#and his wrath is uncontested

[greycaelum]

Alpha Gojo 🤧

Scribbles and Doodles: Alpha Gojo Headcannons

—Businessman Alpha Gojo Satoru X Secretary Beta Reader

𑁍 Synopsis:

"What? Mr. Gojo." You snap at him without looking up from your PC. Satoru sighed at the furious sound of your keyboard being beaten down by forceful fingers.

"Now, don't be like that pretty girl. Where's my 'Satoru'?" He leans down with his hands on the edges of the table, staring at his pretty secretary's evading eyes. "I didn't mean snapping earlier, you know my life would be a nightmare without you." He feels like his gut is filled with sand when you're upset with him.

𑁍 Genre: a/b/o dynamics, businessman x secretary

𑁍 CW/TW: (1.1k)— alpha-beta relationship, office romance, scenting, arguments if you squint, touchy/clingy alpha

𑁍 A/N: me imagining alpha Satoru in all black suit going to work, I'd never skip working, Sir, please *sigh* guilty distractions

• That being said, Satoru is the kind of alpha that makes heads turn when he's nearby. His presence gravitates attention to him and he's hard to read with those dark glasses covering his eyes most of the time. The fact he runs his family's conglomerate single-handedly as the uncontestable chairman of the board of directors speaks enough of the sheer authority he holds.

• Most annoying one you'll ever meet. Out of all the alphas you have met, he takes the icing for being the most irritating and condescending one. But in truth, he's a loving and affectionate alpha, that side reserved solely to his mate.

• That's why it is no surprise ladies fall on their knees for his attention. Omegas in particular chase him like a moth to fire.

• But little does everyone know, he could care less about the submissive omegas that'd do his back and call. Satoru prefers self-sufficient, honest, and a lil' naive beta who always makes his coffee bloody bitter when he's being a jerk. His eyes linger a little longer whenever you're too absorbed writing down his work for the day. Pretty lil' missus got a stray hair his fingers badly want to tuck behind your ear.

• His lil' missus is unlike the girls that beg for his attention. You're the best thing he's ever had since working. Hardworking and efficient, clumsy and outspoken sometimes, but nothing a good breather can't fix. He's chalking that off to you being a beta. It didn't take long for Satoru to trust you with almost anything. Everyone in the office is aware you're the boss's miracle drug. Every day is a peaceful day at work when the boss is busy annoying his secretary than biting his employees off.

• It's common knowledge for everyone to approach you first if they did a mistake than directly facing Satoru's wrath. That way, they could still ask you to help them face the big boss and not get fired.

"What? Mr. Gojo." You snap at him without looking up from your PC. Satoru sighed at the furious sound of your keyboard being beaten down by forceful fingers.

• Satoru treats you more thoughtfully.  Slowly knowing his smart secretary outside the office and more of a lady.

• He knows what you order at the cafe in the cafeteria every morning. He knows you like that chocolate croissant in the bakery across the building and makes a mental note to purchase it on Mondays when he knows you get the busiest from picking up what's left last week.

• He could be pretty straightforward and insensitive unintentionally but to you, it's not that hard to lower his ego and apologize than suffer your silent treatment. You know to stand your ground before the alpha.

"Now, don't be like that pretty girl. Where's my 'Satoru'?" He leans down with his hands on the edges of the table, staring at his pretty secretary's evading eyes. "I didn't mean snapping earlier, you know my life would be a nightmare without you." He feels like his gut is filled with sand when you're upset with him.

You rolled your eyes, and instead of seeing a sweet smile, your frown only grew deeper, but this time your glare met his eyes. He really didn't mean to be such an ass, but those conservative board members constantly sticking to the traditional means and blocking the new projects have reached the limit of his patience in the meeting. That leaves you dealing with damage control while torn from being summoned to your agitated boss's office only to get scolded for missing another meeting with the new investors.

"It's my fault pretty one. Y'know I never thanked you for always cleaning up the mess after me." Satoru looked at you with a genuine apology in his eyes. "How 'bout a dinner? Let's get off work early tonight."

You know your alpha boss is a stubborn one. And it still amazes you that he knows how to apologize and admit his fault. Part of you knows you're both accountable for that mistake earlier anyway.

"Then, I'll take up to your word, Sir." You closed your eyes and sighed, subtly smiling at the corners of your lips.

A pair of arms wrap around your shoulders from the back. You felt him inhale a very long breath with his face buried in your shoulders. The alpha in him feels very tempted to scent you right there and then. But the blush staining your cheeks is enough, for now...

"Mnnn, I'll see you at 5 then."

• When you finally decided to accept his courting, your alpha literally drowned you in his scent. Satoru is utterly whipped to your scent melting with his. You didn't realize how much he loves doing domestic things until you see your alpha dedicate time and effort to the simplest of your request. He's so down in providing you with anything.

• You know your alpha boss outside the conference hall is already nosy, but with your relationship getting closer and closer you find the alpha following you around, constantly teasing you just so your cheeks flare in embarrassment or irritation.

• Soon you'll realize this is just how Satoru expresses his love language. Vocal and showy, your alpha doesn't shy knowing he's the only one who can do this to his lil' pretty beta.

• Satoru prides himself on not being too possessive. it takes a major affair for him to use his caveman logic. But boy oh boy, he is quite playful in showing affection anytime and anywhere. Satoru fully trusts you, but he can't deprive himself of the joy of showing you off.

• Takes deliberately forever in scenting you. He's obsessed with it.

You tried to stop squirming and keep yourself steady on top of your alpha's lap. But his nose, trailing up and down the concave of your neck, nipping at your exposed skin makes it hard to suppress your moans and whimper, clutching your alpha's shirt in desperation.

"You like that pretty one?" Satoru looks at your dizzy eyes with delight while he kneads your hips. Your eyes are unfocused and hazy as you grip his shoulders for control. It's almost too cute but hot at the same time. Your eyes squeezed shut and nodded. "Right? Mnn, can't have you going crazy without me." Satoru chuckled and stood up, wrapping your legs around his waist to move in the bed.

—GreyCaelum,

PLAGIARISM IS A CRIME

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All rights and credits of the Jujutsu Kaisen character(s) mentioned image(s) and song(s) used belongs to their respective owner(s)

General Series Taglist: @ice-icebaby@aeanya@gumidreams@tender-rosiey

#alpha gojo smut #scribbles and doddles #greycaelum #a/b/o au jjk #gojo satoru x reader #alpha gojo x beta reader #jjk fluff #gojo satoru #gojo satoru fanfic #jujutsu kaisen #gojo x you #gojo satoru imagines #jujutsu kaisen imagines #alpha gojo satoru #alpha gojo #alpha gojo x reader #alpha ceo gojo #ceo gojo

[imakemywings]

Hey, were you the one who posted how Maglor himself thought the oath and kinslayings were such evil acts? If so, how come there are those who still believe the second and third kinslaying is justified when Maglor himself thought it to be such an evil deed? I really need like a solid reasoning cause I was talking to someone who still believes the kinslayings were justified/needed and doesn't take my "murder is wrong" thing as a reason lol

That was indeed my post! If we're thinking of the same one. I've definitely made a post like that.

I mean I don't really know what to say besides "murder is wrong" lol If we can't agree on that um. I don't really know where we go.

The argument in favor of the kinslayings that I've seen usually boils down to property rights. Because the Silmarils are the rightful (and that's honestly debatable) property of the Feanorians, anyone who keeps the Silmarils from them deserves what they get, basically.

Which is. Kind of bonkers as a moral philosophy, even if you DO buy that the Feanorians have an uncontested right to the Silmarils. #1: We're punishing theft or conversion with DEATH now? That's acceptable to us? #2: The harm the Feanorians caused went far beyond the individual who possessed the Silmaril (Dior in the Second Kinslaying and Elwing in the Third). Even if Dior had taken that Silmaril right out of Maedhros' hand and spit in his eye on the way out it wouldn't justify the wholesale slaughter of an entire kingdom. They literally murdered children over things. Items. Stuff. Magical cool stuff yeah--but they valued it over lives. Does anyone honestly think Tolkien would have written a story agreeing with that as a moral view?

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." (Thorin's final words, The Hobbit)

I don't know how you look at Maedhros and Maglor--the ONLY two of SEVEN sons to survive through the Third Kinslaying--and think THEY think they did the right thing. Five of their brothers have now died in assaults on other Elves which they began. Maglor argues for breaking the oath there, he resists Maedhros' drive to the Fourth Kinslaying (until he doesn't), and at the end of it all, he throws his precious Silmaril into the sea. Maedhros kills himself over it. These are not the actions of people who feel GOOD about where their lives have gone and the actions they've taken. Tolkien is so blatantly obvious about the Feanorians being in the wrong it's always a little wild to me that the KINSLAYINGS get defended.

On the note of the Fourth Kinslaying, let's not forget that: That after everything, after the War of Wrath is over and everyone is ready to go home and see their families and be at peace, a whole group of Elves get murdered by Maglor and Maedhros again over the Silmarils. A group--Eonwe's guard--of people who had survived a war with MORGOTH die because Maedhros and Maglor weren't willing to break their oath.

An oath which Tolkien casts as wicked from the very start--something that was always likely to bring them to evil acts.

"Then Feanor swore a terrible oath. His seven sons leapt straightway to his side and took the selfsame vow together, and red as blood shone their drawn swords...and many quailed to hear the dread words." ("Of the Flight of the Noldor," The Silmarillion)

Furthermore, as Dior points out in some versions outside Silm proper, at the time the Second Kinslaying is committed, Melkor still has two of the Silmarils. Even if Dior had handed over Luthien's Silmaril--to the people who had kidnapped and attempted to forcibly marry and presumably rape his mom; and also tried to murder her and his father later on--the oath is still not fulfilled, because Melkor has two.

The fact that the Feanorians choose to pursue Luthien's Silmaril with violence and bloodshed rather than make a go at the two that Melkor has has always revealed their hypocrisy to me. They chose Luthien's Silmaril because they knew it would be easier to get than the ones that Melkor has. Easier to kill other Elves if they don't give you what you want, than to attack or infiltrate Angband. Even now, when they know it's possible--because Beren and Luthien did it, and they had FAR fewer resources at hand than the Feanorians (and for the record, Fingon also successfully infiltrated Angband; Gwindor and others have successfully escaped from Angband)--they choose to slay other Elves instead. Say again the Second Kinslaying was "necessary"?

This is how Tolkien describes the attack on the Havens:

"And so there came to pass the last and cruelest of the slayings of Elf by Elf; and that was the third of the great wrongs achieved by the accursed oath. For the sons of Feanor that yet lived came down suddenly upon the exiles of Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath, and destroyed them." ("Of the Voyage of Earendil," The Silmarillion)

Does this description sound like people taking justified action? And let's not forget, in this battle, the Feanorians' own troops are so horrified by their actions that they turn against them.

"In that battle some of their [the Feanorians'] people stood aside, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords...Too late the ships of Cirdan and Gil-galad the High King came hasting to the aid of the Elves of Sirion; and Elwing was gone, and her sons." ("Of the Voyage of Earendil," The Silmarillion)

Members of the Feanorians' own people find their actions so terrible they cannot simply join those who stand by and refuse to attack the Havens, but they actively join the fight on the side of the Havens. Moreover, the heroic Gil-galad arrives intending to stop the Feanorians and aid the Havens. Sure, he arrives too late--but his intent is made clear: the Feanorians are the villains here, who need to be stopped.

And I don't think it is uncontested that the Silmarils belong to the Feanorians. For one, they were created entirely and only by Feanor; none of his sons had anything to do with it. And for two, the universe itself has deemed by the end that the Feanorians no longer have a property right in them, when the Silmarils burn the hands of Maedhros and Maglor because of all the evil they've committed. The jewels themselves will not be touched by these people who have done so much wrong. Eonwe tries to warn them about this before they even commit the Fourth Kinslaying.

"And they [Maedhros and Maglor] sent a message therefore to Eonwe, bidding him yield up those jewels...But Eonwe answered that the right to the work of their father, which the sons of Feanor had formerly possessed, had now perished, because of their many and merciless deeds, being blinded by their oath, and most of all because of their slaying of Dior and the assault upon the Havens." ("Of the Voyage of Earendil," The Silmarillion [emphasis added])

Like...I don't know how the book could be more clear that the Kinslayings were wrong and that Maedhros and Maglor were in the wrong.

I think fans are so invested in the Feanorians they're willing to bend over backwards to find some view where they didn't actually commit horrific war crimes and were in fact in the right. But that's just not the story Tolkien wrote. Also, you can like them and still admit they did horrible things. You are allowed to like characters who are in the wrong!

#asks #anonymous #mine #Hope this helps you in your quest Anon

[savagecowboy]

𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒

Author’s Note: This is an interaction between Severen Van Sickle and an OC of mine. The character is the physical manifestation of the mortal sin of Wrath.

The ominous presence, of what presumed to be a church, was undeniable. The building felt like it had a will entirely its own. He’d never known another place to have such a palpable otherworldliness, a living essence even in the absence of another soul. He looked down the empty, endless path stretching parallel in front of the large, wide, stone steps and could discern nothing in either direction; only a border wall of shrubbery to break up the grey. With no other choice, he proceeded upward— steps oddly muffled— to the large stained glass doors. Resting his hand on the burnished bronze handle he stares, fixated by the images depicted in the glass.

Scenes of violence, of fire, war, rage, drowning in a river of tar. He can’t really tell if what he is seeing is truly frozen in the colored glass or playing out right before him. It is mesmerizing cruelty. Something about it awakens his ever present hunger. The door opens beneath his hand, though Severen is nearly certain he did not depress the lever. It swings inward on silent hinges of its own volition; he releases his grip in order to not be dragged along with it as it completed its course. He steps inside the darkness within, somehow darker than the night he has left outside and proceeds without hesitation into the interior. Candelabras bedecked with dripping candles line the path, casting flickering shadows in the wake of their disparate light. The pews are polished mahogany, void of bodies, tattered bibles marking the absence of the penitent.

