personalities, not to mention building out and including saves like Brushblaze, Stoneclaw, Iceheart, and others.

I will ignore major deaths if they were stupid. I already did this with Hollyleaf but Hawkfrost's ghost head is now on the un-chopping block too.

Violetshine is getting a kiss on the head and I'm destroying Finleap x Twigbranch. The girls they are free.

I'm reasonably sure that most rewrites are safe and you can continue unbothered. But always-- archive archive archive. Save what you don't want to lose, just in case.

#Better bones au

[t4twnyclaw]

"Gods"

warrior cat redux/rewrite where one-eye, sol, starflower and moth flight/half-moon are gods. based heavily off of bonefall's tidbit with hollyleaf and sol's time-travel nonsense.

I like the idea of ancient cats being transformed becoming gods after death, essentially. Or even being ancient beings that just happen to possess a cat every few generations or so.

So here's what I'm thinking. before the mountain cats go to the forest, the forest cats already have an established religion of sorts, a polythesim religion. noticeable figures are;

The Wind/Storm/Sun God.

Masculine in nature, typically worshipped and acknowledged by the Gorge cats (Ancient Windclan.)

If he were to take a form it'd be a Lion, with a cloud mane.

His personality is often turbulent, and prayers are for soothing his rage.

The Rain/River/Lake Goddess.

Feminine in nature, and often depicted as hostile and revenge-based. a Ferocious goddess.

If she were to take a form it'd be Leopard, with a fish face and tail.

Typically prayed for, in droughts. She's also affiliated with medicine, healing and motherhood.

The Sky Deity.

A god specifically representing the soft pinks and blues of dawn and dusk, and mornings. The god is the child of the Sun God, and shares his rage and heat.

Relates to the passage of time, growth, and nobility. Also represents beauty.

Specifically, the Gorge and River cats also consider stars as part of the god. so this god would be the Sky/Star god.

The Night

Represents shadows and the unknown.

owls, corvids, beetles and spiders represent the Night. This particular god died out and no longer exists in modern clans.

The Lynx/Deer/Bear/Rabbit.

Represents the forest life, prey and general harmony and connection to the physical world. This God also doesn't exist in the modern clans.

However, the ANCIENT mountain cats have their one singular god, Half-Moon. Which is the ruler of ... the night. Their belief is that their dead all live on the moon, within the sky. Each star is a dead relative and Half-Moon is the cat that brings the dead up to her home, essentially a grim reaper sort. (Half-Moon was also a real cat that did perform the first funerary rite, which spiralled down to this god's eventual creation.) She is specifically affiliated with the Moon but when the Mountain cats join the Forest, the Forest cats are the ones to equate Half-Moon to a death deity.

ENOUGH YAPPING, Which god is what cat?

The Sun god Is One-Eye, like the bonefall rewrite. The Sun god Is One-Eye and One-Eye is the Sun god. One-Eye is a vessel and when the Sun god reveals himself to others he is in the form of One-Eye, they merge into one being after the physical death of One-Eye.

The Sky god is Star Flower, who is the biological daughter of One-Eye. Star Flower was a follower of the Sun God before the Sky god took her as a vessel. Same thing, once Star Flower died, she essentially became the Sky god.

The god, Night created Sol, an Eclipse god. And Harry (Sol, the cat.) was the first vessel that became a god. Before Harry/Sol the Eclipse god did not have a physical being, though it momentarily had a brush with MAPLESHADE. (Think 'boons' in Greek mythos.)

**The River Goddess also doesn't have a concrete vessel, though I like the idea of Mapleshade being the incarnation of her.**

Moth Flight is the most recent god, taking the form of the Nature god. Though a Nature god, Moth Flight is also a mix of sorts between the ancient Nature and Night god. Moths are nocturnal, yet nature-based. Moth Flight is the cat that 'creates' omens and prophecies, how they're delivered to the living is dubious. (Moth Flight could also just be a figurehead, a Joan of Ark if you will.)

AS OF MODERN CLAN LIFE.

These polythenic gods are often forgotten, One-Eye and Star Flower are just folklore, same with the Eclipse god. River goddess has transformed to just a Mapleshade figure, a sopping wet monster that drags cats to drown. Even Half-Moon has transformed into just 'Starclan' In fact, modern clan cats confuse Half-Moon with Moth Flight. Some cats still thank Starclan for their prey (remnants of the Nature God) and Windclanners still sing and yell to ward off storms (remnants of the Sun/Storm god.)

#warrior cats au #wc au #warrior cats redux #txt #UR OPINIONS. GIVE THEM #ref

[just-horrible-things]

‘Verse: Box Boy Universe Story: A Girl Called Spider Timeline: Spider has been with her owner for some time

Shower, Redux [Prev | Next]

When Spider comes back for him, Rayce is huddled miserably against the back wall of the shower, body twisted to try and keep as much of himself out of the water as possible. She can hear the cuffs rattling against the pipes.

He looks at her with dull apprehension, and her stomach does a little flip. 

"Hi, Handler," she says, sweet innocence with just a hint of huskiness beneath. "I missed you. I told you I would, do you remember?"

He's silent. 

Despite her earlier failure, Spider feels fantastic. She feels like a caped villain about to take over the world. 

Up close, she can see him shaking. The water lands across his chest and runs down his stomach, trickling over the tense, trembling muscles. 

She's never seen anything sexier.

"W-w-where… a-am I?" he asks. He has to force the words past chattering teeth, and there's a hint of hoarseness in his voice that there never used to be. "Home," Spider answers. 

She reaches a hand into the water – it really is cold, running at the temperature of the pipes in the ground – and lets it run down her fingertips to fall on his neck where he’s pressed it back against the wall out of the cone of the shower. He flinches, and his face scrunches up with renewed discomfort. 

"D-don’t d-d-do that," he protests. Maybe she's just too keen to imagine it, but it sounds more like a plea than a demand. He’s frowning, though, as if he still gets to disapprove of what she does.

So she does it again, trailing freezing water out along one leg. Rayce shudders, a brief spike in the intensity of the shivering.

In his eyes, the look she’s been waiting for. Dawning distrust. The creeping revelation that she isn’t here to be nice to him.

“Do you want to get warm, Handler?” she asks, still sweet as sugar. She knows he does. Reading minds is easy when you control the inputs. The response isn’t immediate. He’s not quite sure anymore if what he wants will matter to her. “... ‘C-c-course I-I d-do,” he says sullenly.

It’s not a Pet’s respectful answer. 

She’s not sure what she’d have him say instead. Yes, Spider. The thought almost makes her laugh.

“D-d-did y-your o-owner s-s-send you?” “Our owner,” she corrects, almost without thinking. She tilts her head, an elegant parody of the way a doll expresses innocent confusion. “No,” she says. “It’s all me.” 

All of me. He’s never seen all that she is before.

“Then… c-c-could you … t-t-turn the, the w-water uh-h, ho-ot…?” She watches the muscles of his jaw and throat move as he tries to grit his teeth hard enough to stop the chattering, swallows, and gives up. “I could,” says Spider.

Expectation. Uncertainty. Annoyance, tempered by wary fear. 

Is he really so easy to read, or is she imagining what she wants to see?

"Do you even remember me?" she challenges. "'C-course I-I d-d-do." "What's my number?" A hoarse, wet sound, somewhere between a tch and coughing up phlegm.

He's never learned to suffer prettily. Spider's blood boils beneath her skin.

"I-I was n-n-never any g-g-good wi-ith the, the n-numbe-ers," he stalls, trying to force a casual, conversational tone despite his violent shivering. "You're, u-uh, t-t-two six, uh, fo-our? F-five?" "You don't remember," Spider hisses. Her attention drifts to the controls for the water, an idea starting to take shape in the back of her mind. 

It's falling from the rainfall shower head on the ceiling right now, a wide cone of gentle water that's hard for Rayce to avoid. The traditional showerhead rests on its supports, inactive.

"I d-do," Rayce insists. "Y-you're, you w-were p-p-pretty g-g-girl, you were m-my favour-rite, c-c-c'mon, you w-wanted me t-to buy yo-ou." "Favourite," Spiser repeats, tasting the word for poison. "Do you say that to all your trainees, Handler?" "Y-you're the, the sma-art-t-test train-nee I ev-v-ver had."

Perhaps he does remember. 

As she looks down at him, head slightly cocked to the side, he tries to press his body an inch further back against the tiles, away from the water. She’s not sure he realises he’s doing it.

"Y-you g-g-gotta have a, a n-n-name now," he suggests. "No-ot j-j-just a, a nu-umber." "I do," she says. "It's Azalea." "That's p-pret-tty," he tries lamely. "S-s-suits you." "I think so too," she agrees. "Did you know they're highly poisonous?"

He has nothing to say to that. 

Spider takes the regular shower head off the wall. She turns the control handle firmly away from her, and feels the kick as the water switches from above to the head in her hand.

She's definitely not imagining the apprehension in his eyes now. It feeds something cold and hard inside her. 

His skin is slick and cold under her thighs as she straddles his hips. He gasps a deep, tight-throated gasp as the jet of water hits his stomach. It's shockingly cold on Spider's skin too, soaking her dress in an instant.

He understands what she's about to do the instant before it happens, and his eyes go wide as saucers. 

Then she turns the water full force on his face. 

He fights harder than she'd have thought possible. His hips buck, throwing her forwards. Her head smacks against his thrashing arms, then against the tile between them. She drops the shower head to try and grab onto him. 

"No!" he is choking out, "No, no way, no, why!?"

The cold water slices across both of them as the showerhead spins wildly. Rayce is twisting under her and he's too strong to pin with her body weight so without thinking she grabs a fistful of his hair and slams his head back against the tiles. 

He's still for just a second, stunned, then he starts struggling again. But Spider has locked her legs around his waist, ankles hooked around each other, and now when he lifts his body from the floor she moves with him but she isn't thrown off.

She grabs behind her for the shower head, and, without letting go of her death grip on his hair, turns the jet full strength on his face again. 

Again he bucks wildly, almost inhumanly strong, as the water is forced up his nose and into his mouth. Spider feels the tiles scraping the skin from her feet where his thrashing crushes them against the wall, but who was it who taught her never to flinch or give up no matter how it hurts? 

This is not the sly thrill of playing villain, not the spine-tingling excitement of having him at her feet. This isn’t sexy, and it’s not a game.

This is violence. It’s knocked knees and elbows, raw and savage, pain lancing through her skull. This is skin burning against skin, ice cold fury, intimate hate and the world goes away, there's only now, only the two of them and the struggle and the knife-sharp satisfaction of winning.

He gets his air in brief, wet gasps in the moments he manages to jerk his head away from her, and in the moments when she hesitates and shows mercy because the motion of his body has turned too much like spasmodic seizure rather than like fighting.

One time she turns the water away from him and he brings up a torrent of water, more than she imagined could come out of a person's mouth. She's not sure if he's coughing it up or vomiting.

His eyes are screwed shut tight, his face scarred with deep creases. His mouth gapes obscenely, trying to suck in air while it lasts. Each breath whoops and gurgles wetly in his throat. 

She could kill him like this. The icy fury shaking in her core is okay with that idea. 

Avon would be unhappy if she broke her new toy so soon. She would be unhappy.

She clings to her Handler, legs still locked around his waist, hand still knotted in his hair so tightly that the strands cut into her fingers. She watches his chest heave as more water spills from his lips. 

She tries to remember the good times, the kindnesses. The things he’d do that made her wonder if she really did want him. The times she was glad to see him at the door to her cell.

All she can remember is – relief never lasted as long as she needed. His voice waking her when all she wanted was sleep. His voice commanding her to hold, hold, hold when every muscle in her burned. His cock bruising her insides, his hands bruising her arms. Him forcing her back under the cold water when she was so cold she couldn’t face it, just this one time...

She turns the jet back on his face, and he bucks underneath her again. Weaker this time.

She needs to stop.

She does stop.

He doesn’t deserve it, but she stops.

The showerhead spins again as it drops from her half-numb grip. Cold slices across their bodies. Spider lets go of Rayce and half-falls away from him to catch it. 

He heaves and wheezes and coughs messy, violent coughs and brings up more water.  He makes eye contact for a second, eyes wild and streaming with – either tears or shower water. His mouth moves like he's trying to speak, but another wave of hacking, puking convulsions overtake him. 

Spider turns the water off. The choking sounds instantly louder. It sounds like things are tearing wetly inside his chest or throat. Spider feels a pang of worry. Can you actually cough up chunks of lung?

Reluctantly, she unlocks the cuffs. He yanks his arms away from her, but then just flops forwards onto the tiles, trying to get his hands under his shuddering shoulders as he brings up yet more mouthfuls of water. 

Spider watches, insides churning with a hundred emotions she cannot name, until he finally starts to take real breaths again. 

"Why?" he croaks, struggling to get the words out between coughs. "-- wasn' – I – n-ngh – nice – t'you!?" Spider swallows, hard. “No, Handler,” she says flatly, “you weren’t.”

[Next]

#my writing #bbu #noncon mention #a girl called spider #654261: spider #handler rayce

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children: Redux | XI. The Crucible

A DPxDC crossover // Read on [AO3} or [FFN.net]

← Previous Chapter // MASTERPOST // Next Chapter →

◆◆◆

Two Years Ago…

At the crack of dawn, Danny was woken up and told to prepare himself. He was shuffled into a room along with the rank and file of the League. Many, he realized, were members of his own cohort from before Ra’s pulled him aside for private training. They all stood at attention, uniforms crisp and clean, postures in an impeccable League salute the second Ra’s al Ghul appeared on the mezzanine above them. 

