#and the captain of Rend's new team

[nutklcker]

HI (I LOVE THE PARAGRAPHS EACH OFYOU LEAVE IN MY TAGS SO FUCKIMG MUCH) do any of your ocs have ref sheets. or even just full-body drawings . totally not asking for any specific purpose ....

WE'RE SO GLAD YOU LOVE OUR RAMBLING you have such pretty art and reblog some of the best posts and you're so good at writing so we just have to explode in the tags sometimes hehe

Also we saw this ask like four? Five? Hours ago and went Oh Shit No We Don't and have spent the whole time drawing and we were like Oh we should throw our LC alters in there too since this is their blog and their mutuals should know who they're talking to! And then we got distracted and ONLY drew the alters and host's self insert and none of our OC's so :> we'll do that eventually though but we'll also do like another post with more info ANYWAYS here's the art we made of the self insert and the Lethal alters :3

Info for each of us under the cut (also Rend and Anno are heavily derived from a fever dream March had after we got surgery and had complications, as such they have a story and are pretty attached to it so we'll go into that too)

The "Story"/Fever Dream:

There were two crews who led a revolution against The Company about fifty years before the game takes place, and of them were eight people named Experimentation, Assurance, Vow, Offense, March, Rend, Dine, and Titan, and they weren't named after the planets, the planets were named after them. (Rend, March, Assurance, and Vow were on a team with Rend being the captain, and the other team was led by Titan and had Dine, Offense, and Experimentation.) Eventually, the revolution got pretty popular and widespread so The Company gave in and agreed to meet with the two teams to discuss their requests, and at the end of the discussion they promised the requests would take place within the next few weeks. The eight members of the revolution were satisfied and went back to work, but the next day they were given news that due to their conjoined efforts they would have to all split up and join different teams to ensure that they didn't again backstab the company once their requests were fulfilled. They, unfortunately, did not put up a fight against this and within the next quota cycle each of them were abandoned and killed on different, new moons none of them had ever seen before. The company never enforced the things they agreed upon but because the leaders of the revolution were killed before word of the promises got far, and because they mysteriously went missing and had new moons named after them, nobody said anything and nobody acted out against The Company.

Pace:

- Pace is Geno's self-insert OC and he uses He/Him pronouns and is transmasc <3

- He was an employee for The Company AFTER the time of the revolution and worked not as a scrap collector but as a biologist. His team was tasked with finding specific monsters and collecting some bio matter from them to then bring back to The Company. Pace had a rivalry with one of his teammates who was tired of Pace always succeeding, so, he pushed for Pace to receive a Bracken as his quarry and succeeded. However upon arriving Pace was easily able to find the Bracken of Vow (who was actually Vow from the revolution) and collect bio matter from it by befriending it, which enraged his competitor and led to both Pace and Vow being shot. Vow tried to protect Pace after realizing the shot that hit him was not meant for him, but both were too wounded to survive. Vow disintegrated atop of Pace, leaving him and his open wounds covered in Bracken spores, and his competitor left to eventually be killed by a coilhead. Their other two teammates made it out.

- The spores found the decomposing body of a human to be the perfect place to reform and create a new Bracken; that being Pace. Pace spent about twenty years hunting loot bugs and hiding from scrap collectors before a woman named Kite and her captain Calamity found him at the fire exit of Vow. The two found that he was friendly and took him upon their ship, but one of their teammates was appalled at having a "friendly" Bracken and, as they were leaving, pushed Calamity out of the ship in anger, landing her between a dog and a baboon hawk. Pace jumped to rescue her and while he was successfully able to lure the dog away enough for Calamity to safely jump back on the ship, he was grabbed by the Dog and torn to shreds. The ship's autopilot took off while he was fighting the dog and the crew (excluding the asshole) started to panic.

- The next day Vow was eclipsed and, much to Calamity and Kite's disdain, the crew decided to wait for the eclipse to pass before landing back down on Vow and looking for Pace. Meanwhile, Pace had managed to crawl his way back to the fire exit, tumbling down the ravine, and set himself up on a pallet just inside the door. There, sleeping through the whole day, he was able to slowly heal.

