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stardustbarbarians · 1 year

Text

Cirice

Chapter 1 (ch. 2)

A Daniel Wagner / fem!reader series

Summary: You wanna deal with The Devil? You gotta live with it when he sets you on fire.

Tags: Demon!Daniel, angst, Catholic imagery, humor

Trigger Warnings: Injury, hospitals, blood

A/N: Big shout out to @t00turnttrauma for helping me out with this fic as well as just genuinely being one of my favorite people <3. Also dedicating this to @samkooszka and I hope this makes your day better after working in hell all day. Title taken from Ghost’s Cirice. This will be a pretty dark fic, but more along the lines of a dark comedy. That being said, I'm so sorry Jakey. Anyway, please enjoy!!

Words: 3.8 k

+++

It had been a normal day…

That’s how these stories typically are meant to start, right? That everything was normal and peachy keen and then on a dime the world shifted beneath us all like a magnitude 9 earthquake? Well, while the earth did feel like it was collapsing around us that day, it was far from normal…

“Someone call 911!!” came Josh’s frantic scream as he raced over to his twin, all but ripping the seatbelt off of himself. Jake’s wails of pain rang throughout the warehouse of the racing strip, everyone freezing as the reality of the situation hadn’t fully set in.

You sat on the side of the track and watched as Josh struggled to free Jake from the rolled over go kart he was pinned under. You couldn’t move. You didn’t know how to in that moment.

“For the love of god, help me!!” At Josh’s desperate plea, Danny and Sam finally left their karts and assisted in rolling Jake’s kart back to its upright position. They all gasped as they saw Jake’s left hand, all disfigured and already bruising. It had been pinned under the kart, all 170 lbs of it - not including Jake’s own body weight.

Tears were streaming down the guitarist’s cheeks as he tried to move it, unwilling to see the damage as he pinched his eyes shut. That was the most painful part of the entire experience. Jake already knew something was wrong long before anyone else.

He had been rushed to the hospital as soon as the ambulance arrived, Josh riding along with him in the emergency vehicle. You, Danny, and Sam all drove together to the emergency room. It had been dead silent in that car. The only noise that could be heard was the occasional sniffle from one of you three.

When you finally arrived, Josh was pacing in the waiting room. Upon spotting you, he threw his arms around you and cried. He informed you that Jake had been rushed into emergency surgery in order to try and set his broken bones. You could feel your heart sink and your blood run cold as the information sank in. Not knowing what to say in order to comfort one of your best friends, you simply wrapped your arms around him tighter and let him sob into your shoulder.

It had seemed like an eternity while all four of you waited to hear any word about Jake. You watched as the boys all slowly unraveled around you, all going through the varying stages of grief. It didn’t take a psychic to know what they were all three were thinking about. Sam was pacing back and forth and gouging a rut into the floor, his brow never unfurrowing and making him look older than he was. Daniel wouldn’t stop shifting in his seat, often being the one to go up and ask the front desk about any updates on Jake. Josh sat completely motionless in his chair as the grief and worry over his twin paralyzed him.

Finally, after hours of agonizing worry, one of the surgeons came out to tell them that the surgery was a success and that he was asking for them. Josh immediately ran to Jake’s room as soon as he heard the number, everyone else following behind. You walked in to see a weak and pale Jake hooked up to machines, gazing tearfully at his twin brother talking to him. You felt as if you wanted to throw up seeing him like that. It was wrong, Jake had always been so lively and vivacious and now he was struggling to keep a neutral face. No matter how much he tried to school his lips out of a grimace, you could see the anger burning fiercely in his eyes.

“Hey, Jakey,” you tenderly greet, very sheepishly slipping into the room and in front of his view. His gaze moved over to you, the unfettered rage pinning you in place before he blinked it away. Those beautiful brown eyes returned to normal, looking pained and tired more than angry anymore.

He looked over to see Danny and Sam huddled to the left side of him. It was clear they were trying to not look too obviously at his bandaged hand. “Welcome to my humble abode for the time being, glad you all got my invitations.”

It felt inappropriate to laugh, but you knew it would make him feel better. He sent you a small smile at the sound of your giggling.

“So, what’s the news? How are you doing?” Sammy asked, his voice breaking with concern.

“Well, my bones are all set. They said that the bones need to heal properly before they can go in and put in the pins, which will take a month to a month and a half. And then I’ll have to recover from that surgery before I can even start physical therapy,” Jake explained, his voice gaining more and more bitterness to it as he continued.

The room went silent, save for the beeping of machines and rustling of commotion out in the hallway. There was a clear elephant in the room that refused to be addressed, but it suffocated each and every one of you.

With a sigh, Jake was the one to speak again. “Fine. Since no one else is willing to address it, I will. We’ve gotta go on hiatus.”

It was as if Jake had fired off a gun with how everyone else reacted. The other four in the room had all recoiled at the notion, their brows knit with concern and confusion. All four had tried to speak at once, cooing out denials and suggestions other than the obvious.

“Guys, we can’t fucking have a rock band when the guitarist can’t move his hand!” Jake shouted, clearly impatient with their sympathy. He didn’t want to be coddled, he wanted to face reality.

“Jake, are you sure? We can just pause the tour and-”

“Daniel, with all due respect, shut the fuck up. We have no idea how long it will take for me to get back my strength - or if I’ll ever be able to play again.”

And there it was. The elephant had finally trumpeted loud enough to gain the attention of the room. It would no longer be ignored.

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, everyone afraid to even breathe. You watched as Jake tried to fight his tears, anger and heartbreak flooding his eyes as he came face to face with the reality that his dream had been cut tragically short. He had come so far only to lose it all in a matter of a second.

“Alright. We’ll talk to our team,” Sam offered, grabbing Daniel by the arm and walking out of the room.

You had gone to say something to offer your sympathy, but the moment you looked into Jake’s eyes you bit your tongue. He didn’t want sympathy. All he wanted was his hand back - his dream life back. He also wanted to be left alone from the way he seemed to plead silently with you.

“C’mon Josh, let’s go get something to eat.” Grabbing the singer by the hand, you led him out of the room in order to grant Jake’s silent wish. Before you left, you glanced back towards the guitarist to catch a glimpse of tears rolling down his face. With your heart cracked, you closed the door behind you.

+++

The car was silent as you drove Jake back to his house, the air so thick with tension that you felt as if you were being smothered. Jake refused to look in your direction, his gaze remaining locked on the shapes passing by the window. Despite the music filtering through the speakers, it was completely tense.

“So, how’d physical therapy go-”

“It was fine.” Jake’s reply was stiff and curt. That anger filled his tone that seemed to have been there for months. Ever since the accident, he was always angry. You suppose he had a right to be, but also you were running out of patience.

“Really? Because you don’t seem fine,” you snap, growing tired of his attitude.

“Fine. You really wanna know so fucking bad?! I’m making absolutely no progress and the PT said it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to play like I used to! That’s how it’s going!!” His voice made your ears ring from how loud he was shouting.

You quickly glanced away from the road to look at your best friend, his eyes brimming with tears as his face was red with anger. You felt your blood grow frigid at the news, Jake clearly not really ready to talk about it quite yet but you pushed him to.

“My career is over, y/n!! That dream I’ve had since I was a baby is fucking dead!!” Jake raved, his voice cracking under the weight of his despair. Your chest ached at the pain in his tone, your own eyes welling up with tears as the meaning of his words sank in. He was right. His dream was shattered; he lost it right when he started to believe that he made it.

It was that moment - seeing Jake’s complete hopelessness - that you vowed that you would do whatever it took to get Jake's dream back. You refused to sit by and let the cruel hand of fate destroy that light inside the eyes of someone you loved. Reaching across the center console, you gently wrapped your hand around Jake’s wrist. You then brought his hand up to your lips, kissing the back of it.

“It will get better, Jakey. You’ve just gotta believe me,” you forecasted, already having a plan in mind. You knew it was stupid and dangerous and probably wouldn’t even work, but you had to try.

+++

Feeling like a teenager rebelling against your parents once again, you scoured your book collection from high school. You knew it was in here somewhere, but the question was which book. You remember storing those pages you ripped out of library books in one of your books that you never really read as a teenager, but your memory had faded since the time you were fifteen. That meant you had to flip through every single one of your books and hope that you hadn’t donated the one you were looking for. Finally, you reached the start of your Stephen King novels. You grabbed your copy of Carrie, quickly flipping through the pages when loose paper fluttered to the floor near your feet where you had crossed your legs. Setting the book aside while also rolling your eyes at your own actions, you picked up the pages and unfolded them.

Of course I hid them in Carrie

Holding the familiar paper in your hands, you flipped through the loose leafs of pages and read through the slightly faded words and symbols. Your memory was jogged with reading through these very same pages under your covers, using a small pen light to be able to see them. Of course, back then you had no intentions of ever putting this knowledge into practice. You had merely read them as an act of defiance to your parents forcing you to be raised catholic.

However, seeing all those satanic symbols staring you right in the face once more knowing full well you were about to wield the spells they contained, that same terror that had been instilled in you since birth had sprung forth from your bones and into your bloodstream. Gulping and closing your eyes, you forced yourself to calm down. There was no use in indulging in your religious trauma when there was no guarantee that any of this satanic stuff was real.

Getting to your feet, you left your attic and read through the ingredients you needed for the spell. Chicken feet, gold candles, pig’s blood, bloodstone, chalk, dried hyssop, three crow feathers, and a snake skull. The candles, chicken feet, bloodstone, chalk, and pig’s blood you’d be able to get fairly easily - there was a butcher’s shop about five minutes away as well as a wiccan store down the road. The other stuff would have to be ordered online unless by some miracle the wiccan shop had them. You decided to call ahead, facing down your phone anxiety for Cob; he better be fucking thankful after all you’re going through.

Thankfully, the wiccan shop had just what you needed as well as the butcher’s. So, it seemed that you would be conducting the ritual tonight. A stab of fear lanced through your chest as you realized what that meant. If this turned out to be a real spell, there would be a real, live demon in your house. And you would make a deal with it.

+++

You had gathered all that you needed for the summoning. Now you just had to follow the instructions on the page. Taking the chalk, you drew the symbol on the page onto the cement of your basement floor. It was not nearly as neat as the printed one, but it was close enough that wouldn’t cause any confusion. Next, you took the wooden bowl filled with pig’s blood - your salad bowl, ironically - and crushed the dried hyssop into the crimson liquid and mixed it in.

Taking the bloodstone, you submerge it in the blood, wincing at the feeling. You had intentionally let it sit out so that it would be room temperature and not cold; you don’t think you would’ve been able to stomach it cold. Placing the stone in the center of the symbol, you then set the snake’s skull atop the coated bloodstone. Next, taking a chicken’s foot, you dip the largest toe in the blood and draw another symbol inside the large one while chanting in Latin, setting the foot atop the symbol you drew. You repeated that two more times before completing the set up by placing the crow feathers so that they connect each foot towards the skull and the stone.

Before the last step in the process, you lit the candles and set them around the large symbol. Closing your eyes, you then reached for the pocket knife you had laying by your leg. Unsheathing the blade with a press of a button, your hand shook as you double-checked the next step. You had read it correctly: you needed your own blood. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes as you dragged the sharp blade across your palm. Your entire hand stung as you set the knife off to the side, dipping the fingers of your free hand into your blood. You once again began chanting in Latin as you drew the same symbol you used for the chicken feet onto the skull. With that final step, the incantation was complete.

Having thought ahead, you grabbed the gause you brought and wrapped your bleeding palm with it. Disappointment flooded your system as the seconds passed as nothing happened. You had half hoped that it would work so that your effort was not wasted, but it seemed that all your parents’ worrying about demonic forces was for naught; it didn’t even fucking exist and you just proved it. They had feared a boogie man all their life that was as harmful as their shadow.

With a sigh, you begin cleaning up the mess you made on your floor. You were so thankful that you hadn’t been holding the bowl of pig’s blood when you heard a voice behind you; it would’ve gone flying.

“Well, I haven’t seen this spell used in years,” a female voice chimed, causing you to yelp and drop the pocket knife you just thankfully closed.

Spinning around you come face to face with a stunning woman that made your heart pound. She had long sandy blonde hair styled in the style of a 50s bombshell starlet, her winged eyeliner and scarlet lips adding to that appearance. Keeping with the red theme, she wore a bright red low cut mermaid dress with a lace bodice. Red opera gloves painted her arms as well as sparkling diamond bangles. She was a total knockout, her eyes smoldering and seductive. Her smile was enrapturing, even the smallest curve at the corner of her lips was enough to make your heart beat out of your chest like a Looney Tunes cartoon.

“Uh-” you clear your throat after your voice breaks, “who are you and how did you get here?”

The woman smiled, your breath getting caught in your throat. She then chuckled amusedly, taking a few steps towards you. “You summoned me here, darling.”

She had a very subtle but enticing rasp to her voice. It made you want to pay attention to everything she said, but it also was so distracting that it caused you to lose focus on the actual words.

“I…did?”

With a deep but annoyed sigh, the woman rolled her eyes. With a blink of her eyes, they turned completely blood red. You stumbled back at the sight, wholly unprepared to see such a thing.

“Believe me now, sweetheart?” Her tone was purely condescending, but you didn’t seem to mind all that much. You shook your head yes; you knew she wasn’t human.

“S-So… Miss Demon- do I call you that?” you nervously ask, very afraid of making her mad.

“Haley is fine, darling,” the demon - Haley - corrected, adjusting her hair by fluffing it at the end a little.

“Ok…”

“Well, let’s get to business,” she prompted, blinking and turning her eyes back to their normal brown.

“Right,” you tucked your hair behind your ear, feeling very underdressed in Haley’s presence despite the fact you were standing in your own dingy basement.

“I don’t have all night, sweetheart. Spit it out!”

Her yelling snapped you into action, remembering why you had summoned her in the first place. “I need you to fix Jake Kiszka’s hand and make it work how it did before his accident.”

“Well, you certainly have expensive taste,” Haley commented, that seductive tone back in her words and features. You didn’t like the way her eyes glittered with mischief as she looked you up and down.

“What do you mean ‘expensive taste’?”

“Not every demon deal requires a soul, baby. I thought you would’ve known that considering your teenage rebellion phase and reading up on demons,” she slightly taunted, a laugh in her tone. If she weren’t so goddamn beautiful you would’ve been really annoyed by her.

“But… this one does? Why? It’s just Jakey’s hand-”

“The hand of one of history’s greatest guitar players, darling. Don’t think I don’t know exactly who you’re bargaining for. Got a bleeding heart for your little boy toy, huh?” She took another step closer to you, her stilettos clicking against the concrete.

With a heavy sigh, you grit your teeth against the annoyance you were feeling towards the demon. “Alright, you can have my soul for Jake’s hand-”

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s very noble of you, but you’re already hell bound. I need a soul that’s taking the stairway, not the highway,” she interrupted, adjusting her hair once again. She had a brilliantly charming smile across her face, her teeth perfectly white. Her laugh, while slightly belittling, managed to pull you back in.

“Hell bound??” That was certainly news to you.

“Darling, you’ve broken four of the ten commandments. There’s no coming back from that.”

Your mind was racing as you tried to figure out just which four - well, two you were certain you broke. Deciding that now wasn’t the time, you brought your focus back to the demon in front of you.

“Whose soul will you need, then?”

“Let’s just say it’s gonna be someone you’re… close with. Or, will be,” she cryptically answered, bringing a gloved finger to her chin, that charming glint shining in her eyes.

You began racking your brain as to who she could be hinting at. Really, that could be anyone and you knew asking Haley for a definitive answer would be a bust. She wouldn’t tell you because if you knew for certain you would be less likely to deal. However, what you did know for certain was that taking a soul from someone would cause instant death if it was done quickly. “Alright, fine. But you have to promise me that you won’t kill whoever you’re thinking of right away.”

Haley sighed, rolling her eyes. “Humans…” she muttered under her breath.