“C’mon down son, no sense lingerin’” the voice is rich, warm as melted chocolate and just as smooth. It has the opposite effect on Severen, he freezes in place and stares into the gloom to the pulpit from which it came. There stands the speaker, dressed in a fine maroon suit, smiling like a fox in the hen house. This man was a predator, as much as he was and it gave him pause, wariness encroaching. He hadn’t known there could be another with that same fire in him, and this one burned even brighter. It was alluring, dangerous.

“Don’ hover in doorways when you’re bidden son, come on. Rih’ here”. The man slapped a hand upon the pulpit, a crack of metal on hardwood reverberating in the vast emptiness, and then indicated one of the front seats with palm raised heavenward.

Severen felt himself moving without consciously meaning to, legs more obedient than himself. As he approached he was caught up staring straight into the man’s face. It was difficult to tell if it was Severen’s own supernatural ability to see in the dark, or something about this other that made him emanate with an ambient glow. It deepened the shadows surrounding him, but made the details of his gentlemanly features perfectly distinguishable. Gentle creases framed his mouth as white teeth glinted in the dim light, revealed in a smile that made Severen reflexively think of the word ‘wicked’. Dark eyes remained locked upon him as he approached, as if they looked away he may turn tail— it occurred to him it may be wise to do so, but he’d never much been one for retreat. Gripping the top of the pew, so tight the wood creaks, the night creature sits, though he is far from relaxed; wound tight enough to burst upward at a moment’s notice.

“Good”, it is said with a cheer that is skin deep, the man sauntering around the wooden stand; adjusting his tie with skilled aplomb. Long, pale fingers run down the ebony silk, dodging an opal tie pin as they run the course. A sharp crack resonates as his black, crocodile skin dress shoes connect with the two stairs down to the carpeted main aisle. Severen watches the performance with familiarity; the swagger, the uncontested confidence, he knows this prowler innately— as if this were himself.

“It’s good to have you here son”. The man stands before him now, Severen has to look up to see his face, most likely because he is sitting, however, it feels like more than that. There is something discordant with the man’s visual appearance, an untruth in the physical way he presents himself; the material trappings unable to fully restrain what truly lies beneath.

“Where’s here?” Severen asks almost petulant, not keen on being the less dangerous thing in the room. He leans back against the uncomfortable bench, bracing his arms down either side, taking up as much space as he can. He tries for a casual calm— a feeling that does not exist in this place— although his irritation is obvious; never much good at disguising his more negative emotions.

“It’s nowhere, where ain’t special. This could be”, the man rotates first one direction than the other, arms splayed outward as if only seeing this place for the first time today, “Anywhere!” An amused snort from the man and he inclines forward in a conspiratorial manner, “Although I do appreciate this, it is rare I get to be anywhere I am truly at home”. Severen feels left out of the joke, but finds the man’s charm impossibly infectious, he has a half cocked grin on his face without knowing why he’s smiling.

“Forget ‘where’”, the man hikes his pants and slides onto the seat beside Severen, “let’s work on ‘who’”. One wide palmed, long fingered hand is extended to his guest, for that is exactly what Severen realized he was now. How or why he was invited to this place was a mystery— for the time being— of one thing he was certain: he was present at the behest of this man, his host. Without a second guess he wraps his own strong fingers around the proffered hand and the two hold in place, neither moving. An intensity of heat, absent of the comfort warmth typically brings, wraps his body. It felt like a furnace within had been ignited, or further stoked perhaps. Despite himself, Severen took a sharp inhale, a tremor of sudden exhilaration shuddering throughout.

“Yes, boy, you do know me”, the buttery voice penetrated his mind, “not by name, but by profession, I am delighted we are familiar”. For the first time, in a very long while, Severen understood what it meant to be hunted—captured. This man had drawn him, a card from a deck he had full control of, and held him here, held him close, for a devising all his own; and certain to be singularly serving.

“Ira is a name good as any”, the man offers, now releasing his grip, yet the fire stays burning in the cowboy’s chest. “And you, Severen, Mr. Van Sickle, have no need to give anything more of yours to me. You’ve granted me plenty, to which I am eternally grateful”. The laugh that comes after his words is humorless and vicious in a way that puts Severen on edge in a way that is completely unfamiliar.

“Never mind that, a personal jest”, dismissively he waves it away, as if clearing the words from the air, “You are right to feel compelled to this place, you are right that I brought you in particular, invited, if you will. There is an offer I wish to make you son, one you’ll be most inerres’ted to entertain. In fact I feel I can guarantee your answer, but as choice is of a particular importance to me, I will elucidate”.

Usually when one looked to strike a proposition to another— at least in Severen’s experience— they were not quite so bald faced about having manipulated the outcome. The deceitful dance of dithering, of finding the alignment that suited both parties was not present here. He could not be sure if this was a one-sided arrangement he would see little or no benefit from, or if his prize had already been decided without the chance to bargain.

“Don’ you worry your head over none’a that Mr. Van Sickle, I wouldn’t seek to lose you for anything this world could hope to provide”. It was oddly emotional, like a father feeding his child the words of adoration only a parent can give.

“What’re you proposin’?” Severen says shortly, mistrust of Ira building, becoming conscious of himself in this place, of his individuality, breaking through the overwhelming, suffocating nature of his surroundings— of the man before him. Ira claps his hands and it sounds like a whip crack, “Mr. Van Sickle, I want to get you directly on your way home!” He speaks with exuberant glee, as if it were him being benefitted by this proposal. Dark brows knit over blue eyes.

“What’d you mean?” The words leave his lips before he can stop them. A secret part of him knows exactly what Ira means and it has stopped Severen from knowing this truth himself. There is a quiet mental cry at the prospect of remembering, but it is too late to go back now, a door opened can no longer be closed without force.

“Ahhh son, I forget how much ya’ll don’ like that part, sorry for this”, there is an actual hint of apology in his voice, “but it will help with your decision I reckon”. Ira leans forward and clasps the side of Severen’s face, heel of his hand resting on the rise of his cheek. The thumb presses upon the start of his brow and traces the dark line end to end, and with the gesture a line of piercing fire enters Severen’s brain. It all surges forward in a blended crescendo of overwhelming agony. There is such horrid desperation and pain he cannot recognize himself in it. Certainly those are not feelings known to him, not anymore, and yet they are born from him like fetid butterflies bursting out of the chrysalis of his mind.

He sees things he knows he was not present for, death he had not witnessed, and the horror of what had happened after he had been forced to oblivion is worse than anything he had suffered. When Severen regains a present consciousness he can’t tell if the scream reverberating in his head was loosed aloud or not; either way, Ira holds the same expression as before, unbothered. His hand falls away and rests in the gap between them.

“You were right to hate him”, Ira’s tone has changed from jollity, to a sumptuous melancholy, “You were right to distrust and to want his destruction”.

“I was right” Severen repeats, but stops when he realizes how lured he was to say so. He doesn’t like how easily Ira pries into the core of him, and immediately becomes defensive.

“If I was right to mistrust one stranger, why should I trust you?” he snaps, muscles tensing in anticipation of confrontation. Ira only laughs, a rich, melodious sound.

“Mr. Van Sickle, was I not already clear that we are the furthest thing from strangers?” Severen looks hard into the face now, taking his meaning literally, although the features bear no resemblance to a memory he can form. Inexplicably Ira’s eyes, which he had taken for auburn, seem to flicker, he thinks it is a reflection of the firelight caught in his iris, but in actuality he knows that they are a fire unto themselves.

“Son, I been with you more days than anyone you ever known”, he gestures for Severen to not interrupt, “You may not have known I was there, we have little rules for these things, but trust I know every second of your life, it’s my favorite story”. The truth of the last three words is apparent in the utter pleasure displayed in the smile he shares with Severen, it is discomforting, yet he finds himself more intrigued by ‘why’ rather than ‘how’, or ‘what for’.

“Because you are The Savage One”, there is a reverence in the title, “A wild tempest of brutality the likes’a which I ain’t never known before or since. Well,” he leans back into the pew rotating his palm one way and the other in a “more or less” motion, “there have been one or two others, but none with your won’erful consistency”. Severen has not forgotten how they got to this point and returns to his first line of questioning.

“What’s this gotta do with you makin’ me an offer?” Ira braces a hand down on his wine colored dress pants, bending forward “Everythin’ boy!” He looks almost bewildered at Severen’s lack of understanding, “Want revenge don’cha?”

“Innit a lil late for that?” Dark sarcasm adds to his seething, gloomy disposition, the furnace within dissipating some, pain returning.

“It ain’t late for anythin’, in fact it ain’t even begun” Ira speaks in a secretive fashion, low, eager, trying to drag the other into his own giddiness, but only partially succeeding in the fact that Severen is once more intrigued.

“Lissen Mr. Van Sickle, I know I’ve been elusive, downright enigmatic if spoken true, but that’s the nature of these things, it’s interpretive you might say. If I say, ‘Sure would be a kick to see you drag that milksops intestines ‘cross the state ‘a Oklahoma’ that don’t rightly put in place what I’m offerin’”. Severen waits for him to continue, he does so gladly. “Now, ‘Wreck vengeance in my name, burn blade of fury and malignant hate’ so on and so forth, now that’s more akin to my way of things”. Severen plays the words once over mentally and latches onto an understanding; as if coming through a thick wood onto a clear meadow. “You the devil at this particular crossroads?” “Sumethin’ like that".

“We fiddlin’, cause I was always better on guitar”. Ira bellows a laugh, the metal thud of his rings on wood again as he slaps the top of the pew.

“This is a damn fine pleasure ain’t it!” Even in a laughing squint his eyes seem to intensify in their red-orange glow. “Mr. Van Sickle, you got the gist of it, but I’m not one for game playin’ or wheelin’ dealin’ nonsense”. He clears his throat, coughing out the last of his laughter.

“This is a true and honest petition to have you back where I think you oughta be, an’ my only fine print is that you keep doin’ what you been, an’ keep on doin’ it”. Severen’s eyes narrow a second time.

“That hardly sounds like a deal”

“I never called it a deal, I called it an offer. Got your superstitious western ways all tangled in this very forthright proposal”. Leaning back, replaying their conversation over in his mind Severen analyzes Ira, all his abundant words, his conniving motivations, what he has declared of who— what— he is, the knowledge he claims to have of who Severen is; and his fixed desire to have him continue his malicious ways.

Blue eyes move from the man to their surroundings, the marble walls, the elaborate trappings of ethereal worship, he sits up with a conclusion come to, not in haste, but with acceptance.

“All this to ask me somethin’ you know the answer to, and nothin’ in return? Superstition er’ not that seems like a deal that gets a man in trouble”.

“What other trouble you got to get in son?” Both men are leaning toward one another, a standoff in all but action, two combative entities sizing the other before swinging. The challenge ignites another intense flare in Severen and he feels nearly overwhelmed by the heat, it is revivifying, as if he’d never known what it felt like to be warm.

“You doin’ that?” He growls, clasping his chest in something that is not quite pain, but is certainly not pleasant.

“Haven’t done anythin’ to you Mr. Van Sickle, thas on you, in you rather”, all grins again.

“Y’see I don’t need you to verbally agree, it’d be nice, all clear cut and in the open, but like you said just now, I know you’ll take this offer, ya’only protestin’ cause it’s in your nature to do so. ‘An it ain't like me to divert someone from their chosen course, far from it”. There is a faint chuckle, another personal joke, “What you’re feelin’ is what I am promisin’ you”.

“Resurrection?”

“More”.

“More?”

“Much more”.

The smile that was once mischievous and guarded becomes openly pleased, eyes flaring, no longer with the suggestion of firelight, but as barely contained infernos themselves.

“What’s it that plagued you while you terrorized humanity?” Severen’s hand still works his sternum, the roiling blaze there pulsing.

“Slowed you down and kept you hidden away?” There is a pause while he follows the line of thought.

“You sayin’ I can walk in daylight?”

A snicker, “Son, you can strip down in your drawers and do cartwheels on the beach if you have a mind”, hearty laughter, “Tha’s what I’m here to provide, a ball of fire and gas cain’t burn away what’s already aflame”. Severen meets his eyes again and the painful burning surges outward down his extremities and into his head. It courses like poison through his veins, scalding his insides. He stares at his arms, hands, looking for the visible signs of the track it has blistered through him, but there is no indication whatsoever, just the radiant heat that won’t stop.

“Is this, is this deal done?” He asks in panting gasps, finding it hard to breath— unsure if he needs to— “Is this, is this what I am now?”

“You don’t have a clue yet boy, but you will, in time”. He rests his palms on his thighs and hunches forward preparing to stand, “As for your question, I s’ppose that is our business concluded”. He rises, again the surreal juxtaposition of the physical and otherworldly presence, and slips his hands into his pockets, glancing over one shoulder to his companion, “This was a true delight Severen, an’ I hope in all this pageantry you do know that to be the truth”.

The name almost seems like it belongs in another time. Once he had clung to a title he’d known from his human past, The Reaper, he had reclaimed his given name of Severen in his time of gluttonous desecration, now the unspoken title he had gained because of his unfettered wrath called loudest, The Vengeful One. All torment of fire ceased upon this revelation.

That same grin of affection was cast upon him.

“You are free son, I loose you upon the world, a plague of my own invention, a beast of blood and fire molded from the star’s own heart. Go forth and be triumphant in your unholy deeds, and as you reap and water the earth with the blood of damned and saintly alike do so with only one thing in your heart, Savagery”.

“Amen”.

Sermon concluded he opened his eyes to the blinding white light of high noon sunlight, reflecting off even the pale dust of the abandoned road he lay upon. All was coated in beige, even himself, but there was no pain, there was no burn. He sat up, stood, stared into the life taking light, looked around his surroundings. There was no point in questioning if what had happened was real, current circumstances were evidence enough, but even without it he could feel the difference inside himself. There was no crippling hunger— although he felt starved— there was only a feeling of barely contained power even he was hesitant to uncoil.

But he would, how he would.

First, though, he needed a drink, and even if he wasn’t sure where he would find it just yet, he knew he would.

His lord did provide.