Ra’s peered over the railing to survey them. Finding them satisfactory, he smiled and flung his arms wide. 

“Congratulations to the first and second cohort for passing the second phase of your training,” his voice boomed across the room. “And welcome, recruits, to your final test.”

No one spoke. Danny doubted anyone even breathed . 

But there was a sudden shift in the air. Everything suddenly felt sharper. Tenser. The back of his neck prickled as if the point of a blade was pressed against his skin. 

Ra’s al Ghul continued, hands settling behind his back as he prowled above them. “Your test will consist of three trials, each you will complete with a partner of your choosing, that will challenge the knowledge and skills that the League has painstakingly imparted upon you.”

At the mention of “partner”, Danny quickly scanned the room to find Henri. He caught Henri doing the same, and as their eyes met, they gave each other an imperceptible nod.

“Time and time again, your mentors have broken you down and shaped you into something better. Now it is time to test your mettle, to prove yourself by walking into the flames. Those who fail will be burned. And to those of you to succeed—” Ra’s bared his teeth into a sharp grin, gleaming eyes seeming to stare straight into Danny’s soul. “Those who survive this crucible will be welcomed with open arms into the shadows.”

◆◆◆

Sharp rock dug harshly into Danny’s gloved hand as he braced himself against the cliff face. His chin tucked behind the crook of his elbow to shield his face from the shrieking winds blowing past. When it subsided, he pushed himself up off the thin ledge he stood on in order to grab a higher handhold. 

From fifteen feet above, Henri called down: “A little bit more to go, Danyal! I think I saw a cave a few meters ahead where we can make camp.”

Danny hauled himself up further, his right foot scraping to find that natural foothold he saw literally five seconds ago. “Sounds—” His heart leapt to his throat when his foot slipped. His grip tightened against the rock as he tried to recover his footing, his legs bending in an awkward manner to try and accommodate the strange position. “ —good!”

He let out a ragged sigh. Every corded muscle trembled with exertion, doing everything they can to fight off the increasing fatigue that weighed down on him.

God, this would be so much easier if he could just fly. 

“You okay?” Henri called.

Danny bared his teeth in a grimace. “Never better!”

“Well hurry up then! Don’t wanna give up the lead we have on the other pairs.”

Danny pushed himself off the cliff face slightly, peering down at the steep drop. There were a few dark shadows that he could see slowly advancing up, but—he shifted his gaze to the setting sun—none of them would be able to reach them before nightfall anyway. 

He said as much to Henri, who scoffed and said something about “never underestimating the enemy” and “that’s what they get for wasting so much energy on a pointless fight.”

They kept climbing. And climbing. And climbing  this damned mountain for who knows how long, ignoring the ache in their muscles and the way their fingers would nearly cramp at the force of their grip. Anything, everything to keep their eye on the prize.

That coveted title, the position they all worked themselves to near-death to get: official membership of the league. 

After months of arduous training and their numbers slowly being whittled down, Henri and Danny were at last in the final stretch of the League’s basic training. All of their hard work came down to passing the infamous final test. A set of three trials spanning seven days, meant to test each recruit’s physical and mental skills to the limit. Those who did not complete each trial were kicked from the League. Those who could not complete all three tasks within the allotted time were failed. And even those lucky and skillful few who made it past the third trial were not guaranteed a place in the League.

What’s more, whatever rules of conduct their mentors had bound them to during training (notably the ‘no killing other recruits rule’) was now rendered null and void. It was a no holds barred competition. Every pair for themselves.

The Head of the Demon demanded only the best. And only those who were willing to claw their way to the top were worthy enough to stand at his feet. 

Their first trial was a test of physical skill. A grueling trek from base camp to a designated rendezvous site ten miles out through the sweltering desert heat. Not only that, but the last hurdle to cross to reach the site was a steep thousand-and-something foot mountain. The base of which was already a rocky hike before it nearly shot up to one awfully flat rock face. 

“Look out!”

“Wha— shit!” Danny ducked his head, biting back a shout as a fist-sized rock slammed onto his shoulder before tumbling down hundreds of feet. 

“Sorry,” Henri called from above. “Didn’t realize it was that loose.” His fingers found purchase on a ledge a few feet above and he hauled himself into the mouth of the cave. A few seconds later, Henri threw down a few feet of rope. “Climb up!”

Danny reached out to grab the rope. He wrapped it a few times around his arm and gave a sharp tug to make sure Henri had it anchored up there. “I’m ready!” Once Danny got a firm grip on the rope, it only took a few minutes to make his way up to the cave. 

He nearly collapsed on his back as soon as his feet hit that wide expanse of rock. And his brain—finally registering that he was no longer in immediate danger of falling off and becoming a giant splatter on the ground—breathed a sigh of relief. What remained of his adrenaline rushed out of his body, replaced instead with an overwhelming onslaught of fatigue, hunger, and thirst. 

Danny scrambled for his pack, guzzling down his water bottle and relishing the way the lukewarm liquid soothed his parched throat. He shoved the bottle back when he finished and stumbled further into the cave where Henri was foraging kindling for a fire.

“Merde,” Henri swore under his breath. “This place has nothing.” 

Danny threw his pack against a dry corner of the cave and settled down beside it. “Well, it’s not the first time we’ve had to sleep in the cold.” 

“Oh, I’m not worried for me. It wouldn’t do for our resident prince to get back aches from sleeping on the ground now, yeah?” Henri said with a teasing lilt as he sat next to Danny.

“Hey!” Danny smacked him on the side of his arm. “And prince? Really?”

“I have eyes, you know. Mentor singles you out way too much, and some of the actual established members treat you differently than they do the rest of us,” Henri explained. “And then seeing Lady Talia and her little son just made everything click into place.”

Heat bloomed in Danny’s cheeks. 

He looked like them, he thought, giddy. 

(Well of course he does. They were his family.)

Danny blinked. “Wait a minute. Was the whole reason why you wanted me to be your partner because you figured out that Ra’s al Ghul is my grandfather?”

“Well…”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you.”

“Stones at a glass house, Danyal,” Henri sing-songed. “You got advanced training because of nepotism, and I might be able to pass this trial because I’m your friend. Besides, I didn’t see you eager enough to pair with anyone else.”

Well it wasn’t like Danny knew anyone in the second cohort. And he was pretty sure the majority of the first cohort still hated his guts for one reason or another. (Did Dusan really treat him differently than everyone else? Was that why people hated him?)

He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe I’m a nepotism baby.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t realize it sooner.”

“Well, I didn’t have much choice in who my partner was, but what about you?” Danny pulled his knees up to cushion his head. “I heard you were ranked first in our cohort. Pretty sure the others would’ve been tripping themselves to partner with you.”

“It’s because I’m first that I didn’t choose any of them to be my partner. Those bastards had been gunning for me ever since you left. People like them love to tear others down because they think they’ll be able to stand taller,” Henri spat. “Well, I showed them. I’ve earned my place here in the League, and I’ll do whatever it takes to stay here.”

From their position, they could see the sky quickly darken. Oranges and reds faded away to dark blues and deep violets, the first twinkling of stars emerging from the shadows. 

“Is that it, then?” Danny asked, voice hushed. “I was the least evil option?”

“Danyal, there’s not an evil bone in your body.” Henri said. 

That’s what you think, Danny thought .  

“If it wasn’t for your family, I wouldn’t even begin to guess why you’re here.” Henri tilted his head back,  downing half his water bottle. He wiped the stray moisture from his mouth with the back of his hand. “But, no, that’s not why I picked you. I wanted to be your partner because you’re my friend, you’ve got good instincts, and because deep down I know you care more about bettering yourself than tearing other people down.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere ,” Danny joked.

“Good thing it’s the truth then,” Henri smiled. “I mean, just think of this morning. While everyone else was too preoccupied with eliminating the competition as soon as the test started, what did you say we should do? You said to sneak out of base camp and get a head-start on the first trial before anyone noticed.”

Danny buried his head in his arms, ears burning.

“You’re a good person, Danyal. I don’t know why you sometimes act like you aren’t.”

Here in the darkness of the cave, with Henri’s red hair and too-kind words, Danny was reminded of the times when he was a kid and snuck beneath the covers of Jazz’s bed. Eyes red-rimmed as he sniffled into her arms and she soothed his worries whenever he got into trouble or the kids at school would tease him about not being as smart as the rest of his family. You’re a good kid, Danny. You’re good, and that’s the most important thing.

(But here’s the thing: Danny wasn’t good. If he was, then maybe Talia would have considered him good enough to keep. Maybe he would have been able to save his family. Saved Tucker. Saved Sam. Even Phantom, the source of all of his good deeds, was still considered a menace half the time.

Phantom might’ve been a bit good, but Danny had certainly never been good enough.)

◆◆◆

Midway through the night, Danny woke to the sound of voices near the mouth of the cave. He kept quiet, aware that the darkness made him and Henri invisible to the intruders until they walked further in. He nudged Henri awake with his foot. The latter’s dark eyes snapped open, the only movement their strict training allowed them.

Danny carefully tried to make himself smaller as he observed the two. The one on the right was female (5’7”, possibly 175 pounds, body-type and stance indicates affinity for leg-based martial arts. Avoid kicks at all cost). The other on the left was male (5’5”, leaner, maybe around 150 pounds? Expect faster movements). The two had yet to notice Danny and Henri, their attention focused on looking down below the cave as they talked.

“It would’ve been so easy to cut their hammocks loose,” the guy said. Danny couldn’t recognize the voice. Recruits from the second cohort? “Just one slice and— splat! — another one out of the competition.” 

Henri signaled Danny with a few hand signs. Me-right-you-left-take-out-quick.

Danny signed back. Nonlethal?

“It would’ve taken too much time and energy and you know it,” said the girl. 

Henri shook his head. Ledge-push-them

She craned her head up. “We need to focus on catching up with those two guys in the lead. Where’d you think they are?”

No, Danny signed. Nonlethal.

Dangerous-my-plan-easier.

“Well they haven’t left the mountain yet. We would’ve heard the helicopter if they did.”

Nonlethal. 

No!-Eliminate-quick— Henri aborted his hand signs when the intruders turned around, still oblivious to their presence. There wouldn’t be much time left before the two walked further into the cave and so Danny and Henri.

Henri scrunched his face in exasperation. Fine. Nonlethal.

In a flash, Henri and Danny leapt out of their hiding spot and rushed at the intruders. Caught by surprise and tired from their climb, the two were barely able to put up a fight. Danny’s opponent only managed to block Danny’s strike for a second before Danny redirected his attack and struck the guy’s carotid artery with the edge of his hand. The guy fell to the ground with a thud. Stunned from the sudden interruption of oxygen before passing out.

Beside him, Henri had the girl in a chokehold. The girl scratched at his arms, gasping furiously before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she was knocked out cold. 

Henri dropped the girl with a frustrated sigh. Face screwed up in pain as he gripped his side. “ Putain de bordel de merde!” 

Danny rushed to him. “You alright?”

“Alright?” He screeched. “No I’m not— that bitch stabbed me with a knife!” 

It was then that Danny saw the glint of a knife on the floor, the blade streaked red with Henri’s blood. “Shit.” He ran for his pack, taking out what bit of disinfectant and gauze he could find.

“Fuck— give me that,” Henri said. He snatched the supplies from Danny’s hands before slumping down against the cave wall. “I’ll take care of this. You go tie them up or something.”

“Right— yeah. I should—” Henri was bleeding. Henri got hurt. Because Danny was stubborn and he insisted and— and he made the wrong choice again. “Henri, I’m so, so, sorry—”

“Just go , Danyal. Before those two fucks wake up and I got stabbed for nothing.”

Danny nodded, mute. (Your fault.) With shaking hands he looted the intruders’ bags for anything that could hold them. (You caused this.) With their own rope, he got to work tying their hands behind their back in tight knots, and then looping the rope between their ankles. (You couldn’t protect him.)

Behind him, Henri cursed up a storm. An endless stream of french swears that Danny couldn’t understand but could hazard a guess that most of it was probably about him. He couldn’t blame Henri, though. It was his fault all this happened.

(If only—)

“Looks like our lead won’t last much longer.” Henri held back a grimace as he slipped black tunic over his shoulders. “We should get going soon.”

Danny threw their opponents’ packs deep into the cave after looting them of anything useful. For a moment, he contemplated hurling their supplies off the cliff— but it felt too cruel to leave them stranded here without any way to get back down. (But they would have deserved it.) 

“Visibility is barely above zero,” Danny said. The sky was still pitch black. It’d be difficult to scale the rest of the sheer cliff face when they can’t properly gauge their handholds. “And you’re— you’re hurt.” 

Henri secured his pack. “It’s just a flesh wound.” He looked up at Danny, and something in his expression shifted. He sighs, carding fingers through his hair before placing a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “I overreacted, don’t worry. It didn’t hit anything important.”

“But—”

“It’ll make the climb terrible, I won’t lie, but I’m not just gonna drop dead that easily. Ranked first in the cohort, remember?”

Danny worried at the inside of his lip. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

◆◆◆

They reached the summit at the crack of dawn.  Black uniforms smudged with dirt and dust, faces crimson from the exertion. Henri clutched his side, almost fetal-like, before he grit his teeth and pushed himself up to his feet. Danny followed. The two of them attempted to regain some semblance of appearances as they neared the helicopter in the middle of the rocky plateau, patting off dust and combing sweat-slick hair. 