“Whatever. Since I like you and the soul your bargaining is quite valuable, I promise not to take the soul away all at once. But, I’m taking half up front - think of it as an advance,” she informed, taking one more step closer to you. She was now in your personal space, her beauty overwhelming to your senses. One would think you’d be used to otherworldly beauty having been around the likes of the boys, but she was just incomparable.

Without even really thinking, you nodded your head. While it was cruel to have the soul slowly and methodically leached out of them, it wouldn’t result in death. And you were doing it to save Jake’s dream… that had to count for something, right?

“Do we have a deal?” Haley asked, her voice smoldering and dripping sex as she leaned in towards your ear.

Just as you were about to say yes - the word on the tip of your tongue - you stopped. There was something that made absolutely no sense in this deal. “Wait- how am I able to bargain away a soul that’s not even mine?”

“Semantics, angel. Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head over,” the demon placated, her gloved hand coming up to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. The action made you shiver, unaware that that was something you were into.

“But-”

“So,” she interrupted again, “do we have ourselves a deal?”

You opened your eyes to find that she was smirking again, inches away from your face. Your heart picked up its pace, your throat becoming dry as butterflies feverishly fluttered in your stomach.

“Yes,” you breathe. You go to extend her hand so she can shake it and officially seal the deal when you feel Haley’s hand slither to the back of your head and push you into your lips. You let out a small whine at the feeling of her lips against yours, wholly unprepared and - admittedly - overjoyed at the notion that you were kissing such a beautiful person.

You were deeply disappointed and annoyed when she pulled you away by your hair, her knowing laugh enough to make your cheeks pink with embarrassment.

“Don’t fret, baby. You’ll see me again in hell someday,” she mused, “but in the meantime, Jake’s hand will be repaired.”

With one last seductive smile, she snapped her fingers and disappeared from sight. Now that you were alone, the weight of what you had just done crushed you like a falling grand piano from the heavens. Your guilt felt crippling as you realized you just sold someone else’s life away and you didn’t even know who.

+++

A/N: The crossroads demon I used in this fic is based off the singer Haley Reinhart and I highly encourage you to look up her music. Not only does she have an incredibly amazing voice but she's also stunningly gorgeous.

Taglist:

@doodle417 @sammykiszkasunusedshoes @jmks-housewife @alwayssotiredbutneverofyou @ageoferin @etoilesnoor @ascendingtostardust @godlygreta @s0livagant @gretavanflowerpower @morganic-goods @dannythedog @baguettejuliette @fan-girl-97 @gaby-gvf @age-of-nyahh @mzbrightside @myownparadise96 @xserenax-13 @sammysvanfeet @strugglingtodoshit @loofypoofy @chalametpwk @seventieswhore @razorbladekiszka @unfortunatelykristin @welightthefire @gretavanfleas @sammiejane22 @satanplayshisfluteforhim @starsasone @mintysammykiszka @writingcold @tearsofbri @teddiie @gardensgatedaisy @sparrowofthedawnsworld @angelbabyyy99 @whollyfreeamongststars @gretaswhore28 @l0rdoffli3s @kay-jordan @lightmyloverry @kenzie18 @gotavansleep @roosterbbradley @freckled-wonder @flower-power-anthem @gabyvanfleet @sarakay-gvf @Mamalikes-gvf

Taglist Form

#greta van fleet #greta van fic #cirice #danny wagner x reader #danny wagner x y/n #danny wagner #daniel robert wagner #danny gvf #jake kiszka #jacob thomas kiszka #jake gvf #sam kiszka #sammy gvf #josh kiszka #josh gvf

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starwalker03 · 4 months

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So now I have to ask. WMLP au where the team had a poly thing going before they were separated. (Everyone made out that new years and didn’t stop for a few week) What would change?

Okay so the thing about this ask is I read it, loved the concept, thought about it for more than 0.00000001 seconds and took psychic damage from it and then put my phone down and walked around the house a bit and I've been putting off coming back to it since.

So sorry about that.

But look. I'm one of those people who loves the interesting dynamic of ex-lovers. Irregardless of what type of love. Platonic, sexual, romantic, anything in any capacity, best friends, work buddies, soulmates, married couples, friends with benefits, all of it. Because once there was a time you were something to each other. Once you laughed and cried and talked and had stories and made stories. Once upon a time things were good and now they're not. And neither of you know how to fix it. Or worse, you know exactly how to fix it but simply refuse.

It's why I love making Dick and Bruce's relationship so complicated and difficult and somehow still functional but not in any way that is simple or straightforward.

But in this context. Oh god.

Imagine you are a teenager. 14-17. Mid teens. Everything is difficult already but it's worse because you're a hero. You're responsible for the lives of so many. You're a soldier in an endless war and there is no easy answer. And you have a team you love. Five people you would lay down your life for, you would stand between them and death, and you know they'd do the same for you. You stand in front of one, another stands in front of you; a circle of you all interposing yourselves between your loved ones and danger in an anti-Oroborous. Backs to one another and trusting you will be guarded.

And it's not enough.

Some of you die, some of you are taken where you'll never truly be heard from again, you are at the whims of the enemy and there is no presence at your back, no familiarity with who stands in front of you anymore.

And when you see them again the circle is broken, you cannot get close, you don't understand what happened to these people you once knew inside and out. They look different; you look different. Part of you wants to trust they would still stand by you at the end of the world and yet you look in their eyes and a flash of fear runs through you: you can't find it in yourself to put your back to them again.

Part of you blames yourself for it. Part of you thinks you're responsible. Part of you thinks you could fix it. Part of you is horrified at what they let themself become. Part of you is mad at them for letting you become what you are. Part of you is ashamed. Of yourself, of them, of everyone else.

Nothing is good anymore and it makes you wonder: was it ever really good to begin with? Were you all just lying to yourselves? Was this inside them, inside you, all along? Was this always how things would end? Was the clock ticking down to the day you'd hold a weapon at them, pointed, accusing, scared, angry, hurt, desperate. For them to back down, stop, finish this, finish you.

Was there ever a point at all? Was it all wasted?

Are you wasted?

Are you...

Who are you? And who are you to each other?

And why is the answer... Nothing?

#dc comics #fanfiction #young justice #with morality like a polynomial #wmlp #angst #drabble #polyamory

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queenofbaws · 2 years

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Okay if this one doesn't cause too much psychic damage (or even if you can answer it lol): top 5 horror movies and/or books that you went in thinking you were gonna love and would be right up your alley only to end up sorely disappointed or just hated in general.

oh god, i can answer this. i can answer this. so easily. there is so much fuckin disappointing horror out there i stg askdjfklasjfksdjfkldjf UGH LET’S DO THIS.

we’re all going to the world’s fair (2021; movie). found footage is notoriously hard to do right, but man i had high hopes for this one. let me tell you, iiiiii’m not sure i can even tell you what happened in this confused mess. a girl does an internet challenge that MAYBE triggers some kind of psychological break in her? perhaps? and then another person on the internet takes it upon himself to inject himself into her life via her youtube uploads? well let me tell you the #1 reason WHY this movie got a solid two thumbs down from ya gurl: uh the flashing/strobing lights in this wereeeeee so constant and so intense that even though i am NOT epileptic, i had to go to bed for the rest of the day after watching it. left me with a bad taste in my mouth lmfao. i’m sure it’s SOMEONE’S thing.

the empty man (2020; movie). the first like 20 min of this movie are so solid. if they ended this thing right after the prologue? good little horror short. it’d be wonderful. great, even. fantastic. but they didn’t, they turned it into a whole movie and it shouldn’t have been a whole movie. this is another one where the plot - to me - felt so muddled i’m not even sure i can explain it clearly, but there’s a spirit out there, and it wants to empty you out until you’re a husk. if you want a good, spooky little watch, turn this one on, but man alive, you turn it off the second you see the “6 months later” or what the fuck ever. trust me on this one.

the requin (2022; movie). i am a simple woman. a simple woman who enjoys a good, schlocky, “oh no, that giant shark is going to eat us!!!” movie. mostly because i have CRAZY intense thalassophobia and as my friends irl will attest, i’m so scared of any fish bigger than a koi that if you take me to an aquarium, my knees literally might give out. this one was just confused. and there wasn’t actually a whole lot of shark. at no point did i feel...anything for the characters. if the selling point of your movie is GIANT SHARK HUNTS PEOPLE, i want to see your gianT SHARK HUNTING PEOPLE AHHHHH.

the ritual by adam nevill (book). okay, this one is definitely just a matter of personal taste, but...i LOVED the movie the ritual, so i thought i’d get the book. the writing itself is great! the story, however, is very different than what you get in the movie, and actually focuses a lot on like...a kidnapping. with a bunch of heavy metal obsessed teenagers. it wasn’t what i was expecting, and it wasn’t what i was hoping for, so it left me feeling pretty deflated. still a great story, just...not the story i was looking for.

sharp objects by gillian flynn (book). i love a story about a fucked up family. i love a story about a serial killer. i love protagonists who are deeply, deeply troubled. this was...hmm. hmmmmmmmm. i’ve read this book like three times, each time hoping maybe my feelings on it will change, but they just don’t. this book feels like suffering for the sake of suffering, and there’s no catharsis, imo, nothing that feels RESOLVED. reading this book felt a whole lot like the written version of “life sucks and then you die,” like it just stretched on and on and everyone was MISERABLE and everyone HATED EACH OTHER and in the end everything just gets WORSE, and idk man. again, i’m sure it’s someone’s thing - it got turned into a tv series on one of the streaming platforms so clearly SOMEONE out there likes it, but boy oh boy, this one just wasn’t for me, folks.

ask me my top 5 anything!

#love-fireflysong #asks #legit im still mad about we're all going to the world's fair lmfao #i thought it was going to be so spooky and good and all it did was make me very very sick #OH WELL #my bookshelves are lined with disappointing horror books but lord help me idk how many of them deserve PUBLICITY

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chaoticbard · 1 month

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“A bard, is it? You’re fortunate in that profession.” Astarion mentioned in passing. “Cazador didn’t much care for bards. Punished us for bringing them in. I suppose you performed in taverns or—?”

Alaara nodded, a faint grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. He had to know that she was a bard; her casual attire in camp and her ever-present instrument gave it away plainly.

Astarion is trying to make casual conversation, bless him, Alaara thought. He certainly didn't have to. It was a wonder he wanted to do anything but give back to the world what it had given him first. She wasn't sure if she'd been in his shoes she would've been able to act as he did. Regardless of his constant disapproval to help others, he still did so. Maybe she was going crazy, but she felt as if ever so slowly, she was chipping away at Astarion's shell and getting to the real him. The version of himself he wanted to be. Not just the mask he put on for everybody. Perhaps she would chip away at it just that much more during her chat?

"Cazador doesn't care for bards, hmm? I can't wait for you to take us to his mansion so I can piss him off before we kill him. I'll make sure I sing extra loudly and off-key and play my lyre out of tune." She paused. "...You might want to get ear plugs for that performance. No sense in taking psychic damage."

Alaara's discreet grin blossomed across her face into a full-fledged and toothy smile. For once she'd relish killing someone instead of finding it an unfortunate necessity of their circumstances. Of course, Astarion would get the final blows. Cazador was his prey to hunt, not hers. She would merely be support, helping to weaken him for his final moment. She hoped his demise would bring Astarion peace.

She shook her head, gently snorting as she re-focused. Best to answer the question asked than to get too lost in melancholy and in the future. "To answer your question, I played festivals and faires when I was little. My parents took my sister and I all over Faerûn to learn the craft of our clan. Once I left them to go my own way, I stuck to mostly taverns. They're where you learn things of interest. Such tales of interest landed me in Waterdeep, chasing after- well, stories mostly... and a little treasure. Poking around the city ended up getting me into a lot of shit, but all's well that ends, well, not as bad as it could have. My friends and I were, er, gifted a run-down tavern in exchange for finding someone. We fixed it up and reopened it, we got a free employee out of the ghost haunting it, and we don't really need to worry about overhead costs. We lucked upon a jug of infinite liquids that gives us a drink nobody else in the city can offer patrons."

Truly, the tavern was one of the wonderful things that had come of tangling with the nobility of Waterdeep and with the Zhentarim among others. By the gods that had been miserable. Of course, meeting a dragon at the pinnacle of their journey had more than made up for the troubles. But spinning yarns about meeting a dragon hidden in Waterdeep's depths was for another time. "...If we get out of this alive, you're welcome to come to the Jolly Goose any time you wish, Astarion. It's part tavern, part inn. I'll see to it you'll never have to pay for a room or for a drink."

#{{ Answered Asks;; }}#apalestar

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lowhangingfruit123 · 1 year

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The 100 March Season Unforgiving II

Alright lets go finally felt angsty enough to vent about that tub of lard who spoke such pure unrefined brainrot to my face. As before press the keep reading if you wish to know the full story (heh writing this like a clickbait journo) or just move along with your day.

Oh and the topic will be about communism, if you have faced such people before then you'll at least have a level of familiarity with the situation you'll read

How the conflict started has since been lost to me but I vividly remember the rest of the conversation when they had decided to commit to their vocal chords an answer I really found funny to this day. This begotten gutter muppet from new york, the epitome of the idiocracy firmly incased within the garish americana cultura. Spoke to me that "Stalin wasn't a dictator" and never had I ever had felt what I could only loosely describe as PSYCHIC DAMAGE when that fool uttered those words.

and from then on I get to tackle some intricate topics that ,sadly because of their pride in being an advocate for communism get quickly switched out so they don't look further bad.

Like for example capitalism birthed the usage of commercial use of computers, I highly doubt that a society that does not give a damn about what new sensation a common man could enjoy and would put that computer for something that serves a better purpose than an entertainment machine. I don't even think video games would exist either if it weren't for capitalism because of it's main purpose "to entertain people" under the assumption that "you're wasting valuable computer parts to waste time fiddling with funny pixels on the screen" screams inefficiency and waste of resources that the computer parts used to make the video game machine will probably get repurposed or have anything of scrap value taken away. The next topic that I wanted to expand upon before I was rudely switched out by that mongrel was the idea that without capitalism cellphones wouldn't exist, especially for something like in today's standards. Under the purview of a utilitarian outlook of a communist government, YOU having time to fiddle with games or tweet about how bad a certain politician is, is something that the commies find "inefficient" when you could be serving the greater purpose of working for the great country like in the mines or some factory with the funny green nets. That's for the former the ladder of which will just get you killed for the most part funny how that works.

I find it hilarious as well when they kept on thinking that capitalism will not exist because "we removed the root of all evil! M o n e y" when infact people will just resort to bartering, and thats how money started off as well coins infact.

they also claimed that communism is good for the environment and im like "??????" have you seen the emission charts about china? I swear UN is a waste of money.

and also crimes, because their ideal communism world doesn't have money, people wont steal stuff and I just kept laughing. It was refreshing to see someone from the server stepping in for me and speaking how "thats the dumbest thing i've ever heard" and this was before they saw "STALIN WASNT A DICTATOR" schtick. Good god they had no idea what kind of caliber the idiot they were talking to.

As if we were handpicked by the vice army general to use the premium graded caliber of idiot, depleted uranium, probably in this case it worked more either as depleted cranium or depleted brain cells.

and to answer why "--communism world doesn't have money, people wont steal stuff" is stupid, its because you are assuming people will not adhere to their human instincts, of greed and of jealousy.

after the convo was cut short because of how much the commie was getting lambasted by half the server at that point, that their friend from the mod team had to swoop in and be their knight in shining armor. Was funny because they recommended to them the negative XP song the one about women. Literally the song described that commie girl from new york word for word was hilarious knowing that their "FRIEND" recommended the song to them. The absolute obliviousness that dumb mod guy had to pick that song not knowing how much of a good insult song that was to them. the worst part is knowing that commie girl thought it was a good song because their friend recommended to them, and im like "nah he may have more braincells than you (which isn't hard since any is better than none) but he didn't have enough braincells to realize that he just off-handedly insulted you by recommending you this song."

#vent post

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canarydraws · 3 years

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A scene from the dnd game I’m in!

For some context my character is married now! And not really by choice!