#near dark #near dark fanfic #severen van sickle #wrath #✘ ONE SHOT.

[taizi]

Could you write prompt 88 for natsume yuujjncho?

PROMPTS LIST

88. “That’s definitely not true.” “Of course it is. I read it on Wikipedia.”

x

Tooru is being her usual, relentlessly supportive self. Takashi would appreciate it any other time.

“I really don’t want to go on a date with your coworker,” he tells her for the third time. 

“The best way to get over an unrequited love is to date for fun!” Tooru says with unfounded confidence. 

To Takashi’s knowledge, Tooru has been comfortably aromantic for as long as Takashi has known her, so he has no idea where this apparent expertise is coming from and he’s somewhat afraid to find out. 

“That’s definitely not true,” he says, attempting reason. 

“Of course it is! I read it on Wikipedia.”

Behind Tooru, Kaname is giving Takashi a look of deep sympathy. Takashi closes his eyes, fortifying himself, and says, “Tooru-- ”

“Well, okay, it was a WikiHow article. But it was really well-reasoned!” She leans forward on her elbows, looking at him with wide, earnest eyes. “If this person you like won’t give you the time of day, forget about them! Go on a date with Hideki. You’ll have fun.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Takashi says weakly. “It’s not as though I told them I’m in love with them. They didn’t reject me. I’m not… pining.”

If anything, he’s regretting bringing up his hopeless infatuation in the first place. He fully blames Katsumi and one too many drinks over dinner last night. What had been a safe, if uncomfortable, secret for the last four years has somehow become an open discussion between three of his closest friends. 

He’s deeply, exhaustively relieved he didn’t slip up and tell them who. 

Tooru frowns at him. 

“That’s another thing. Why are you so certain you’re not a total catch? I showed Hideki a picture of you and he, like, literally swooned. If you’d just tell this person you’re in love with them, they’d probably be over the moon.”

Takashi feels himself flush. Kaname is smiling at him now, gently but not without humor. He, at least, understands how strange the idea is that someone could look at him and see something worth having. Lucky for Kaname, Katsumi is both more stubborn than a mountain spirit and extremely vocal about the things he wants. 

“I have an idea,” Tooru says brightly. She stands up, rounds the table, and offers Takashi her hand. “Come with me.”

With a deep sense of dread, Takashi takes her hand, and allows himself to be tugged out of the kitchen, past the sitting room where Kaname is half-rising from his chair with the look of someone with no idea how to stop this train wreck from happening but with every intention of giving it his best shot, and up the stairs. 

She taps on the study door and slides it open. Satoru glances up from his laptop, paperwork spread across the desk beside him. He smiles when he sees who it is, shutting his computer halfway and giving them his full attention, the way he’s done since they were kids. 

He always puts his friends first. It’s one of the first things Takashi loved about him. 

“What are you two troublemakers up to?” he asks cheerfully. “Bring a new ghost home or something?”

“No ghosts today,” Tooru says. “We actually have a romance problem to solve.”

Something flickers in Satoru’s expression, but his smile doesn’t give an inch. “Oh? Do tell.”

“Takashi is in love with someone who doesn’t love him back,” she explains, to the very last person in the entire world Takashi would prefer she explained this to. “He doesn’t seem to realize that anybody would be lucky to date him. He won’t listen to me, so I figured he might listen to you.”

Satoru looks like a bird caught in wire, eyes round, body very still. “Um,” he says, aiming for a laugh and falling short, “why would he listen to me?”

“Well, you had a crush on him in high school,” Tooru says reasonably, as if she turns the world upside down on a regular basis, and it really isn’t that exciting. “So you’ll be able to tell him all his good points.”

For a second, everyone sits there and stares at each other. Takashi’s heart is beating so loud he thinks Kaname can probably hear it downstairs. Satoru is the first one to look away, hands doing the nervous fluttering they do when he’s about one minute away from a spiral. 

“Yeah, I could definitely do that,” he says, too fast, a little too quiet, “um, but maybe later? I have to finish this paper, it’s worth half my grade in sociology, and the first draft is due tonight. It’s gonna be a whole thing. Might take awhile.”

Tooru is one of the smartest people Takashi has ever had the privilege of knowing, even if she can be kind of oblivious about some things that other girls are like bloodhounds for, and he sees it when she realizes she made a big mistake. 

Her hands fly to her mouth. She’s apologizing, so fast the words break and stumble over each other, and Takashi gets the sense that this has been something of an open secret for a long time. That Satoru probably talked about it every now and then in a cheerful past-tense. That Tooru probably reasonably assumed that Takashi knew, since everyone else did. 

Satoru seems as though he’s seriously contemplating the window as a means of escape, so Takashi says, “Tooru, can we have a minute?”

She looks ready to cry, so he presses her hand. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Really. I just need a minute.”

When she’s gone, flying back down the stairs by the sound of things, Takashi looks at Satoru. His best friend. His first friend. The first person who saw a strange transfer student who jumped at shadows and talked in whispers and decided there was something there worth knowing. The first person who took him by the hand and kept finding reasons not to let him go. 

Satoru flinches when Takashi scoots over closer to him. He looks one step shy of humiliated. 

“You had a crush on me back then?” Takashi asks gently. 

“Kind of obvious, Bakashi,” Satoru mutters. “Everybody did. I’m the only one who didn’t know better.”

There’s something unfolding inside him that hurts to be trapped inside him, pressing against the walls and corridors that make up his heart as though searching for a window or a door or a crack to sneak through, too big to be contained. 

Takashi borrows the same bravery that led him up mountains and across rivers and through fires when he was a child, and says, “I had a crush on you, too.”

Satoru’s head snaps up. He’s always been quick to cry, more emotional on a good day than Tooru and Katsumi at their very worst combined, and that hasn’t changed now that they’re in university. His mouth wobbles for a moment. 

“Oh,” he says, with the kind of wonder and defeat better suited someone who just saw a fleeting vision of everything they ever wanted. 

Takashi puts his hand on the desk, palm-up. After a beat, Satoru takes it. He always takes it. 

“I still do,” Takashi admits. 

“Oh,” Satoru says again, but this time he loses the battle not to start bawling over his homework. 

The door rattles open with force, and Kaname is there with Tooru hovering fretfully at his shoulder, and he says, “Satchan, please don’t cry, Atsushi will kill us all. Even if none of us tell him, he’ll just know. It’s okay, we still love you, Takashi still loves you.”

Satoru buries his face in his free hand, shoulders shaking. It’s really not fair for them to have ambushed him like this, and Atsushi really will be angry when he gets home from his lecture and uses his unnerving psychic powers to find out that someone made Satoru cry, but Takashi is grinning so hard it hurts. His hand wrapped tight around Satoru’s feels the same as it always has. 

“Yeah,” Takashi says, more easily than he would have thought possible even an hour ago. “I still do.”

#natsume yuujinchou #natsuyuu #nishinatsu #natsume takashi #taki tooru #tanuma kaname #nishimura satoru #shibata katsumi #my writing #prompt #anonymous #natsuyuu fic #me making nishimura cry: someone hold that boy this INSTANT #kitamoto can tell when nishimura has been crying from like a mile away #and his wrath is uncontested #even nyanko sensei dips when nishi gets teary #wanna find a home (wanna share it with you)

[tolkienmatters]

Ulfast, Ulwarth, and Uldor The Accursed were the sons of Ulfang and Easterlings of the First Age. They are notorious for betraying Caranthir and Maedhros at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (Nirnaeith Arnoediad). In the First Age many Easterlings came to Beleriand. They came when they heard of the riches of Beleriand, some came secretly in service of Morgoth, while others fled the destruction of Dagor Bragollach. They were outsiders to the native Edain. Two Easterling leaders came to Beleriand at this time, Bór and Ulfang. Bór and his sons Borlach, Borlad, and Borthand swore allegiance to Maedhros. Ulfang and his sons Ulfast, Ulwarth, and Uldor came into the service of Caranthir. The Edain did not trust the Easterlings, but Maedhros and other elves who had lost faith in their kinsmen welcomed these new warriors into their ranks - knowing that another battle with Morgoth was imminent. Maedhros believed that if he could unite the free peoples of Beleriand he could stop Morgoth, and he formed an alliance called the Union of Maedhros. Bór and Ulfang called their kinsmen from the East and were armed and trained for the upcoming war. The Union of Maedhros attacked Morgoth in the north of Beleriand at Anfauglith, a desert outside of Angband. Bór and Ulfang’s armies marched with the Western Army through the hills designed to flank the armies of Morgoth. The Eastern Army under Fingon assailed Angband but were forced to retreat. During this retreat the Western army came to reinforce Fingon’s host. Angband was emptied; wolves, balrogs, and Glaurung the dragon came to the battle. At this pivotal point Ulfang and his sons betrayed the sons of Fëanor and attacked them in the rear. Uldor had hidden armies in the hills who now emerged and attacked Maedhros’ flank, leading to a mass retreat. Many of the faithful easterlings fled due to the confusion and lies they were told. Uldor The Accursed was slain by Maglor, and Bór’s sons died killing Ulfast and Ulwarth. The fate of Ulfang and Bór is unknown. Nirnaeith Arnoediad was a massive defeat for the Union of Maedhros. Morgoth was uncontested in the North and raided Beleriand freely, he restricted the Faithless Easterlings that served him to the small region of Hithlum, forbidding them any of the riches of Beleriand, which made them bitter and they ruled in that fashion. The War of Wrath would sink Beleriand, but it would not sink the legacy of their betrayal. The many tribes in the East would continue to serve Sauron in the Second and Third Ages.

“Yet neither by wolf, nor by Balrog, nor by Dragon, would Morgoth have achieved his end, but for the treachery of Men. In this hour the plots of Ulfang were revealed. Many of the Easterlings turned and fled, their hearts being filled with lies and fear; but the sons of Ulfang went over suddenly to Morgoth and drove in upon the rear of the sons of Fëanor, and in the confusion that they wrought they came near to the standard of Maedhros. They reaped not the reward that Morgoth promised them, for Maglor slew Uldor the accursed, the leader in treason, and the sons of Bór slew Ulfast and Ulwarth ere they themselves were slain. But new strength of evil Men came up that Uldor had summoned and kept hidden in the eastern hills, and the host of Maedhros was assailed now on three sides, and it broke, and was scattered, and fled this way and that. Yet fate saved the sons of Fëanor, and though all were wounded none were slain, for they drew together, and gathering a remnant of the Noldor and the Naugrim about them they hewed a way out of the battle and escaped far away towards Mount Dolmed in the east.” - Silmarillion, Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

Art by https://magpiecrown.tumblr.com/

#lotr #tolkien #first age #easterlings #nirnaeth arnoediad #maedhros #maglor #silmarillion #bor #borlach #borlad #borthand #ulfang #ulfast #ulwarth #uldor #dagor bragollach #beleriand #info #information

[radiantresplendence]

The Bow Knight Class - Fire Emblem Three Houses

These are starting to feel a little bipolar. Obviously, you don’t need me to tell you that Bow Knight is good. It’s easily one of the best classes in the game and it holds the unique position of the class that you can put any unit in and they will have a noticeably significant effect on your army’s performance- at least in my opinion.

For a 100% pass rate of the Bow Knight exam, you’re going to need C lances, A bows and A riding. The riding rank can be a little annoying to train, but so long as you make an effort to plan things out in advance, it shouldn’t give you too much trouble. This is our first Master Class, so you have 10 more levels to work on your skills before you can qualify over the Advanced Classes. You may not really be using lances as a Bow Knight, but C+ in lances is sometimes enough to pick up powerful Combat Arts like Vengeance. 

Analysis

The base stats that the Bow Knight guarantees are nothing to write home about. If you classed the unit in question into an Advanced Class (which you probably should have) you’re not likely to see any stat boosts on qualifying. Just for the sake of putting it out there, you’re granted 17 strength, 14 dexterity and 16 speed. The Bow Knight gives class bonuses of 1 strength, 3 dexterity and 1 speed (while mounted, 3 while not). Looking into this, was a little eye-opening as I hadn’t considered dismounting to potentially increase your speed to doubling range, but with a class like Bow Knight, that may be situationally viable. 

Bow Knights have huge mobility, boasting 8 movement while mounted and 6 while dismounted. Being bow specialists (and taking into account their Class Skills), this gives them outrageous attack range, that can easily keep them out of danger while raining death down upon their targets. 

Bow Knights have potentially the strongest set of Class Skills in the game. Bowfaire, Bow Range +2 and Canto are all incredibly strong and probably have the best synergy among Class Skills in the game. The class’s Mastery Skill is Defiant Speed. 

Bowfaire encourages bow specialization and gives you 5 bonus damage while doing so. Bows are the best weapon type in the game. It’s great. 

Bow Range +2 is self-explanatory. Bows have the advantage of being able to attack and provide linked attack bonuses at a range. Giving 2 extra range on that is exceptionally strong and can almost always allow you to avoid counterattacks. 

Canto allowing you to use your extra movement after taking an action lets a Bow Knight stage hit-and-runs better than any other class in the game and can ensure that your positioning is always strong. 

Defiant Speed is fine, but it’s often a little more work than it’s worth to get a Bow Knight down to 25% of their total health for a speed boost. On new game+, there’s probably some value in using the skill for vantage/desperation/wrath builds, but outside of that niche, I don’t think it’s all that great. 

In terms of growths, the Bow Knight offers little. A 5% detriment to speed is the only thing worth noting and pretty much the only thing that there is as 10% HP and 5% charm are granted or beaten by almost every other class in the game. It seems like this is where the developers intended to balance this otherwise outrageously powerful class, but after 30 levels of growth in other classes, it’s too little, too late. 

Good Bow Knights

Felix is probably the best combat unit in the game and consequently winds up being the unit with the best performance as a Bow Knight. He even has a strength in bows to ease the training process for your convenience. He has everything you need: high strength, speed and dexterity. His Major Crest of Fraldarius is just icing on the cake that can give you even more damage for free. With a brave bow, or even without, he can consistently obliterate targets in a single turn more effectively than any other unit classed into Bow Knight. 