- The third and last day of the quota cycle, Calamity's crew got into another argument with Asshole over going to save Pace, and landed at Vow without realizing another team (March's team, as he had already been rescued by a crew by this time) had already landed there. Calamity and Kite rushed in to find Pace while Sail, the crew's navigator and Kite's twin brother, argued with the asshole. The captain of the other crew, who's ship was nearby, overheard an argument about saving a "friendly bracken" and connected the dots that another crew must have found someone like March, their friendly coil-head, and walked out to confront the two. Sail left to help Calamity and Kite find Pace, and the captain (name yet unknown) spoke with the asshole, found out he wanted to kill Pace and attempted to kill his own captain, and promptly hit him over the head with a shovel in order to protect not just his crew, but March as well. The asshole was left there as the captain rushed in to inform his crew of another friendly monster and tell the other crew bus was happy to help, and the asshole was left there to be picked up and carried away by a Giant.

- Pace was eventually found , missing most of his arm, leg, and leaves on his left side, and the two crews met up and became friends. Pace was placed in a large pot covered up to his shoulders in dirt and for the next few quota cycles his crew would place him outside to soak up the sun and look around. Because his arm and leg were fully submerged in the soil and water, they regrew, but his eye never did. He doesn't mind too much though, he can tell when things are looking at him and, in his opinion, that's all he really needs his eyes for. He helps scavenge for scrap and is able to carry two heavy items at a time, however, he can only carry one light item when doing so as it's uncomfortable to hold in his big hands

March:

- March was our first LC alter and has been around since about late October? He's not too conncected to his source and is actually the version of March from our fever dream BEFORE the revolution ended. So though the March in our dream was a coil head by the end of it, our March still thinks of himself as human. Being compared to a coil doesn't bother him though, they're his favorite enemy in the game :) also he's mute and considers himself cis and demiro-ace.

Rend:

- Rend is also one of our alters but is a lot more attached to both the game and the "story" so he has some funky false memories and is a little delulu about it, but he's happy and healthy and aware of reality and not hurting anyone or our system or himself so we don't mind hehe also, Rend is transmasc just like host and his pronouns are he/him but he's trying out they/it

- Rend is of course based on Captain Rend from the "story" but, unlike March, is from AFTER he died and he much prefers being seen as a nutcracker than a human. Our assumption over why is because Rend had actually been a fragment for most of our life who managed family interactions, and since that was all our brain found him fit for he never really gained a personality or sense of self and as such thinks he looks exactly like our host and would probably share the same name and everything. We think subconsciously our brain makes him like being a nutcracker more than a human in order to make it easier to distinguish him and host

- Rend, being much more intrigued by the fever dream likes daydreaming about it a lot, like he's roleplaying in his head in his own, and as such he likes talking about it and thinking about it a lot more than March does. So, here's some things he daydreams about a lot and thinks would be "canon" continuations of the "story"/fever dream:

- Before March's team found Pace and his team, they got to a pretty high quota and started visiting Rend and Dine. One of their first times visiting Rend, Melody, an employee on March's team, found a seemingly deactivated nutcracker deep in the facility. The team had split up so Melody knew she would have to be careful, but she wanted the shotgun so she crept close and clumsily grabbed it, setting it off. This startled here and she backed off, watching in silent horror as the Nutcracker slowly started to move and stand and, eventually, open up and look around. In panic, Melody ran despite being looked at and, for a moment, Rene stood there confuse before he realized he had finally found someone. Forgetting his voice, he chased after her for a bit but she would frequently stop and hold still so he had trouble. Eventually he shouted to her to wait and she paused, turning to look at the apparently able to speak nutcracker just as March had sped up beside her to block the path between her and Rend. Staring down at an employee with his shotgun and a coilhead that was looking at him and not said employee, Rend ran. In instinct, as she had gotten used to March by now, Melody turned and March gave chase. He was scared and angry that the nutcracker had presumably tried to shoot his friend and, upon trying to push the nutcracker to get it to stop running, he sent a surge through its body and caused it to bleed (like how we headcannon them to work, building up pressure in the body's blood). Melody followed a few rooms behind, having trouble keeping up with the two big monsters but, when Rend was hurt he screamed, and Melody knew that wasn't any of her teammates so she picked up the pace. Rend had been cornered but Melody caught sight of March which forced him to stop moving, and tried to rush to the nutcracker when she saw him bleeding, but, turning her back to March Rend panicked and stepped between the two, telling Melody that he wanted to talk to her but couldn't protect her with the state he was in, so she needed to look at the coil head. He was seemingly trying to protect her. For his comfort she did look at March, but tried to assure him to calm down, sit for a little so she could try and tend to whatever part of him was bleeding, and that she would be more than willing to talk. They spoke for a while, Rend having trouble believing that the coil was friendly given how it seemingly tried to explode him, but he let bygones be bygones. Melody and March both started to wonder if this was one of his old friends but they had decided beforehand not to bring it up to any possible teammates without getting a gauge for their mental state, and Rend was very frazzled so they decided to wait to ask his name or story until he calmed down. They gave him back his shotgun, he turned the safety on, and Melody convinced him to open up so she could tend to his bleeding eye, and eventually the three started to make their way back to main in order to meet up with the rest of the team and get Rend out to their ship