So the party just entered a new town and decided to stay at Heaven’s grasp tavern. Each night there are performers there and one of the dancer girls took a fancy to my character Zachriel. They both were on the timid side so at first there was a lot of innocent note sending back and forth before they decided to actually go on a date. But UHHH long story short the girl, Madja, turned out to be a little obsessive and tried to marry my boi on the date. He got away by jumping off a boat and after telling one of his friends what happened he went to hide in his room.

That night though there was a knock on his door and when he checked there was an envelope stuck to it with a dagger (did I ever mention… the other dancers at this tavern were highly protective of her?) Anyway Zachriel took the dagger and note and LOCKED HIS DOOR before checking them out. Upon opening the letter tho a plume of some smoke came out and he became magically enchanted to love Madja. The letter itself had instructions to go to her and Zachriel was compelled to oblige.

When he entered the main tavern area it was all decked out for a wedding and in the end madja got her way because Zachriel couldn’t fight the spell and all his friends were asleep.

Sooooo now I’m married in game! She also gifted me a ring that (as far as I can tell) is cursed af cuz it won’t come off and it deals psychic damage whenever he refers to Madja negatively. It has the bonus of upping his charisma though so that’s nice? I guess? Zachriel can’t get a break lol now he has like two magic curse things on him and he’s ready for a weeklong nap.

Anyway, that’s not even the only bad thing that’s happened to him in game lol. If you guys are interested I can share another update some time.

#art #digital #dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd story #character #Zachriel #madja

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yoonzeeno · 3 years

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of burned towers and rainbow dreams. ━━ yjh x ksy

part two of the svt x pokemon!au ━━ johto.

❀ summary: soonyoung and jeonghan ventured to the burned tower in ecruteak city, only to find something waiting for their arrival. ❀ pairing: jeonghan x hoshi (brotp) ❀ word count: 8k (I OVERDID MYSELF I KNOW I’M SORRY) ❀ genre(s): adventure, friendship, action, slice of life ❀ warning(s): pokémon battle violence at the beginning and the end of the fic. mentions of fire accidents.

━━ a/n: i had so much fun writing this part, it only took me around three or four days, i guess? i wrote the last battle scene without much planning, letting the whole scene play in my head as i wrote it down. it was, undoubtedly, the most fun i’ve had ever since i started writing (probably because it’s two of my biases in one fic but who knows). ALSO PLS FORGIVE ME FOR OVERDOING MYSELF i literally could not find ways to shorten the story without skipping details. anyways, i hope you guys will like this part too!

soonyoung remembered feeling the soft wind blew across his face as he sat down under a tree, shading himself under the harsh sunlight shining down upon him.

his pokémon — scyther, mareep, and wynaut — were playing around, running around here and there, enjoying the sunlight. soonyoung looked to the sky ahead. he was at his home — in his backyard, a tree stood tall. it was a mahogany tree — for he was from mahogany town.

a rainbow suddenly appeared on the sky — was it raining earlier? soonyoung didn’t remember. however, something bright flying across the sky caught his eye.

it had the shape of a bird — a gigantic bird, to be exact. wherever it flew, a trail of rainbow sparks trailed behind it. soonyoung couldn’t describe the bird except for the fact that it was gold. it headed towards a tower covered in orange flames, and soonyoung immediately knew what tower it was. it was weird though — the original incident had happened more than a hundred years ago, so why was soonyoung seeing it with his own two eyes?

it was the infamous burned tower, formerly called the brass tower, located right at the neighboring city, ecruteak city. even though the tower was in flames, the bird just flew towards it without hesitation. smoke rose to the air, covering the silhouette of the bird. soonyoung longed for the smoke to quickly clear up, but when it did, the bird disappeared along with it.

no! soonyoung wanted to shout, but nothing came out. he tried standing up, but he fell back down to the ground, and the world turned black.

when he opened his eyes in surprise, he realized it was just a dream.

four years later.

“gengar, shadow ball!” soonyoung’s eyebrows furrowed at morty’s command. he had to think of something fast, or scizor was going to run out of hp soon.

“scizor, dodge and use flash cannon!” the pincer pokémon cried in response, before moving his wings to his will, flying to dodge the incoming purple orb of shadow, making it hit the wall instead. scizor growled, gathering light in between his pincers (causing the originally dark room to go darker), and threw the ball of light towards the shadow pokémon. it hit gengar before morty could shout an order, the shadow pokémon falling face forward to the ground.

“nice!” soonyoung could hear his friend and mentor, jeonghan, cheer from the audience’s seat. jeonghan’s eevee, who was out of her ball, was yelping happily, running around jeonghan as she cheered scizor on.

he was currently in the middle of a pokémon battle — a pokémon gym battle, to be exact. this was his fourth gym battle, and winning this battle means he’s going to be halfway through his gym challenge. but morty, ecruteak city’s gym leader, wasn’t making himself an easy opponent, and soonyoung wished he had a ghost or a dark-type pokémon, because his team wasn’t exactly good at countering ghost-types. he managed to defeat morty’s earlier pokémon — gastly and haunter — thanks to ampharos and scizor, but ampharos was knocked out by haunter because she exhausted herself during her battle with gastly, and while scizor, soonyoung’s ace, was holding out well against gengar thanks to his steel typing (for gengar was part poison-type, and steel-types are immune against poison-type moves, but soonyoung only realized at the end of the battle that none of morty’s pokémon had any poison-type moves), scizor was nearing his limit, and soonyoung felt like he’s being pushed to the edge. he still has the chance to switch out to another pokémon. sure, scizor executed the flash cannon perfectly, but what’s he going to do next?

soonyoung’s eyes caught gengar lifting its body upwards, and realized he had to think fast, or the fog badge will not be his. he gritted his teeth. scizor was looking at him, waiting for a command. soonyoung’s hand flew to his belt, where six poké balls were perfectly aligned. he touched a particular one — one that was different than the other five, for, instead of your normal red and white poké ball, it was mostly black, with a red and gold stripe on the upper half of it. there was no other way besides this, he decided.

“scizor, u-turn!” scizor cried, digging the ground with his clawed feet, before pushing himself from the ground, his wings helping him take off from the ground. he flew towards gengar, who was already floating on the air now, before diving head first towards gengar.

“gengar, night shade!”

before scizor could make contact with gengar, the latter fired a crimson beam with purplish outlines from its eyes, the beam making its way to scizor. thanks to scizor’s speed, scizor could reach gengar first before the night shade could reach him. but when scizor finally made contact with gengar, the close proximity caused night shade to also hit scizor. both pokémon let out cries of pain — for even though both attacks were not very effective against the other, scizor’s hp was alarmingly low, whilst gengar’s hp was still half full.

thanks to the pressure of u-turn, gengar was knocked back down to the ground whilst scizor used the momentum to make a quick u-turn, returning back to his poké ball. soonyoung murmured his thanks before pushing the button of his luxury ball twice, releasing the pokémon confined inside it.

“wobbuffet, go!” from the poké ball, a tall, cyan pokémon, with four stubby legs emerged, solidifying, his flat arm bent towards his forehead, right above his scrunching eyes. he let out a cry before turning to look for soonyoung. as he managed to locate his owner, he wobbled towards him, arms on soonyoung’s waist, before turning to hide himself behind soonyoung. soonyoung chuckled. wobbuffet hated fights and battles, and soonyoung almost never wanted to send wobbuffet out for battles. but wobbuffet was, beyond expectations, a bulky fighter. among all his pokémon, wobbuffet was probably the only one with close to zero knockouts. then again, soonyoung could count with one hand the amount of times wobbuffet has been in battles.

“it’s okay, buddy,” soonyoung said, patting wobbuffet’s head soothingly. from across the battlefield, soonyoung could hear morty laugh. it’s okay, soonyoung thought, for not everyone knows wobbuffet’s potentials.

“i’ll get you your favorite ice cream later, okay,” said soonyoung. “and i promise, it’ll be a quick battle.”

he knew it’ll be quick, because it was wobbuffet battling. but he hated sending wobbuffet out, knowing how the patient pokémon disliked battling. that’s why he only uses wobbuffet when it urgently calls for it, and this was one of the times.

wobbuffet only nodded timidly, and soonyoung guided it back to his place on the field. gengar was snickering — a mock snicker, soonyoung guessed. it was a risky move — sending wobbuffet out, especially because against gengar's ghost typing, wobbuffet’s psychic typing was vulnerable.

“well,” morty said, “i guess it’s time for us to make our attack now.” gengar lifted himself to the air, thanks to its ability, levitate. “gengar, shadow ball!”

“wobbuffet, mirror coat!” the comical shock in morty’s eyes almost made soonyoung laugh out loud. no one, especially a gym leader — a ghost-type gym leader, in particular — should ever underestimate a wobbuffet.

the shadow pokémon was already forming a purple orb of dark energy in between its hands, and fired the orb at wobbuffet. soonyoung smirked as wobbuffet glowed beautifully — the glow resembling that of a reflecting mirror — and as the shadow ball came in contact with wobbuffet, instead of dealing damage to wobbuffet, wobbuffet’s mirror coat caught it, and reflected the orb towards gengar with two times the attack power. soonyoung’s eyes glanced over towards morty, who was so dumbfounded, he had absentmindedly shouted at gengar to attack with another shadow ball.

but before gengar could form another orb, the orb it had created earlier came whirling back towards it, hitting it square on its stomach, creating a small explosion as smoke engulfed the shadow pokémon. the damage dealt was doubled — and gengar’s hp meter lowered drastically until there was no hp left. as the smoke cleared, soonyoung could see gengar’s body on the field, finally knocked out.

“morty’s gengar is unable to battle. victory goes to challenger, kwon soonyoung!”

from the audience, soonyoung could hear jeonghan and eevee cheer — they were the only audience, after all. soonyoung didn’t realize he was panting hard until he fell down on his butt, legs giving out, but the adrenaline was still pumping in his veins. wobbuffet had wobbled over towards him, crying out in worry, placing his flat arm on soonyoung’s head, as if he’s trying to see if soonyoung’s head was still working or not. soonyoung laughed and hugged wobbuffet. wobbuffet was soft and squishy — he’s been soonyoung’s sleeping buddy since soonyoung was still a kid and wobbuffet was still a wynaut, after all.

“we did it, wobbuffet! we won because of you!” wobbuffet perked up at soonyoung’s words, and blushed. oh, the love soonyoung held for his pokémon. he’s gonna have to thank ampharos and scizor later on too.

“good job, kid.” soonyoung let go of wobbuffet to stand up and shake morty’s hands. wobbuffet was still holding onto his left hand, his stance wary. “i gotta admit, i was impatient to win,” said morty with a laugh. “should’ve gone for a hypnosis instead of a shadow ball. you were lucky, but you’re good, too. you have potentials.” soonyoung beamed at the gym leader’s words, bowing to express his thanks.

“this one here,” morty pointed to wobbuffet, “you did a good job choosing it as your final pokémon. i didn’t think it would be able to win against my gengar.” he nodded. “you did a good job raising it, kid.”

“wobbuffet’s been with me since we were kids,” said soonyoung, rubbing his sweat with his sleeve. “i know i can win battles with it easily, but it’s not a couragely pokémon.” he let out a soft laugh. “in fact, it hates battles. so i only use it when i desperately need to win.”

“i could see that,” said morty, moving a hand to pat wobbuffet’s head. the patient pokémon stiffened, not used to strangers touching his head. his grip on soonyoung’s hand tightened, and soonyoung squeezed it slightly. “it’s nice to know that i still could impose such a challenge on you that you had to use your hidden card to battle me.”

“yo, soonyoung, you did well!” soonyoung turned around to see jeonghan walking towards them, eevee pacing right next to him. eevee approached wobbuffet and cried happily — as if she’s praising wobbuffet for winning. wobbuffet visibly blushed. besides from soonyoung’s other pokémon, jeonghan’s eevee was the only pokémon whose companionship wobbuffet didn’t mind.

jeonghan stopped his steps to stand next to soonyoung, his head nodding towards morty in acknowledgement. “it’s nice to see you again, morty.”

“likewise, jeonghan,” said morty, smiling towards jeonghan. unlike hoshi, jeonghan was almost done with his challenge — only the blackthorn city gym challenge remaining. so it meant that jeonghan had challenged morty before, and had won against him.

“well,” morty clapped his hands, and as he separated them, a small purple pin appeared on his palms. “since you have defeated me, i have to give you your newest gym badge.” he passed the badge to soonyoung, who accepted it in awe. “congratulations on earning the fog badge!” soonyoung placed the fog badge in his badge case, and bowed at morty, thanking him earnestly.

“so, where are you headed after this? the cianwood city gym?” soonyoung shook his head.

“there’s somewhere else i have to go first here in ecruteak.” morty nodded in understanding.

“well, don’t let me hold the two of you back then. have a safe trip!” he said, and both soonyoung and jeonghan bid their goodbyes before heading out of the gym, wobbuffet’s hand still tightly holding soonyoung’s hand, and eevee strutting happily in between jeonghan and wobbuffet.

the sun was slowly sinking down the horizon, the sky surrounding them turning gold. they were currently seated in a cafe, wobbuffet munching happily on his green tea ice cream, for ecruteak city was famous for their green tea. scizor and ampharos were both outside of their balls too — soonyoung was celebrating their victory, and instead of eating ice cream, soonyoung was eating a waffle instead. jeonghan was watching them amusedly, slowly nibbling on his pistachio ice cream that he bought for himself.

scizor had a chocolate ice cream on one of his pincer, and a green tea ice cream on another. he looked scared to crush both ice creams and get his pincers all sticky, so he gobbled them in two consecutive bites — causing him to have a brain freeze, his pincers holding his head to calm himself down.

ampharos, on the other hand, had a vanilla ice cream on one of her hands. she was licking on it happily, offering eevee a little bit of her ice cream. jeonghan had bought eevee a vanilla ice cream earlier, but she already finished it. since eevee eats two times the portion of a normal eevee, she happily accepted ampharos’s offer.

after years of being friends with soonyoung and observing, jeonghan could see how, between soonyoung’s team’s dynamics, ampharos was like the caring sister, whilst scizor was like the protective brother. jeonghan could also see how the two of them cared so much for wobbuffet, for the three of them had been together since they were still young, and since soonyoung was still very young too.

jeonghan had to admit, whilst soonyoung thought he was still way ahead of being a good pokémon trainer, to jeonghan he was already one. soonyoung didn’t see his pokémon as weapons of battle — he saw them as his friends, hence the reason wobbuffet was still in soonyoung’s team even though he hates battles. aside from that, if the three of them — scizor, ampharos, and wobbuffet — were to battle alongside each other, they would have executed perfect teamwork. while jeonghan was the better trainer skillswise, he was going to have to admit defeat to soonyoung’s teamwork with his pokémon. jeonghan could imagine how his crobat and houndoom would just attack each other instead of attacking the opponents were they to battle together.

“so,” jeonghan spoke up as he lowered his ice cream to give the rest to eevee, who hopped back towards jeonghan happily and munched on the ice cream, “where are you planning to go here at ecruteak?”

“the burned tower,” said soonyoung, still munching on his waffle happily. jeonghan’s eyes bulged out.

“you do know that’s not for entry, right?”

“that’s why we’re going to enter at night,” said soonyoung as he put the last of his waffle inside his mouth. “i need to go there — i feel like i saw a sign in my dream.” jeonghan raised an eyebrow. he’s never heard of this story before.

“what dream?”

“basically,” soonyoung wiped the crumbs off of his hands, “i think i saw ho-oh in my dream, and i think it’s telling me to come to the burned tower.” jeonghan’s eyebrows furrowed.

“the burned tower? but ho-oh resides at the bell tower, no?” soonyoung shrugged. next to them, scizor was whining — he may look like a scary pokémon, but once his pincers get dirty he’s back to a baby.

“well, true, but the tower i saw in my dreams was covered in flames. there’s no other tower besides the burned tower, right?” he said as he cleaned the table up, taking a wet tissue to wipe scizor’s pincers. ampharos stared at the tissue, before taking one to wipe wobbuffet’s green tea covered mouth. wobbuffet snuggled ampharos, which jeonghan figured was wobbuffet’s way of saying thank you. the sight of them made jeonghan’s heart flutter. they really do look like family.