Out of the low strength archer kids, Ignatz makes the best Bow Knight due to his inherent Hit +20. With a longbow and equipping the Archer’s Hit +20 on top of his personal, Ignatz just doesn’t miss regardless of range. Bernadetta and Ashe also make strong Bow Knights, despite missing out on Ignatz’s niche. All three kids gain the ability to use powerful bows at minimal cost while staying away from dangerous enemies that could potentially cause them undue harm due to their middling combat prowess. 

Cyril and Leonie make natural promotions to Bow Knight, and all things considered, they’ll do quite well in the class. If you don’t have access to Felix in part 2, either can act as a diet replacement, even though I think that both are better off elsewhere. Petra isn’t a bad choice either, however she winds up being an off-brand substitute for Leonie in this role. Still quite strong, but unless you’re making every unit a Bow Knight, she’s also better off elsewhere to avoid being redundant. 

With a magic bow, even mages make great Bow Knights. Mercedes, Hubert and Hanneman can do it. Hubert and Hanneman even have the strengths in the right skills to do it easily. I may not wholeheartedly recommend this as I think that all 3 are better off as casters, but for the sake of doing it, not only should it work, it should work well. 

Conclusion

Bow Knight is really strong, however I’m going to break from my praise for it for a moment. I think it’s easily the frontrunner for strongest class in the game on Normal or Hard, but I think it loses a lot of its appeal on Maddening due to the huge boon in the quality of enemy units. With Poison Strike and a venin bow, it can shore up the offensive deficiencies of a unit like Ashe and offer uncontested amounts of safe chip damage. 

Basically, I’d never field more than 2. It keep your army from feeling stale. 

I’ve done more of these, check them out here. 

#fire emblem #fire emblem 3 houses #fire emblem three houses #review #guide #bow knight #felix hugo fraldarius #ignatz victor #bernadetta von varley #ashe ubert #cyril fe3h #leonie pinelli #mercedes von martritz #hubert von vestra #hanneman von essar

[theramseyloft]

Hi Dove mom!

This may not be the best format for me to get this information to you but I can't really think of any other way. I thought this page from the book I'm reading was really interesting and I was wondering if you could provide any insight into whether the pigeons in this experiment were actually figuring out the hierarchical order of the choices or if they were right about it just being value transfer. I think this book was published in 2014 so I'm thinking there may be better knowledge on pigeon cognition that can shed some more light on this and if anyone would know its you. (Also please tell ankhou hi from me)

Mother of Pigeons-

I think they actually did learn the value ranking asked of them in this experiment, but they are also capable of value transfer.

We can see both examples if we look at how a young bird integrates into the flock hierarchy on reaching maturity.

When a peep gets down from the nest, every flock mate makes a point to haze them.

That new individual gets to experience the strength, aggression, and experience of each of those older birds first hand.

They learn immediately that they are not physically able to fight the older bird and must defer.

But while they grow, they watch the adults.

Who defers to who? At what distance?

Who defers to NO ONE?

Who does no one defer to?

The wider a bubble of personal space a pigeon is granted by other pigeons of the same sex, the higher that individual is ranked.

Fighting and rivalry are not a cock exclusive thing in pigeons, though their altercations are the most violently overt and go on for longest.

They are also more likely to extend much further outside the nest.

Cocks fight outright to defend their claim to a nest, kick other birds out of their bubble of personal space, clear walking space, and disrupt rivals’ attempts to tread basically to prove he’s just that badass.

They compete through dance for the attention of the hens, and only the hens have any say over who they liked better.

Hens also fight each other outright over claim to an established nest and maintaining personal boundaries.

Both sexes are held accountable to a much more linear hierarchy at food time, like a pack of wolves or pride of lions. 

The highest ranking, regardless of their sex, eat first, from the center of the foraging ground, where the pickings are best.

If you just dump out a pile of seed for ferals, you can tell who is highest ranking in that group.

It’s the individual that every one else parts for on their way to the center. The first to join him whose company is not protested is his wife.

There is significant transferal of status for wives.

The wife of the highest ranking cock is basically treated as an extension of him (that another cock maaaay be able to persuade to let him tread, so that his peeps can have the advantage of being raised by the Biggest, Baddest Man)

She is deferred to as if she were her Husband (because there will be hell to pay from her husband if any one is interpreted as harassing her!!!)

As the new young bird develops physically, they will realize that dodging is easier, and strikes hit with less impact than they used to. 

They can shoulder through another bird of similar size, if that individual is less determined or experienced in body blocking.

So you will see peeps of similar size engaged in practice combat as young as five or six weeks old.

Fussing over who gets to eat first, or gets the more comfortable part of a perch they both like, usually with the winner shoving the loser off, or the loser opting to take the first step back.

Once established who is tougher, peaceful allopreening, feeding, or napping resumes.

The loser of that altercation will start deferring more often than contesting.

And the winner will try their luck with that adult from earlier than no one defers to.

They’ll work their way systematically up the hierarchy like that, until they either take the top spot, or more likely meet the bird they can’t beat.

If the bird that they can’t beat can't beat a higher ranking bird, our wee protagonist peep will not attempt to engage that higher ranking bird.

They will defer every time.

For example; In my loft right now, the highest ranking cock is

Sissy. 

At 1.75lbs, and over a foot tall, he is the size of a small chicken.

He is, bar none, the largest, and physically strongest cock here.

He is a solid wall of wrath that every one immediately defers to, with the exceptions of hens that don’t want sex, and cocks defending their nests.

Sun Tsu, Emillio, and Mia are all older than him, but none can engage him in overt combat and win.

Emillio, despite being the smallest cock here, was used to being the second highest ranking because of his pure, tenacious aggression.

This little bird introduced himself to a young adult Utility King cock by latching onto his face like a bulldog and making himself impossible to dislodge with out ripping off his opponents feathes.

Every time Hoya lost enough feathers to dislodge Emillio from his face, Emillio latched right back on until Hoya ran from him.

Until now, what ever wife Emillio has taken has been deferred to by all but Sissy and his Wife.

Vynni is the third youngest of our adult cocks.

But he’s also the second biggest, and the most densely muscled and feathered of all of our adults.

He’s gunning to take Emillio’s place in the hierarchy by brute force, because he’s just realized he can.

Emillio kinda bit himself in the ass by going out of his way to harass Vynni and his wife when ever he saw them (that whole just to prove he’s badass thing), and both Vynni and Ellie realized that he’s tiny compared to them. 

Physically lifting and throwing him out of a nest box is nothing for either of the pair.

Lilly is the second youngest adult cock, a tenacious, fearsome rival for any new birds, and the first to greet the introduction of any adult that proves aggressive.

He doesn’t care if they are bigger than him.

If a new adult challenges every one as soon as they come in the loft, Lilly answers with an instantaneous attack.

He has never challenged Emillio, though, because every one but Sissy has deferred to him for as long as Lilly has been alive.

Right now, he’s Vynni’s most aggressive rival, but Vynni wins every fight and chases Lilly’s wife out of what ever nest box he catches her in.

But I can’t really consider Vynni or Lilly to be the second or third highest ranked.

Betty and his wife, Hagrid are a pair that both Vynni and Lilly immediately and automatically defer to.

Most of the rest of the loft clears immediately out of any nest they check out.

Mia and his wife have a pretty much uncontested nest, but they defer to other cocks on the ground.

PJ will occasionally try to sneak into Mia’s nest, but flees from him or Cara if he’s caught there.

But even Vynni and Lilly won’t attempt to fight PJ for his wife, Escher’s favorite nest.

Silk and Pippin have nest boxes that they can easily defend even from bigger cocks, but a low social ranking on the ground.

Sun Tsu seems to be smack on the bottom of the hierarchy with neither nest nor wife to his name, and no ability to defend against the bigger boys.

Cody has a higher rank than Sun Tsu by virtue of having taken a mate, hatched peeps, and soundly defended his nest box, but he mostly defers to older cocks.

Samhi has not yet finished going through puberty, despite being older than Cody, so his status is lower than Sun Tsu’s.

It’s only ever at the very top and the very bottom where the hierarchy of a pigeon flock in their home loft is linear.

In the middle, as long as younger birds are coming of age, the rankings are always contested.

And that doesn’t even take into account the way the chain of command immediately shifts once any group goes any distance away from the nesting grounds.

But those can be covered in other asks. ^v^

TLDR;

Pigeons are capable of both learning a linear ranking system AND utilizing value transfer and probably did both in the cited experiment.

[sasorikigai]

While the Grandmaster had left to take care of the cyber Lin Kuei and save the other members, Phoenix, among others, stayed watch at the temple. Iris waited impatiently, pacing until she heard familiar footsteps near the entryway of the temple. "Grandmaster Sub-Zero,thank the gods." Then her face fell seeing his expression. "....What happened?"

Random inbox shenanigans || @fiery-assassin || accepting 

How blinding egos and false hopes without benevolent intent had corrupted the Cyber Lin Kuei; and everything had been lost, with barely little to gain. Confusion and deep sadness muddles his thinking, as an unswallowable lump fills Sub-Zero’s throat. Love and loyalty and affection that had once echoed through the hallways of the grounds only become deafening, void-like silence clinging to each crevice of what once was. What was supposed to be two-way streets of reciprocated dedication and loyalty had shamefully taken such deceptive and misconstrued turn, and it’s indeed a shame. It breaks Kuai’s heart to let go of what he rebuilt. It hurts, knowing the solidified foundation he had set with his blood and body and soul wasn’t as strong as he thought.

Exhaustion embeds deeply upon his features; while his lips don’t tremble like butterflies, the grisly sight of wretched savagery of his fallen comrades and exceptional assassins probes and penetrates deeper than the deepest parts of the ocean and prevents him from breathing. Such contempt and disappointment hits him with rolling and cool thoughts, revitalizing and resurging his frigid breaths as he washes away the bitter scents of metal bits and oil spill against his conjured pair of ice axes. 

“Our most formidable Lin Kuai had been already pulverized, reduced to sanguine puddle beneath the heinous wrath of the Cyber Initiative, but we did shut down what was once defunct quarry and demolished its facility’s function. There shall be no more treachery, no more looming darkness upon such acknowledgement of our clan’s resurgent fruition.” There is a silver lining in the impenetrable thickness of evil; for he will save those who were unwillingly turned into cyborgs who became pawns in the grand scheme of permanently erasing countless history of many. And no unfortunate beings will be left abandoned, when Kuai Liang remains an uncontested Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei. 

#(answered) #✗ behavior exhibition (answered asks) #✗ bone-deep chill of despair (sub-zero) #(feel free to reply if you want) #fiery-assassin

[robobrainmurdermysterytheatre]

RE: This post (sort of) because I feel like I derailed the OPs post and I literally don’t know them and I feel awkward posting on it more lol 

BTW if y’all are sick of talking to me about this no worries, nobody owes me a reply, I just like talking about the game and I have learned a lot from what other people have to say so here we are.

Fuck this got really long so I’m cutting it but it’s about Elder Maxson. Again. Sort of. And Synths. And I want to preface by saying I’m all about love what characters you want, you do you. I’m not trying to hate on anyone for liking or disliking fictional characters or organizations. But I have a lot of feelings.

So I’ve been thinking about a few things and a few things have been brought to my attention that I haven’t seen brought up before. So the quest for Teagan, with the crops and stuff, I know this is a sticking point and possibly could be disregarded because it’s an optional quest, but if Teagan knew Maxson wouldn’t approve of strong arming settlers for crops, why would he tell *you* to do it? I know you can complete the quest other ways, but looking at his voice lines he’s pretty gung-ho on the strong-arming part. He has zero reason to think you wouldn’t march on up to Maxson and tell him Teagan’s trying to put you up to strong-arming settlers, which would lead me to believe he doesn’t have a problem with Teagan putting you up to strong-arming settlers at all. 

Also I just... I don’t know if I can believe that Maxson feels bad for killing or trying to kill Danse (depending on how you choose to do it). Like I *want* to believe he does, but Jesus, he’s just so cruel about the whole thing, even if you convince him to spare Danse. And afterward, when you get promoted to Paladin if you clapback at him when he says all of Danse’s stuff is yours now he says “To the victor go the spoils. Being a part of the Brotherhood, you should learn to appreciate that sentiment.” and he is sinister about it, it literally says in the dialogue direction ‘sinister smile’ I feel like there is A LOT loaded into that sentence, knowing that real, actual armies IRL historically and even now operate like this, especially armies who are allowed to operate at will without or with very little government oversight, their whole agenda is to win, take shit and expand and be more formidable. Maxson and the BoS won’t outright say it ever in the game, but looking at their actions and their sentiment, it seems, to me, like that is kind of part of their agenda. Which, I mean, you could argue is fine because they’d be keeping order and killing super mutants but they’d be running things their way, uncontested. Eventually they’d weed out all the synths and kill them - so bye Danse, bye Curie, bye Nick, don’t forget Magnolia and Sturges also - of course they would kill Strong so bye Strong too. They probably wouldn’t let me keep my cool robot workbench or my badass enormous sentrybots with skull faces and minigun hands because that kind of technology isn’t fit for civilians so I’d guess I have to say bye to Ragnarok and Lilith and Lucifer and Azrael (please do not judge my precious children by their sinister names) and Jezebel and Ada too. Oh, and Synth Shaun. They would definitely kill Synth Shaun too. 

The thing I learned today which is part of the reason I’m back on this bullshit besides that thread ☝ is after Blind Betrayal Maxson has Danse’s records in the BoS stripped. I just got done in Fallout 3 doing the beginning of the Brotherhood stuff there and I have to go talk to that wizard-looking scribe lady (god I love their stupid outfits in 3, but I digress) and she makes A REALLY BIG DEAL about how their records are so important, every member has a record of the stuff they’ve done and how they’ve died and that’s their legacy. It’s mean, like vindictive. Like, synth or not, he did all of whatever he did. Aside from that, Maxson has literally altered the historical truth - there’s not even record that says “we accidentally a synth, this is what he did and we killed him because synths are bad” Again, like, thinking about real-world historical examples of people intentionally altering pieces of history to erase people or groups of people or what people have done -  the reason behind actions like that have never been good. 