- On the way there they met up with the teammate March had been with before he came running after he heard the gunshot, but this teammate was actively running from a thumper. Rend tried to shoot it but missed due to his eye injury and urged the rest of them to run as he'd hold it back as long as possible. The three left and Rend dragged the Thumper around for a bit before it got loose and rocketed down the hallway after the three. Rend, knowing the layout like the back of his hand, took an alternate route to get to main in order to hopefully outpace the thumper. He made it in time to tackle the thumper and send it and him over the balcony railing where they landed near Melody, March, and their other teammate who were actively trying to scare off a Bracken. Rend urged them to head outside and leave for their safety and they did. It took them a while to get back enough money to go back for Rend, and in this time they met Pace and his team. Rend is still actively daydreaming about this all the time so I'm sure he'll infodump about it more another time.

Anno:

- Anno has been around for the least amount of time, we had a major allergic reaction while Rend was fronting and so he spent time curled in a ball daydreaming as he always loves to. For comfort he daydreamed about cuddling a friendly masked, but eventually got so fed up he told our partner, aloud "I really hate this body" and our little asshole of a brain (/lh) essentially went "oh really? New alter be upon ye" and turned that cute little Masked Rend was daydreaming about into a new fragment. Anno has since become more concrete, he's transmasc and uses it/its pronouns, and it's not very interested in Lethal Company but LOVES Rend a lot. It's just kinda gay and likes Minecraft, like those are its things so far. Rend has decided that if Anno was in the "story" it would've been from far before the revolution and was left behind by mistake. That's about it for Anno, it's just kinda a thingy that's very gay

Wow so that's the end of that, I'm incapable of making long stories short apparently tee hee. I've been talking for way too long and I doubt anyone got this far, but this was mostly for us since we're soupy right now and it made us feel grounded. If you got this far Anno gives you a cookie.

#host #🎭 #👁️ #long post #ily (/p) sm Koka your art is so good and you're so awesome and we love seeing you on our dash #you're always welcome to send us more asks especially about the other OC's/characters in the fever dream/story #we'll probably make a post about them sometime soon anyway #and especially art of them #I loooove Kite #and the captain of Rend's new team #I already know how all of them look #its just putting that on paper that's hard #this was actually so therapeutic for us and Rend is so happy he finally got all his daydreams out somewhere #we're actually making an animatic of his origin story to the song Curses by Crane Wives #wow I'm sleepy #it's six in the morning and I've been awake all night #time to eat and go to bed now that we're done drawing and infodumping #tee hee #Cw long post #art #this is rebloggable btw

[clocktowerechos]

Factions of the Tyranid Swarms of the Brightest Night AU

"... One would be forgiven for being lulled into a false sense of hope that such foes are merely mindless, ravenous beasts. As the idea they may be something more organized and coordinated is too terrifying to consider..." ~ Unknown Ordo Xenos Inquisitor after first contact report with the Tyranids.

The all-consuming Hive Fleets have made landfall far earlier and with much greater force than in canon. They are not merely vanguards or scouting tendrils, but a vast migration of the Hive Mind's many limbs to sate its voracious apatite. Nobody foresaw their arrival, not the Eldar Farseers, not the Alliance Augurs, not Chaos Prophets, not the Necron and their esoteric, celestial calculus. The Hive Fleets arrived and since then, every angle of the Milky Way has become a vector for their entrance.

It was the Tau who first discovered the division of Swarms within Hive Fleets. Prior to joining the Alliance, they had worked with a team of Eldar on an entirely separate diplomatic research mission before accidently discovering the psycho-pheromonal signals that identify the types of Swarms. From it, scholars across the Alliance have theorized that the Tyranids have formed a super organism-like empire, scouring worlds and "farming" biomass to aid in their endless hunger. It is believed that at the conclusion of their feasting, when the last mortal has been consumed, they will devour their "empire" before moving on to the next, leaving only an empty galaxy and dead space.

Hive Fleets have been identified to possess specialized swarms, each fulfilling a singular role.

Devouring Swarms

They are the frontline of the Hive Mind, insatiable and voracious, they blot out stars with their mass and shower worlds with spores and combat forms. They are what the Tyranids are in canon.