“besides,” soonyoung continued, “there’s a possibility that you might be able to train there, you know? eevee’s bound to evolve soon, too.” jeonghan’s gaze turned to eevee, who was still nibbling on jeonghan’s pistachio ice cream.

jeonghan caught eevee after finishing his olivine gym challenge — which means eevee hadn’t been with them for long, unlike jeonghan’s other pokémon, who had been with jeonghan for his entire journey (save for crobat, who jeonghan had saved as a zubat when he was still a young lad). jeonghan had pondered, of course, what to evolve eevee to — but eevee had shown no interest in evolving through the evolutionary stones, and if he wanted to evolve eevee to glaceon or leafeon he’s going to have to travel far away. that leaves only espeon, umbreon, and sylveon. and jeonghan didn’t want eevee to feel like she has no choice. if eevee doesn’t want to evolve, then so be it.

“fine,” jeonghan decided. “but let’s wait until it gets darker. we can’t have people find out we’re sneaking in the burned tower.”

soonyoung snickered. “that’s more like it.”

“but if anything happens, i’m not covering your four—badges ass.” soonyoung gaped at jeonghan, but jeonghan ignored him, wiping his table clean.

“that was mean.”

“you’re the one who wanted to go to the burned tower, knowing fully well the consequences!”

scizor only looked at the two trainers, letting out a small groan as he shook his head.

humans. such noisy creatures.

even though it was dark outside, the burned tower stood out magnificently against the bright moonlight.

it was dark, probably around ten or eleven in the evening. soonyoung and jeonghan, alongside soonyoung’s ampharos and jeonghan’s eevee, were walking around the complex of the burned tower.

the burned tower was shaped like a pagoda, previously built out of golden brass with gleaming golden panels, in contrast to bell tower’s silvery panels. there were staircases that people would have to climb to before going inside. had it not burned, jeonghan was sure the three-story pagoda would’ve been the main attraction of the town. sadly, the only thing left from the previously golden tower was just the structure and ashes.

the four of them climbed the staircase silently, with jeonghan motioning to eevee to be quiet every so and then. on the entryway, instead of a golden door, a sign that said “dangerous: do not enter” was placed. soonyoung ignored the sign and motioned for the four of them to enter quietly. whilst jeonghan, ampharos, and eevee had managed to enter quietly, ironically, soonyoung had kicked his own foot onto a boulder, causing him to yelp in pain. jeonghan turned to glare at soonyoung, meanwhile ampharos hurried over to soonyoung in worry. after soonyoung assured ampharos it was fine, the four of them continued their way inside. soonyoung couldn’t believe that, four years later after his dream, he was finally inside the burned tower.

his happiness was cut short when a flock of zubat flew over towards them.

“ampharos, flash!” cried soonyoung, and a bright light shined from ampharos, lighting up the room that otherwise would’ve been dark, for even though the moonlight shone through the hollowed roof, it wasn’t enough light for them to recognize their surroundings. thanks to ampharos, they could now see that the floor beneath them was made out of wood — why was it not burned down, soonyoung didn’t know.

jeonghan’s hand went to his belt and he grabbed a poké ball, pressing the button twice before releasing the pokémon inside it.

“crobat, go!”

from the poké ball, a purple, bat—like pokémon emerged. he had a small, round body with two pair of wings — the upper pair slightly larger than the lower pair. the upper wings had two claw—like fingers near the middle. as he solidified, crobat’s face could finally be seen clearly — long pointed ears, yellow eyes with red pupils, and a small mouth that usually had his teeth bared. on the bottom of crobat’s body was a pair of stubby feet.

crobat flew in the air as soon as he was let out. he was capable of flying silently on the air — something they desperately needed right now. years of being with jeonghan had helped him recognize what jeonghan wanted without jeonghan having to give out commands. he flew over to the flock of zubat, and looked to jeonghan and soonyoung that he was communicating with them. the flock of zubat finally flew back to where they came from, clearly knowing that even though crobat was outnumbered, he would overpower them in a battle.

jeonghan held out his arm for crobat to perch on, and crobat flew back to jeonghan, descending on his arm. jeonghan used his other hand to rub crobat’s head as a way of saying thanks, and crobat purred in delight.

the five of them headed deeper into the tower. thanks to ampharos’s flash, they managed to avoid the huge pit that stood in the middle of the first floor. unlike the outside view, there were actually four floors — the upper three stories that could be seen from the outside, and an additional basement floor. jeonghan figured the pit was previously part of the first floor — the wood that burnt down in the fire making a huge hole, thus the pit came into existence.

“there,” whispered soonyoung, pointing towards the northeast corner. “there’s a staircase over there.”

due to the huge pit, and a boulder blocking their way to the right, they had no other way to go except to circle over the left side of the floor in one straight line, walking slowly, for one wrong step and the four of them could dive down to the basement (crobat would probably just fly away).

eevee was whimpering in fear, the atmosphere scaring her to bits. jeonghan bit his lip, pondering over before moving crobat to perch on his shoulder instead, and carried eevee on his arms. crobat didn’t seem to mind — both being on jeonghan’s shoulder and the dark, for the dark was crobat’s natural habitat, and being on jeonghan’s shoulder means he could nuzzle jeonghan’s cheeks whenever he wanted to.

they were halfway there when something jumped out of a boulder, causing ampharos, who was leading the way, to halt suddenly, her flash gone in a flash (no pun intended). soonyoung knocked into ampharos and fell to his knees, while jeonghan stumbled on his steps, his grip on eevee tightening in case the evolution pokémon fell. crobat fluttered its wings in surprise, and screeched at the intruder.

“why are you the one agitated, crobat? i should be the one agitated, you know.” the figure spoke in such a fancy manner, jeonghan raised his eyebrows, suspicious.

soonyoung was cursing as he stood up, grumbling at how his knees hurt, for it had scraped the pebbles. when he finally collected himself, he could see the figure in front of him clearly.

it was a man, probably around his late 20s, and he was wearing a purple suit with diamonds etched on it over a white buttoned shirt. on his neck was a red butterfly ribbon, and he was also wearing a white cape around him. he had light brown hair, a few strands in front of his eyes. he looked too comical to be taken seriously — like, who would even wear that to visit the burned tower?

“who are you?” asked soonyoung. ampharos’s orb that was attached on its tail beamed red — ampharos was on full guard. eevee was growling at him.

“i should be the one asking you that. the burned tower is not for entry, you know?”

“it isn’t, but you’re also here, so that makes all of us.” jeonghan pointed out. the man only sighed.

“my name is eusine, and im on the trail of the pokémon, suicune!” he said. “also, im here because my good friend morty, who, by the way, is ecruteak city’s gym leader,” he emphasized on the word gym leader, “gave me permission to come here as long as i come out alive. and what about you kids?” jeonghan rolled his eyes at the last word.

“well,” soonyoung spoke up, “we kids are only normal pokémon trainer who defeated your good friend morty slash ecruteak city’s gym leader.” jeonghan snickered at soonyoung’s words.

eusine tsked in annoyance. “such disrespectful kids. do you want to battle it out? i’m stronger than morty.”

“no thanks, we’re not planning to get stuck here or cause a commotion.” jeonghan said, but eusine didn’t budge from his spot.

“mr. eusine,” soonyoung said, gritting his teeth, “it’s night and we would want to get this over quickly and go back to our lodge to sleep, so will you please let us go on our way?”

“and let you guys meet suicune before i do? nope, absolutely no way.” jeonghan didn’t want to cause a ruckus, but this peculiar man was making it hard for them to do it. crobat had screeched in warning twice now — crobat would never screech unless it feels agitated, and right now, jeonghan was also feeling agitated.

“look, before we wake up all the other pokémon living here—” but before jeonghan could finish his words, a loud roar came from the basement. the three of them whipped their heads towards the pit, and eusine jumped up and down in delight, causing the wooden floor beneath them to start creaking. eevee yelped in surprise, whilst ampharos fell on her knees due to the violent shaking.

“it’s suicune, it’s suicune! it must know i’m here! i have to go down there, now!” eusine made no sign of noticing that the floor was shaking, and was so delighted that his immediate instinct was to run for the staircase, causing the wooden creaking floor to shake heavily once more. and before soonyoung could open his mouth to warn him, the floor underneath them crumbled, and all of them fell through a newly opened hole.

jeonghan rolled to his side quickly in the air to cover eevee from the bits of wood that were raining down on them, which caused him to land on his side. he accidentally landed on a rock the size of a fist, and he let out a half-moan half-groan as he felt pain jolting from his rib. eevee yelped in surprise, squeezing herself out of jeonghan’s arms, poking jeonghan with her paw as she let out whimpers of worry. crobat managed to detach himself from jeonghan’s shoulder earlier, now flying in circles around their heads, before diving to jeonghan’s side, nudging his head on jeonghan’s head to make sure jeonghan was okay. there wasn’t much distance between the floors, thankfully, but there’s still enough to cause jeonghan incredible pain when he tried to sit up.

soonyoung, meanwhile, wasn’t so lucky. when he fell down, he somehow landed feet first, and it felt as if ampharos had fired a thunderbolt from the sole of his right foot. he managed to twist his left foot before it hit the ground, but the pain from his right foot was enough for him to squeeze out tears of pain. he tried to suppress the pain, crying out for ampharos instead.

“ampharos! ampharos, where are you?” soonyoung panickedly cried. his hand fumbled for his belt — almost crying in relief when he could feel all the other five still intact.

“crobat, go look for ampharos!” jeonghan cried, staggering to stand up. crobat shrieked in response before flying over, using his supersonic to detect ampharos’s location. when jeonghan did manage to stand up, he tried moving his feet. there were slight pain on his thighs, but otherwise he could walk almost perfectly well, his left leg limping slightly. he rushed over to soonyoung, whose face was covered in all the debris. jeonghan doubted he looked any better, to be honest.

“ampharos!” soonyoung was still crying out for ampharos, pressing both his palms on the ground, trying to lift himself up, but the pain on his legs stopped him from doing so. he wanted to cry. he can’t lose ampharos — he wouldn’t forgive himself if ampharos was nowhere to be found.

as if sensing their best friend was missing, scizor and wobbuffet came out of soonyoung’s poké ball unsummoned. wobbuffet wobbled towards soonyoung in worry, whilst scizor, after making sure wobbuffet went to soonyoung, immediately flew over to where crobat went. soonyoung didn’t realize he was sobbing until wobbuffet came to check for his injuries, his eyes scrunching in worry at the sight of his owner. soonyoung didn’t know what he was sobbing for — the pain or the thought of ampharos being gone.

when jeonghan finally reached soonyoung’s side, he was holding a first aid kit on his hand. he took a look at soonyoung’s legs — his right feet was covered in purple bruises, shaping a big lump on his ankle. jeonghan fumbled for his poké ball, calling out for the only pokémon with an ice-type move that he owned. he pressed the button twice, and a pokémon that resembled a duck emerged from the ball. it was round around the edges, with the main body being somewhat pinkish. it has a relatively flat bill and large round eyes. its legs were simple ovoid growths along its sides, and its tail widened towards the middle. its bill, legs, tail, and underside were all blue colored.

“porygon2, ice beam around soonyoung’s right ankle.” porygon2 squeaked in response, before a stream of ice shot from its bill, covering the bruise on soonyoung’s leg. soonyoung yelped in surprise at the sudden coldness, wincing a little bit, but signalled jeonghan that the pain was slowly numbing.

a few metres from them, crobat’s cry could be heard. the two of them turned towards the direction of the cry, and they could see crobat flying in the air right above scizor and ampharos — the former had his pincers around ampharos, helping ampharos walk. ampharos was limping on her right leg, but otherwise, she looked okay.

at the sight of both his pokémon, soonyoung sobbed in relief. the pain in his foot subsided a little bit, thanks to porygon2’s ice beam. jeonghan was busy wrapping soonyoung’s foot in bandage when crobat flew over and perched on jeonghan’s head, whilst ampharos and soonyoung had a tearful reunion, with soonyoung saying, “bless, bless.” over and over as ampharos bent over soonyoung’s body, hugging him.

after making sure soonyoung’s leg was wrapped tightly, jeonghan moved to spray potion over ampharos’s limping leg. ampharos winced in pain, but she seemed visibly better a few seconds later. jeonghan sighed and dropped down on the ground, wiping out beads of sweat off of his forehead. eevee climbed over to his lap and jeonghan pulled her over in a hug, trying to slow his beating heart down.

“speaking of which,” soonyoung suddenly spoke up, “where’s that eusine guy?” jeonghan looked up, frowning. he was too focused on getting everyone back together that he forgot the weird guy existed.

he signaled for crobat to look for eusine, and crobat looked annoyed, as if he didn’t want to go after him, which jeonghan could actually relate to. crobat had already flapped his wings, ready to fly in search for eusine, when they heard another roar — identical to the first one they had heard — from behind jeonghan. soonyoung was looking over jeonghan’s shoulder, his jaw dropped. jeonghan whipped his head around as well, and gaped at the sight in front of him.

in front of them, three creatures were towering over them, and jeonghan immediately recognized them as the three legendary beasts — the beasts that had originally died in the fire, but had been resurrected back to life.

on the left side was a massive, leonine, quadrupedal pokémon covered in brown fur and a long, light gray cloud of smoke running along its entire back. it had gray plates on either side of the cloud and a plate beneath the cream belly fur on its chest. entei, jeonghan remembered its name. the volcano pokémon, representing the fire that had engulfed the tower they were currently in more than a hundred years ago.

on the right side was a quadrupedal, yellow, tiger—like pokémon with black stripes and a white underside. it had a thin, light blue tail with sharp angles and spark—shaped formation at the end. most of its face consisted of thick, white fur and shorter yellow fur around its red eyes, with a muzzle that’s shaped like a light blue "x". it also had a black faceplate with two bumps that covered its forehead, nose, and ears. raikou, the thunder pokémon, representing the thunderstorm that had happened on the night of the fire — the one that had caused the fire on the first place.

and on the middle was a slim, quadrupedal blue mammalian pokémon with white, diamond-shaped markings. its face and underside were white as well. it had a thick, purple mane that resembled the aurora borealis and two white, streamer-like tails that wave forward. it also had a large, hexagonal, cerulean blue crest on its forehead with two prongs on either side of the base. now that jeonghan could look at the pokémon at near proximity, he could understand why eusine the weird guy was so obsessed over the pokémon. it was the epitome of beautiful. suicune, jeonghan named it. the aurora pokémon, representing the downpour that had washed the fire away on the night of the fire.

if soonyoung hadn’t shouted at him to run, jeonghan would’ve probably gotten burnt by entei’s fire blast.

“hyung, run!” jeonghan jumped over to the side, landing on the same side as he did when he fell from the first floor. he groaned in pain, wincing as he tried to get back on his feet. eevee ran towards him, yelping in worry.

as entei’s fire blast hit the ground in front of soonyoung, soonyoung yelped in surprise, and wobbuffet — dear, lovable wobbuffet who would never fight battles willingly — stood in front of soonyoung, arms opened wide as if trying to shield soonyoung from any oncoming attacks. crobat was now flying on the air, waiting for a command, and whilst jeonghan knew eevee was scared, but she was in her battle stance, growling at anything that tried to attack jeonghan. jeonghan reached for his poké ball and recalled porygon2 back, before calling out another pokémon.

this time, a quadrupedal, canine pokémon that was mainly black in color came out of the poké ball. he had a long orange snout and an orange underbelly, along with small, red eyes and a black nose. around his neck was a white band with a small skull—shaped pendant on his throat. there were two white bands on each of its ankles, as well as three rib—like ridges on its back. he had a long, skinny tail with a triangular tip and three clawed toes on each paw. on top of his head was a pair of long, curved gray horns. as soon as he got out of his ball, he growled — he was half a meter shorter than the legendary beasts, but he showed no sign of fear at all.