And I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole, the people of the Commonwealth are bigots thing a lot. Yes, they are scared of synths because of the wrath The Institute has brought down on the people. They’re also scared of Raiders and Gunners. They’re scared of anything that stands between them and being safe and fed. Like, listen, they understand the difference between a human dude walking up into their settlement and a Raider, I feel like if someone bothered to take a second to explain to them Not All Synths(tm) work for The Institute and a lot of them are actually really nice and might brew you a stimpack or help you solve a noir mystery or take care of your feral infestation down the road they would be receptive to it. They would be especially receptive of it if the person telling them that was the head of the organization keeping them safe and fed >.> Would they be perfectly accepting? Probably not, but they would probably let them live for two seconds without throwing a fit. They would probably not shoot-to-kill on sight. Even the people in Diamond City who talk shit about Nick aren’t out there trying to murder him. 

Kind of in that same vein, let’s talk about Desdemona and the Minutemen for a second. Because I feel like, and maybe I’m wrong about the intention, my girl got slandered into making it look like she doesn’t support The Minutemen. If you fail your covert op any number of ways, she literally says you can use them to forcibly liberate the Synths. Hell, if you haven’t met Preston yet, she’ll tell you where he is and to go find him because she thinks The Minutemen can help. She’ll only go off on you if you don’t sound the evacuation alarm. If you destroy The Institute with The Minutemen and you sound the alarm, like Preston tells you on no uncertain terms to do, she’ll call you “The destroyer of the Institute. Liberator of the synths.” and say “My only regret is we couldn't have been there when you did it.“ When you talk with her about the people trying to hurt the Synths that made it out of the destruction of The Institute and she says “ They're vigilantes and bigots. They don't recognize anyone's laws. Not even yours.” I don’t think she’s talking about ALL the people, she’s talking about people who are vigilantes and bigots which, if you do the quests to go rescue the Synths, usually bring you to Raider dens, who aren’t your people and you’re working against anyway. The gangs that hunt Synths that she has you clear out after The Institute is destroyed are Raider gangs. John the Farmer in buttfuck egypt out by the glowing sea isn’t slaughtering Synths, he’s busy with his farm and his water purifier that doesn’t work and Gunners attacking him weekly. When it comes down to it, how many people like John the Farmer are going to bite the hand that feeds them and fixes his water purifier and fucks up the Gunners if that hand is The Minutemen and they say Synths are OK (because they are, generally)? 

and RE: danger synths and Acadia and stuff... so I’m trying to unpack the whole, weird Acadia lore that magically allows for DiMA to insert memories that he didn’t have in the first place into synth replacements  (e.g. you kill Tektus, stuff his body in a wall, but DiMA can make a “perfect replica” of him with nothing to go on?) I’m assuming when it was said that synths pose a unique danger that humans don’t, this is what was being referenced - that Synths can be messed around with to replace humans in order to manipulate whatever. Putting Acadia aside for juuuuuuust a second - because of the weird magic lore contradiction - there’s a couple of points about this. We see very few people in the game who have the resources, the technology and the know how to actually mess with a Synth’s brain. Even the people supposedly the best at replacing people with “perfect copies”, The Institute, are still kind of shit at it. Every single infiltrator that we see in the game knows what they are and gets called out by someone who figures out what they are. The “perfect copy” idea is hysteria - possibly even propaganda from The Institute itself. The only contradiction to that is what DiMA did in Acadia and honestly, I have no idea how to explain that. That’s all aside from the fact that, technically, in this universe humans have the ability to do the same thing. We know humans can be face changed. Deacon says he was both a girl and a ghoul (the ghoul incident is legit and backed up by terminal entries in the Railroad) and to be either of those from being human dude Deacon, you would have to get a voice change so that has to be a thing, right? Take a human who knows enough about another human, physically turn that human into the other human, and you have someone replaced, no Synths needed. And even Far Harbor, who will, with certain choices, go destroy Acadia don’t destroy them just because they’re synths, they destroy Acadia because Acadia murdered and replaced Avery. 

Which brings me to the final thought I had because holy crap I just wrote for like two hours and I’m tired and out of steam now. I keep really, really wanting to like the BoS and Maxson because they have the neat stuff and a lot of their people are cool and my friends like them but I just, like, can’t as long as they’re a faction that advocates for the genocide of Synths. That’s the one sticking point I have. I could maybe even tolerate them hanging around the Commonwealth where they maybe shouldn’t be, I could maybe see them through a nefarious lens than I do if I knew they wouldn’t come to Sanctuary and wipe out a third of my population because of how they were made - if they weren’t trying to kill my friends and my synth son. Honestly, I love a lot of fanon stuff about Maxson and the BoS because it changes that but canon, in the game, that’s what they would do. 

[theburning-soul]

.:The Blood-soaked Spirit:. (AU2)

Characters: Hokusai Ashikaga (kitsune heritage/human)

Warning(s): Blood, abuse, spooky things. Alternate universe!

Origin Date: 20 March 2019

“Vengeance is a monster of appetite, forever bloodthirsty and never filled.” --Richelle E. Goodrich

(Modern day with some cultivation ties inspired by Mo Dao Zu Shi and other practices across the world. The continuation of short story swaps with @dancing-where-sunmeets-sea.)

----

The fox slept. Despite sating his hunger with the hunt, it was still uneasy. Auburn brows knit.

Harsh words.

Fierce blows.

Literal soul-tearing pain.

Cold bars.

Freezing winter.

Sauna-like summers.

No baths.

Little food or water.

Days and nights blending together in a hazy mess.

It all tumbled together in a tumultuous hell in his mind. Below Hokusai in his unease, the animated corpses shambled. They didn’t move much. The music that compelled them was silent. It was simply the resentful energy seeping from the cursed man that occasionally gave them enough of a ‘spark’ for a step before stilling once more.

Something else kept watch however. A figure invisible to any and all. It seemed to hold no gender, a grey yukata spattered with crimson draped over a child’s form. Red eyes peering from under hair the color of dried blood. A hair ornament kept the knee-length mess up, an amber gem waving from the red-lacquered wood. The spirit sat on a branch near Hokusai, swinging legs back and forth into the night air.

Rakka-kyoki looked to the east. There were enemies approaching. Let them get close, two were no threat. They hummed a quiet tune, back and forth back and forth. The eyes glanced to the restless fox. Should he be woken? The dark energy about Hokusai was only growing with the reliving of such torturous times.

The anger.

The need for revenge.

The craving to spill more blood of those he deemed unfit.

Still though, to the flute’s interest, Hokusai hadn’t turned his wrath to the normal passerby. In fact he’d protected pockets of civilization from rogue malevolent beings.

What an interesting master they had in this era.

Ah, the two were close. The humming paused as Rakka-kyoki stood and walked down their branch towards the redhead. A gentle touch to the demonic cultivator’s brow. A subtle warning.

One that pulled Hokusai from sleep slowly. Ah, he was itching for a fight after that. And there was something near? A sniff of the air as he laid still, remaining draped about in the tree.

Something familiar in the air...? No. It was his mind playing tricks once more. Just at it had with the music on the night breeze before.

Hmm...what was it?

He turned, resting his chin on crossed arms on the edge of his branch. The high vantage allowed him an uncontested view in the trees below where his thralls waited for order. Oh...one had wandered off and got itself killed, eh?

“...hmm...alright then.”

An ear flicked and kitsune-bi floated about in the air. Dark black fire and smoke that twisted in itself, absorbing all light. A pair that flew towards the ground, shifting into large but swift vulpine shapes eager to hunt.

“Go have fun, ya know the deal,” he lazily muttered, flicking a finger. If they were Hanakaze, they were brought to him personally. If they were simply unfortunate souls on a night hunt, they’d be killed without a hesitation if they only presented a personal threat. The shikigami were used to keep a lower profile than his cultivation arts.

Hokusai was no fool. He knew the path he’d chosen would leave a mark, would put all types of do-gooders on his tail. Tails. And he was wise enough to know what tools to use when appropriate despite his plunge into the recesses of madness.

And so the two shadow shikigami set off through the woods at breakneck speed, silent and not disturbing a twig or leaf as they ran.

With that, it was boring once more. He let his head rest on his folded arms, turning it to the side to watch the moon. He wanted to dream of that guqin once more, that Chinese instrument that he’d fallen in love with.

No, he’d fallen in love with its master.

One that was gone now...hopefully living a good life. Somewhere.

With someone else, likely.

But that wasn’t his concern. This was his world of blood.

#short story #au2 #alternate universe

[tacticsroom]

Bruno: Masked Hare (Unit Review)

Available at 5★ (Special Hero)

Lv. 40 Stats (Flaw/Neutral/Asset)

HP: 38/41/44 Atk: 26/30/33 Spd: 21/24/28 Def: 32/35/38 Res: 11/14/18

Neutral BST: 144

Max Dragonflowers: 5

Skills

Weapon: Ovoid Staff+ (300 SP)

Mt: 12. Rng: 2. At start of turn, restores 7 HP to unit and adjacent allies

Staff. Can inherited. Can be refined.

Assist: Martyr+ (300 SP)

Restores HP = damage dealt to unit +50% of Atk. (Minimum of 7 HP.) Restores HP to unit = half damage dealt to unit.

Can be inherited. Staff only.

Special: Miracle (200 SP)

If unit's HP > 1 and foe would reduce unit's HP to 0, unit survives with 1 HP.

Can be inherited.

A: Atk/Def Push 3 (240 SP)

At start of combat, if unit's HP = 100%, grants Atk/Def+5, but if unit attacked, deals 1 damage to unit after combat.

Can be inherited.

B: Dazzling Staff 3 (240 SP)

Foe cannot counterattack.

Can be inherited. Staff only.

C: None

Analysis

After a long absence Bruno hops into frame for this year’s spring festival with a controversial base kit to boot. Unlike his original incarnation who wields a blue tome and is relatively fast Spring Bruno settles to capitalize on his attack and defense. This makes him unusually bulky for a healing unit. While most units wouldn’t mind this min/max difference in stats for a unit such as Bruno it ultimately forces him into an uncontested niche with limited options. That being said, this doesn’t mean that Bruno is better foddered than built. Bruno comes with a powerful self sustaining stave and can be easily built to serve based off his given skills alone.

Bruno’s base stat total (BST) shares similarities with other cavalry healers such as Elise and Priscilla. Unlike his competition however he carries the physical bulk to better shrug off close up or ranged melee attacks. This niche however is simply that: a niche. With an abysmal 24 spd he will fail to double much of anything and risks being doubled by nearly every unit in the game. Combined with a low 14 Res Bruno is a walking target to any mage currently in the game. Bruno heavily relies on his base kit because of this.

His A skill of choice, Atk/Def Push 3, gives him an invisible +5 Atk/Def while in combat granting him 47/40 Atk/Def with neutral stats. This considerable bulk can be pushed further with the help of ally support in the form of buffs, with drives or with unique cavalry skills such as Goad and Ward Cavalry. While the 1 HP recoil from his A skill is less than ideal its negligible thanks to his staff choice and healing assist. Ovoid Staff+ will heal both Bruno and any adjacent ally by +7 HP after combat effectively erasing the recoil sustained. Should Bruno have sustained more damage than what could be healed, using Martyr+ will allow him to patch himself up along with his target unit, as Martyr+ will restore damage Bruno took plus 50% of his Atk for a minimum of at least 7 HP healed. Carrying Dazzling Staff 3 as his B allows him to run a Wrathful staff refine on his stave further making it easier for him to do damage with no risk of damage from the enemy.

Similar Units

Azama: Carefree Monk (43/21/26/32/25)

Spring Bruno: Masked Hare (-2/+9/-2/+2/-11)

Note: Asama and Bruno are of different movement types but carry similar niches.

New Year Laevatein: Kumade Warrior (33/36/30/27/18)

Spring Bruno: Masked Hare (+8/-6/-6/+8/-4)

Build Suggestions

Budget:

Bruno’s base kit is built perfectly for his needs requiring very little investment for players. Rather than restate the skills he carries we will instead explore budget seal choices for players.

In the build on the left we use Live to Serve 3 as the seal to further boost his healing capabilities. Live to Serve will heal Bruno for the same amount as he does his target. For example, should Bruno heal for 20 HP, he will also have 20 HP restored to himself on top of any damage healed from Martyr+. This grants him a great level of sustainability, allowing him to take a hit or two while supporting his team at the same time.

The build on the right goes for an unorthodox approach to healing, utilizing it best after a round of combat. Ovoid Staff+ will heal Bruno and any adjacent ally by 7 HP if used in combat. In combination with Breath of Life 3 as the seal , Bruno will heal his allies for 14 HP after a round of combat. If a player decides to stack this with the C skill Breath of Life 3, he’ll heal his adjacent for a maximum of 21 HP outside of combat. This was once a feat that could once only be accomplished with the use of older, limited seasonal weapons.

Bruno’s seal choices include: Attack+3, Def+3, Atk/Def 2, Fortress Def 3, Close Def 3, Even Def Wave 3, & Drive/Tactic seals.

Offensive Force:

Bruno has access to the infamous Wrathful Dazzling staff combination (Wrazzle Dazzle for short) thanks to his base kit carrying Dazzling Staff. In combination with his 3 movement the following builds cater to him effectively controlling not just enemies but the map itself.

The build on the left makes use of the Wrazzle Dazzle setup to lock enemies in place with the help of Gravity+. Gravity+ will, after a round of combat, limit a foe and allies within two spaces’ movement to 1 even if the unit has a skill such as Armor March applied to them. Bruno, with the help of double savage blow will also be able to chip any enemy’s health within 2 spaces of his target by 14 HP. Once locked in place, Bruno can be easily repositioned to safety by an ally and his teammates can either take time to set up for their assault or launch their attack. Windfire Balm+ is taken to help provide buffs to his teammates, granting +4 to his team’s Atk/Spd.