At the sight of a band of people lounging in front of the helicopter, Danny froze. He widened his stance, shoulders tense and ready for a fight. 

“At ease,” Henri whispered. “Look at their uniforms.”

At first, Danny thought they were other recruits. Ones that somehow managed to overtake Henri and Danny and decided to camp at the first check-point to pick off any competition. But a closer look confirmed otherwise. The standard League uniform was reminiscent of the shinobi shozoku, an all-black garment made of light but durable fabric, devoid of identifying marks. These uniforms, however, were slightly different. Though keeping with the same base design, the suit had noticeable kevlar and body armor built into it as opposed to plain fabric. Sewn over the heart—in subtle, gold thread—was the crescent emblem of the League of Shadows. 

These people weren’t recruits. No, they were disciples ; full-fledged members of the League of Shadows.

One of them—lounging at the entrance of the cockpit—acknowledged their presence with a tilt of their head. A black half-balaclava covered their face from their neck to the bridge of their nose. “Recruits,” they said, as Henri and Danny saluted them. “State your purpose.”

“Recruits Henri and Danyal reporting from basecamp, sir,” Henri said. “We are ready and willing to proceed with the second trial, sir.”

“Acknowledged, recruit.” He nodded his head upwards at his companion, who held a stack of folders in one arm. “My co-pilot and I will serve as your transport towards, as well as your proctors for your second trial. You will  be given a dossier containing the details of your mission as well as the outlined objectives. You are given carte blanche in how you choose to approach this, however what methods you use and how successful you are in completing your tasks will be taken into account on your final evaluation. If you understand, repeat to me your names and cohort designation.”

Danny and Henri rattled off the information in clipped tones. Their proctor nodded, immediately pulling out a single file-folder from the very bottom of the stack. He handed them the folder with a wry grin. “Well then, if you understand, then why are your asses still here and not on the chopper? You’ve wasted enough daylight as it is.”

The other disciples—most likely also proctors for the other groups—chortled. “Don’t mess up now!” One of them called out. “The Head expects a lot from you two, after all. Don’t wanna disappoint.”

◆◆◆

The second they saw the name “Mortimer Drake (Alias: The Cavalier)” at the top of their dossier, Henri’s face darkened into something downright murderous.  

“The League really does their research, don't they?” He sneered at the photo of a well-groomed man that could almost pass for a real-life version of Captain Hook, long dark hair, goatee, and all. 

Danny held a hand over the microphone of his over-ear aviation headset, to minimize their proctors listening in on their conversation. “You know him?” Danny asked at a normal speaking volume, the roar of the open cockpit masking most of his words from everyone except Henri, who sat beside him. 

Henri mirrored his movements. “Know him? He’s the man that ruined my life.”

◆◆◆

“I have eyes on the package.”

Their mission took them to the wealth-drenched shores of Monte Carlo, the city teeming with the vibrant lives of rich socialites searching for new and exciting ways to waste their surplus of cash. The opulence of it all might have awed Danny at one point, but now, the sight of all this excess only wound his stomach in tight knots. 

(How long did that other-Danny last, he wondered. How long did he last in that empty castle, wallowing in grief, with only Vlad for company?)

“Copy that.”

Tonight marked their third—and hopefully last —night in the city. The previous two days had been marked by vigorous stake outs and observations on Mortimer Drake’s habits, mannerisms, and the layout of his multimillion dollar luxury apartment. 

Their mission? A simple search and seizure of an item of the League’s interest. According to the dossier, Drake was an American collector with the taste of the eccentric and esoteric. He used his wealth to obtain a wide variety of artifacts to display in his many, many international properties— and those that he couldn’t buy, he stole as the rogue Cavalier. 

The particular item in question—a large red gem of unknown make—was bought illegally at a black market auction. The item was to be shipped in tonight, guarded by a squadron of private security. The route they were going to take was unknown, the number of staff involved was unknown, and any added security on Drake’s part was unknown. Not exactly great odds for a two-man team working off of limited intel. 

“And the mark?”

“Twice as ugly and surrounded by guards. ETA forty-five minutes.”

On top of that, they were given a secondary objective to complete. Optional, yes, but doing so would garner them a more favorable outcome with their proctors. And if Henri was anything, it was an overachiever. So while Henri was tailing Drake and the shipment, Danny volunteered to break into the apartment, set-up the bugs that they’ll use to temporarily deactivate security, and look for their secondary objective. Danny wasn’t normally an extra-credit kind of student, but in this scenario, he was all for it. 

Ra’s and Dusan assigned this trial specifically for him , after all.

“Find the book yet?”

“Not yet, just doing one last sweep for bugs. Are you sure not preparing for the guards is the right call?”

“Positive. The little weasel’s the type to ogle his treasures alone so no one can see what a fucking weirdo he is. He won’t bring his guards inside if he can help it.”

The apartment was in the clear. Whatever bugs he caught were swiftly disabled, and their various entries and exits were secured. He stood up from his crouch next to Drake’s bedside table, stretching his arms as he walked back into the main living room. It shouldn’t be that long of a wait now. 

 Sunset bled through the wall-length windows of the grandiose apartment. He winced, swallowing down the bile creeping up his throat at the sight. (Red-red-too-red.) He shifts his eyes away from it, the intensity of the color reminding him of things (crimson eyes, the color of burning skies) that Danny would rather forget. Gathering dust on top of the coffee table was an antique looking perpetual calendar. The bronze disk was held up by a stand, the face of the sun engraved in the middle, with its innerworkings exposed to the light. He bent down, glancing at the date.

April 3rd.

Oh. 

It was his birthday. 

Strange how at fourteen, being fifteen felt so far away, but now that he was there…nothing felt different. 

Tucker always made such a huge deal about turning fifteen. It wasn’t as great as turning sixteen, he would say, but fifteen marked the year he could get his learner’s permit. Which meant one step closer to getting a car of his own. And if there’s anything Tucker thought girls liked in a guy, it was being able to drive. 

Tucker’s birthday was in January. If it was April now then that meant—

No. Tucker…Tucker was still fourteen. Tucker would be forever fourteen because he died before he had the chance ( —to even scream, the explosion was just that quick—) to be anything more. If Danny were better, Tucker would have had a future ( — but would it matter? The future is all the same. Rubble and fire and death, what difference would a couple extra years make? )

(“I am inevitable,” Dan decreed. His eyes are red, the skies are red and burning, and smoke— so much smoke it burned his nostrils and filled up his lungs until he was choking and— cold, cold fingers around his throat won’t let go and he cannot breathe he cannot breathe he can’t-he-can’t-he-can’t-he-can’t-he—)

“Brother?”

Danny reared back, as if burned. Hands drawn back into fists against his attacker, willing ectoplasmic energy into his hands to blast away his attacker—

“Brother? Danyal!”

“Danyal? Danyal, what’s going on? Hey— hey, why aren’t you answering?”

His lungs heave. There’s smoke in his lungs, filling his mouth with that acrid taste. He smells sauce and char and can feel the sensation of claws digging into his jugular—

“Danyal— merde. I need you to breathe for me, Danyal. Can you do that? Come on, count with me now.”

Danyal-Danyal-Danyal— who is that supposed to be again? Danyal-Danyal-Danyal—

(“Danny Fenton died,” said the other Vlad, in that other future where everyone is dead.)

Everyone is dead in this future too.

There is a warmth covering his hand, can feel circles rubbed into the back of his palm. He wants to yank it out, but the touch is familiar. There is someone counting in his ear; in for four, hold for seven, out for five. He breathes in— air from an AC, cool, slightly dry, with some kind of nondescript linen air freshener. No smoke. No char. No—

He looks out the window. The sky is closer to orange than it is red, and it isn’t burning. 

There are two Ming Dynasty looking vases that frame a wall table. There’s a large L-shaped couch in the middle of the living room, facing a too-big flat screen TV. On the coffee table there's a strange assortment of crystals. 

He doesn’t acknowledge the frost creeping out from his feet. 

“Brother? Are you alright?”

He snapped his neck towards the voice…and looked down.

“Damian?” He gasped. 

Damian is here. Here. Dressed in a League uniform and a goddamn katana strapped to his back. How did he get here? Who the fuck let him in here?

“Wait— as in that Damian?” Henri swore. “Why the fuck is he here?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He knelt down to Damian’s height, grabbing his shoulders. “Why’re you here, bud?”

His hands are trembling against Damian’s shoulders and they won’t fucking stop. Get a grip on yourself, Fenton. He’s so close to becoming a full-fledged disciple of the League and now is not the fucking time to act scared. 

Especially with Damian here. Small Damian. Tiny Damian with tiny breakable bones and a tiny snappable neck—

Damian stares at him, brows furrowed. What must he think right now? God, Damian must think that Danny is so weak freaking out over nothing. How is Damian supposed to rely on him then? How could he entrust his safety into someone so damn useless. 

He tries to steel himself. Will the ice in his limbs to shift, and to burrow ever deeper into his chest. Mind over matter, Danny.

“Damian,” he repeats, voice more level, “ why are you here?”

Damian looked as if he was caught off guard. He blinked his eyes a few times, looking down at his feet, suddenly unsure of himself. “I— I wanted to help.”

“Help? With what?”

“There— I overheard members of the League talking. They were saying that because so much resources were spent on you, if you failed the test you would be— they said that you’d be put down!” There’s a desperation in Damian’s eyes as he lunged for Danny, grasping his too-small fingers around Danny’s shirt. “It’s a lie, I know it is! Mother and Grandfather would never— I nearly wanted to gut those fools for saying something like that!”

“But it’s true.” It surprised Danny how easy it was to accept it. It surprised Damian how Danny didn’t even blink at the insinuation of his own murder. “Since the very beginning, I’ve known that staying at the League was only possible if I did well. If I couldn’t handle it, I would have to leave, because the League can’t afford any weakness if it wants to save anything.”

“Danny. They said that they would kill you.”

Better than the alternative. There was nothing for Danny outside of the League. Not as Phantom, and definitely not as Fenton. There was too much risk. Too many uncertain variables. Too many ways that he could mess up and accidentally plunge the world into another dark timeline. Even if Danny helped arm the League with all the ghost hunting knowledge at his disposal, it still might not be enough.

“And I’d let them.”

There were no heroes in Dan’s timeline.

Silence hung like a noose. The tension was only broken by the crackle of Henri’s voice in Danny’s ear. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on over there but you better be ready. Target’s ETA is less than 10 minutes, and I don’t want the little prince ruining our run here.”

Danny swore under his breath. “Yeah, we’ll be ready.” He dragged Damian towards the library by the elbow. “Damian won’t get in the way, don’t worry.”

“Good.” There were muffled sounds on the other side. “And you…you’re alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good. That’s…good.”

A click told Danny that Henri switched off his comms. 

With a sigh, he turned to Damian again. “Alright, now I really need you to leave.”

Damian crossed his arms and huffed. “I am not leaving.”

“I’ll tell mother.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

“Oh just try me.”

Despite the flash of fear across Damian’s face, Danny begrudgingly admitted to himself that convincing Damian to leave now would be as fruitful as all of Vlad’s attempts at flirting with his mom. He made Damian hold onto a piece of his shirt and channeled that sleeping store of power inside of himself.

Ra’s and Dusan ran him ragged with exercises on drawing out his ghost powers while in human form. Invisibility, intangibility, minor ecto-rays and telekinesis (something he always forgot that he had), among other powers. Abilities that he took for granted inside the wellspring of energy that was Amity Park, he was now forced to remaster using the limited resources he had. 

He let the invisibility wash over him and Damian. The other’s response was only a sudden jolt from the cold energy, but otherwise Damian didn’t seem to think that anything was different.  Unless Damian happened to walk in front of a mirror, he wouldn’t notice that he was invisible right now. 

“Look, I’ll let you stay, on one condition: you stay quiet and you do what I say.”

“Isn’t that two conditions?”

“Amazing observation Einstein, now shut-up and don’t let go of my shirt.”

The library itself was a room with a heavy oaken desk and built-in wooden shelves filled with a hodge-podge of probably rare and esoteric books. The subjects themselves ranged from ancient history to herbology to first editions of almanacs from who knows what century. And while the shelves and books were kept tidy and dusted, there was hardly any sign of actual use or focused subjects. It was as if Drake was just collecting for the sake of collecting. 

Danny thumbed his way down to the far bottom shelves. The books were sorted alphabetically by their author, putting his mark at…

…Not there.

  At the corner of his eye, he spotted the top drawer of the desk being strangely ajar. Upon closer look, the others were locked shut. Carefully, he opened the drawer, checking for any kind of hidden traps. Finding it clear, he pulled the drawer back and— aha!

He pulled out a faded brown book, the edges of the pages lined yellow with age. Sewn on the cover in faded black thread was the title: “ Summoning Spirits and the Subjugation of Spectres” by Heinrich Showenhower.

Another from that family.

Idly, he wondered what Freakshow was doing. 

He flipped through the pages, noting various illustrations and diagrams that looked a bit too close to magic than his parents’ science. Circular formations with strange writings, pentagrams, detailed sketches of specific herbs, a couple depictions of the more primitive ghosts in the Zone— 

His eyes caught something familiar. 

A picture of an orb. A bright and mesmerizing orb. 

Freakshow’s orb. 

“Danny?”

He snapped the book shut. “Were my eyes red?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” 

A foreboding chill crawled up his spine. 