“houndoom, i need you to get soonyoung on your back!” houndoom barked in response and pranced over to soonyoung, lowering his back for soonyoung to climb on it. soonyoung held onto it’s neck, and, with ampharos’s and scizor’s help, managed to climb onto houndoom’s back safely. scizor was using his wings to slightly levitate into the air, whilst ampharos was on alert mode — the orbs on her body all lit up.

the beasts, however, did not wait to give them any peace. not long after entei’s fire blast, raikou let out a roar, a gray cloud of storm forming right above their heads.

“crobat, get away from the cloud!” jeonghan cried just in time as a lightning struck from the cloud, and had it not been for crobat’s speed, he would definitely have fainted there. the lightning struck the ground, breaking a boulder into pieces in the process.

“ampharos, use thunderbolt on suicune!” soonyoung commanded from houndoom’s back. ampharos cried out, bolts of lightning covering her before they rushed towards suicune. suicune, however, only jumped to avoid the thunderbolt. soonyoung choked back a sob. sure, with all their pokémon combined, they have twelve, but what’s the point of it when their opponents were legendary pokémon? even worse, three of them?

on the other side, jeonghan was having no luck trying to fight against raikou — jeonghan was commanding eevee to use swift against raikou, but eevee alone wouldn’t do any damage against raikou. crobat was also hovering on top of raikou, trying to poison the thunder pokémon with his sludge bomb attacks, but to no avail — for no matter how fast crobat was, his opponent was, again, a legendary pokémon.

during soonyoung’s moment of pondering and figuring out a strategy, he had let his guard down for too long. entei had noticed and, at that moment, decided to strike them with another fire blast. houndoom opened his mouth, releasing a red-orange stream of fire — which soonyoung recognized as flamethrower — to fight against entei’s fire blast, but entei’s fire blast overpowered it as if it was nothing, and soonyoung could only watch helplessly as the fire came closer to them, bracing for the fire to engulf him like it engulfed the tower hundreds of years ago. jeonghan had shouted at houndoom to dodge the fire blast, but soonyoung knew houndoom couldn’t dodge fast enough.

just then, a blur of red flashed right in front of his eyes. before soonyoung could shout anything, scizor had stopped in front of soonyoung and houndoom, letting himself take the hit instead of soonyoung. soonyoung screamed. scizor was four times weak to fire, for arceus’s sake! without much thinking, soonyoung hopped down off of houndoom, gritting his teeth as the pain on his ankle shot up. he endured the pain, crawling his way towards scizor, fear clouding his mind more than the pain.

soonyoung heard houndoom bark in warning, trying to warn soonyoung for the upcoming attack. during the chaos, raikou had switched places with suicune. right now, jeonghan was dealing with the aurora pokémon, who proved to be distracting. jeonghan had cried for eevee to use shadow ball against it, but eevee’s shadow balls only ended up hitting the ground. thanks to crobat’s speed, he managed to land a sludge bomb to suicune — but the legendary pokémon recovered almost as quickly, as if crobat’s poison was nothing. jeonghan wanted to scream. it was unfair — how were they going to win?

from raikou’s storm cloud, another lightning bolt emerged, and houndoom wasn’t so lucky. it got zapped and fell to his side, his head thumped to the ground. soonyoung cried. scizor’s head was on his lap and houndoom was knocked out behind him, and raikou’s gaze was fixated on him. he felt a jolt of fear — he was going to die, he was going to die, and it was all because of his dream.

raikou opened his mouth, a yellow orb shaping in between its jaws — soonyoung recognized it as thunderbolt. soonyoung couldn’t run — he couldn’t even stand up. he tried to return scizor into his poké ball, but he couldn’t find his belt. it had fallen somewhere along the rubble of rock and pebbles, he realized. soonyoung gulped, bracing himself for the attack, when a bright blue light came in front of him.

wobbuffet had absorbed the thunderbolt attack with his mirror coat, and returned the thunderbolt towards the creator with double the power, but raikou only jumped to the side effortlessly. wobbuffet was panting hard, desperately low in health after absorbing that thunderbolt attack. to soonyoung’s right, ampharos was single handedly facing entei, but one flamethrower from the volcano pokémon immediately knocked ampharos down. soonyoung screamed. scizor, houndoom, ampharos — he couldn’t let wobbuffet get knocked out too!

“crobat, go and help soonyoung!” crobat shrieked and flew towards soonyoung — jeonghan hadn’t realized that they were literally half a kilometre apart now. however, before crobat could reach soonyoung, raikou roared. a lightning bolt from his storm cloud blasted, and this time, crobat wasn’t fast enough to dodge. crobat dropped down to the ground, and jeonghan cried for crobat’s name.

we’re not gonna make it out of here alive, jeonghan thought, choking back a sob. wobbuffet was still shielding soonyoung, who still wasn’t able to stand up, no matter how hard he was trying, the pain in his ankle was hindering him. jeonghan’s hand flew to his belt — and only then did he realize it was gone, probably got detached when jeonghan had flown to avoid entei’s first fire blast.

noticing that jeonghan’s guard was down, suicune took it as a good chance to attack — an aurora beam right towards jeonghan. jeonghan fell on his butt on the ground in shock, and instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. during the good couple of seconds, he tried to apologize to his parents and to everyone he had done wrong during his life. instead of the freezing cold ice, however, eevee’s cry snapped his eyes open.

however, eevee was nowhere to be seen — instead, a glowing blue light in the shape of eevee stood in front of him. jeonghan gaped, and at that moment, all the legendary beasts’ attention turned towards the blue light in front of him.

eevee’s fluffy body shrinked, and her fluffy feet lost its fluff, turning slender instead. it’s bushy tail slimmed down too, and when the light vanished, jeonghan couldn’t help but stare in amazement. instead of eevee’s brown fur, she was black with yellow rings around her ears and tail, and each on her feet. instead of brown eyes, her eyes were red — and jeonghan could see how she resembled the shining moonlight, for she had evolved into umbreon, the moonlight pokémon.

umbreon growled at suicune, opening her mouth to form a light purple orb surrounded in black and purple circles, before firing the beam of black and purple circles from the orb inside her mouth. suicune had elegantly dodged it, sadly, but, to jeonghan’s surprise, the aurora pokémon did not attack back, watching the two of them intently instead.

jeonghan stole a glance towards soonyoung — he was still hugging scizor’s head on his lap, wobbuffet in front of him, body shaking in fear but not backing down. raikou and entei, however, weren’t attacking soonyoung either. the three beasts looked at each other — as if they were communicating to each other — and then entei jumped towards the hollowed roof, before disappearing into the night. raikou followed suit, until it was only suicune left with them.

umbreon was still growling at suicune, and jeonghan took it as an opportunity to stand back up. when he did, however, suicune only ignored them and went to approach soonyoung, leaping gracefully once towards him. jeonghan, alarmed, ran towards soonyoung in fear.

suicune, however, unlike earlier, was gentle. as he walked closer towards soonyoung, soonyoung shivered — for some reason, wind was blowing towards him. wobbuffet was still shaking, but suicune did not attack wobbuffet. it gently nudged it’s snout on soonyoung’s palm, and soonyoung felt something on his palm — something soft, like a feather?

you. soonyoung jolted in surprise and turned towards suicune. was it speaking in telepathy with him?

our master has been keeping an eye on you since you were young, suicune said. at the corner of soonyoung’s eyes, jeonghan stopped in his steps. so jeonghan could hear suicune too, soonyoung deduced.

he had tried to summon you here once, in your dreams. when you come, our master had told us to test you. and you and your friend have proven yourself worthy — for eevee would not have evolved into umbreon if not, and your pokémon would not have risked their lives to protect you if not. soonyoung gaped, and his grip on the item suicune had pushed into his hand tightened.

when you are ready, come face my master. he will be waiting at the other tower. suicune nodded once, before jumping towards the sky, disappearing into the night alongside its brothers, its tail leaving a trail of northern lights behind.

when suicune disappeared, soonyoung opened his hand. in it was a rainbow-colored feather — soonyoung recognized the color, for it was the color of the bird he had seen in his dream.

so it’s true. the bird pokémon he saw in his dream four years ago was the legendary rainbow pokémon, ho-oh.

due to the ruckus they caused, several people were forcibly awaken, and they had reported to morty. the two of them were rescued by morty and his gengar, and immediately rushed to ecruteak city’s pokémon center — along with eusine, who had woken up as soon as morty arrived.

eusine was groaning and whining, mad at himself for losing consciousness when suicune was so close to him. morty had berated him for jumping up and down on the vulnerable wooden floor and apologized to jeonghan and soonyoung, once they were settled down in their room at the pokémon center. morty had let them go lightly with a warning to never go back to the burned tower unsupervised again, though, he had a hard time believing that the legendary beasts had appeared inside the tower. jeonghan and soonyoung had decided it would be better if they told no one about what suicune had told them.

all their pokémon were, thankfully, alright. as soon as they reached the pokémon center, they were brought to nurse joy, who had recovered them from their injuries. in no time, crobat was perched on jeonghan’s head again, and umbreon was in his arms, purring in delight as jeonghan ran his hands through her body. jeonghan was on the right bed, whilst snuggled inside the covers of the left bed was soonyoung, whose right leg was covered in gyps. wobbuffet was snuggled to soonyoung’s left side, whilst scizor had his head on soonyoung’s lap, and ampharos’s head was on soonyoung’s right shoulder. the sight of them made jeonghan’s heart warm. so it wasn’t only jeonghan who was touched by their friendship — even ho-oh had approved of their friendship, that it decided soonyoung was worthy enough to face it.

“so,” jeonghan spoke up, “are you going to face ho-oh?”

“with crutches? no thanks. if ho-oh really decided on me, the least i could do is go there wearing a suit,” said soonyoung, scrunching his nose. jeonghan laughed at the younger boy.

“and not now, not when i still have a long way to go,” murmured soonyoung. “but when i’m ready, like suicune said, i’ll go there and face him. and hopefully catch him. wouldn’t it be cool if i have ho-oh in my team?” jeonghan made a face at soonyoung before throwing a pillow at him, telling him to keep on dreaming. however, scizor had caught the pillow in his pincers, causing the pillow to burst into a cloud of fluff in his sharp metal pincers.

“hey!” jeonghan cried, but scizor only buzzed in return. crobat defended his owner, screeching back at scizor. the room was covered in fluff, but soonyoung only laughed, and smiled at the sight.

the future ahead of him was scary, and he felt the burden of being ho-oh’s chosen one. but soonyoung knew he wasn’t alone. he has his pokémon by his side. he has his best friend jeonghan by his side. and when the time to face ho-oh comes, soonyoung knew he wasn’t going to be alone. soonyoung would have them by his side, battling alongside him.

soonyoung smiled and stroked on the rainbow feather. he thought about how lucky he was to have them by his side.

for there was magic that had brought them together, and that magic is called hope.

[ —proofread. ]

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moddersayethstuff · 3 years

Text

So I decided to write down my massive headcanons on how Inkling Biology works, such as what their body is composed of, how they can turn into smaller forms, how they can get “splatted” without actually dying (and can “respawn” via man-made devices), and how they can weaponize the Ink that their body creates. I might also reblog this later with details on how Sanitation works (and can be reversed), some genetic oddities certain Inklings have (such as claws or size differences), and other small tidbits.

The main things you need to understand: 1. Inklings is a term for a race of Humaniod Cephalopods, and subraces include primarily Squidlings, Octolings, and potentially others. 2. Magic exists in the form is reality-controlling energy that Human Mages used to be able to control. When Humanity died in the floods, this “Magic Energy” seeped into the oceans and caused many types of ocean life to evolve (because anyone who attended any kind of Biology class knows that creatures don’t evolve on their own and mutations are never beneficial). This Magic Energy can be controlled with focus (or a natural talent) but the average Inkling has only a small amount of control over it, which I’ll explain later.

With that out of the way, I’ll start with what the Inkling body is made of. To put it simply, Inklings are like onions (and ogres). They have Layers. To be more specific, two Layers, their inner Blood Layer, and their outer Ink Layer. The Blood Layer contains all their internal organs, such as their lungs, stomach, heart(s), brain, and formations of cartilage function similar to bones. They also have an Ink Sac that produces a weaker version of the Ink their Ink Layer is made up of. The Ink Layer covers the Blood Layer, and consists entirely of a special form of Ink that can form into a kind of skin on the outside, as well as their eyes. The only natural holes in the Ink Layer that allow access to the Blood Layer are in their mouths so they can eat, small slits in their ears so they can hear, their noses so they can breath, and in the… downstairs regions so they can… you know. Should their skin be cut, Ink will leak out, but it’s no-where near harmful to an Inkling’s health and will at most weaken them a bit. But should anything damage the border between their Ink and Blood Layers (say, someone stabbed them with a sword), most of the time it will be fatal. Recovery is possible, provided their internal organs aren’t too damaged, but they would be unable to change into their Squid Form or it’s a painful, permanent death. In fact, damage to the Blood Layer is the only real way to permanently kill an Inkling, provided they keep their Blood Layer safe they can survive for a long time, until they naturally die at around age 100-110.

Inklings posses an uncanny connection to the Magic Energy that triggered the Oceanic Evolution, which allows them to use their Ink in ways other creatures could never dream. All Inklings are born with a certain Ink Colour, which they can change with a bit of concentration. It’s very difficult to precisely change to a colour someone else is using, but this difficulty can be removed by making physical contact (ex. Placing a hand on someone’s arm), and changing colour this way allows for perfect replication of someone else’s Ink. Mimicking someone else’s Ink Colour has several benefits, such as being able to swim in someone else’s Ink. As an Inkling reaches age 13-15, they begin to attune to the Magic Energy inside of their Ink, and can activate a powerful ability (which, by Mage Standards, is technically a Spell, but no one really cares about that fact). This ability displaces their Blood Layer, storing it in a sort of Pocket Dimension, while their Ink Layer morphs to a smaller cephalopod form, known commonly as a Squid Form or Octo Form, or the umbrella term Ink Form. This allows them to protect their Blood Layer from any damage, including falling from a great height or getting cut. They can also easily slip through grates and nets, being essentially liquid held together via Magic Energy. Because their eyes are a part of their Ink Layer, they can still see, but can’t smell. They can also hear, but the sound is very muffled. Their brain, stored in the Pocket Dimension, telepathically exists within the confines of the Ink Form, allowing it to control the body (telepathy is canon in Splatoon, see Judd who is canonically a Telepath/Psychic). The Ink Form can submerge itself in Ink, and it can sense what is outside of it, as well as move through it quickly. It can also absorb Ink into the Ink Layer, which is then deposited in an Ink Tank (or similar Ink Storage methods such as Inkweave) upon returning to their normal Humanoid Form. Originally, ancient Inklings were unable to take their clothing and equipment with them when they activated their Ink Form, but some studied and trained and perfected the art of storing their external gear in the Pocket Dimension when they switched, and gradually this technique became part of the Spell the Inklings naturally use (most of the time, but the few who don’t naturally have this ability can gain it the same way the ancients did). Also, Inklings in Ink Form are unable to hold things in their tentacles without wrapping their tentacles around the object they want to hold (and they aren’t very strong either).

When Ink of another colour makes contact with an Inkling’s Ink Layer, they feel uncomfortable and may be physically slowed, and too much foreign Ink causes their Ink Layer to detonate, but (due to more ancient practices that have been ingrained in the modern populace) their Ink Layer and gear are displaced, similar to if they turned to Ink Form. This displaced body, with no Ink Layer tied to it, is trapped in limbo until their Ink Sac can generate enough Ink to rebuild their Ink Layer, a process that can take anywhere from a day to almost half a week, whereupon they respawn the same place they were splatted. However, scientific research created devices that pulled in the displaced Inklings and accelerated the process, allowing them to respawn almost immediately. Inklings possess a special organ in their Blood Layer known as an Ink Sac, which creates Ink the same colour as their Ink Colour, and this Ink is pumped into their Ink Layer, but the special Ink that the Ink Layer consists of and the Ink the Ink Sac produces is slightly different. Regular Ink can be drawn out of an Ink Layer and can be stored externally via an Ink Tank/other method of Ink Storage (see above), or ejected forcefully via an Inklings mouth. This Ink Spit is how the ancient Inklings originally weaponize do their Ink, before tools that could shoot their Ink for them were created. Weapons contain siphons in their handles, similar to Ink Tanks, and draw out regular Ink stored in the Ink Layer for use. Often, Inklings will draw Ink out from their tanks as it gets siphoned into their Weapons, a trick that takes a bit of time to learn but eventually becomes almost second-nature for competitive Inklings. Ink sticks to most surfaces, except for some materials including certain types of metal, fabric, and plastic, as well as all liquids.