The build on the right instead focuses on pure damage, utilizing a dazzling Pain+ refine and double savage blow. Pain+ will guarantee the target of his attack will suffer -10 to their HP after combat. In combination with double savage blow, Bruno becomes a dangerous AOE (area of effect) damage dealer. We take Guard 3 as the B instead of his default skill to prevent enemy cooldowns from skills such as Steady Breath. However, this detail is not necessary and a simple Wrazzle Dazzle setup can be run in place of this.

High Investment:

Bruno stat distribution, while unusual, opens the door to some interesting playstyles. Whether it be as a bulky dueler or hard-hitting support unit Bruno is built to serve.

The build on the left decks him out as a heavy support unit, utilizing multiple means to provide support to his team while being a dangerous uniti himself. With a speed boon, Bruno will reach a total of 32 speed. This can be further augmented with the help of seals and Atk/Spd Push, granting +5 to Atk/Spd if the unit’s HP is at 100%, pushing his offensive stats to 53/39 Atk/Spd respectively. Even if he may fail to double, the damage done will take a toll on the enemy. Should he choose not to attack however he can still provide support with the help of Joyous Lantern+, Windfire Balm+ and Spd Opening 3. Joyous Lantern will provide +5 to Def/Res on the unit with the highest attack. Speed Opening grants +6 spd to the unit with the highest speed on the team. Should a single unit meet all these requirements, they will receive buffs in 3 stats even when not next to Bruno. These abilities can be stacked onto units with proper prepping making for a dangerous team composition.

The build on the right pushes Bruno’s niche to its limit, turning him into a close counter physical fighter. With the addition of Witchy Wand+, healers gained the ability to place turn cooldowns on units negating skills such as armor fighter skills and blade skills like Heavy Blade. This allows Bruno to safely charge Miracle while denying his adversary a special at the same time. Restore+ is taken as the assist to provide further support to the team, healing while also removing any negative debuffs from ploys, smokes or chills. Odd Def Wave increases his bulk by +6, granting him 48 Def before ally support. Due to his poor speed we use Quick Riposte as the seal to guarantee a double on his foe during enemy phase.

#mod asama #fire emblem heroes #feh #unit review #Spring Bruno: Masked Hare #Spring!Bruno #S!Bruno #staff/cavalry #cavalry/staff #Regal Rabbits

[clement-weather]

Flames of War

The sounds of warfare resounded throughout the ruins of Eldre’thalas; the Dire Maul’s streets were running red as blasts of spellwork crashed into walls and caused  crumbling stone to crush upon melee fighters. 

The forces of the Alliance were retreating from their attempted assault.

Horde forces, supporting the ogre faction that made the city a residence, hounded men and women at every angle and direction during the escape.

Many soldiers fell back for the Southern borders.

Others clamored to make their own holes, breaking walls and clinging for hope.

Some fought their way North, struggling in their chaotic movements. 

Alison Clement kept committed to the last option with a coterie of other fighters. They’d pushed too far into the once-elven city and distanced themselves from any other option with every step that they took. 

She was rushing, especially hard, despite hearing the bovine roars of Tauren as they crushed pillars of wood onto her allies. A voice rang out, croaking its last as she ran away. It was familiar; a man, freshly recruited to the cause after being reminded of the Siege of Orgrimmar not but a few years ago and assured of victory following the Alliance’s fresh success against demonic invaders.

She couldn’t go back for him, nor anyone. 

“Keep moving! Hurry!” 

Her blonde hair was a mess, after having lost a battered barbute in favor of hearing close comrades as they each scoured the ruins for an exit. Lacerations at her brow caked her face in blood alongside other visceral details. 

The grime irritated her eyes and blurred her vision, but she couldn’t slow down. 

She was moving on instinct, barely yielding when the group found a fork to choose from.

“Left!” one man yelled, pathing down the street only to be crashed into by a frenzied Orc warrior. 

“Right!” his uncle ordered, contrasting and encouraging what was left of the group to keep moving despite his internal tragedy.

They ran, and ran, and ran, before breaking into a wider market space.

Alison still held onto her sword with her right hand at the hilt and the left keeping a tight grip half way down its blade. In pause between her Crusader-Fighting, she angled and brought one hand up to rub at the corner of her eyes so that she could take on a brief awareness of the setting.

Doing so, ironically, made her wince in pain. Her fingers were broken, but she could hardly remember the moment it happened. 

Was it when she were outside the central arena, being rebuked and countered by an orc who smashed his boot so harshly onto her right hand that she could hear its knuckles pop and phalanges fracture while curled around the hilt?

Or was it afterwards, when she took advantage of an ally’s assistance to climb atop that same orc, after he was cleaved, so that she could smash her fists so savagely that she briefly felt a sharp pain reverberate back into her palm?

Regardless, she was lucky that the hand had gone numb enough from the pain and strong enough to force the tendons to stay in a delicate curl around the tool. 

Her fingers were broken, but she wouldn’t let go.

The question had to be dismissed altogether, as she turned her attention to a thunderous roar of shamanic power. Crackling lightning struck a distance to the right, at an oil wagon, and acted the catalyst to a sundering explosion.

“Keep moving! Find cover and don’t fucking stop moving!” Alison cried out.

Two men wouldn’t be able to heed the call. The others were shook, but followed the hoarsely voiced instruction into a maze of crates and canopies.

The fire wasn’t too far behind, spreading across various flammable objects.

Going backwards was a death sentence, but the route ahead only had one single hope. Ladders raised up at a dead end of ancient stonework barriers, which were built to displace dirt and stone at the other side. 

Some men went immediately to climb, foregoing the fight. 

Those men fell back down, shot by ranged magic and mundane attacks alike.

The moment they halved the ladders’ height, it was a death trap; evocation spells from Sin’dorei were blasting the escape options apart, one by one. 

In a break of tragic desperation, a mage stepped backwards to sacrifice herself for the cause. She stepped away from her brothers and sisters, telling them to make the climb as she began some somatic gestures. 

A transmutation spell was cast to control the blazing fires, bringing a tempestuous pause onto the oncoming enemies. 

It gave enough time for Alison and a couple other soldiers to reach the top. 

There was also brief appreciation from Alison, as she recognized the spell; it was an entry-level cantrip that even she’d been practicing over the last several weeks, alongside the Evocation spell, “Firebolt.” 

That moment of appreciation shattered, however, when the shaman juggernaut revealed himself again. A competent, experienced troll, he challenged the mage’s spell. 

He broke the incantation, before breaking the mage sorceress in turn.

A nearby Kaldorei tried to fire arrows into the mass of hellfire, but it was no use. Alison reached for him and screamed in pained Common that they needed to keep moving. 

The wall they climbed onto leveled, ironically, into a tangle of dense forestry. It made little sense at this late hour, especially as most illumination was coming dimly from the city behind them.

“The further away, the better,” Alice assured before continuing.

They didn’t have time to rest, after all. And— Why would they, when the Horde had only just started its chase? The Alliance’s assault had gone on for a few hours and this escape effort had barely taken a fraction of the time.

They kept running, still hearing bellowing taunts coming from their pursuers. 

It was scornful.

Shameful.

“They’re gaining!” said a man warningly, while trying to make zigzagging movements. Most followed his example, save for one; he began sprinting further and further forward before the same shaman hurled a bomb of burning lava overhead. 

The ball split into portions; much of it fell onto a tree while a small amount landed at the furthest footman’s back. That was all it took, unfortunately. He let out a gasping howl from the heat, staggering in his movements. His comrades could catch up, but the assailants did so just as swiftly. A distant grunt’s firearm blew a musket-ball out and it pierced to his spine.

He dropped. 

Another bout of elemental magic was cast against the fleeing soldiers. Fire blew a distance ahead, being used from the tree nearby to force the Alliance to seek a different direction. 

Alison curved outwards, while encouraging her peers to continue left. 

She intended to mimic the mage’s sacrifice. 

“Keep going!” she demanded before slowing briefly and parting a hand out. She internalized the spell from earlier, taking her prior practice to exponential heights.

Do not think, act.   Willful focus intent. Disregard heat. Force. You are warmth.

The youthful knight closed her fist, then made a pulling gesture as if she were coaxing nature itself; in a way, she was. A blazing wave followed all of her fury, rushing like a tide onto the shaman. He was too prideful to consider suffering from heat, at the time of his chase, and suffered amply from it. 

Alison breathed in wearily, then started running further away from the massive plume of flames and smoke.

The troll’s yells didn’t cease, however. He kept wailing in wrath, eventually running out of the flame and leaping towards the knight. 

Wielding a massive club, he brought weight upon her with burning ire as an expression of his figurative and literal pain. 

The knight fell, topped by the smoldering fighter. In desperation, she kicked her feet and turned in an attempt to gain every inch away that was possible. 

When she turned her eyes upon his, though, all she saw was murderous intent. 

Her suffering was inbound, but ultimately intercepted as a row of arrows shot out from a distance. The ranger that Alison discouraged to linger, disobeyed and saved her life; his shots impacted the shaman’s chest, twice, and once into the very arm that held his weapon of choice. 

It gave her desperate hope and she took the opportunity.

Alison raised her left hand, again. Despite a painful sob, she forced the only other spell that was in her mental arsenal. 

Focus willful intent. Attribute target. You are energy. Unleash, propel. 

The mental incantations finished and, abruptly, a thunderous clap of arcane energy was evoked and shot forth into a combusting bolt of flame and fury against the troll.

He had only staggered a few feet away from her, so the impact was tumultuous.

Soot and ash rippled from the burst after a chaotic explosion, blowing Alison into a roll and her enemy off into the distance. 

She didn’t look to see if he survived, this time.  She heard a horn ring out, signalling that the Horde pursuers were overextending. They pulled away, back to the city’s outer borders.

With her comrade’s help, Alison broke further; they didn’t intend on chancing their survival. For every step that she took, however, a severe pain stabbed sharply at her lower back and coupled with short breaths; ribs had been broken and her lungs had been bruised by the club.

Rumors went abound between the survivors as they kept moving, then.

From their gnomish communicators, they were told reports of Alliance combatants pocketing all over the southern forests. 

They were safer in the North. 

The information was taken as opportunity and they ran with it, finding a hill and using its vantage to identify an uncontested road; a safe route for Feathermoon, the Alliance’s stronghold in the region.

The quick success was an overwhelming relief, forcing decompression on everyone and especially on Alison. She was so hopeful to find respite swiftly, that she began running down the steep slope. 

Unexpectedly, she skipped on a rock and began stumbling into a roll for the bottom. When she came to a stop, it was against a large stone; her knee bludgeoned it and sprained to add further issue during the trek’s last stretch.

Did she truly care, though? No. 

They were no longer being chased and she rose with quick composure despite her peers’ chagrin. 

After all— A woman with a limp can still stand for her friends.

#Alison Clement #Flames of War #Moon Guard #League of Lordaeron #Roleplay character #World of Warcraft #RP Short Story #short story

[secrets-of-kreshire]

On the prehistory of Kreshire

“Listen and listen well.  The world you tread on is ancient and far older than the first humans.  For eons it was populated by impossible beasts and primordial terrors.  Long before that it was once desolate and lifeless, sterile of even the tiniest of living things.

What changed was arrival of the first god, I scyred its visage and was taken aback by the sight of the gelatinous horror I saw.  Deep in my soul I wished this blasphemy was an error in creation, for what would it mean of all life on this world if that was our great progenitor?  I sighed deep for I had to simply accept this horrid truth am I see the beginnings of world.

The squamous heap rolled across the bare shale and smeared its mucous with little care.  Tendrils and eye stalls emerged from the formless blob all across and then it vomited out several dark blue, rugrouse pods upon the moist rock, of which veiny tendrils emerged from.  The barrel-shaped things stood upon on heavy, fleshy thick tendril-like feet such as seen on sea star, and even more like a sea star were their heads!  Or at least what I believed to be their heads for each segment had an eye on its end.  Great membremous wings emerged from the sides of the creatures and stretched out as if from a long nap; each being had around five which then was tucked into slots on the sides of their bodies.  These beings bear a resemblance to the depictions of the ancestors that the asterazoans speak of, perhaps their creation story is true and what I am about to witness in my lens.

The ancient asterazoans, or what I believe them to be, and the hideous god set to work.  They started to gather more mucous and smeared it across many different surfaces with a strange, deliberate precision like an artist with a paint brush.  Vats of more and more moist biological material spewed forth into hot steamy pool of water and spread across its surface like oil.  I then saw sigils drawn and arcane glowing from them drawn with the slime on various surfaces; I had not seen arcane sigils like this before but my background in magic identifies them as such.  The massive blob of a creature lurched its way into the pool of water and I never saw it again.  

Why then do I refer to this mound of mucosal moist matter as a god?  Because I have read the ancient hymns older than even feykind that speak of the father and mother of all life on this planet; the grotesque seed of the world sent by greater gods beyond the stars and its minions.  They refer to it as Ubbo-Salthia, the source of mortal life.  

A fast forward into time allowed me to see the progress unfold in mere minutes.  Slime grew and ate across surfaces, the ancient ones studied and meddled in the slime's activities. The slime then vanished into the water where it dissolved into colonies of smaller blobs.  These blobs spent a long time traversing across steel shale and rugged basalt high and low.   What was primordial goop became microscopic beings, what were microscopic gathered in groups and became multicellular.  These colonies grew and grew, the ancient ones cared for some and culled others.  They made elaborate rituals that mutated the slime and mixed it with some other substances I could not identify.  They worshipped strange gods and dedicated their experiments to them.  

I fast-forwarded to find that these ancient ones retreated to the ocean with their god.  Their multicellular blobs had become all sorts of simple marine life like algae, jellyfish, and worms.  I fast-forwarded more to find an ocean full of fish and what appeared to be large aquatic bugs like trilobites.  The ancient ones gradually made less and less influence over their creations and retreated to their own city-a vast structure that appeared like a massive fortress above, and below like a reflection.  They continued their studies and some other projects.  They spread creatures all over the world to change the planet.