Harvesting Swarms

What might be considered the "civilian economy" of the Tyranids, instead of simply devouring everything in a system, will instead strip all but one planet of life and biomass before dumping it on a singular planet, seeding it with abundant life. They "harvest" at regular intervals, but always leave enough for life to regrow, however twisted or terrified they are.

Survivors rescued from these Harvest or Swarm Worlds are forever scarred with horrific memories of their worlds being converted into bio-mechanical and organic factory farms. Where they were herded by a primordial energy like microbial cattle, and where the sound of chittering teeth and rending claws was always in the back of their minds.

Sprawling Swarms

Fulfilling a sort of logistical or transport role, Sprawling Swarms serve to carry biomass from Harvesting Swarms to Devouring Swarms, ensuring a plentiful stockpile of biomass for new monsters to be birthed from. Since their discovery, it has become a priority for many factions to target these swarms in the hopes of slowing the advance of Devouring Swarms, leading to Sprawling Swarms having the most formidable voidborn organisms of any swarm.

So critical are these Swarm fleets that any naval captain who provide evidence of its destruction can be guaranteed a promotion. And any penitent renegade who provides Alliance authorities with similar proof may be granted forgiveness and redemption should they be willing to join the Imperium and its allies.

Genestealer Cults & Genebloods

The infiltrating vanguard of the Hive Fleets are either formed from Genestealer Patriarchs who gestate in pools of Devouring Swarms, or from the broken individuals on Swarm Worlds. Their minds shattered and twisted by the Hive Mind's suffocating power, they believe the Tyranids to be messengers of a divine truth or star-born saviors. Given over to the profane worship of the Hive Mind, they sometimes form a "clergy" on Swarm Worlds that preach ascension into the light as the Harvesting Swarms come to reap their bounties.

No matter their origin, both Patriarchs and "Ascensionists" are delivered to unvigilant worlds to form cults and secret societies. Sowing the seeds of chaos and unrest with plans generations in the making before plunging the world into anarchy at the eve of the Hive Fleet's arrival. Yet, some manage to break free from the suffocating psychic will of the Hive Mind. Many go mad from the realization of what they are or what they have done, seeing their monstrous kin and children for what they truly are, and remove themselves entirely. However, some may seek to exact vengeance upon the Hive Mind, becoming Unbound Genebloods. Prized for their innate understanding of the Tyranid Hive Mind and ability to detect lurking organisms that stalk the shadows, they are often recruited by the Inquisition to root out their kin.

Just as pyskers must constantly ward off the daemonic whispers in their minds, Genebloods must constantly stave off the predations of the Hive Mind that seeks to enslave them again.

#wh40k #warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #tyranids #genestealer cults #worldbuilding #alternate universe

[godstrain]

one year is far from enough time to acclimate- rather, he knows he should have done better / he's faced this sort of pressure before, and still there was something different. since he'd been picked up by unfamiliar officers and taken to some high security facility to meet a rather strict director, he'd felt different, too.

in return for materials and a new laboratory of his own, albert wesker had agreed to offer his aid- to play the part that he would never admit that he had loved most. the mysterious, but well respected captain of S.T.A.R.S.

"If you don't mind my asking, what interest does Interpol have in this case?" › @earth-master

giovanni sakaki is well known to interpol. the former leader of team rocket, one of many terrorist organizations- it seemed each region of this dimension had some sort of terror. everything from groups resembling the mafia to eco-terrorists, dictatorships and large corporations manipulating the flow of politics by having their hands in nearly everything.

it was almost as if he'd never left umbrella in the first place. it was almost like he was back in raccoon city.

❝ it wouldn't have been on the radar if this case didn't consist of a string of disappearances stretching almost thirty years- the first filed police report was on april 7th of 1997 by an officer jenni asahira. ❞ he's done his research, of course- that report was only the first, and the disappearances had continued to raise concerns.

it's more than that, though. he knows it's more than that, and maybe giovanni knows, too. because looking at giovanni makes him think of looking in some sort of odd mirror- where some things are quite similar and others are wildly different. ❝ erick snap died of rather brutal wounds. per reports, he was also rather fond of following in the footsteps of miss yuri. she certainly drew the attention of interpol at that festival. some rather interesting individuals attended- we had reports of an undead dragon. ❞ a pause then, followed by a soft sigh. ❝ i do wish i could say i offered to come of my own volition, but my superior officer insisted that i come. she's one to seek justice, no matter the cost. thirty years is a long time to leave people wondering- my superior wants that justice and closure. but for me, there's something nostalgic about it. ❞

he thinks of mountains. of gunfire and the whir of a helicopter. he thinks of death and old gold and rot- of rended flesh. of hazel eyes reflecting hurt and anger. he remembers dying. he remembers hearing someone call his name. but there's no chris redfield here. there's no evidence to say that there's any sort of secret lab under the old mansion, but wesker still knows when he stands over a grave of forgotten names. ❝ i do hope this team formed by lady aya has better luck than the one i was with the last time i was sent to investigate a string of disappearances... ❞