Other notes:

Inklings have tentacles comprised entirely of their Ink in their Humanoid Form that functions similar to hair, and it can change shape at the Inkling’s will, but most of the time these tentacles serve no functional purpose. Some Inklings have more dexterity with their tentacles than others, with the average Octoling having more control with their thicker and fewer tentacles than Squidlings. However, on the rare occasion that an Inkling loses a limb (usually if it gets severed but their main body is fine, they will heal over the wound and their Ink Layer will cover it up, a process that can take a few weeks) they will have a greater dexterity with their tentacles, a phenomenon that medical scientists are still trying to fully understand.

Certain chemicals have an effect on an Inkling’s Ink Layer that is similar to the effect of foreign Ink, and should any of these chemicals be mixed into bodies of water, any Inkling that submerges in this water will have their Ink Layer detonate, resulting in the same effect as being splatted. Submerging in bodies of water that don’t have those chemicals or getting rained on/having a shower is perfectly safe, and Inklings, being sea creatures, are also very comfortable being wet. Most Turf War arenas have these chemicals in the water as a hazard during competitive matches, but they dissolve quickly leaving the water safe again. Often, more casual Turf War matches between friends omit these chemicals, as pushing one of your friends into water is very, very funny.

Regular Ink, when applied to a surface, stays for about 5-7 minutes, before natural microbes in the air cause the Ink to evaporate. The special Ink that makes up an Inkling’s Ink Layer is unaffected.

And that’s pretty much it! I’ve got a lot of other headcanons and thoughts on this topic but I’ll save those for later. I’ll prolly reblog this post with addendums if I do so. Also note that I use all this for my Splatoon fanfic Inkopolis Rising, as well as several other Splatoon AUs and stories.

#splatoon #ramblings #long post #I’ve thought way to much about all this #walls of text

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boukenboy · 3 years

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#17: セブンスドラゴン2020 / 7th Dragon: 2020

The year is 2020. The world is under siege by murder hornets, political unrest, a pandemic, and swarms of ferocious dragons. The fact that only one of the above is fake speaks to how much of a dumpster fire this year has been. Personally, as an "essential worker" who runs a coffee kiosk, some of the behavior that I have witnessed with regards to masks and general safety has taken what little faith I had in humanity and ground it into dust. I have been gaming - and drinking - much more than I ever used to, and while it has saved me money in the long run, I sometimes feel guilty with how much I've dove into this hobby. But who cares, really?

I discovered 7th Dragon 2020 through a random late-night Google search: I occasionally dig around the Japanese side of the internet for research on what games I'd like to play next, and the moment I realized that this game was set in post-apocalyptic Tokyo, in the year 2020, I knew I had to play the absolute hell out of it, regardless of quality.

Art imitating life? We love to see it!

As stated above, 7th Dragon takes place in Tokyo, Japan. You begin by creating your main character, choosing a class and appearance. What really surprised me, however, was the sheer amount of voices you can choose from - I'm not really an anime fan, but according to the game's official website, quite a few famous voice actors lent their talent to the game, and they're all full of personality. Want to make a foul-mouthed gothic lolita? You can. A beefcake with the voice of a 10 year old? You can do that too.

The game features 5 different classes to choose from: Samurai, Destroyer, Psychic, Hacker, and Trickster. Out of these five, I decided to make my main character a Trickster - all classes in 7th Dragon are essentially a sort-of "two-in-one" deal, and in the Trickster's case, their skills are divided between gun and dagger skills, and they both do very different things. Daggers tend to focus more on applying various debuffs to enemies - such as poison, silence, and so forth, while with guns, you'll be avoiding enemy attacks, employing counters, and inducing critical attacks. With the proper set-up, gun Tricksters can then apply constant damage with a possibility of avoiding enemies entirely. To round out the party of three, I then chose to make a Hacker and Destroyer.

Destroyers are your main brawler class, but with an interesting twist. Their abilities all revolve around applying what is called a D-Counter to enemies - certain attacks increase this value, and you can only perform the more devastating attacks once you raise this to the appropriate level. D-Counters wear off over time, too, so it is important for this class to keep up offensive pressure in order to be effective.

Alternatively, you can develop them to become more of a tank: Destroyers possess a stance that draws enemy attention. Once attacked, they'll respond with a powerful counter - this is obviously a great way to protect your squishier party members, and it is extremely satisfying when you successfully bait enemies into destruction. Later on, you'll learn more specialized counters that will allow you to ignore enemy damage entirely, but there's a catch: you have to predict what type of attack they'll use - will they try and bite you, use their claws, or cast a spell? You'll have to pay attention to not only monster anatomy, but to attack patterns, too.

Hackers are the main support class in 7th Dragon: they have the bog-standard buffing spells, but I have to give special recognition to the developers of 7th Dragon for going out of their way to come up with some unique abilities that I have yet to see in any other game. For example, Hackers can set-up a "safety net" that will automatically revive fallen party members at the end of a round, but it is required to be casted at the beginning of that turn. Know a boss is about to end you with their strongest attack? Cast it and hope for the best. They can also decrease the amount of turns your party suffers from status effects, and even increase the rate at which your auto-skills activate.

They can, true to their name, also "hack" into enemies. I haven't played with these skills as of this writing, but it involves the Hacker inducing a status effect of the same name, and then causing all sorts of shenanigans. Other classes possess abilities that can make enemies weak to hacking, which reduces the amount of set-up required. In my case, I decided to focus on the support abilities due to the gaps in my party's defenses, but I can easily see how a more offense-focused Hacker can be a huge asset in battle.

As stated earlier, 7th Dragon 2020 takes place in Tokyo after a sudden and cataclysmic invasion by hordes of enigmatic dragons. Their ultimate objective is unknown, as they do not speak or interact in any manner that is not hostile. You play as a member of the government organization Murakumo, lead by an alarmingly busty woman known as Natsume. Determined to take back the country, you are then sent out into various Tokyo neighborhoods, warped by the dragon's magic, in order to discover the true nature of your nemesis.

I really enjoyed how little you know about the reptilian threat: it reads almost Lovecraftian - these beings are beyond human comprehension, and have the ability to warp reality as they see fit, resulting in some fantastic environments. One of my favorites is the sky-high giant sphere of railroad tracks in Ikebukuro - traversing it feels like you've really stumbled upon some twisted version of our own world.

Along the way, you'll encounter the members of an organization known as SKY - initially the villains of the game, you'll eventually become allies in their search for the one with what they call "the power." If you have played any RPG at all, I'm sure you can figure out just who that is. There's also a large variety of secondary characters, but overall, the game's plot isn't very innovative, but it's serviceable. What surprised me, however, was just how dark some scenes were. In one instance, you cooperate with the Japanese military in order to stop a massive dragon-made cannon, only to watch dozens of your fellow soldiers die in front of your eyes.

7th Dragon isn't afraid to kill off your friends, either - there are sections in the story that are utter bloodbaths. Certain characters the game seemed to favor early on are promptly killed off at random, and the way the survivors react to the trauma of losing their companions is a major story-point that resounds throughout the later chapters of 2020. I was surprised as to how the allegiances between the cast shift as the game progresses - their relationships, and the way they evolve was, to be honest, way more intriguing than the main plot of, "Dragons are bad."

7th Dragon also features a base development system, in which you'll use materials gathered from defeated dragons to add new weapons to shops, create more residential spaces for refugees, and unlock optional side-quests. You can also recruit Hatsune Miku, because of course you can. Why wouldn’t you? Doing so unlocks a remixed soundtrack featuring said vocaloid, but nothing else. It's a curious addition to the game, and the re-done tracks are pretty cool. Unfortunately, the side-quests in 7th Dragon tend to have poor rewards and vague objectives, so I abandoned doing them around halfway through the game.

I can see fans of the Shin Megami Tensei and Etrian Odyssey series finding a lot to love in 7th Dragon. Creating a party that works well together is extremely satisfying, especially given the high level of challenge the game has during boss battles. The plot isn't anything impressive, but the ensemble cast and the blood-soaked shenanigans more than make up for it. I can confidently recommend this game to anybody who seeks a marginally less horrifying version of our current apocalypse. But who knows? If 2021 brings us dragons, I can only pray they eat me first.

#gaymer #review #jrpg #7th dragon 2020 #7th dragon series #etrian odyssey #shin megami tensei #smt #psp #sega #hatsune miku #apocalypse #gaming blog #game review #retro gaming #retro game

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whattaloser · 3 years

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Why I’m a Leftist

I know I’m probably just some dude who reblogs cool stuff to most of my followers but I’ve got a nice long story/rant about my political beliefs here that I’ve been wanting to write for awhile

I am a leftist first and foremost because I value human life. Everyone matters. No person is inherently more important than another person. Everyone has inherent rights that should not be infringed. People who infringe on other’s rights are morally wrong to do so. In essence my leftism is based on doing what is right. Obviously everyone has their own opinion on what is right but what is vitally important is knowing why your moral code is right. This is why so many people become liberals or conservatives or otherwise rather than leftists. They simply do not know enough about how the world works. There are a lot of reasons they don’t know, not the least of which is intentional covering up history and preventing education. I don’t believe people who aren’t leftists are stupid, but I do believe leftists know more. It’s kinda fucked up but it’s the only way you can explain inconsistencies in other’s values.

My path to leftism was full of cringe. When i was 7 years old Al Gore was running against George Bush for president. I did not know enough to have a real opinion on it but I am happy to say that I wanted Al Gore to win. This thought was based on very little if any logical reason. I basically flipped a coin in my head I think. Or maybe there was some outside influence that I wasn’t aware of, like my older sister who I looked up to might have said she liked Al gore. Either way, from then on I was in favor of democrats and did not like George Bush. When 9/11 happened I remembered thinking how dumb it was that people lined up around the block to get gas. Even as a child I knew that some buildings going down wasn’t going to end the great nation of the United States. In general I thought the United States was a great country. I knew from movies and tv as well as elementary school history that the United States was the most powerful country in the world.

I recall in Sixth grade my teacher mentioned she liked George Bush because he was against gay marriage. Somehow at the time my opinion was the opposite despite being raised Catholic. I believed in god until I graduated high school and suddenly my desire to be religious slipped away and so did my belief. I do not consider this a great loss.

Sometime in middle school or early high school I had solidified my opinion that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was pointless and George Bush was a bad president. I was heavily influenced by movies and somewhat by video games that had imparted plenty of anti-war messages. Talks with my dad about nuclear missiles, watching History channel shows about world war 2, and playing Metal Gear Solid which had explicit nuclear disarmament messages, all informed me on the horrors of war. This was not enough to make me totally anti-military. In high school I wanted to join the military because I thought it was an easy way to get life experience and eventually pay for college. I was attracted to the Marines because of how cool movies like The Rock and video games like Call of Duty made it seem to be a Marine. I thought they were the best of the best. I was simultaneously against war, against veteran worship, and very pro-military. I was indoctrinated by years of government propaganda but also disillusioned by all forms of media including the book All Quiet on the Western Front which was about a soldier becoming disillusioned by witnessing horrors of war and the negative impact it had on everyone in his country. I spoke with a recruiter during my senior year and expressed my desire to be a Marine but I told him I wanted to wait a year after high school so I could get physically fit enough. The recruiter did not care that I was underweight and out of shape. He didn’t even care that I was very enthusiastic about joining, he was still putting on his best salesman demeanor which made me incredibly uneasy. The experience is supposed to pressure people into signing up on the spot, I think they even had forms for me to sign (i can’t really remember though) but I was not ready and was aware enough how I was being manipulated although not entirely cognizant. After that I no longer wanted to be in the military.

I also have to point out that I grew up in an unstable household. My parents were both loving but they were flawed and made mistakes and had problems. My dad was a typical Gen x man’s man. A little bit too emotionally repressed, but actually really good with kids when it came to play time and still is. He worked a lot because my mother couldn’t. My mother has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as long as I can remember. Her medical bills related to her problems combined with other financially bad decisions by my parents caused my home life to be fraught. I lived in varying degrees of poverty until my parents separated and me and my siblings moved with my mother to her parents’ house away from my father. Prior to moving though, we endured great financial difficulty. We were unable to afford school lunches but could not apply for free or reduced lunches because technically my father made a lot of money, however it was all garnished for medical bills. My father always tells about how he bought a car that had hidden frame damage and when he attempted to sue the dealership for selling a bad car he lost and was garnished for that as well. Despite making over 25 dollars an hour in 1999, my father could not afford school lunches for three kids and couldn’t afford to pay the gas bill. Without going into too much more detail, life sucked and continued to suck until I graduated, at least financially. I still found plenty of joy and it wasn’t always that bad. We still found ways to have good things like video games and we could always rewatch old movies but there’s a lot of psychic weight that comes with being that poor as a child and I’m sure it affects me and my ability to empathize with others who in bad conditions.

So i watched a lot of movies and documentaries, read a lot of books growing up, discovered internet forums at the age of 11, played video games, moved to a town that had a very large Hispanic population, and I even grew up poor. All of this life experience turned me into a very average liberal upon graduating high school. I was a very optimistic 18 year old. I thought science could save the world. If I was 18 today I would be an average redditor stereotype probably. The point here though is I still wasn’t a leftist. Only vaguely progressive and full of optimism. This is when I got sucked into the anti-feminist pipeline.

I can’t remember what exactly what I had going on in my life but I remember it was around the time of Gamergate. Everyone on the internet, celebrities, and pop culture were saying “if you believe in equality between genders you’re a feminist” an did not like that. And there was a ton of people online to tell me I was right in not liking that. They all said feminism was not necessary anymore because legally you couldn’t discriminate against women and I agreed. Gamergate made it worse for reasons too complicated to get into in this already long post but suffice it say I was “pro Gamergate.” This put me at odds with my closes friends who thought feminism was great and had no qualms with it, and were already embracing the idea of being a “social justice warrior.” Despite reading all kinds of anti-feminist think pieces and reveling in the discourse, I was still very progressive and liberal minded person. Still thought the military was bad, that black people were discriminated against etc. But so many aspects of anti-feminism were appealing to me as a white guy who tried their hardest to do what they’re told is right, had low self esteem, undiagnosed adhd and depression, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism was. Two things got me out of anti-feminism though. The first and most important thing was having friends who were patient with me about it. I didn’t reveal how into anti-feminism I was because I was ashamed but they could sense it and pushed back when they could. The second thing that got me out of it was actually finding feminists online and reading what they had to say, staying away from poorly written clickbait articles that fueled misogynist tirades against feminism. After reading and learning from feminists it finally clicked. Our society is patriarchal and that affects how people interact with each other regardless of what is legal. Many of the complaints of anti-feminism talk about how men have it in society, so how can society be patriarchal. It’s because of patriarchy that men are put in bad positions. Some of the more self aware anti-feminists had retorts against these ideas but they were emotionally charged. There’s still some anti-feminists I have respect for because of how well prepared and logical they were when it came to disputing feminism. But when it came down to the fundamental tenants of feminsim all they could respond with was anger or outright denial of reality. (If you’re like I was and don’t understand how anyone can thing modern feminism is good please feel free to ask me more, I just can’t get into specifics in this long ass post) Anyways, once you understand patriarchy and how it affects an individuals actions then you can start seeing how other institutions and cultural norms can affect an individual. This is basically fundamentals of leftism. I’d say about 90% of my path to leftism was just naturally absorbing cultural and historical information through consumption of media. The most conservative people I know are people who haven’t read very many books or seen very many movies. I’m not saying watching Austin Powers at the age of 10 will make everyone a leftist but constantly recontextualizing the world by learning something new, even if you learned it from some dumb comedy movie, can give you better grounding in a shared reality. Don’t know how to end this but I want to say when I was a teenager I thought “communism is good in theory but it doesn’t work in practice” and I had almost no historical basis for it other than the vague notion that USSR = bad despite having consumed a massive amount of media. None of it taught me what communism actually was, I didn’t know who Karl Marx was, and I had no clue why communism in the USSR failed. You can know a lot without knowing the truth so if you’re struggling with a loved one who is mind poisoned by conservative keep in mind that they know a lot but they’re missing something important to give clarity.