Then life conquered the land, the environment was lush full of plant life, bugs, and the beginnings of amphibians.  Above I saw a looming, glowing red cloud that looked like infernal smoke descend from the heavens and narrowly avoided touching the fragile ecosystem.  It coalesced in a bare rock where a ring if ancient ones stood and took the form of what vaguely appears like a red and black goat-like form made of dust.  There was an exchange of words not even my magic could decipher, a language so old and alien that very different forces could only untangle these words-if words they were at all.  

The goat-figure whom I highly suspect is Shubb-Niggurath, was then suddenly accompanied by two other figures, one seemed like a piece of the sky descended and the other a piece of the ground ascended, it is hard for me describe what they were like other than they were a fragment of the world put in form. I suspect they to be what you recognize as the Sky Lord and Earth Lord.  Which were then accompanied by what appeared to be a water elemental-the Sea Lord.  The original and lost Sea Lord whom was slain before the first age.  

I ventured forward to see the world populated by massive beasts and plants-the kind that are only found in the most remote places such as Caldera Island.  Great longnecks and raptors, trees with trunks covered in entire fields of plants.  Massive carnivorous flowers that plucked creatures from the sky, great krakens ruled the seas and lorded over the ancient ones; whom most moved onto land to avoid the wrath of the krakens.  I would have believed that as beings of the world they would revere the ancients, but it occurred to  me the possibility these great monsters were not of this world.  

My suspicions were confirmed when I found they were with another race of beings, one that had come from the stars, the fabled othulia, spawn of Cthulhu.  The world of great beasts became a battleground of various primordial entities to fight to reign the planet.  Beasts were twisted by various factions and their gods, sometimes directly by the gods to serve as troops and to express their taste of what life in this world ought to be like.  I would see the beginnings of massive leviathans, great krakens, tarrasques, behemoths, behir, ziz, rocs, titanic elementals the size of mountains and beings spew forth from volcanoes.  The wars wrecked the lands and those few stewards of life and nature moved great natural beasts away from the destruction.  These stewards were an interesting lot, consisting of ancient ones, even othuli and what appeared to be the early sobekin.  

And then, among the great beasts came the lord of monsters.  It was long, sinuous, majestic, and unlike the war beasts had eyes of great intelligence.  It's wings blotted out the sun, it's voice was like thunder, its claws clutched entire summits of mountaintops and upon its crested head was a massive crown of horns.  A mouth full of great spikes like the abyssal maw of a cave.  I was overwhelmed with a great sense of awe and terror, I felt like the great majesty was the epitome of the perfect being, I wept in its unfathomable beauty and absolute terror.

It was the first dragon.  Not a beast, but a god, Quaratha’rtl, the first daughter of the great god of dragons, his lord and majesty, Y’igiathquen.

There was but a mighty roar that cracked the heavens, shattered the earth, and splashed entire seas.  The clouds obeyed her divine commands and volcanoes shuddered in fear.  Each beast was frozen in the same shock and terror upon gazing on this superior being.  

Another mighty roar and the entire world seemed like it would break.  The mighty beasts fled.  Lord Yig had won the battle.  Yet the war was not over.  The ancient ones held back their inevitable decline with the help of their own mighty shoggoths, massive piles of primordial substance that could form into a variety of shapes, tools, and weapons.  The largest could engulf and swallow entire tarrasques while fending off pecking from the talons of rocs and the insistent nips of a pack of beasts that resembled a mixture of lion, boar, and wolf.  A new group of strangers appeared who were a blend of air elemental and ephemeral flesh, they howled as they moved upon a single pseudopod and vanished and re-appeared just as quickly in their massive conical basalt structures.  

The war quieted down, as many factions cowered in fear of a new god announce his might to the other gods and their peoples.  Yet Yig’s might was not absolute, nor uncontested.  Great Cthulhu, Bokrug, and Dagon contested for the seas.  Gods of rain, rock, and hunt spawned from the children of Shubb-Niggurath whom herself seemed to have left for another place.  The druids of old wept at the destruction of much of the world, and vowed to renew it with the help of the new gods of nature.  Among their patron gods was the great Tsathuggoa whom is known now as a great slothful toad, but back then was a much different figure-I suspect it would be the later conflicts with Yhoundeh that would deteriorate him so.  Atlas-Natcha spun webs between the planes to protect the broken barriers, her people, the spiders of Leng retreated to the great plateau and little seen again.  

Millenia later, the war began show signs of rising again, and the dragon lord would respond by populating the world with his kin-the dragons.  Each was just a fragment of the perfection and might of his divine scions, but each reflected it very well.  The ancient ones had changed to accommodate this new world and retreated beneath the waves. other beings occupied and recycled their great above-ground structures.  The sobekin’s own empire was also retreating, but from the sea and back into land, their mighty god, Bokrug followed them and showed them the lakes and rivers that were more tranquil than the seas.  The othulia settled down as well, and made peace with the other gods, but their krakens still hungered for flesh and mayhem.  Mighty beasts retreated to lone mountains to gorge upon large fauna and terrorize local villages.

The dragons however, became the lords of the land.  This was the start of the first age, the age of dragons that set the foundation for the other races to come, and what late arrivals are they to a stage millions of years old in the making.  I still have yet to look into the second age to see the fates of many of these gods and their followers, and what made them retreat so at the dawn of humans that would later lead to the invasion of the fey, whose progeny with humans would give rise to the elves who would follow in the footsteps of the great dragons.”

-The Great Seer, Abdul Alhazred  

#prose #cthulhu mythos #world buidling #fantasy #deities

[fathersappointed]

There is no God! I have walked the mile! I have paid the price! Your contempt is expected!

All religions are controlled by the same Unmoved  Evil Coldness!

I don't know if you can hear me? I don't know if you can even think? I don't know if you can even bring yourself to read these words? To hear the truth I speak?

Ask yourself why are there? With just the Muslims, the Christians! Billions of People down on their knees, praying, worshiping these beings they have no understanding of! No understanding other than the doctrine within their environment that is basically forced upon them. No, never mind all the other religions they control them as well. They are all controlled by the same Unmoved Evil Coldness! It isn't that hard to see go to YouTube listen to these people listen to how they speak.

Listen to the people who say, they have encountered these beings! Or that the being they've encountered, say they are the chosen ones! Where did you get this “great wisdom” to say they are All Lying? Or that all are Delusional Fools? “You think? You are so intelligent” as you arrogantly dismiss all. To say that throughout the entire history of man all recorded instances of encounters, for instance, George Washington or Saint Hubertus, the utterance of lies!  Did someone tell you this, so you went home? I'll tell you where you got this great knowledge! You got it sitting on your lazy ass and shooting off your ignorant mouth! Are you not offended? That is all your ignorance and arrogance will grasp from this post!

  Look at all the atrocities, acts of horror, even decorations of war from people who say they've encountered these beings throughout the ages. Are they all on a collective Mass Delusion the traverse time, distance, education, cultures, lifestyles. Look at the monuments The towering impressive building that they make to all of these entities when they encounter them. How is it a million! No! Wait it gets more alarming, more bizarre! There are billions do you comprehend Billions that follow suit to the tune of the pipe players! They offer love "with hate and death" no one seems to care! Does that not alarm you! Billions follow murderers and call them Love!

Is this your God of love! God by whatever name the creep goes by, threatens tournament and death to all who will not declare they love it! Who will not obey! 

The delusion is in everyone regardless of their religion or lack of religion! The delusions on You!

You have no idea what this group is doing to you! What this group has done to you! Wake Up! Or be the fool in Your contemptuous limited mind. It matters not what you believe or don’t, it’s going to happen regardless. 

Your Minds are So Stagnant and Putrid! You Don’t Even Care that it wants to Kill Your Loved Ones! Or that it Already Has!

The religious would rather nod their head and obey when Someone says, God is love, let us kneel and pray. Look! At what you kneel and pray too and called Love! 

Look at what this “piece of garbage” offers all the World! 

Your contempt it is expected.

The seventh seal introduces the seven trumpets (Revelation 8:1–5), and the seventh trumpet introduces the seven bowls (Revelation 11:15–19; 15:1–8).

The First Seal –Rider on White Horse

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” 

First trumpet  

Upon the sound of the first trumpet, hail and fire mingled with blood is thrown to Earth, bring up a third of the trees on the planet, in all the green grass.

First Bowl  

When the first bowl is poured out, foul and painful sores come upon those bearing the mark of the beast and those who worship the image of the beast.

The Second Seal—War Red Horse

When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come” And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.

Second trumpet

With the sounding of the second trumpet, something described as "a great mountain burning with fire" plunges into the sea and turns a third of the oceans to blood. Soon after, a third of all sea life and a third of all ships will be destroyed. Some speculate that the "great mountain" will be an asteroid cast from the heavens.

Wait a minute! Omnipresent Omniscient Omnipotent  THROWING STONES! BAD GOD! 

An astronomical cosmic power of profound knowledge wouldn't need to do such a thing. And probably couldn't even conceive of it, being so beneath it! But a group of cold malicious intent, manipulating a world would certainly utilize such a technique

Second Bowl

When the second bowl is poured out, the seas and the oceans become bitter as of a dead man, forcing everything in the sea to die.

The Third Seal—Famine Black Horse

When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

Third trumpet

With the sounding of the third trumpet, a great star called Wormwood falls to the Earth, poisoning a third of the planet's freshwater sources, such as rivers and springs. Men will die from drinking its bitter taste.

 Third Bowl

When the third bowl is poured out, the rivers and the remaining sources of water turn to blood. The angels then begin praising God’s holy judgments.

The Fourth Seal—Death Pale Horse

When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.”  I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death, and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Fourth trumpet

Following the sounding of the fourth trumpet, a third of the light that shines from the Sun, moon, and stars becomes dark from the celestial bodies being "struck." This catastrophe causes complete darkness for a third of the day, even though night hours.] This is the final trumpet that sounds before the three woes, also known as the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets.

Fourth Bowl

When the fourth bowl is poured out, the sun causes a major heatwave to scorch the planet with fire. The incorrigible wicked refuse to repent while they blaspheme the name of God.

The Fifth Seal—Martyrs

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”  And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

Fifth trumpet

The fifth trumpet is the "first woe" of three. Before this trumpet sounds, an angel (translated as an eagle in some versions) appears, and warns, "Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!"

The fifth trumpet prompts a personified star to fall from heaven. The star is given the key to the bottomless pit. After opening it, the smoke that rises out of the pit darkens the air and blocks the sunlight. Then, from out of the smoke, the locusts are unleashed. The locusts are scorpion-tailed warhorses that have a man's face with a lion's teeth. Their hair is long and they fly with locust-like wings. They are adorned with golden crowns and protected with iron breastplates. They are commanded by their king, Abaddon, to torment anyone who does not have the seal of God on their forehead, by using their scorpion-like tails. It is also made clear to them that they must not kill anyone during the five months of torment. It is referenced in the Bible that the locusts are actually fallen angels taking on terrifying forms. At the very least, the locusts from the abyss are human-animal hybrids, symbolizing humanity’s conflicted and, in this instance, monstrous nature. The hybrids portray what the world would look like if God allowed evil to have the upper hand and to reign uncontested in this world.

Fifth Bowl

When the fifth bowl is poured out, a thick darkness overwhelms the kingdom of the beast. The wicked continue to stubbornly defame the name of God while refusing to repent and glorify God.

The Sixth Seal—Terror

I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.  Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains;  and they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

Sixth trumpet  

After the fifth trumpet blast, the sixth one sounds. This is the "second woe", where four angels are released from their binds in the "great river Euphrates". They command a force of two-hundred million mounted troops whose horses exude plagues of fire, smoke, and brimstone from their mouths. The mounted horsemen wore breastplates with the color of fire, hyacinth, and brimstone. The horses are with a lion's head and their tails, as well, are like a serpent with a head. The plagues exuding from the horses will kill a third of all mankind.

Sixth Bowl

When the sixth bowl is poured out, the great river Euphrates dries up so that the kings of the east might cross to be prepared to battle. Three unclean spirits with the appearance of frogs come, one each, out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. These demonic spirits work Satanic miracles to gather the nations of the world to battle against the forces of good during the Battle of Armageddon. Jesus says that his coming will be like that of a thief in the night, urging his followers to stay alert.

Still won't have a first aid kit although this betrayer might be holding a purse! 

The seventh seal.

When the Lamb opens the seventh seal, “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour”  The judgments that lead up to the close of the tribulation are now visible in the scroll and are so severe that a solemn silence falls upon all of heaven. The seventh seal obviously introduces the next series of judgments, for John immediately sees seven angels who are handed seven trumpets ready to sound  An eighth angel takes a censer and burns “much incense” in it, representing the prayers of God’s people  The angel then took the same censer, “filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake” 

Seventh trumpet

The sound of the seventh trumpet signals the "third woe." This is the final trumpet and the final woe. Loud voices in Heaven will say: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever."

Seventh Bowl

When the seventh bowl is poured out, a global earthquake causes the cities of the world to collapse. All the mountains and islands are removed from their foundations. Giant hailstones weighing around 75 pounds or 35 kilograms plummet onto the planet. The plagues are so severe that the wicked’s hatred of God intensifies while the incorrigible continue to curse God.

Stand up, people! You have been deceived!

God the Praise, Drowner, of Defenseless families! For all his talk on umpteen-number of repetitions pages, in the end, God is still just a murdering headcase! But this time he’s using bombs and poison gas instead of water!

A being who took the time to think up children, puppies, flowers, and love wouldn't spend the time fantasizing on how to kill someone in the tub!

Ask Yourself What The Hell Am I, Us, They, Worshiping!

#god #religion #christianity #Muslim #judaism #islam #catholic #jesus christ #devil #atheism #atheist #the second coming #science #technology #artificial intelligence #end days #endtimes #end time prophecy #Christ #antichrist

[shanastoryteller]

Your Athena made me cry, I'd like you to know. And we got Medusa! Who, her ending, wow, just. Wow. And the whole thing with Aphrodite and Athena was really interesting, and like Hephestus is shaping up to be the most wanted of the gods, which yes.(Her gift is to turn all who would harm Medusa in that way to stone. It acts as a curse, but she meant it as a gift, and gahhh) Also, Amphitrite is super interesting and is there any way I could tempt you into expanding on her? Or, well. Any more, truly

Zeus claims the sky ashis domain, free and open and pure, and his it becomes.