He turned on his comm-piece. “Henri, do you have direct eyes on the package?”

A pause, before the earpiece crackled to life. “Affirmative. Drake and It just arrived at the apartment. Right now he’s doing one last inspection before taking it inside.”

“What does it look like?”

“About as close as what intel gave us. It’s bigger than I thought, though, maybe about the size of my palm.”

Fuck. Fuck. It was a coincidence. Surely it’s a coincidence. The odds of the crystal being Freakshow’s orb were higher than Danny felt comfortable with, but the most frustrating part is that he can’t tell if it’s Freakshow’s orb unless he actually sees it.

And if he sees it—

He glanced down at the still-invisible Damian observing the perimeter. (Mine-mine-brother-mine-DANGER.)

Danny gripped the book in his hands tight. He’s broken out of its control once, hadn’t he? He could do it again. 

(Didn’t Sam have to fall off a train for him to break out of Freakshow’s control?)

“Damian, you need to leave.”

“And I told you I won’t.”

“Go to the balcony and start heading to the apartment above this one. It should be empty. You have a communicator on you, right?”

A new wave of apprehension washed over Damian. “Brother?”

Danny started pushing Damian out of the library and towards the balcony. He ripped the comm-piece out of his ear and handed it to Damian, rattling off a set of numbers. Frequency lines. “I need you to go up there and contact our proctors. Tell them who you are and to contact Dusan or mother or anyone and tell them that I may be compromised.”

“Brother you’re worrying me.”

“I need you to do this for me, Damian. Can you do that? It’s important.”

The urgency in his voice must have knocked some sense into Damian. His little brother slipped the comms piece into his ear and nodded, repeating Danny’s instructions back. 

Danny ruffled Damian’s hair, breaking Damian’s invisibility. “Good. Now go, and stay safe.”

“What’s going on, brother?”

Danny shook his head. “It might be nothing, but I’d rather you be safe in case things go south.”

With Damian safely out of the way and the League alerted, Danny took his position near the entrance of the living room. He wanted to take this test with his own strength, to prove in some small way to Ra’s that he was worth more than his ghost powers, but that sentiment would have to wait. If Danny was right— and he really, really did not want to be— then this mission needed speed more than anything else. And the element of surprise invisibility and intangibility could get him would be their trump card. 

He crouched and waited.

Eventually, the door opened. Mortimer Drake entered the space, holding the orb out in the open.

Red seeped into the corner of Danny’s mind—

And all he could feel was bliss.

#my writing #dpxdc #phantom children: redux

[drops-of-moonlights]

WINX REDUX AU SUMMARIZED: INTERLUDE 7 (The Spirit Thief)

Or, in which I give the basics of what I’ve changed about the story for the AU. It was originally way more descriptive but if I kept it in that style I would have finished in 2039 and I ain’t got time for that. IT’S FINALLY TIME FOR S7.5 EVERYONE WE ARE DONE WITH THE INTERLUDES WE ONLY HAVE THE FINALE SEASON LEFT. This one is by far the shortest, it really only took long because coming up with a plot took. a bit, but hopefully it is still enjoyable!

WINX AU INTERLUDE 7 - The Spirit Thief

Only a week has transpired after the wedding of Radius and Alessandro, and both Diaspro and Bloom arrive at Quarzis, soon to have a meeting with Dia’s mother. Despite their time dating, Bloom has only seen the Queen of Quarzis in formal events, and has not been able to properly meet her, only knowing Dia’s brothers.

Once before Queen Ágata, she questions Bloom’s presence for a second, before claiming that she might as well know too: The Jewel of Dawn has been stolen.

Bloom quietly asks what that is, but Flint, Diaspro’s older brother, fills her in - it’s a powerful relic of Quarzis, fastened to a fountain pen and used for ceremonial paperwork. Despite the base use of it, it remains a powerful magical instrument, and it being stolen is bad news.

Bloom suggests notifying the Order about it, but is quickly silenced by Ágata - not a soul must learn of this, and especially not the Order. She orders Diaspro herself to take care of it, as her brothers must attend to other matters, and after all, the midyear break in Alfea is approaching, so she’ll have plenty of time to deal with it.

Diaspro accepts, surprising Bloom a bit, and as they leave, before even being able to say a word, Bloom tells her that the Winx will help her with this, not wanting her to deal with it alone.

Dia protests for a bit, but Bloom is convincing, and soon enough, they call the Winx to a meeting to discuss it.

It’s then that they’re attacked by a being seemingly made of light, its form ringing familiar to Bloom, both of them swiftly disposing of it. However, they can see the being retreating, and still transformed in Valiantix, they both follow it.

They follow the light construct until it disappears into a cave, and not having any other leads, go into it as well. It’s then that they bump into a small mole-like creature - a Gnome.

The gnome is hurt, and desisting from their chase, the two princesses bring it back to the palace to heal it.

After healing it, the Gnome introduces himself as Labret. He comes from the Gnome settlement in the Solaria-Quarzis border, and was actually coming to Quarzis to ask for help.

Their power source, the Lunar Diamond, has started to run out of energy, and since it was a gift by a group of Lustrix magi, only another group of Lustrix magi can replenish it. As Quarzis is the Realm of Jewels, his people had assumed they would have a group to help them.

Sadly for him, none of the Lustrix magi associated with the Order of Mana’s settlement in Quarzis are available for this task, which leaves him dejected.

This sparks an idea in Diaspro, however - if the Winx (who all came over in concern, to support their friend) were to help him, they would be able to earn Lustrix, therefore being able to help him as honorary members of the Order. Moreover, it would make it far easier for them to investigate the cavern systems, where they believe whoever stole the Jewel of Dawn resides.

Having no other options, and as a way to test her own daughter, Queen Ágata accepts, and so the Winx plus Diaspro formally accept the quest for Lustrix, officiated by Labret. 

This allows Diaspro to earn her Harmonix, which confuses the rest until Labret explains it - bonding with him for the explicit purpose of pursuing a higher transformation, for a reason that isn’t just because, can grant a magi Harmonix, but most people prefer using the Grimoire as it’s faster than formally starting a quest with the respective species.

As the theft of the Jewel of Dawn is a serious and grave matter, the Winx and Diaspro decide to split fully to do the Lustrix quest at the same time, having learnt from their time doing the Sirenix quest, and so three teams leave the realms to find 3 of the crystals to place in the Lustrix Compass given to them by Labret.

Musa and Stella go to Hoggar for the crystal of Speed, Tecna and Flora go to Espero for the crystal of Resilience, and Bloom, Diaspro and Aisha go to Callisto for the crystal of Trust.

Musa and Stella meet with Hagen on Hoggar, who helps them get into the Reluscent Cave, where the crystal might be. They’re also aided by Rhodocres, another Gnome and a friend of Hagen.

It takes a bit for the two of them to fully coordinate once they reach the trial (a fight against a crystal construct), and during the trial they’re also attacked by the same light constructs that had attacked Bloom and Diaspro before, but they manage to harmonize enough for them to outsmart and outspeed them, dissolving the light constructs and taking the crystal of Speed from the other one’s forehead.

Tecna and Flora meet with Helia on Espero, which also lets Flora meet his family formally. They’re aided by his sister Selene, an Armamancer, in reaching the Caverns of Light, the place of the trial. There they meet up with another Gnome, Hessen, that takes them to the proper site.

The trial ends up being simply managing to reach the crystal amidst a set of hard trials (alongside the light constructs interrupting them), and with a convergence spell that manages to push them to their destination after a long, long time of arguing, they reach the crystal of Resilience and complete the trial.

Bloom, Diaspro and Aisha (alongside Labret) reach Callisto, and on their way to the Moss Cave, the place of the trial, they run into the realm’s Princess, Varanda. Who looks almost identically to Bloom, bar hair length and eye color. This sorta creeps both girls out, while Diaspro is a bit awkward around both and Aisha just thinks it’s funny.

Varanda then decides to help them in their quest, revealing she’s a Glamourix fairy, and the 5 of them reach the trial, which appears to be a series of illusions and riddles.

While it is a struggle, the girls reach the final illusion, which forces them to fight each other. Varanda is excused from this, as she’s not doing the quest, and it leads to the other 3 fighting each other under a spell.

Diaspro is the first to realize it’s just another illusion, and while she’s not sure the others can see her, she manages to convince them through it to shoot to the gemstone she believes is the source of the mirages.

The others hesitate but agree in the end, beating the trial and earning the crystal of Trust.

With all crystals obtained, they regroup in Quarzis, where Labret points them back to his settlement - the Midnight Caves, where one of the sources of Lustrix resides.

Placing their compass on a pedestal, Adamin, the giver of Lustrix, appears, granting them the form and thanking them for helping the settlement recharge the Lunar Diamond.

As the Winx prepare to start, however, the light construct attacks once more, targeting Bloom this time specifically. The Winx manage to defeat most of them, but then realize that one wasn’t dispelled - and that one is holding Labret, swiftly leaving.

The girls follow them, using their newfound Lustrix powers to better manage the trip and manage to reach and attack the construct, being careful to not harm Labret.

They chase the construct throughout a series of caves, almost getting lost, until they realize they are in the Eraklyon-Quarzis-Recrentia border, or at least underneath it.

It’s here that the construct stops, and joins the body of its creator - Valtor, or at least, his spirit.

He explains that, as he died while transformed, he managed to live on as a wraith, and since his Source is Light, and Lake Roccaluce is a naturally bright environment, he managed to slowly gain energy to create a more solid body. However, he knows he is running on limited time, and so he devised a plan to steal the Jewel of Dawn, a well-known Light dragonscale, to use its power to then generate or create a new body to inhabit.

He also reveals he is the one that drained the Lunar Diamond of its magic, and specifically targeted that settlement because he knew, in some form, that it would bring the Winx to him.

He has gained enough magic to be able to fight, and driven by his rage at those that defeated him, he starts attacking the girls, using Labret as a shield to try to dissuade them from using magical attacks.

They then default to physical, close combat moves, but Valtor uses the fact he is not quite corporeal yet to avoid most of them, taunting and mocking them as the fight goes on.

However, he gets cocky, and after a taunt from Dia, he ends up dropping Labret, who immediately digs a hole and leaves towards the side of the Winx.

This opens up the way for the girls to start unleashing their full Lustrix powers, taking advantage of their terrain and managing to take back the Jewel of Dawn.

Without the Jewel, Valtor quickly starts flickering in and out of existence, and in full desperation uses all his leftover magic to deliver a final attack.

Everyone then uses a convergence shield to protect themselves, and as Valtor runs himself dry they finally counter the attack, dispelling what was left of him and his soul finally lays to rest.

The Winx then recover Labret, and after restoring the Lunar Diamond, they part ways, him becoming an honorary member of the royal circle of Quarzis and welcome to visit and ask for further help anytime he and his village wants to.

Back in Quarzis, Diaspro and the Winx return the Jewel of Dawn to its rightful place, Queen Ágata curtly thanking her. It’s then she announces that, once her final year at Alfea comes to a close, she will begin the preparations for Diaspro to ascend to the throne.

Everyone is shocked at this, but Ágata elaborates that despite everyone’s best efforts, the Order of Mana did learn that the Jewel was stolen, and learning that it was kept secret from them on purpose did not paint a good image for neither her nor the realm.

As Quarzis already has dealt with enough, and dreading the possibility of another scandal, she has decided that this last mishap was the final proof she needed to retire from her position and pass it down to Diaspro, who has shown time and time again her dedication to her people and has, also, garnered a good reputation as savior of the realms plenty of times already alongside the Winx.

This excites and scares Diaspro, as determined as she is to be a good queen a part of her also thinks this is far too soon and does not feel ready, but the Winx, and most importantly, Bloom, support her and congratulate her, which gives her back some of her trademark confidence.

After this audience, and with the idea that a formal announcement to the rest of the kingdom won’t happen for a couple months, the girls all go back to their realms to enjoy the rest of their break, realizing that this event only took 2 of the 6 weeks of it.

It’s as they’re all leaving, however, that Stella gets a message from her dad, telling her that Arghan, one of the sovereigns of Lumenia, has disappeared, and it has interrupted some of their current plans regarding their connection to Solaria.

At the same time, in a place far from other realms, an old man and a small, starry creature seem to be plotting something…

#Winx Club #Winx Redux AU #Winx Redux AU: Summarized #this one for being so short took me months lmao #almost a year in fact #but it's done now and that's what matters #now S8 is what follows #SURE WOULD BE NICE TO FINALLY GET THE S8 LATIN SPANISH DUB OUT RAINHOE JUST SAYING #MANIFESTING SO I CAN DO THIS IN A GOOD WAY PLEASE

[musings-from-mars]

Vytal Festival Tournament REDUX: 1st Round (4v4)

AKA, the Battle of Before the Dawn

Remember: Don't vote just based on who your faves are! Instead, vote for who you think would win! In fact, add in the tags your reasoning for your choice, how you picture them winning, etc. I'm really intrigued to see the takes 👀

#vytal festival tournament redux #rwby

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Thursday, June 15th and Friday, June 16th

Buffy is pouring cream in a huge cup of coffee. BUFFY: It's all Faith's fault. She's like poison. No worse, she's like acid that eats through everything. Buffy switches to pouring sugar. BUFFY: Maybe she's a bomb. Buffy stirs.