This has been my Ted Talk

#rambling #rant #Leftism #Conservative #feminism #anti feminism #Communism #Media #I definitely did not accomplish what I wanted to with this lol #Someone please clap #uwu

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andrewmoocow · 4 years

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Steven Universe: The Fantastic Mutants chapter 3: Enter the Brotherhood (originally posted on July 11, 2020)

AN: Sorry this took so long to come out readers. Coronavirus, online school and all that jazz just had me occupied for a good while. Hopefully you've been keeping yourselves entertained in the midst of this quarantine; I've gotten into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated, Cardcaptor Sakura, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic among others. Anyways, let's get back, at long last, to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning of Gifted Youngsters (or just Xavier Institute or XIHLGY since that name might be a bit too long for some) and see how the Crystal Gems and their new allies can get out of this one!

A few hours prior to their invasion of Professor Xavier's school, the Brotherhood of Mutants sat around a table examining the exploits of the Crystal Gems to get a good idea of what they'll be getting into. "Don't ya think we're in over our heads?" Juggernaut asked his fellow mutants while watching video footage of Lapis stealing the ocean. "I mean, one of them can literally use 75% of the planet to kill us all!"

"The blue one may have the strongest power, but she is also rather emotionally fragile." Black Tom remarked. "In fact, all of them are pretty unstable once you think about it. Insecure, dependent, obsessed, haughty, cowardly, hotheaded..."

"Quit with the psychology stuff Tommy!" Pyro exclaimed out of boredom. "What I wanna know is how could they brainwash three world-destroying monarchs so easily? Could the same happen to us too?!"

"Well, the boss maybe." Sabretooth answered. "Speaking of which, where is he?"

However when Creed wasn't looking, the master of magnetism was standing behind him with Mystique at his side. "Lemme guess, he's standing right behind me."

"How could you guess? Do you have psychic abilities like Xavier?" Mystique snarked as she sat down next to the clawed mutant. "I've been discussing plans with Erik for the past few minutes, plans on how to infiltrate these Gems. He chose the water-controller as the one I should masquerade as since it would require that I retain my usual skin color."

"He's got a good point, but why are we hunting these down in particular?" Avalanche wondered. "Is it because of how celebrated they became for allying with the Avengers?"

"Not quite everyone." Magneto revealed. "Our current ally Doctor Doom wants the child's gemstone for the purpose of creating his own army of half-Gem warriors. And taking care of them will be so fulfilling for me after Rose had left me all those years ago."

In the present day, the Brotherhood had begun their assault on the Crystal Gems, with their archenemies the X-Men caught in the crossfire and the Fantastic Four as well. The mansion was left damaged in their arrival and the Brotherhood now has the heroes surrounded.

"Now my friends, are we going to make peace by handing the child to me or must we resort to drastic measures?" Magneto purred threateningly, holding out his hand and expecting someone to shake it.

"Like we'll ever let you have Steven!" Garnet stated. "Just a few weeks ago, he was nearly captured in a situation similar to this one, and we refuse to let it happen again."

"So when I want to do what's right, you try to fight back." Erik pointed out. "Yet when those three Diamonds plotted to destroy Earth, you let them off scot-free simply because they were mourning a bratty child that was no better than them? The hypocrisy is quite strong here!"

"Can we just cut the blabbing about our morality and fight already?!" Amethyst complained while wriggling free from Black Tom's vines and pouncing on Toad, tying his tongue around his eyes to blind him. "Why are you always targeting me?!"

With that, the battle properly began. The Crystal Gems charged at the Brotherhood of Mutants with the X-Men and Fantastic Four by their side, tearing up the mansion even more.

During the chaos, Morph snuck around the battlefield in the guise of Garnet and tackled Sabretooth from behind, sitting on top of both his arms. "You little shit, get offa me!" Victor exclaimed in agony while Morph then took the form of Groucho Marx. "I'd have you cry uncle, but you don't really have one as far as I know." He quipped while pretending to hold a big cigar.

Meanwhile Steven & Connie had formed into Stevonnie to gain a better advantage over Magneto, but he used psionic shields against their sword. "Gem fusion! I remember that quite well!" the master of magnetism recalled. "Garnet and Amethyst fused much like you to tear Auschwitz apart."

"Auschwitz?! You mean the Nazi concentration camp?" Stevonnie asked. "You must've been one of the Jews locked up there, right?"

"Indeed, me and my parents as well." Erik answered. "But alas, I wasn't one of the lucky ones."

It was October 7, 1944, towards the end of World War II when Erik's mutant powers awakened. When his mother was heartlessly shot dead by the scientist Klaus Schmidt, Erik promptly went berserk with a loud cry of "NEIN!" followed by manipulating every metallic object in the room, even crushing a pair of army helmets and the heads of the Nazis wearing them.

Klaus was excited at Erik's potential, but his joy turned to fear when a loud crash was heard before a massive purple flail burst through the roof of his office. "Mein gott." The mutant ally of the Third Reich muttered in awe of Sugilite. "Hey small fry!" the brutish fusion grinned while grabbing Schmidt by the collar with two large fingers. "Why don't you try picking on someone your own warped fascist government?!"

"Please let me go!" Klaus begged for mercy. With a toothy smirk, Sugilite gave her word and dropped the man back through the hole made in his roof, landing Klaus on his desk and making him too injured to get up. "Puny Nazi." Sugilite sneered before separating into Garnet and Amethyst.

"Bitte, hilf mir." The boy who would become Magneto croaked while crawling out from underneath the rubble, mildly injured but thankfully not comatose. "Bunte damen, hilf!"

Unfortunately, his voice was too hoarse for anyone around to hear. Not even the Nazis carrying away the bodies of his mother and Klaus were able to pay attention to the young mutant. "Is anyone else in here?" the voice of Rose Quartz called out as she stepped into the ruined office. However, she was able to find a certain young man pinned under pieces of ceiling. "Are you okay young man?"

Still hoarse, Erik was unable to give his name to the Gem. "Hallo, mein namen ist Rosenquartz." Rose introduced herself in some sloppy German. "Kannst du mich verstehen?"

"Rose!" the commanding tone of Captain America distracted her for a bit. "You have to come with me, they're bringing reinforcements from HYDRA!" he urged the Crystal Gem leader. With a small gasp, Rose turned back to Erik with some comforting words. "Don't worry little one." She assured him in English. "I'll be back for you soon."

But unfortunately for Erik, she never did.

"So you're hunting us down partially because Rose forgot about you?" Stevonnie asked. "Honestly, I'm not really surprised."

"I remember what happened that day!" Pearl exclaimed. "Rose couldn't come back for you because she was poofed during the battle and we had to retreat. I am truly sorry we were unable to make do on her promise."

"Sorry just won't cut it!" Magneto boomed, pinning Pearl to a wall with a steel beam using his powers."And no matter how much she tried to make amends when we met again, I still never forgot."

Nearly twenty years later in 1963, the Crystal Gems were touring the city on a sunny day when they found a large group of people gathered before a stage, where a man made a speech. "What are those guys doing?" Amethyst asked her fellow Crystal Gems. "I'm not sure, but I believe we should get a better look." Garnet answered.

As the Crystal Gems blended into the rather blasé crowd, the man continued speaking. "Despite the fact that you lauded such beings as the late Captain America, you also hypocritically look down upon mutants for possessing similar abilities."

"Uh actually sir," a young news reporter with a fake toothbrush mustache spoke up. "There is a clear difference. Captain America was given his powers by science to help win the war. Mutants on the other hand were born with their powers that could go out of control if pushed too far."

"Did anyone ask for your opinion boy?" the man boomed as he glared at the reporter. "Please don't take it out on me sir, I'm just a young reporter!" the newsboy nervously squeaked and then high-tailed it out of there. "But thanks for the story menace!"

"Hmph, children." The speaker rolled his eyes before returning to his speech, or he would've had he not found a familiar face joining his audience. "Wait, I remember you!" he shouted. Using his magnetic abilities, he pushed the spectators away by forming a path straight to Rose using the steel fence that once separated them. "Rose Quartz. How have you been coping with the captain's demise?"

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Rose asked the mutant. "Of course you'd forget about me." He replied. "I am known as Magneto, the master of magnetism! But I'm sure you'd at least remember me calling myself Erik."

"Oh my goodness, Erik?!" Rose exclaimed. "I am so sorry I didn't come back to you like I promised! There was HYDRA coming for us at Auschwitz, I just didn't have time and-"

"I believe that's enough!" Magneto roared before he proceeded to use the fences against Rose. "You have forgotten me at the camp, and now I shall make sure everyone forgets you!" He tossed the fences at the Gem, but Garnet & Pearl quickly deflected them. "Stay away from her!" Pearl called. "Amethyst, get everyone out of here while we take this one on!"

Amethyst gave a comical salute before she rounded up all the human spectators with her whip and dragged them to safety. "I see how it is." Magneto boomed. "You are just like all of them."

"No, you don't understand Magneto!" Garnet stated. "We've actually met and fought alongside a few mutants before! There was this Canadian one during the war, and we even met En Sabah Nur as well! The Crystal Gems value all life on Earth, whether they be ordinary humans or otherwise!"

"You can try to rope yourself into my good graces all you want Gems!" Erik growled. "Because nothing can ever change the past!"

"That fateful battle was how we first met Xavier. He had an older team of X-Men that saved us from him." Amethyst recalled. "Speaking of which, where could they be now?"

"Wrong time, wrong place!" Sunspot exclaimed while he fired a blast of solar energy at Juggernaut, who was unfazed. "Could this get any worse today?!"

"As a matter of fact, it can." Mystique replied sharply, snapping her fingers to summon a pair of massive blue and purple robots that towered over pretty much everyone. "Pink gem detected, pink gem detected!" the machines noted in unison. "Bring boy to Doom immediately!"

"Sentinels?!" Jean exclaimed. "And it seems this time, they've been modified to hunt him down!" Emma replied as the Sentinels held out their hands to trap Steven in a forcefield. "Guys, a little help?" he called out from inside his prison. "I can't seem to get out!"

"STEVEN!" the Crystal Gems screamed while the Sentinels slowly took off into the sky with the boy in tow. "Don't worry Steven, I'll save you!" Kitty exclaimed. "Storm, give me a boost!"

"You got it!" Storm replied, grabbing the younger mutant by the waist and lifting her up high with her flight abilities. When she was let go, Kitty leaped at the Sentinels and used her phasing powers to pass through the forcefield to rescue Steven. "Don't worry little guy, I got you!"

"Thanks Kitty, but I think we might be too late." Steven thanked sorrowfully, making his new friend look up to discover that the Sentinels were headed for a large airship above them. "Aw crud." Kitty smacked her face in irritation. "Guess I walked into that one."

"Now they got Kitty too!" Scott shouted. "Yeah, I think we got the picture!" Lapis said. "Can't any of you fly up and save them?!" Morph suggested. "You seem to love ignoring obvious solutions!"

Lapis rocketed into the air as she was joined by Angel, Storm, Firestar and Human Torch with intents to rescue Steven & Kitty, but unfortunately they were quickly shot down by the Sentinels, still slowly making their way inside the Brotherhood's vessel and leaving the other heroes behind.

"Let this be a lesson to all of you Crystal Gems." Magneto declared. "You may think just saying sorry will instantly make everything better, but time will never make people forget." He surrounded his Brotherhood in his forcefield and lifted them all up to his ship. When the villains got inside, the ship sped away from the destroyed mansion.

"I can't believe we lost him, just like that." Pearl muttered while on the verge of tears. However, Reed was there to put a comforting rubber hand on her shoulder. "Don't fret, I think I might know where they're heading." Mister Fantastic declared. "They're working with one of our greatest enemies known as Doctor Doom, which means their next destination will be his kingdom of Latveria."

"Latveria? I've read about that place." Connie replied. "Very good that you know about this place Fraulein Connie." Colossus complimented her. "But still, the combined forces of Doom and Magneto might need more than just our three teams here."

"I think our first step would be calling the Avengers." Peridot suggested. "But they agreed to let us solve our own problems unless it was absolutely necessary we needed their help." Garnet responded. "Maybe at least a few of their reserve members would be useful, but not the whole team."

"I do know someone who can help us, but I don't think a few of us are going to like it." Colossus announced, much to Wolverine's irritation. "You don't mean?" Logan growled. "Da, exactly." Piotr replied with a nod and then he turned to Connie. "Connie, the X-Men now have a very special job for you."

"Whatever it is Mr. Colossus, the Crystal Temps will do what we can!" Connie said exuberantly as Peridot, Lapis, Bismuth and Nephrite assembled behind her with goofy grins on their faces.

"I admire your optimism malen'kiy. And please, call me Piotr." Colossus continued. "I cannot believe I am saying this, but we need you to find for us," he ordered her. "Deadpool!"

Wolverine giving a loud aggravated moan followed this up.

Well, this sure took a while, hasn't it?

Bitch, a while doesn't even cut it!

Wait, Deadpool?! How did you get here?

I came here to yell at you for prolonging my long-awaited proper debut for months now! Well I've had it up to here with your lazy-as-shit behavior! Next chapter, you better let me help you out or I'm taking that "ANDY ONLY" folder on your laptop for myself!

You monster, I worked hard to build up that collection! Okay fine, you can help in parts. Deal?

Deal! And what are you still doing here? Get the hell outta here until next chapter, The Deadpool and Peridot Show! Damn, that chapter title really rolls off the tongue.

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oh-boy-me · 4 years

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Mammon did it he and the rest of the Pokémon team beat the Elite Four and the champion!

Below the cut is a summary of the battles for anyone who was interested in this Pidgeot and his friends. Since I talked about it (and because I’m pretty proud of accomplishing it) I thought it would only be fair to not leave anyone in the dark lol (and to brag I get bragging rights).

It was fun to do this, so maybe I’ll do another Obey Me-themed challenge run more publicly one day. For now, this is no longer on my mind and I’ll probably get the next request out later today :)

First up, a recap of the challenge rules, so you know why some of my movesets are abysmal.

A Pokémon can only use its level up moveset. TMs and HMs are not allowed.

When a Pokémon wants to learn a new move, I HAVE to accept it, and I HAVE to replace the oldest move.

I obviously need HMs, but I can't use those Pokémon in battle (shoutout to Simeon the Lapras, Barbatos the Beedrill, and unnamed Doduo for those roles.)

Next, the team!

Solomon (Lv 60 Kadabra): His only attacking move is Psychic, but as you either know or will soon come to know, a good psychic type is essential to beating this game. Solomon almost got boxed because for a while he had zero attacking moves, but luckily for him Psychic is good enough that I switch-trained him up to it.

Asmo (Lv 55 Golbat): My girl carried me through most of this game, but unfortunately I think she's going to be mostly a set-up/sacrifice Pokemon for this part of the challenge. I can't level her up any further because I know that at Lv 56 she'll replace Confuse Ray with Haze.

Luke (Lv 57 Raichu): I actually boxed Luke back when he was a Pikachu after some bad moveset changes. But he made a comeback, and now he's a crucial member of the team with powerful electric moves. Plus, his speed is insane and I accidentally EV trained him in Special Defense, what with all the Tentacool I killed.

Satrio (Lv 62 Dugtrio): Satrio is very useful in some situations and useless in others, since three of her four moves are ground. However, her high attack stat, boosted by soft sand, and her SUPER high speed, are crucial to this. He also saved me so much time when she had Dig. What a good girl.

Bellphie (Lv 57 Victreebel): While training him I learned that apparently Pokemon that evolve via stone don't learn any new moves after evolving! Fun! I decided that move tutor moves were fine as long as I taught them in the right order, so I caught a bunch of Paras in the safari zone for their mushrooms and gave him a proper moveset.