Hades goes to theunderworld, and it’s messy and horrible and heartbreaking, but he claims ituncontested, and his it becomes.

Poseidon goes to the sea,but it already has a sovereign.

~

His first though is thatshe’s beautiful. Skin the color of pearls and hair the dark, rich green ofseaweed. She’s tall with the type of aristocratic bone structure that wouldmake him think her delicate if not every other aspect of her was as fearsome asHera at her most irritable.

“You come to my landseeking to make it your own,” she says, and she’s not quite walking and notquite swimming as she circles him. “Who are you to rule the sea?”

He clears his throat, andhe’s a powerful god, he and his brothers are the most powerful gods that stillexist on this earth, but his knees shake before her. It’s not a good feeling. It’snot infatuation – it’s fear. “I am Poseidon.”

She tilts her head, andher pretty blue eyes are as cold as sea floor they stand in. “Goodbye, Poseidon.Perhaps your brother will be able to find what’s left of your corpse in hisunderworld.”

The water whips aroundhim, doing its best to rip him apart, forcing itself into his lungs andsuffocating him. He didn’t think he could drown, but he might be about to beproven wrong.

Then a net closes aroundhim, pulling him up so he breaks through the surface and takes a large,grateful gulp of air. He’s hauled over the side of a boat and dumped on itsfloor, the person who saved him wildly fighting the angry waves. “You must havereally pissed the Lady off,” a light, teasing voice says. Poseidon is stillcoughing, his eyes watering and lungs screaming. This boat is going to capsizeand they’ll both die, so he doesn’t get how this person can sound so lighthearted.

Except they’re not. Theirlittle boat is being expertly handled against the thrashing waves. Poseidonblinks, and he’s inclined to say the person sailing is a woman, considering thebudding breasts and hips. But the hair is cut short, and the chiton is designedfor a man.

“What’s your name?” heasks.

“Caeneus,” his unexpectedrescuer answers.

That’s a man name, andPoseidon opens his mouth to questions it – then closes it again. “Thank you,”he settles on, “You saved my life.”

Caeneus finally steersthem to land, and Poseidon dismounts to help him pull and anchor his boat toshore. “Anytime,” he says cheerfully, “What did you do to make the Lady so mad,anyway?”

“You know her?” he asks,staring. This man appears to be a mere mortal, yet how could a human know thatwoman?

He grins at Poseidon andpoints out to the glittering sea. “We all do. She is the ocean itself, and justas powerful and unknowable. You better be careful not to anger her again – I don’tknow anyone who’s survived her wrath twice.”

“Right,” he says blankly,even though that’s unavoidable. He’s to be the god of the sea, and if he has towrest the mantle of monarch from her corpse then so be it.

Caeneus claps him on theshoulder, his work-roughed palm more comforting than anything else Poseidon hasknown since escaping his father’s stomach. “Come to mine, you look half dead. I’llmake you something warm.”

He takes a long look athis savior. Skin a dark shade of brown, and his eyes are amber in the settingsun. His black hair is cut short, and the muscles of his arms and legs shiftwith each moment. “Very well,” he answers, and is inordinately grateful that he’stoo cold to blush.

~

Caeneus takes him to hishome, a hastily constructed shack on the beach’s edge. The wind whips throughthe cracks in the wood so that no matter where you stand you’re always chilled.“This is the worst woodwork I’ve ever seen,” he says. He slides his hand acrossthe wall and is completely unsurprised when it comes away with splinters.

“I’m a sailor, not a carpenter,”Caeneus answers, intent on mixing together a bunch of ingredients Poseidon onlyhalf recognizes. “It stay upright.”

“Barely,” he returns,cupping his hands around the cup that’s shoved at him.

Caeneus doesn’t ask himto leave. Instead they squeeze onto Caeneus’s too small bed. Poseidon curls aroundthe smaller man, tangling their legs and tucking Caeneus’s head under his chin.“You’re so warm,” Caeneus murmurs, half asleep already, and Poseidon’s heartclenches.

He makes sure he’s asleepwhen he carefully, so carefully, lowers his head and brushes his lips against Caeneus’scheek.

~

When Poseidon wakes up,the sun is bright and Caeneus is gone.

He should go marchingback to the ocean, but first he has something important to do. He’s just notsure how to go about it.

He can’t ask Zeus, hisyounger brother knows plenty of war and not much else. Which leaves –

It’s easy enough to slipinto the underworld, although he regrets doing so the second he arrives. It’salmost completely dark, and lonely. Lost souls are immediately reaching forhim, cold hands brushing against his skin.

“What are you doing?” afamiliar voice demands, and Poseidon nearly wilts in relief when Hades appearsat his side and guides him away from the wailing souls. “It’s not safe here.”

“What’s wrong with them?”he asks, glancing back, his chest clenching at sympathy at their cries eventhough he knows there’s nothing he can do for them.

They slip through therealm, and they land in front of a partially built stone castle. The goddess Hecateguides them construction with her magic, her visage that of a young child sinceit’s still morning in the mortal realm.

Hades sits on the ground,and the skin beneath his eyes is dark and bruised. He looks like a strong windwould blow him over. “Nothing, everything, I don’t know. I’m working on it. Whyare you here?”

“I don’t suppose you knowhow to build a house?” he asks, though he doesn’t expect much. It seems he’snot the only one having trouble claiming authority over his domain.

His brother laughs, eyescrinkling at the corners. “You’ve come to the wrong sibling, little brother.”

Oh. That’s true. “Do youthink she’ll help me?”

“Yes,” Hades answers,lips still twitching. “Now leave me to my anarchy, I have more than enoughtrouble to deal with without you causing more.”

That’s fair enough.

Poseidon heads to Olympusnext, careful to peer around corners to avoid Zeus and Hera. Their marblepalace is already constructed, and he tamps down on the bitterness that theyrule unchallenged. In the center of the throne room, next to a roaring fire,sits Hestia.

“Sister,” he greets,tentative. “I need help building a home.”

She looks from her fireto him, and when she smiles he feels all his tension drain from his shoulders. “Ofcourse, little brother. If it is help you require, then it is help you shallhave.”

Hestia tears apart theshack with a flick of her hands, says, “I’ll ask Demeter for some better wood,”and is gone and back in the blink of an eye. They build it by hand after that,and Hestia’s soft voice guides him whenever he hesitates or stumbles. They aregods, so it doesn’t take too long, and when they finish they have a small,beautiful house right on the edge of beach, one with a large bed and lots oflight, one with a fire pit in the center that has Hestia’s name inscribed inthe bottom so that she may look over this home she helped build.

“Thank you,” Poseidonsays, the sun beginning to set.

Hestia winks at him, “Anytime,little brother,” and is gone in the next moment.

He hopes Caeneus likesit. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to stick around to find out.

He has a queen tochallenge.

~

He finds her again, inher palace of polished rock at the bottom of the sea.

“There’ll be no helpfulsailor to save you this time,” she says, head tilted to the side. Already thewater is colder around him, the current stronger.

He swallows, “I amPoseidon. I am to be the god of the sea.”

She glances him over,unimpressed. “Why do you want it so badly? There is nothing about you that is ofthe sea.”

“I am a god,” he answersblankly, and doesn’t say that it was this or the underworld, and that wasn’t amess he was willing to take on.

She snorts, a flicker ofamusement appearing in her emotionless gaze. “You are too soft, and too kind,to ever be a master of the sea.” He opens his mouth, but she raises a hand, andhe closes it. She takes slow, deliberate steps towards him, and he swallows anddoesn’t look away. “I will make you a bargain, Poseidon, god of nothing.”

“I’m listening,” heanswers, and tries not flinch when she places a cold hand against his chest.

“I am Amphitrite,” shesays, “sister of Gaia, and I have lived long before your conception, just as Iwill live long after your death.” Poseidon pales, and oh, he had no idea the class being he was dealing with here. Thisis very, very bad. “If you wish to rule the sea, then you must rule me.”

He swallows, “Lady, I – athousand apologies, I did not know–”

“Silence.” His mouthclicks shut. “I was born as I am, and I will die that way. But – I need notlive this way.” He doesn’t understand, and she must see that, because shetouches her own chest and says, “I have a heart as cold and dark as the oceansI bore. I will give it to you, and I and the sea will be yours to command. ButI require your heart in return, so that I may know kindness and softness.”

He doesn’t know what tosay. Hearts aren’t things to be given away lightly. But he must become lord of the sea.

“Take time, if you must,”she says, that same cold amusement in her eyes. “I am as immovable as the ocean,and I will be here when you make up your mind.”

He’s propelled up andonto the shore, far more gently this time around.

“POSEIDON!” he barelyturns when a body slams into him, and lips press against his. Caeneus pins hiswrists to the sand and kisses him, long and slow and more than distractingenough to make him forgot about the offer from the personification of the seaitself. “You built me a house,” he murmurs, “You built me a house.”

“Do you like it?” heasks, dazed.

Caeneus grins above him,wicked and beautiful, and rolls his hips into Poseidon’s. “Come with me, and I’llshow you how much I like it.”

~

Poseidon means to go backto the sea, to Amphitrite, but every morning Caeneus kisses him good morning.He learns of the sea, though. He goes out with Caeneus each day and learns itmotions and its temper, the taste and smell of it. Learns how to understand it,and learns how completely and totally uncaring it is, how the coldness of itsdepth is the totality of it.

The sea is not kind. Ithas no sympathy, no love, no capacity for such small things as forgiveness ormercy.

He means to return toher, but it becomes harder and harder every day.

Days turn to weeks turnto months. He and Caeneus grow closer, and closer, and Poseidon has no idea howhe’s supposed to turn his heart over to Amphitrite when it’s now held by amortal with amber eyes who leaves mouth shaped bruises all along Poseidon’scollar bones.

“Poseidon,” Caeneus says,quiet in the oppressive stillness of the night, head on his chest and curledinto his side. The moon is large and high, and pools silver on their bedroomfloor. “You’re a god, right?”

“I am,” Poseidon says,amused. Caeneus knows what he is, but this is the first time he’s mentioned it.

Caeneus pushes himself upso he can look down at him, and Poseidon reaches up to cup his face. Caeneusleans into it, covering his hand with his own. “Could you make me into a man?”

“You are a man,” he saysautomatically.

He rolls his eyes andpulls himself up so he can swing his leg over Poseidon, straddling his hips. “Youknow what I mean.”

Poseidon shifts enoughthat both their breaths hitch, and he says, low, “No. I’m sorry. I’m not – I haveno domain, and my powers are limited.” He could maybe do it, but transformation is not among his natural talents,and Caeneus is too precious to risk unless he is certain.

He’s disappointed, butsmiles through it, and leans down to kiss him. “It’s all right.”

It’s not. If Poseidonwere the god of the sea in more than name, if he had taken Amphitrite’s offer,he would be able to transform his lover like he desires.

He’s a god, brother ofZeus, and he can’t give Caeneus the one thing he’s ever asked of him. What goodis he, what good is any of his power, if he can’t make the people he loveshappy?

He’s flips Caeneus overand kisses his neck so his lover won’t see the self-hatred that’s plain on hisface.

~

Poseidon sneaks away inthe middle of the night, presses a soft kiss to his sleeping lover’s slack mouth,and enters the ocean.

“You’ve decided then?”she asks, head tilted to the side.

“I will not be a loyalhusband,” he declares, back straight. “I love Caeneus.”

She laughs, and for thefirst time he’s not afraid of her. “Do with your mortals what you wish. It’s noconcern of mine.”

“Okay,” he says, andsteels himself. “Okay. I accept your offer Amphitrite, sister of Gaia.”

She holds out her hand,nails more like claws, and tears open her own chest without flinching. Herblood slick and dark as it pours from her, swirling in the water around themShe pulls a dark, round thing from her chest and holds it out to him.

“I,” he looks down at hischest, and he doesn’t – he’s not sure if he can do what she’s done, and hewould feel foolish asking for a knife.  Shesteps forward and places her hand with its claws against his chest, slippery andwarm with blood, and cuts open his chest for him.

It’s excruciating, andhis knees buckle against the pain of it. Amphitrite holds him up, and waits.

She can’t to this part.It has to be him. He reaches inside his chest and pulls out his heart, beating andwarm. He clumsily places it in her chest. It’s startlingly, violently redagainst the dark green color of the rest of the inside of her. She does thesame, slipping her own heart into his chest.

Their skin heals overinstantly. Amphitrite’s mouth drops open, and her cheeks flush pink. Shesmiles, small and soft, and for the first time she looks – happy.

Her heart in his chestcold as ice, and its chill suffuses his body, edging out to fill him entirely.

He can feel the oceannow, all of it spread across the globe, the tides and the creatures the residein it, it’s plants and animals and nymphs. “It’s so much,” he says, and is surprisedat the sound of his own voice, at its curtness.

“You feel only part ofit,” she says, stepping forward, “It is a force too powerful for a god tocontrol. I am a force to powerful fora god to control. However, you hold my heart. As I will now obey you, so willthe sea.”

“You could overpower me,”he says clinically, knows the power she wields by what he can’t feel ratherthan what he can.

She presses a hand to hischest, and they both startle. She’s warm now. She wasn’t warm before. Orperhaps he has simply grown colder. “I could,” she says, “but I will not.”

He has no reason to trusther, but he’s painfully aware that he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. “I’mgoing to Caeneus,” he says, and a sense of unease grows within him. Even theshape of his lover’s name in his mouth doesn’t feel the same anymore.

“Do as you wish, husband,”she turns from him, going deeper into her – their – palace.

This time, he uses hisown powers of the sea to push him to the surface.

It’s not as satisfying ashe thought it’d be.

gods and monsters series part x

#gods and monsters series #part one of two because this got too long #amphitrite's pov for the next one #thanks for all your sweet words anon! #i hope you liked it! #poseidon's origin story #also poseidon is asian #poseidon #amphitrite #caeneus #hestia #hades #greek myth #Greek Mythology #long post