~~Superstar~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Faith and the Jolly Red Giant by Luna_delCielo (Faith, Silmarillion Tolkien xover, T)

Triple threat by Bl4ckHunter (Angel, Connor, Chuck and Firefly xover, T)

Money (Still) Makes the World Go Round by AJ Fields (myfanfiction) (Xander/Anya, G)

Modern Witches and Kisses by DragonBinx (Tara/Willow, G)

Position Filled by hysteriumredux (Faith-centered, multi-xover, FR7)

[Chaptered Fiction]

There Should Be Groveling - Ch. 5 by slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, strong R)

Xander the Teenage Witch: Something Wicked - Ch. 1 by v_o_x (Xander/Larry, T)

Harmless Fun - Ch. 1-3 by MaggieLaFey (Buffy/Spike, E)

take me home - Ch. 1-16 by ChaosNina, HappyWhenItRains (ChaosNina) (Buffy/Spike, E) COMPLETE!

Ashes to Ashes - Ch. 1-4 by HappyWhenItRains (ChaosNina) (Buffy/Spike, Spike/Drusilla, M) COMPLETE!

Held Together - Ch. 11 by MadeInGold (Spike/Angel, M) COMPLETE!

Darkest Before the Dawn - Ch. 82 by Luna_delCielo (Buffy, LOTR and Silmarillion xover, T) COMPLETE!

Aspectus - Ch. 1-2 by Kirinin (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

There Should Be Groveling (sequel to Redemption Redux) - Ch. 5 by slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Inner Demon = Literal Cat - Ch. 12-13 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Reweaving Time - Ch. 6 by Joan963z (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Harmless Fun - Ch. 4 by MaggieLaFey (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Place in the Sun - Ch. 15 by honeygirl51885 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

To All We Guard - Ch. 5 by simmony (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

We're Going to be Friends - Ch. 4 by scratchmeout (Buffy/Spike, R)

The Neighbor's Point of View - Ch. 20 by the_big_bad (Buffy/Spike, PG)

From Hell with Love - Ch. 13 by temporarytitle (Buffy/Spike, R)

Bring Him Home - Ch. 24 by acb6293 (Buffy/Spike, R)

Next Time Won't You Sing With Me - Ch. 14 by Willow91 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The World in Shadow - Ch. 8 by ManifoldTime (Buffy, Stargate xover, FR18)

Fate Plans and We Laugh - Ch. 10 by Hermionetobe (Buffy, Dawn, Faith, Batman xover, FR15)

An Iron Love - Ch. 7 by Buffyworldbuilder (Dawn-centered, Iron Man and Stargate xover, FR7)

Insubstantial - Ch. 5 by flootzavut (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

She Came Back Wrong - Ch. 3-4 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

There Should Be Groveling (sequel to Redemption Redux) - Ch. 5 by Slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Harmless Fun - Ch. 2 by MaggieLeFay (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

We're Going to be Friends - Ch. 4 by scratchmeout (Buffy/Spike, R)

Bring Him Home - Ch. 24 by Acb6293 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Icons: 8 Icons [4 BTVS] by debris4spike (Tara/Willow, worksafe)

Artwork oil painting: "You were the one I loved... the one thing that I tried to hold onto" by thegothicalice (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Gifset: I know that I have died before- by gehirnfussel (Spike, Buffy, Scoobies, worksafe)

Gifset: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | S7E15: Get It Done by spuffygifs (Spike, worksafe)

Gifset: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 5.07 “FOOL FOR LOVE” by spikedaily (Spike/Drusilla, NSFW)

Gifset: Buffy & Faith | Exile by slayer-pride-parade (Buffy/Faith, Angel, worksafe)

Gifset: "Why so far away, my love? Why don’t you come over and stake me?" by dailyats (Darla, worksafe)

Gifset: Riley, I don't think this relationship is gonna work... [incorrect quotes] by andremichaux (Buffy, Riley, worksafe)

[Recs & In Search Of]

ISO: alloutofbraincells seeks Buffyverse Novel recs

ISO: Full_Nefariousness92 seeks Rewatch suggestions and tips

Rec: Away-Thing-1801 recced Buffy revamped (UK)

[Fandom Discussions]

btvs but there's more sections that are just Anya... explaining Demon Stuff and Magic Stuff... by annyankers and others

Rewatching Season Six [discussion] by nightshade

"Looks can kill" - Cameron Dokey [Book discussion thread started, also several others] by Taake

How did you first come across BTVS? updated by Biatryce

Discussion of 4.04 "Fear, Itself" updated by Biatryce

POLL: Which Dawn centric episode do you think is the best? by Stoney

What buffy opinion would get you in this situation? [share your unpopular opinion] by Kalus Kartoffel and others

Is there a more terrifying vamp-face in all of Buffy than Dru? by betweenyouandyourgod

Why are there no Slayer-vampires? by menlindorn

Could the truth have gotten Buffy killed? [S2 finale] by whimsiebat

Riley wasn't that bad in season 4 by ResponsibleMoment725

Sending Glory home by LiviaDruzilla

Season 6 thoughts on how the gang act towards buffy by redsky25

In Life Serial… [Tara walks off] by poetic_soul

Interview with Elizabeth Anne Allen [Amy] (circa Summer 1999) by Tuxedo_Mark

Buffy Summers my blonde queen by Sweet-Siren

Angel Season 4 was hard to watch by jms209

The Beast arc isolated from the rest of season 4... by greetings-feline

Harmony is the best by asiamportrayed

Boys watching Buffy [podcast discussion] by chickennuggetsnsubs

Question about rewatching buffy on new 4K TV [DVDs vs streaming, HD vs not] by LeifLin

Order of Seasons by NoShow6106

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

#ats #angel the series #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #fan fiction #meta #fan art

[certified-anakinfucker]

II: 13, 15 and III: 1, 6 for DarrVector :3

HI KEM :D (ship questions redux - theyre still open, im just dying of school rn)

GENERAL 13. Which one thinks they aren't good enough for the other, if at all? Darrash thinks he is absolute DOGSHIT. He doesn't think he deserves Vector's patience, love, or general care whatsoever. For a long time after Eradication Day he wasn't sure why Vector was even still on his team, considering he betrayed Intelligence to Jadus "shamelessly" and let him carpetbomb the Empire at will.

It takes a while for Darrash to understand that Vector does love him, in spite of his.. apparently really rough week that led to him not only killing his own father in front of his brother but then taking like, a fraction of the Empire out alongside him.

15. What is their most common argument about? Typically Darrash refusing to take care of himself in any sort of sane manner. He makes an argument out of it because most of the time, he genuinely refuses to realize he requires rest at regular intervals; ESPECIALLY after the blip with Jadus.

Dude will go around awake for over 50 standard hours running on nothing but spit and spite, and wonders why when he sits down for two minutes consecutively he just immediately crashes. Vector usually gets help from Lokin in backing Darrash into self-care but even then, Darr barks back about it.

(Vector always wins.)

LOVE 1. Who said "I love you" first, and what was the situation? Lucky for you, I completely forgot about these asks and somehow got to this answer in your DMs! And to anyone else looking for Darrash lore. Um. Big sorry about this one. It'll make some sense within the next decade.

It was Darrash, right after he woke up from The Jadus Death. Still jammed tight to Vector's chest, not fully conscious yet but able to listen and sorta understand that Vector was saying he wasn't sure what he'd do without Darrash with him. And Darrash, in typical ressurected fashion, simply responded with "oh.. 'love you too" before falling asleep.

6. What are their favorite things to do together? Stargazing, naptime, snuggling for any other fathomable reason, going over any artifact they run across together. They like to wander cities and go looking for anything and nothing, when they get the chance; trying foods, listening to languages, watching the crowds of people pass by. Learning new things together. At one point they start trying to dance together, but Darrash gets so giggly about it it's impossible to focus.

And a bonus because you made the popular pitfall of suggesting it, DOMESTIC LIFE 8. Who kills the bugs in the house? The bugs, fortunately, have their own designated wing in their Alderaani estate. And actually all of the outside area. Why they want to come in the house is between them and their Dawn Herald; Darrash doesn't ask questions, nor does he mind.

Ironically this does extend to all little bugs. Darrash is the type to scoop them up into a little container to show Vector, then go outside to release them.

#cheeri inquires #oc tag | [darrash aron nealev] #i need a swtor tag #cheeri ocs #darrvector my loves my lights my shining stars #i love how every time i make a new darr ship #someones getting sandwiched between him and vector #for optimal results of course #the load-bearing vector hyllus

[corpsephage]

Sonic Frontiers Post-DLC-Three Whinefest Redux (Final Horizon Review)

After feeling left out in the cold with my divergent opinion on vanilla Frontiers, it feels good to finally share an opinion with the rest of the fanbase again. Spoilers below, but the skinny is that it's just like normal Frontiers except a lot more difficult.

I forgot to mention one thing that put me off Frontiers in my pre-DLC review: I just couldn’t handle the controls very well. I think this is just a skill issue, because I did eventually get used to them. It took my ten attempts to beat the first boss, but only one attempt to beat the last one.

So, when I fell right off the first platform of the first trial tower for the seventieth time, after spending time maxing out all of Sonic’s capabilities no less, I assumed that the problem was with me, and the game just did not cater to my ability or taste. But when I checked out Twitter – everyone else was talking about how hard it was! They were going so far as to compare it to Dark Souls. It made me feel so relieved. And a little bit of schadenfreude.

At this point I was about to turn it off and just watch a playthrough of it on YouTube to see how it ended. I’ve only rage-quitted a game like that once before with Drawn to Life: Two Realms, which is a whole other story.

But friends, thank God for easy mode. I switched the difficulty and it was smooth sailing. I don’t think there’s any shame in playing easy mode – you bought the game, play it how you want – but I had it on normal mode from when I first got Frontiers up until this stupid tower. It makes me wonder if I’d have been nicer about Frontiers as a whole if I played easy mode from the beginning.

But yes, going through the rest of the game on easy mode was a lot more manageable, except for that one part where you have to defeat those shell enemies in a certain amount of time with nothing but the cyloop. If there's a way of doing it, I don't know what it is, and I only got past it when the game took pity on me and offered to lower the trial's difficulty to something easier than easy.

But other than that, no major complaints. All my problems with the empty open world and weird plot still stand, but gameplay-wise everything was just fine. Then this prick shows up:

- and makes you fight all three non-final bosses from the base game in a row with only 400 rings to spare between them, bearing in mind your rings are constantly draining while you're fighting them, can't be restored, and if you run out it's an instant loss. Also, parries don't work unless they're bang-on perfect.

And I really struggled with the first boss in the base game! And yes, most of that was my fault, because I didn't bother to parry his attacks, and parrying is like the main mechanic that all the bosses are centered around. But I was also cocky: I thought that if Sonic ran out of rings by timeout, his super form would go away and he'd fall back to the ground along with the emeralds, and you'd have to run around the arena to pick them up again quickly before Giganto had time to heal or something. So when I ran out of rings and Giganto straight-up ate Sonic I was surprised. And I admit I got quite frustrated having to start over from the beginning every time until I slowly figured out what the boss wanted me to do.

So I beat Giganto again in this rematch, and I thought at first that was the end of it and I'd just have to fight the one boss, which was a natural step up from the other koco's challenges. But then Wyvern showed up, and it suddenly dawned on me that not only would I have to fight all of them, and my rings didn't refill between fights so I had only like seventy left, but also that if I lost, the game wouldn't start me over from the boss I was on, it would kick me back to Giganto and make me do it all again.

Obviously, there was no way I was beating Wyvern with only seventy rings, and I don't think I was quick enough to even parry it once. So I made a deal with the game and said “If I die here and the next thing I see when I respawn is Giganto, I’m turning the game off.” You can’t say I didn’t warn it.

So, yes, I actually did end up rage-quitting Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon, and I just watched how it all ends online. I didn't stick around to see if the game would make itself easier if you failed the bosses enough times. Maybe I would've been able to pass it if I kept trying, but since I wasn't wild on the whole game to begin with I didn't feel like it.

Turns out if you somehow finish the boss rush, the endgame comes straight after. And I wasn’t really missing much, by the look of it – first half of the final boss is the same as in the original game. It’s Giganto, except he’s got a gun. The second half is a bit different – it’s Giganto, except he’s got a big brain-drainer/puppet-string coming out of his head and several arms coming out his back. The big purple rock is hovering in the sky, but rather than QTE-ing it, Eggman fires Super Sonic clean through it after Giganto is beaten the second (third? Fourth? However freaking much) time. It’s got a lot of visual flair, but I really wish you could play as the other characters as well, so that the final fight feels more fully absorbed.

The ending sequence is the same too, except Sage doesn't sacrifice herself this time, and she and Eggman get their happy ending instead of a post-credits sequel hook. But while it might make Sage fans sleep a little easier, I think SEGA might have written themselves into a corner with her. The whole thrust of her character was a mopey AI that just wanted to be loved, and now she has it... what are SEGA going to do with her if they bring her back?

If she comes back evil, and joins Eggman in raining merry hell on Sonic and his friends, won't that contradict the canon of Frontiers, where Sonic taught her hope and heroism? And if she comes back good and on Sonic's side, won't that also contradict Frontiers and her loyalty to her father?

Would she go join all the other Sonic antiheroes on Team Dark? But even they have their motivations - Shadow started off a villain but realized he was being a jerk and tries to uphold world order. And while Rouge is a master criminal, she's not mean-spirited - she might rob you or cheat you out of money, but she'd never want to hurt you. What's Sage's motivation? She doesn't really get to develop a personality of her own by the end of Frontiers.