Mammon (Lv 62 Pidgeot): My boy. My boy. My second Pokemon after Levi the Squirtle. He's been through it all. He has one attacking move, but that's not all that's up his sleeve. Mammon has tricks and he intends on using them.

With that out of the way, we move on to the Elite Four Challenge.

--Lorelei--

Lorelei is the ice type Elite Four member, and if you noticed, uh. 4 of my 6 Pokemon are weak to ice, and none of them can do anything to an ice type either.

However! Gen I didn't make any ice type pure ice, so four out of five of Lorelei's Pokemon are part water. And I have Luke.

Lorelei leads with Dewgong and I lead with Luke. I immediately use Thunderbolt on it, which isn't enough to KO, but is more than enough to force Lorelei to use a full restore on her next turn.

Each major story battle, the opposing trainer has a set amount of healing items to use. The Elite Four has two full restores each. From what I've seen, they're programmed to use one full restore if their Pokémon finishes a turn with their HP below a certain threshold, but they won't use more than one per Pokémon (barring the last), and won't use their second restore until their ace Pokémon is on the field.

Lorelei uses her first full restore, and I use Slam to put Dewgong back into KO range. Since I outspeed, Luke takes out Dewgong with one more Thunderbolt.

Luke then oneshots her Cloyster with Thunderbolt and levels up to Lv 58. From now on, I need to be careful with when I use Luke, because he can't level up any more than this.

He nearly oneshots Slowbro as well, and the first slam that actually hits finishes it off.

I use Slam against Lapras, knowing that even the stronger Thunder can't oneshot it. Unfortunately, Lapras' first move is Confuse Ray, meaning Luke has a 50% chance to damage himself instead of attacking.

And he doesn't! But he misses Thunder. Luke then teams up with Lapras to beat himself up, and Luke faints.

I switch into Satrio to finish Lapras off. What's that, you say? Satrio is ground type; she's weak to ice!

True! But Satrio is very fast and has Earthquake. She takes out Lapras with two Earthquakes, tanking a Surf in between with no problem. Jynx is an easy oneshot with Earthquake too.

And with that, the first E4 member is down.

--Bruno--

Bruno is a fighting type trainer who seems to always use the same order of Pokemon: Onix, Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Onix, and Machamp.

We have Bellphie and Solomon, though. Bellphie takes out both Onix with a single Razor Leaf each, and Solomon handles the fighting types with Psychic.

--Agatha--

Next up is the ghost type E4 member, but did you know that Gengar was the only Gen I ghost line? Agatha fills in the blanks with poison types. Did you also know that the Gengar line is entirely part poison?

Do you know what move is super effective against poison types? Psychic. Solomon uses Psychic five time, and then the battle is over.

--Lance--

Just like I had nothing for ice types, I have nothing for dragon types. Dragon is only weak to dragon and ice in this generation, and I have neither type on my set. My only goal right now is this: keep Mammon healthy until Dragonite uses Outrage.

Lance always leads with Gyarados, so my obvious choice is to lead with Luke. I don't. I forget to switch Solomon out of the first slot. But Luke is a good boy who survives Hyper Beam upon switching in and uses Gyarados' horrible weakness to electric against it with a Thunderbolt.

Next up is to force my way through his two Dragonair with my strongest non-resisted move, Earthquake. One Earthquake puts it in full restore range, a slash puts it back in KO range, and then Earthquake again finishes it. An Earthquake and a Slash take out the second, since Lance won't use his second full restore until Dragonite is out.

Speak of the devil! Dragonite comes out and I switch into Bellphie to land a stun spore. A paralyzed Dragonite has its speed cut by 75% and has a 25% chance to not move at all. Unfortunately, it uses safeguard, which protects Lance’s team from status moves, so I can't finish the paralyze-confuse combo. All Asmo can do is tank hits and wait for Outrage.

With some good paralysis luck and a critical air cutter, Asmo gets Dragonite below half health, before it finally uses Outrage and knocks her out.

It is finally Mammon's turn. Dragonite is locked into Outrage for the next 1-2 turns, so Mammon uses Wing Attack to wait for Outrage to hit him, after which he is finally free to act.

See, Mammon has a move called Mirror Move, which will copy the last move used against him. Outrage is a dragon type move that has no choice but to happen on consecutive turns. Dragon is weak to dragon, so Mammon has successfully given me a super effective move.

Lance can't use a healing item while Outrage is active, so Mammon takes out the Dragonite.

The last Pokemon is Aerodactyl, which Solomon can handle with Psychic.

--bITCH--

The final battle. Blue always leads with Pidgeot, so I lead with Luke, and this is why I had to be conservative with him. I have zero idea how many full restores Blue has, but it's too many. FAR too many. I don't want to oneshot Pidgeot; I want to force Blue to waste one of his full restores on a Pokemon that can't win its match.

Luke just BARELY doesn't kill Pidgeot, so Blue does waste the item, and the same move combo I used to take out Dewgong works on Pidgeot.

Bellphie takes out Rhydon with one Razor Leaf, and while Alakazam used to be a run-ender for this team, Satrio outspeeds it and takes it out with one Earthquake.

Mammon comes in to battle Venusaur, and Blue doesn't know how to use Venusaur so Wing Attack just has to get past his setup stalling.

Next up is Gyarados, but Luke is still healthy so we know how that goes.

Last is Arcanine, the bane of my existence. It won't die. Its attack stat is insane. It has Extreme Speed, a priority move. And Blue bought the entire stock of full restores.

I switch into Solomon to take Arcanine's Intimidate. Intimidate cuts the opponent's physical attack stat upon the user switching in. However, this is Gen III, so psychic type moves are always special. I use future sight to get in some emergency damage padding, but Flamethrower and Extreme Speed take Solomon out before I can do anything else.

Solomon protected Satrio from Intimidate though, so Satrio is able to withstand an Extreme Speed and oneshot Arcanine with Earthquake.

And with that, Ah shit defeated Rival bITCH and became the Pokémon League Champion!

#noodle stews #arcanine ended so many attempts here it was stupid #kinda sad Asmo didn't get to do much but she was still crucial for Dragonite #and before you say 'just get a better team' I spent 80 ingame hours with these guys and I got attached

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rootcut3 · 3 years

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In a lot of decks, the Lovers shows 2 individuals in a yard with an angel floating in the sky above them, possibly in the Yard of Eden. The Marseille shows three people, and also a grumpy-looking cherub aiming an arrowhead at them from over. Jodo pointed to the sunlight at the top of the card, where said cherub was emerging. Prior to you attend your tarot reading session, attempt to get as clear as possible on what it is you want advice on. This will help you locate the experience you want as well as additionally help your visitor specify the analysis for you. You may have been told ahead to your tarot card reading with a clear concern and an open mind. This suggestions is typically duplicated since it's thought about to be the most effective method to get the most out of the experience. Throughout the session I will do a reading which will certainly offer clearness as well as bring about an understanding of what the tarot is communicating about your present, previous and future. Likewise, Sarber informed EXPERT that as soon as you finally begin, a essential to getting proficient at reviewing the cards is to pick one that represents you. the much more that you bond with your deck, the far better analyses you'll give-- as well as obtain. Today, there are thousands of tarot card readers throughout the world. After hearing my tale of the Fatality card, Howe let's out a laugh. "I really enjoy the Fatality card, it's the one that always appears in the movies," she begins. "The Death card, in my experience, doesn't really imply fatality.

#tarot reading #tarot card reading

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thelibraryofhell · 4 years

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Pretentious and Cringy: RoseBlood

For our very first condemnation to this library, we are given RoseBlood by A.G. Howard. Follow the read more for a full count of its sins and stupidity. Warning: it gets long.

This doesn’t count as a sin but great Satan the damn description is way too long! This was likely not the author’s choice though which is why it gets a pass.

This YA novel from New York Times bestselling author A. G. Howard marks the beginning of a new era for fans of the Splintered series. Rune Germain moves to a boarding school outside of Paris, only to discover that at this opera-house-turned-music-conservatory, phantoms really do exist. RoseBlood is a Phantom of the Opera–inspired retelling in which Rune’s biggest talent—her voice—is also her biggest curse. Fans of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the Splintered series will find themselves captivated by this pulse-pounding spin on a classic tale. Rune, whose voice has been compared to that of an angel, has a mysterious affliction linked to her talent that leaves her sick and drained at the end of every performance. Convinced creative direction will cure her, her mother ships her off to a French boarding school for the arts, rumored to have a haunted past. Shortly after arriving at RoseBlood conservatory, Rune starts to believe something otherworldly is indeed afoot. The mystery boy she’s seen frequenting the graveyard beside the opera house doesn’t have any classes at the school, and vanishes almost as quickly as he appears. When Rune begins to develop a secret friendship with the elusive Thorn, who dresses in clothing straight out of the 19th century, she realizes that in his presence she feels cured. Thorn may be falling for Rune, but the phantom haunting RoseBlood wants her for a very specific and dangerous purpose. As their love continues to grow, Thorn is faced with an impossible choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or save her and face the wrath of the phantom, the only father he’s ever known.

That first paragraph would have sufficed for description and given the reader some mystery. The second could have stayed but it’s on thin ice. And we don’t have ice in hell.

To summarize the story: Rune Germain is a 16-17 year old girl from Pleasant, Texas who is, in her own words “possessed by music”. Thanks to a rich aunt and some nepotism, she gets the chance to go to RoseBlood, a conservatory in Paris that is a refurbished opera house that, according to Rune’s online research, is the place where Gaston Leroux’s Phantom Of The Opera story really took place. Upon arrival, Rune is immediately overtaken by music and makes an enemy in Katrina Nilsson by interrupting Kat’s audition for Renata in the school’s opera. She also makes friends with a few other students who really have no bearing on either the plot or Rune’s adventures. She eventually finds her Love Interest Thorn - real name Etalon, stalking her as she goes about her day to day life, and immediately falls in love with him because they are Twin Flame and Destined by Destiny. It is soon enough revealed that Rune, Thornalon, and Erik are all psychic vampires that must feed off humans to survive. It is also soon revealed that Rune and Thornalon are Christina Nilsson’s soul reincarnated and split and that Rune “has Christine’s voice”. It also turns out that Christina and Erik got married and tried to have a child who was born premature and died. Erik was driven mad(der) by the child’s death and somehow, in the 1900′s, managed to build a contraption that kept the baby “alive” until he could track down Christine’s soul and reunite the pieces and transfer it to the baby... Needless to say, he failed, Rune and Thornalon live happily ever after, and Rune suffers no consequences from any of her terrible actions through the whole novel.

Sin count time!

Sin 1: The school name! RoseBlood. What does it have to do with anything? There are bleeding roses later in the story but why would a school name itself RoseBlood? This choice is never explained. It has no French basis, no connection to the opera-house turned school, and no connection to Gaston Leroux’s original Phantom Of The Opera.

Sin 2: Overwrought descriptions right out of the gate.

At home, I have a poster on my wall of a rose that’s bleeding. Its petals are white, and red liquid oozes from its heart, thick and glistening warm.

Mom looks out her window where the wet trees have thickened to multicolored knots, like an afghan gilded with glitter.

I trace the window now curtained by mud, imagining the glass cracking and bursting; imagining myself sprouting wings to fly away through the opening—back to America and my two friends who were tolerant of my strange quirks.

These are all from chapter one. It only gets worse as you go.

Sin 3: Racism. Main character Rune Germain regularly describes herself as a “gypsy”. According to her, on her father’s side, she’s a g*psy. Moving through this review, I will be censoring the word. I’m a demon of hell, not a piece of shit. Rune never says Roma or Romani in the entire book. There’s no references to Romani culture, nothing about the problems Romani people face in the modern day, nothing. Rune is also as white as a piece of paper. You can see it on the cover

And in how she describes herself.

People say we could pass for sisters. We share her ivory complexion, the tiny freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, the wide green eyes inside a framework of thick lashes, and her hair—black as a raven’s wings.

If you look up pictures of Romani people, you see that they’re far from ivory skinned.

It’s not only Rune. Her Aunt Charlotte does it too. The “Phantom” does it. And Roma culture is treated very poorly throughout the novel. Rune several times refers to her “g*psy blood” as “cursed” or “terrible”. One example:

Nausea sweeps through me at the thought. After our encounter, I realized why I was enchanted by the spider’s feeding rituals, that there was something in my g*psy blood—something tainted and wrong.

In this modern day and age, can’t humans stop demonizing and stereotyping an entire culture? Or using “half-g*psy” lineage to make characters “exotic” or “mystic”? No? Fine, I’ll see you down here eventually.

Sin 4: The Love Interest’s backstory..... TRIGGER WARNING FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION OF RAPE, CHILD TRAFFICKING, AND REFERENCED CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Rune’s Love Interest is named Etalon. His mother was sexually assaulted by a psychic vampire who is apparently from Canada - I have no idea why Howard felt the need to include that - and it ruined her life to the point where she was forced to turn to prostitution to feed herself and Etalon. A man kept trying to “buy” Etalon from her because he was beautiful. She kept refusing, and eventually, she was murdered. Etalon was quickly snatched up into child trafficking where, at one point, he was forced to drink lye water to damage his vocal cords because he wouldn’t stop singing. He eventually escaped when Erik found him and took him in, renaming him Thorn.

Love Interests with tragic backstories are a staple of the YA genre. It makes them mysterious and interesting. It often drives the main character’s interest in the aloof and unusual bad boy. Quite often, these backstories involve dead or missing parents, being turned into a vampire or werewolf, or some combination of all of these things. It’s very rare that it gets so real. Child trafficking is a very real and prevalent issue in the world and it needs attention brought to it. But not like this. Using it as a character’s backstory is something that takes a level of skill Howard simply does not have. It needs to be written with respect to victims who might read it and not just be used to give characters a compelling but otherwise unused backstory. Thornalon never displays any indicators that the time spent in this situation traumatized him. There’s no signs of PTSD or other mental health issues that might arise from what he went through. There’s also no signs that Howard donated any money from book sales to charities like Child Fund, Save The Children, or ECPAT-USA. This is a very serious topic that NEEDS more attention brought to it and Howard glossed over it like it was nothing.

Sin 5: Underutilized setting. Rune comes from Pleasant, Texas and moves to Paris, France. But there’s no sense of wonder from her. She never talks about how beautiful the city is or learning French. Supposedly, the school only admits American students.

“How many foreign boarding schools offer admittance only to American kids? This is a rare opportunity . . . a taste of French culture in a setting that feels like home.”

Oooor the author couldn’t be bothered to deal with French translations or expanding the student body to include a diversity? There’s no French culture anywhere in this book. Any time Rune goes into Paris, it’s skipped over. There’s nothing about it that says Paris. It could have been set in New Jersey and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Sin 6: Each chapter begins with a quote from a different author and work. Including, weirdly enough, Karl Marx... Beginning a chapter with a quote is fine, but it should be consistent. Picking a single work or author to use helps to reader see a consistency in the theme of the book. Since this is a Phantom of The Opera based story, it would make sense to use quotes from the book. Instead, the author uses a different work for each chapter, and it’s honestly just annoying.

Sin 7: All promise, no pay off. This book has a promise of action and mystery. It’s got a fabulous premise and a setting that could be beautifully used if in the hands of the right author. But it misses the mark on good characters, action, and keeping a consistent pace.

Punishments: For being tone-deaf and generally bad at writing, author A.G. Howard is condemned to have the dead tree in her backyard become home to her state’s buzzard population. For being a terrible protagonist, Rune Germain is condemned to find a mistake in the middle of her knitting projects just as she is about to finish them. For the terrible Phantom Iteration known as Erik, we condemn his instruments to always be just slightly out tune. And Thorn/Etalon... we order you to get a lot of therapy and a service dog.

So let it be recorded. Today’s story time is concluded.

#roseblood #ag howard #book snark #the library of hell #bad books #bad writing #roseblood ag howard #the phantom of the opera #phantom of the opera #tw child trafficking #tw rape #racist writing #g*psy slur use

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