Imagine after the final boss, Sage comes up to Sonic and says she’s been thinking about her place in the world. Sonic asks her what she wants out of life, only for Sage to suddenly flash him the most deliciously evil grin an AI can muster and tell him what she wants most is to use his skin as a fur coat. Eggman comes up behind on his egg-mobile, gleeful that his daughter has finally come round, and the post-final boss is a blow-off match between Sage and Sonic, plus the other playable characters joining in on the fun. And behind the keyboard, I stand up and applaud. Maybe that would clash with Frontier's tone, but then at least Sage would come into her own and indicate her appearance in future games.

So, yeah - The Final Horizon - really didn't dig it. If the original Frontiers didn't interest you, this won't change your mind. However, there is one good thing I want to bring up that I hope Sega explores in the future: the other playable characters.

I really enjoyed playing as Tails, Amy and Knuckles. Each of them has Sonic's basic moveset, but also their own powers and abilities on top of that. Knuckles has the most familiar of movement, with his gliding, wall-climbing and seven different ways of punching people. His gliding controls take some getting used to, since it's more like wingsuit-gliding with wind resistance blowing you about the place than the simple jump-and-go Spyro-style gliding from the Adventure games.

Amy's moveset is centered around a deck of tarot cards she was mentioned to have been using in, like... one very early manual for Sonic CD. But still, I think the idea of her using magic cards has a lot of potential. Maybe different cards do different things in battle? Kill the enemy by changing their very future? Maybe it could be something like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, where the cards are all shuffled up and you have to pick which card to play at which time. There's a whole unique aspect of gameplay available to her there. Sadly, Final Horizon sticks to standard things like throwing them at people or slapping them, and doesn't take advantage of their clairvoyant or paranormal themes. Ah, well, maybe next game.

But Tails deserves special mention, because he has the most varied abilities that make use of his wacky inventions. He can launch a laser cannon at his enemies, or failing that hurl an endless supply of wrenches at them. But you know what my favourite was? His airplane. One of Tails’ abilities he can access at any time is to just hop on his plane and go off into the blue yonder. The speed and simplicity with which he could do this at the press of a button is intoxicating. I was furiously humming Ride of the Valkyries as I cruised around Uranus Island wishing it was a livelier open world. If these are the abilities we can expect from Sonic's friends, the next game could be very exciting if the level design matches up with it.

If vanilla Frontiers showed me that Sonic can work in an open world, Final Horizon showed me that his friends can too. And it's something I really hope SEGA picks up on in the future, because they really do have the bones of a great Sonic game in here, it just needs more time to cook (and a saner difficulty level).

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic frontiers #review #sonic

[elevatorelevenhatesyou]

Unification Is All Goddamn Over The Place

I need to yell at another popular thing. This time it's a fan made mod for this old strategy game called Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, specifically the Soulstorm expansion.

The last few months have been a fucking nightmare. I've sunk deeply into an old project to keep myself busy.

I made a personal mod for this game called Dawn of War. It started as a simple idea. We always wished that Imperial Guardsmen would stand closer together in their formations so that more of them could be stacked in a tight defensive line.

One day I decided, well I've heard of mods for this game, maybe I could figure out how that shit worked. So I did, and it was a long and often painfully tedious and frustrating process that involved dealing with a lot of stupid problems that didn't make any sense, as is always the case with modding things, or with programming in general. But it paid off, and I made guardsmen stand closer together.

From there it just kept snowballing. We would be playing against the computer and would say things like "I feel like X should be stronger", or "Why can you only have one Y?" or "It'd be neat if you could do Z," and then I would go AH HA! I SHALL MAKE IT SO, WITH MY MOD POWERS!

And after several years of this, the result is something that's quite an expansion on the original Dawn of War: Soulstorm. I've added some new units, tons of new abilities, and changed hundreds of other little things, and I polished it all a great deal with custom icons and tooltips and that, because it didn't feel complete otherwise.

But there was always this looming shadow just out of my sight range. For the longest time I'd heard mention of other major mods for Dawn of War. Mods that added whole new races, with custom models and some even with their own voice acting, with expansive new AI tactics. Names like Titanium Wars, Ultimate Apocalypse, Firestorm Over Kronus, Dawn of War Redux, or the much more succinctly titled Tyranids Mod.

It adds the Tyranids, you see.

I never tried any of that though, because I wasn't interested in opening that can of worms. I have no ability to make models or rig animations, and coding is horrifying witchcraft to me. A while ago, though, I decided I'd give a few of those big mods a look, starting with the mod of mods, Dawn of War: Unification. Maybe I could find stuff to steal.

Unification is a little less of its own alteration project and more of a big tool that combines a whole bunch of New Race mods into one big single thing, and I'd seen some article headlines lying around gaming websites saying things like 'Unification mod breathes new life into this fifteen year old game' or some such, and it always would feature prominently on various "top x best Dawn of War mods you should totally try out" lists.

Turns out Unification sucks and I hate it.

Like holy shit. What an ungodly mess it is.

Firstly I should say, I haven't looked into the credits at all, and each of, or at least some of, these new races was a separate mod before being compiled into Unification, so when I shit talk Unification in general, I'm not specifically blaming anybody in particular because I don't know who was responsible for what. I won't name any names, because I don't know any. When I use "they" or "the authors" or "the creators" or what have you, I'm only referring to whoever was making the given part I'm currently talking about, and I'll try not to make sweeping statements as though a single group of people did everything.

Secondly, I'm aware I'm talking about a free mod for a really old video game. You might say well it's just groups of fans, these are made by like at best indie developers, it's all passion projects, don't you think you're being really harsh here?

To which I say I USED THE SAME FUCKIN SOAP YOU DID As mentioned I have a mod project of my own, it started years ago, recently picked it back up, been working on it basically nonstop for the past three or four months because it's really comfortable busywork for my hands to occupy all the parts of my mind that otherwise won't shut the fuck up about how worthless I am as a person.

I'm not sure if it's frustrating or gratifying that other modders have had bunch of the same ideas I had, like adding conscript squads to the Imperial Guard or Retributors to the Sisters of Battle. I hadn't planned on ever making like a public release of the thing I've made, it's just something to play by myself or with my brother and a buddy or two, but maybe I SHOULD try turning it into a big public downloadable thing, since I've now seen some of the competition and it was so jarringly terrible that it somehow made me hate myself less, which I didn't even know could happen. Maybe I can supplant Unification and become lord of Dawn of War mods and then my fanfiction ideas will get so popular they get written into the Warhammer 40,000 canon, and then all the money will be mine and I won't need to get a fucking job, Mom!

anyway

PART 1

WHAT'S THIS GUY? HE IS UGLY!

Despite what I just said about not making sweeping statements, I do have to say there are a few problems that seem to be omnipresent throughout, or at least throughout most everything but the Witch Hunters. The Witch Hunters one is pretty solid.

I think I can say as a general summary: It's mostly highly technically proficient with no taste whatsoever. Great effort was put into things that should not have been done, and not enough effort was put into polish or actual game design.

Spelling errors? For real?

"He" is the only leader they'll accept, even though that looks and sounds like a woman.

Overindulgence is a recurring theme. I'll start with the User Interface because that seems like the least important thing to complain about.

The UI is ugly. It's hideous. I mean obviously ugly comes down to personal taste, but this goes past that because this is seriously so busy that it interferes with one's ability to actually read the buttons.

So many details, so much contrast, everything is a mess of high saturation colors.

I did not edit any of these images, this is how it looks in the actual mod. This insane loud blaring shitty nightmare.

Here's what the game looks like normally, by the way, without fanwank all over it.

Why are the icons changed? I mean first of all, why did you even bother to do this? Secondly, why did you make them worse? They're just ugly and obtrusive now like everything else that was changed for no reason! So obtrusive that it actually damages my ability to concentrate on the game, in two ways. A, it's the first impression a new player gets, and boy is it negative when it looks this messy and stupid, and it is stupid because B, it actually obscures other parts of the UI, which is such an unbelievably boneheaded and amateurish thing to do that I can't quite believe it's still like this. Did I miss a patch or something? The files on ModDatabase seemed pretty recent.

This does not inspire confidence in the rest of the mod. AH HA, turns out the interface WASN'T the least important after all! But people might THINK it was the least important because they think it has no tangible effect on gameplay! Except it DOES! Because it affects the feel of the whole experience when you're playing a game that might take hours and a lot of it is about careful management but part of your visual cortex is screaming the whole time about WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BIG ORANGE BLOB DOWN HERE, IT POPS OUT SO MUCH AGAINST THE REST OF THE BACKDROP, DO I HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO THAT!? and it's sucking up some of your concentration without you even knowing it! This shit is exactly why nobody can remember anything that happens in Michael Bay movies! Where was that bit of Lindsay Ellis explaining this shit..

Continuing with the theme of ugliness and lack of taste, on to the custom 3D models for new units and buildings.

Gotta say first, some of these custom models are amazing. I really like the look of some of these buildings, especially Thousand Sons.

Not all of them though.

Yikes.

Are these imported from Tera Online? I mean Tera IS a monument to Slaanesh, but still, you don't think this is really out of place?

The naked lady mannequin mounted on this guy’s pauldron is a nice touch, but her head is literally always clipping through his back spiky thing.

is that desmond miles

Animations especially are almost uniformly bad. And I mean, I'm sure this shit's hard, but like.. I don't think it's unreasonable to say wow this looks gross. This is a janky mess, and sometimes some animations are even missing entirely. 

Lots of models scrape along the ground when they move because their walk cycles don't sync up properly with their speed.

I don't know much about 3D modelling so I can't really articulate in detail why some look good and most look bad, but some of them are really good, and not just the ones that are taken from Dawn of War 2.

Even though I'm about to go on a huge tangent about how many goddamn Space Marines there are, there's actually been some real work put into making some of these chapters look distinct. Black Templars, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves Thirteenth Company could use a bit more maybe, but a bunch of Dark Angels have hoods or cloaks, and most of the Imperial Fists have big clunky heavier looking helmets and armor. The Thousand Sons are all angular and weird. And of course, the World Eaters and Emperor's Children are covered in garbage because they're all fuckin crazy.

Good stuff.

Anyone want to take a second pass at some of these Daemons of Chaos models though? Please? They are awful. I think they may have been awful for a very long time. Does anyone care? No? You're all too busy making even more fucking space marines? Ahkay.

PART 2

THE "I'M SICK OF SPACE MARINES" TANGENT

This is more of a thing I have against the state of Warhammer 40,000 in general than against these mods specifically, though I can still level it at them too. Literally more than half of the playable races in this thing are some form of space marine. Higher if we broaden it to also include the Sisters. And we should, because they're basically also space marines.

DON'T give me one single shit about how the Sisters of Battle and the Space Marines are totally different factions as far apart as Space Marines and Orks or Space Marines and Necrons. If you think that, you are wrong, and I don't want to hear that stupid pretentious gatekeeping bullshit. They're humans in heavy armor, they serve the Imperium, they worship the Emperor of Mankind, they have a really strong religious theme, and they always go on about crushing the heretic. They are both from the same Priest/Cleric/Paladin "Holy Warrior" Archetype. They even have a ton of the same weapons and use a lot of the same tanks.

If it were up to me there wouldn't even be a Sisters of Battle organization, some Space Marines would just be girls.

And don't give a single shit about THAT either! It'd be EASY, here let me show you. The lore says something something the genetic modification process to turn a normal human into a space marine only works on men because it comes from the genetic templates of the Primarchs who were all men because they were clones of the Emperor, oh my would you look at that, we just uncovered some Dark Age of Technology stuff deep inside Mars or something that improves the process a whole bunch, fewer candidates are dying from the process than ever before, what good news, and oh wow look at that it even works on women now, they get huge and muscular and most of them go bald and we put them in exactly the same heavy armor as every other space marine, bam, done, girl space marines, no fucking problem. Yknow all that stuff I just said about why it doesn't work on girls? You know that stuff is fantasy bullshit that was made up right? Like it's not true, it was written by writers, they can just WRITE MORE THINGS. And it'd even be easier now since they just did that whole thing where like a bunch of Primarchs came back. Fuck all that deteriorating geneseed shit, we have access to actual Primarchs now! Hey Robert, roll up your sleeve for a second!

Erm. what was I saying

right too big a focus on Space Marines. More than half of all the races are minor variations on space marines. Let's have a look at the math. Here's a complete list of the races included in the current version of Unification:

Dark Angels, Imperial Fists, Daemon Hunters, Legion of the Damned, Salamanders, Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, Blood Angels, Black Templars, Thirteenth Company, and Witch Hunters are all Space Marines or Basically Space Marines, and Chaos Marines, Emperor's Children, World Eaters, and Thousand Sons are all Evil Space Marines. And then Imperial Guard, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Steel Legion are all still humans, just not actual Space Marines.

1. Dark Eldar 2. Chaos Daemons 3. Eldar 4. Harlequins 5. Necrons 6. Orks 7. Tau Empire 8. Tyranids Out of twenty six factions, EIGHT of them are aliens, and five of those eight are aliens that were included in the base game and didn't come from any mods. THREE out of SEVENTEEN custom races included in the Unification mod are actual aliens, and ALL of the rest are different flavors of human. Less than a fifth. It's like fucking Mass Effect 2 and 3 in here.

I hear they're working on adding the Death Guard next. They too are Space Marines.

Remember when this galaxy had aliens in it?

Yes I'm counting the Chaos Daemons as aliens at the moment, because they're at least non-human. And that's really generous, because they're still Chaos, which is the same faction as all the Evil Space Marines, which means like three quarters of this list are the Imperium Vs Chaos conflict.

But like I said this is more a stupid annoying thing that Games Workshop is doing with Warhammer 40k. Space Marine miniatures are popular, so they write more lore for Space Marines, which makes them more popular, etc, etc, now basically everything is Space Marines vs Chaos Space Marines. GW recently announced the Squats are coming back. While I'm happy about that because they're space dwarves, they're still aligned with the Imperium, and it's looking kinda like they're basically more humans in power armor AKA more Space Marines.

Anybody remember Genestealers?

I think they actually got a new tabletop rulebook recently, plus they were the bad guys in that Space Hulk Deathwing game, and seems the Dawn of War community cared so little about them that nobody's even working on a mod that adds them as a race to Unification.

PART 3

DO YE ALWAYS YAP SO MUCH, HUMIE?

Gonna complain about the sound now, so nothing to take pictures of.

A lot of new custom units have new custom voices. Some of them are thankfully just made of clips from other Dawn of War games and that's all grand, though the Dawn of War 2 orks do have a slightly different feel, but it's not a big issue. Unfortunately the majority of the custom voice work is pretty awful, obviously. It's to be expected from people who aren't like an actual professional studio or whatever; high variance in acting talent, microphone quality, that sort of thing. I'm prepared to forgive bad acting if it's not extremely annoying, but, much of it is extremely annoying.

I'm gonna single out the Imperial Fists to pick on here because not only is the acting bad but they are also extremely loud. Continuing the theme of lack of polish, it seems like nobody's done any proper volume balancing.

Also, this is a minor thing, but, a lot of the Emperor's Children chaos guys pronounce it, like, "SLANish" or something? Almost like "Spanish" but with an L. I mean it's a made up word that appeared in print for like years before anybody said it out loud or whatever, I don't know if there's like an official pronunciation or anything, but they do pronounce it "Slah-NESH" in every other licensed Warhammer game I've ever seen. Up to and including the very one that this mod is for..

So that's kinda weird.

Continuing the other running theme of problems: extreme self indulgence and poor design choices. The acting would be a lot easier to forgive if there wasn't so FUCKING MUCH OF IT.

These lines are VERY long. They're stuck up their own ass with bad jokes and bits of lore, not to mention the usual Warhammer verbosity taking the place of personality. I click on this Sororitas Landraider and she babbles out like three entire sentences. Every time I click on it. Jokes are bad. I don't mean the jokes they make are bad (I think they're bad, of course, but you can decide for yourselves), I mean making jokes in unit response lines is a bad idea. Lines should be concise and simple, but some dimwit decided that short lines are beneath them. Yeah calling you out specifically this time, whoever that was who wrote that script guidelines bit on the revora forum about "one word responses are okay here and there but you shouldn't have very many." Yeah you, ya idiot, short responses are fucking wonderful. Maximum of FORTY WORDS? Fuck that shit, your maximum ought to be like a third that length.

Lines get repeated in a game like this A LOT. You click on units, and they say a line. You tell them to do a thing, and they say a line. Clicking on units and telling them to do things is LITERALLY ALL YOU DO IN ORDER TO PLAY THIS GAME. You will be hearing the same lines over and over again, forever. Lines become memes basically automatically. Short responses that are simple and concise don't take up room in your head. They can be repeated any number of times, and it doesn't ever become tiresome.

Jokes, on the other hand, even if they are actually funny, are never funny the second time. This can only work if they are not self indulgent and out of place, and still fit the character, and above all, again, are VERY SHORT.

Dawn of War 2 loved putting little jokes and memes and references in dialogue. The Imperial Guard Inquisitor sometimes says "My chief weapons are surprise and fear!" Oh hey a Monty Python reference, lol, funny. The first time it's funny, but after that it just becomes a thing the Inquisitor says sometimes, so it has to fit that role too. And it does, because it still fits her character, it isn't obtrusive if you don't know the reference because it still works in context, and it is VERY SHORT.

Incidentally over in Ultimate Apocalypse they gave this line to this lieutenant lady because ha ha monty python funny joke except the joke is that this line is said by the INQUISITOR in Dawn of War 2 so why the FUCK did you idiots give it to this lady, it isn't even a joke about her being an inquisitor quoting monty python spanish inquisition anymore

Yeah Ultimate Apocalypse also sucks, but it has a much more specific focus, ie bringing in all the superduper giant units, so if that's your bag, go nuts I guess. I think they're rubbish too, obviously. That's a different rant.

The only real exception to the length issue that I can think of is if it fits the character to talk for a really long time, and more importantly if it doesn't become obtrusive. IE, Thule in Dawn of War 2 talks a lot, but he's a dreadnought, so 1, he's like a messed up brain damaged half asleep sorta guy so it fits for him to ramble a bunch about weird shit all the time, 2, he speaks in a very deep low mumble that easily gets drowned out by more important things, and 3, his voice is really cool.

If your voice isn't as awesome as the Dawn of War 2 dreadnought, fuckin keep it short.

Lore can similarly be worked in only if it's really short. In the Dark Crusade expansion these special marines got added called Grey Knights, and if you click on them sometimes they say "The Ordo Malleus has sent us to aid you." Ah ha, these guys who look different come from something called the Ordo Malleus, and they're special somehow. Lore understood! But most importantly, again, for the cheap seats in the back, this line is one sentence of nine words and takes less than two seconds to say.

Oh, and of course it's not just the voices. Tooltips are also written with lore and jokes and in-character blather. Tooltips! Like, the little descriptions that appear when you mouse-over an icon! This too is very up its own ass.

It's pretentious, it's super proud of itself, it sounds just like the goofy walls of text from the Warhammer rulebooks that talk for multiple pages about how goddamn amazing these units and their weapons are, they know no fear and their mighty blades rend flesh and armor alike, etc, etc, etc, on and on and on and on, and by know no fear I actually mean they have a morale check leadership score only one better than the regular-ass-human Imperial Guardsmen.

And that stuff is fine if it's confined to those preliminary pages about dispensing background information. I mean I hate that style of writing but again, that's up to personal taste so whatever. But the most important thing to take away from those parts of the rulebooks is that they are SEPARATE from the ACTUAL RULES.

Oh look! USEFUL INFORMATION! Thanks, Warhammer rulebook!

If you stuff this shit and this style into the actual descriptions then it's just a useless waste of time that gets in the way when I'm trying to learn what the fuck this button does!

You know who got this right? Dawn of War Redux got this right.

Ahh it's beautiful.

Ahg no fuck take it away

PART 4

IF ANY DICE MATCH, THEY EXPLODE

SO SPEAKING OF THAT GAME DESIGN STUFF. Much of it is overcomplicated pointless shit.

Lore is a crutch. For my mod I always first and foremost tried to make it, yknow, fun. Like, to play. Stuff like, I tried to give each race a unique theme and playstyle that fits their personality. Lore accuracy was never a priority. I looked at the rulebooks for inspiration, not as a bible. These mods were made by people who care more about adhering to lore than making a polished well designed game. I know, because they've all made scout marines a melee unit that must be upgraded to have a decent ranged attack, even though scout marines are fucking garbage in melee and they should never try to fight things in close combat or they'll die instantly. Why the hell would they make them a melee unit first? Because that's how it is in the space marines rulebook.

Why the hell does the rulebook do this? I do not know. Nobody knows. It's a dumb idea.

The tabletop rules have a LOT of customization options. Because, like, it's a tabletop game played with miniature figures. Games Workshop heavily promotes customizing your army however you want, like with lots of units to choose from and lots of weapons and equipment for each unit, but also with lots of color schemes for different groups within each faction, and of course with lots of different factions too. They do this partly because that's a big element of the appeal of tabletop games and the Warhammer 40k franchise in general, and also because, yknow, they want you to buy more miniatures.

But an unfortunate consequence of having lots of options and promoting the Space Marines so much over the years is that now there are a billion and a half possible permutations of a Space Marine army, and for some reason the kind of people who love the Space Marines so fucking much that they want to add specifically the Thirteenth Company of specifically the Space Wolves chapter of the Space Marines faction specifically during the time in their history where they were trapped in the Eye of Terror so their primary headquarters building is a hijacked chaos warp portal

have decided that they want to include ALL OF THEM.

Jesus Christ, Dark Angels. Calm the fuck down.

Since it’s hard to tell from just a screenshot, there are twenty two different types of squads here. Some of them are made up of more than one type of unit, ie a bunch of marines and one marine sergeant. Additionally, there’s a force commander there, but there are four other kinds of commander that I could choose from, I’m just limited to only one commander at a time. ALSO additionally, this is just one of three branches that I could have taken this faction, which would have replaced some of these unit options with other ones.

Most races have some kind of branching mutually exclusive options thing. Like you'll have to pick one of three different researches and each one opens up some units but closes off others, like the Dark Angels here who can choose between putting all their guys on bikes, or getting the heavy armor guys, or all of the flying units. Or something. I didn't read all of the text, my mind started to glaze over.

So, altogether the Dark Angels faction has like sixty or seventy different units available. In the above screenshot I opened up the files in the mod editor program and the list of Dark Angels units literally doesn’t fit on the screen. Look at all those units in one race. This is ridiculous.

For comparison, here's the normal Space Marine faction from the base game. And many of those aren’t units available for regular multiplayer games, like all those _sp ones or the _prisoner ones, those are only for the single player campaign.

I suspect that many of these inclusions are largely because they wanted to add every unit idea they could think of, but then they realized that doing so would result in a roster of like forty types of unit available to one faction, and the mutual exclusivity was the go to method for reducing the number of units a player has access to in a given match. They did not appear to consider the possibility that a new player would then have to learn all of this shit and get overwhelmed and annoyed.

Since I praised Witch Hunters before I'll balance it out by picking on it here. What's really the point between choosing between making the Inquisition Path get Arco-flagellants and the Sororitas Path get Sisters Repentia when both of them are high damage high health slow melee focused heavy infantry? They both get slightly different versions of the Exorcist artillery tank too. In the base game there's only one instance of mutually exclusive build choices (well two I guess, the Necron Lord's artifacts, but they only change what abilities he has, not what units the player has access to so it matters less) and that's the Tau Empire having to choose between the Montka Command Post or the Kauyon Command Post, one of which lets you have Kroot Hounds, the Krootox, and better regular infantry, and the other lets you have Crisis Battlesuits and Hammerhead Gunships, but those two pairs of units are REALLY different. Crisis Suits and Hammerheads are huge ranged damage powerhouses while Hounds and Krootoxes are both pretty much melee only. Crisis Suits can jump, which opens up more tactical options, while Krootoxes have an assload of health, much more than (nearly) every other Tau unit, which gives you a solid front line that can draw enemy fire.

Personally I don't even like the exclusivity thing when it's done well because I'm an anxious wreck who can't handle important decisions, so in my mod I just let the Tau build both command posts. It's fine, really, I mean they're still limited by the same vehicle cap and shit.

What is the point of these changes? The Imperial Fists have some kind of different way to upgrade their resource acquisition, but I never really noticed it mattering. The Chaos Daemons have this thing where the power resource is replaced with "daemonic power" which is used to cast abilities mostly instead of building big vehicles, and they have a different method of spending the other resource to get it instead of building power generators, but this too doesn't really change the way they play. You still build the trade building just like you build power generators, and you get enough of it that you're hardly ever in danger of actually running out once a big battle gets going. It's a new system, but the player interacts with it in exactly the same way as before, so what's the point?

Oh but the World Eaters have a thing I unironically think is awesome. Their resources go up when they hit people, that's excellent, and actually does change gameplay. I do think all the extra Blood resource stuff and the fifty different types of units is still in the same bad habits category as the rest though. I know they're the World Eaters Legion but we really don't need like six different flavors of Berserker.

Pictured, from left to right, guys who hit stuff, guys who hit stuff, guys who hit stuff, guys who hit stuff, and guys who hit stuff.

Again, I get the feeling that these are ideas that sounded cool, so somebody made them, but then they didn't really think about how they would actually play. Like I said, this stuff is fun to make and it's cool to show that you made it. And like, I get that, I did a bunch of that too. I just also get neurotic about creating a thing that's polished enough to pass for professional work because of all my self worth issues, and very little of this looks like it'd pass for Not Obviously A Fan Mod.

As for how each of these races is balanced against each other, I have no idea, I haven't played much of it, and certainly never against other people. On one hand my instinct says the balance is probably awful since balance is difficult and time consuming and everything else seems flimsy and unpolished, but on the other hand I know some species of PvP Asshole care more about balance than about lore, so maybe that's the thing they've actually put effort into. I wouldn't know, I don't touch PvP in anything.

I'm running out of concrete things to complain about in the gameplay since I haven't played much of it, what with the first impressions being so terrible, and this is getting too long already. Unification is such a mess that I don't even know if I'm going to bother scavenging bits of it for my own mod. It makes me angry because this modding community seems to know how to do all the things I wish I could do, but this mod sucks at all the polish stuff that I'm neurotic about. Perhaps we could make something truly amazing if we worked together, but I'm a really unpleasant person to be around even if I weren't riddled with crippling anxiety and depression, so, yknow. And I can’t learn any of the other stuff like models and animation and sound because these people also can’t write tutorials worth a damn.

Oh yeah and sometimes the game just fuckin crashes. Brilliant.

#warhammer 40000 #warhammer 40k #wh40k #dawn of war #soulstorm #dawn of war: soulstorm #mod #fan mod #unification #unification mod #space marines #adeptus astartes #chaos #chaos space marines #heretic astartes #more space marines #so many space marines #too many fucking space marines #and none of them are girls #no seriously why aren't there girl space marines #rant #analysis #critique

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[chorusfm]

Albums in Stores – Jul 14th, 2023

If you hit read more you can see all the releases we have in our calendar for the week. Hit the comments to access our forums and talk about what came out today, what albums you picked up, and to make mention of anything we may have missed. Aetherian – At Storm’s EdgeBeing Dead – When Horses Would RunBlake Mitchell – Jelly RoadCalligram – Position | MomentumCavalera – Bestial Devastation (Re-Recorded)Cavalera – Morbid Visions (Re-Recorded)Chamber – A Love To Kill ForCharlotte Sands – Good NowClaud – SupermodelsClutch – PA Tapes (Live in Seattle 10-10-2022)Colter Wall – Little SongsCrown Magnetar – Everything BleedsCurrent Affairs – Off The TongueDeitus – IrreversibleEnd Reign – The Way Of All Flesh Is DecayEvile – The UnknownFreedom Call – The M.E.T.A.L. FestGordon Lightfoot – At Royal Albert HallIsadora Eden – forget what makes it glowJ Hus – Beautiful And Brutal YardKim Dracula – A Gradual Decline In MoraleKool & The Gang – People Just Wanna Have FunLindstrøm – Everyone Else Is A StrangerLucinda Williams – Stories From A Rock N Roll HeartLukas Nelson & Promise of the Real – Sticks And StonesMahalia – IRLMoodring – Your Light Fades AwayNuclear Remains – Dawn Of Eternal SufferingPJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year DyingPVRIS – EvergreendiscussPalehound – Eye On The BatPaul Langlois Band – Guess WhatQuiet Man – The Starving LessonRita Ora – You & ISailing Before The Wind – One Step Over (Remixes)Sam Burton – Dear DepartedThe Devil’s Trade – Vidékek Vannak IdebennThe Parallax Method – Folie à TroisVarious Artists – Balladeers, RedefinedVarious Artists – Superunknown (Redux)Voice Of Baceprot – RetasVoyager – Fearless In Love --- Thanks to helloiamzach for providing additional contributions to this week’s list. You can check out and support his weekly music podcast It’s Not A Phase or follow him on his socials. --- Please consider becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/albums-in-stores-today/albums-in-stores-jul-14th-2023/

[xtruss]

Muslims gather to offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India. Eid al-Fitr marks a joyful end to Ramadan, a sacred month of fasting and prayer. The three-day festival is celebrated in many different ways across the world. Photograph By Javed Dar, Xinhua/Getty Images

See How Muslims Celebrate Eid al-Fitr Around The World

From beachside prayers in Senegal to colorful festivals in Pakistan, these pictures show the many ways that Muslims observe the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

— By Gulnaz Khan | April 17, 2023

When the sun sets on April 20, Muslims around the world will look skyward for a crescent of pale white light—the conclusion to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan emblazoned in the night sky.

Beginning and ending with the new moon, Ramadan falls on the ninth month of the Arabic lunar calendar. It is believed by Muslims to be when the first verses of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad more than a millennium ago. From sunrise to sunset, Muslims abstain from food, drink, and vices like gossip and lying. Not only is it meant to be a period of self-reflection, but to serve as a reminder to be charitable to the less fortunate.

Eid al-Fitr, Arabic for “festival of breaking fast," is celebrated over three days at the end of Ramadan through prayer, feasts, parades, gifts, and charitable giving. Here's a look at how it is celebrated around the world.

Dakar, Senegal 🇸🇳! Senegalese Muslims are seen before they perform Eid al-Fitr prayer in the backyard and adjacent beach of the Mausoleum Seydina Limamou in Dakar, Senegal, on July 18, 2015. Prayer is an important part of Eid celebrations, and is typically performed in the morning along with other community members in an open space such as this one. Photograph By Cemil Oksuz, Anadulo Agency/Getty Images

Beijing, China 🇨🇳! Chinese Hui Muslim men light incense after Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of Ramadan at the historic Niujie Mosque on July 6, 2016, in Beijing. Of an estimated 23 million Muslims in China, nearly half are Hui, who are ethnically Chinese and speak Mandarin. China's constitution provides for Islam as one of five "approved" religions in the officially atheist country, although the government enforces severe limits. Worship is permitted only at state-sanctioned mosques and proselytizing in public is illegal. During Ramadan, Hui Muslims fast from dawn until dusk. Photograph By Kevin Frayer, Getty Imagrs

West Java, Indonesia 🇮🇩! Indonesian Muslims attend Eid al-Fitr prayers along the banks of the river Cisadane in Bogor, West Java, on May 2, 2022. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world with an estimated 205 million adherents—or roughly 88 percent of its population. Photograph By Adriana Adie, Nurphoto/Getty Images

Karachi, Pakistan 🇵🇰! People enjoy camel riding during an Eid al-Fitr festival in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 5, 2022. In Pakistan, Eid is an important time for families and friends to get together to celebrate the end of the fast—and greet each other with a traditional, "Eid Mubarak." Photograph By Str, Xinhua/Getty Images

London, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿! Two ladies, both named Fatima, take a walk through Regent's Park in London to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. The number of Muslims in England and Wales has gone up from 2.7 million in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2021​. ​London hosts an annual festival ​in Trafalgar Square to ​mark the end of Ramadan. Photograph By Elliott Franks, Eyevine/Redux

Beirut, Lebanon 🇱🇧! Lebanese whirling dervishes perform during the holy month of Ramadan in the capital Beirut's Verdun Street on June 8, 2017. The ritual of whirling dervishes is observed by Sufi Muslims in honor of the 13th century poet Rumi. Though commonly associated with Turkey, NPR notes that there "are now many Sufi dervish orders around the world." Photograph By Anwar Amro, AFP/Getty Images

Los Angeles, USA 🇺🇸! Children in south Los Angeles celebrate Eid al-Fitr. An estimated three to four million American Muslims from a diverse swath of races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds represent a growing minority in the U.S. Photograph By Lyndsey Addario, National Geographic Image Collection

Jalalabad, Afghanistan 🇦🇫! An Afghan circus performer rides a motorcycle on the so-called "Wall of Death" at a fair on the second day of Eid al-Fitr in Jalalabad on August 9, 2013. ​ Photograph By Noorullah Shirzada, AFP/Getty Images (Top)

Moscow, Russia 🇷🇺! Muslims gather to offer prayers at the central mosque in Moscow on July 5, 2016. The city is home to about a million Muslims—and the Moscow Times reports that there's limited space at the Cathedral Mosque "so worshippers often spill out onto the surrounding streets." Photograph By Alrxander Utkin, AFP/Getty Images (Bottom)

Gaza City, Occupied Palestine 🇵🇸! A Palestinian performer amuses onlookers with a wire which ignites sparks on the top of debris in front of Gaza City's Italian Tower, on June 22, 2015. ​As documented by the Palestine Chronicle, Eid is typically celebrated in Gaza through outdoor prayers, visits to the graves of dead relatives and, on the lighter side, plenty of festivities. Photograph By Ali Hassan, Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Thursday, June 1st and Friday, June 2nd

GILES: It also says that for a demon he's unusually sophisticated. BUFFY: Sophisticated. So I should discuss men's fashions with him before I chop his head off? GILES: (exasperated) They're referring to the fact that he does not fight bare-handed.

~~The Replacement~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

drinking games by untiljanuary (Buffy/Spike, M)

In Faith's Hands by rubberduck2723 (Buffy/Faith, E)

Accidental Slumber by Loki_Dokie_Okie (Giles/reader, G)

Lingering Cry of a Song by Hecate (Buffy, Faith, G)

Dawn And Andrew by daviderl (Dawn/Andrew, T)

I.T.A.L.Y. by HAL1500 (Jenny/Giles, G)

Service Me by desicat (Buffy/Spike, E)

Redemption Redux by slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Service Me by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Redemption Redux by Slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

[Chaptered Fiction]

There Should Be Groveling - Ch. 1 by slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, strong R)

objects in the mirror are not as they appear - Ch. 1 by BeatriceEveryTuesday (Jenny/Giles, T)

There Should Be Groveling - Ch. 1 by Slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, M)

La passion anime nos cœurs. - Ch. 31 by AngelicaR2 (Willow/Tara, Xander/Anya, Buffy/Faith, T) Language: Français COMPLETE!

Buffy the Sims Player - Ch. 7 by HarlowTurner_1 (multiple pairings, The Sims xover, T) COMPLETE!

Back Through the Woods - Ch. 15 by desicat (Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Spike, Anya/Graham, T) COMPLETE!

That Time Buffy Needed a Lawyer - Ch. 9 by Borednow86 (Angel/Nina Ash, Buffy/Angel, M) COMPLETE!

Rising Dawn - Ch. 5 by JWS1993 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

There Should Be Groveling (sequel to Redemption Redux) - Ch. 1 by slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Stab in the back - Ch. 5 by MelG_2005 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Reweaving Time - Ch. 4 by Joan963z (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Harmless Fun - Ch. 3 by MaggieLaFey (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Place in the Sun - Ch. 11 by honeygirl51885 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

To All We Guard - Ch. 4 by simmony (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

We're Going to be Friends - Ch. 3 by scratchmeout (Buffy/Spike, R)

Encased by Sunshine - Ch. 13 by acb6293 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

105: Intro To Vampyre - Ch. 11 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

From Hell with Love - Ch. 11 by temporarytitle (Buffy/Spike, R)

Under The Rubble - Ch. 25 by Geliot99 (Buffy/Spike, R)

Hold My Hand Even Though I’m a Sinner! - Ch. 33 by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Healed By Love - Ch. 20 by Buffyworldbuilder (Buffy, The Vampire Diaries xover, FR21)

Fate Plans and We Laugh - Ch. 9 by Hermionetobe (Buffy, Dawn, Faith, Batman xover, FR15)

Cross Purposes 3 - Ch. 159 by DianeCastle (Xander, others, multi xover, FR13)

Origins - Ch. 45 by Niamh (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

There Should Be Groveling (sequel to Redemption Redux) - Ch. 1 by Slaymesoftly (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Joker and the Queen - Ch. 4 by TheSunnySlayer (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Encased in Sunshine - Ch. 13 by Acb6293 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

We're Going to be Friends - Ch. 3 by scratchmeout (Buffy/Spike, R)

Dawn the Vampire Slayer - Ch. 14 by LJ94 (Buffy/Spike, R)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Lego: Happy Pride Month! ❤️ by tmcarlee (Tara, Willow, worksafe)

Tattoo: My tat by Logical_Army7051 (worksafe)

Gifset: @pscentral​ event 15 ♥ favorite ship “Do you ever think about..." by someonefantastic (Cordelia x Angel, worksafe)

Gifset: She keeps it pumping straight to my heart by 5bi5 (Buffy, Faith, worksafe with flashing lights)

Icons: Faith Lehane icon pack by onegirlinallthewrld (Faith, worksafe)

Artwork: you’re welcome giles by defiant-art (Giles, worksafe)

[Reviews & Recaps]

PODCAST: Leg Bowing - Angel S04E18 - Shiny Happy People by Pop Culture Role Call

PODCAST: Episode 99: Triangle by Myth Taken BTVS

[Community Announcements]

Kink of the Month ~ June by thespangelkink

Mini Challenge #3 by thespangelkink

Signups for 2023! by summer_of_giles

[Fandom Discussions]

[thoughts on Xander reacting to Anya and Spike] by nevergonnabemuchmorethanweather

Xander to Buffy in DEAD Man's Party: "Did you even TRY..." by nevergonnabemuchmorethanweather

Your Rewrites by hoponlilmama

Rewrite any scene updated by Miss Muffet

Rewatching Season Six [group discussion starting] by nightshade

Discussion of 2.17 "Disharmony" [ATS] updated by Anyanka Bunny Slayer

Happy Pride Month! how did the show help you on your journey? by fefififum23

What do you think would have happened in Season 5 if Dawn were a 16 year old guy? by Buffvamporigfan

Happy pride 🏳️‍🌈 by HopeMikaelson69

Faith [did she want to be Buffy or be with Buffy?] by Superb_Cicada8375

POLL: Who's the better dresser, Cordelia or Buffy ? by LouisaEveryday

why do you think spike kept his accent and angel didnt? by Dazzling_Pirate1411

How popular was Sarah during the 90s/2000s? by RangerLongjumping404

POLL: I would not reverse any permanent death from either Buffy or Angel by InfiniteMehdiLove

POLL: Which Buffy character should be eliminated? by Princesstea93

Soooo I've started the comics by whimsiebat

They should make a new Buffy videogame by ScorpioLibraPisces

Unpopular Opinion: Buffy's choice at the end of The Gift was selfish rather than noble by Caverjen

S5 E16 The body by Twinmomwineaddict

How would a fight between Glory and Spike With The Gem Of Amara go? by Brief-Cryptographer2

Vamps… [vamp face] by DressedInCotton

Is Lorn a Demon? by Moon_Logic

How do Wesley and Gunn factor into Jasmine's plan? by asiantorontonian88

Wesley and Faith in the early days....[and in S4 ATS] what was your opinion on them? by Zealousideal_Buy1577

How would you write [spoiler] into season 5? [Cordelia, ATS] by greetings-feline

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