#earthmaster #event ╱ mansion incident 2 #wesker stop talking challenge #idk why chris' eyes are never the same color it seems so hazel it is lmao

[audiofictionuk]

New Fiction Podcasts - 29th March - Part 2

Stories From Waypoint Audio Drama JumperScape Media has been deeply influenced and inspired by the work of the massive team that is 343 Industries. To repay them for the great stories they tell, we have taken it upon ourselves to retell their Fractures, Chronicles, Intel Drops, and Story Shards in audio drama format. These are the Stories From Waypoint. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240313-08 RSS: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/storiesfromwaypoint

Confessions & Cryptids Audio Drama Confessions & Cryptids is a fiction podcast following Riley Rhines as she tries to unravel the stories she receives from her classmates and the adventures that follow. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240323-01 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/confessions-and-cryptids

Sinister Minutes Audio Book An amalgamation of dark fiction and disturbing music. Horrific, fantastic, dystopian, but always tinged with a bit of sinister darkness. Got a minute or two? We have a way- to make it NOT okay. Sinister Minutes features the dark narratives of writer and storyteller Kurt Hohmann, backed by the macabre musical musings of Tim Parker. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240322-01 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/sinister-minutes

Les Voix des Ombres. Audio Drama Je m'appelle Quentin BERNARD, je me rends sur les lieux dans lesquels des crimes ou des phénomènes paranormaux ont été rapportés. Muni seulement de mon dictaphone et de ma lampe de poche, je vous invite à me suivre afin d'enquêter, ensemble, dans ces lieux chargés de mystères. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240322-02 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/les-voix-des-ombres

Insanity Ward Audio Book Here’s a podcast that dives into the unknown, two creepy stories and other horrors await as Richard and Jake narrate a few different series. (The GARD) a SCP inspired world full of small horror tales. (The Tunnel) is a novel that dives into the horrors of your mind and brings out the fears that lay there. Follow 3 main characters trying to survive a world made of their lives, regrets and fears. (Inter Dimensional Man) two friends caught in the multiverses. Can Jake help his friend Rich before he dies in every universe, or is he doomed to see him disappear from the mass multiverse? https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240207-08 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/ICloverGames/feed.xml

Pernicious Audio Book A narrative horror podcast. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240321-02 RSS: https://feeds.libsyn.com/519528/rss

En-Cryptid: The Lost Tapes! Audio Drama Greetings fellow earthlings, and hello there to beings from the beyond! And welcome to the chilling and mysterious world of En-Cryptid: The Lost Tapes! Brought to you by Strongest Potion Productions. In these action-packed episodes, we follow and detail the unknown escapades of the secret agents of C.U.M and their everlasting quest to Capture-Undiscovered-Monsters! From relic reptile sightings in Loch Ness to alien probing in Pee Pee Creek, Ohio, there's a story for everyone in En-Cryptid: The Lost Tapes! https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240320-02 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f3c4ecf0/podcast/rss

The Flight of the Bucket Audio Drama The SS Watercress has seen better days. Its captain hasn’t been sober in a decade, mutant rats are plotting a coup, and the chief engineer keeps eating pills he finds on the floor. Still, despite the odds, the old bucket manages to keep flying high—just not as high as the captain. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240325-01 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/theflightofthebucket/feed.xml

Cicatrix: Scars of Parchment Audio Book Sebastian, a PhD History student in Edinburgh, finds an old collection of letters and pamphlets from the Jacobean era, each detailing some strange and disturbing event. As he reads through them, and explores the circumstances under whish they were collated, he begins to piece together a history of dark magic and worlds beyond our own. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240325-02 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/cicatrix

Mrs. McShoogle, Scotland’s Second Finest Actress. Starring Carolyn Pickles. Audio Book Meet Mrs. McShoogle, ‘iconic’ actress turned landlady to the stars. Canny and courageous, tender and just a tad outrageous, this extraordinary luminary recalls her “intimate friendships” with the giants of theatre, television and film, including “more Dames than you can shake a stick at… and Olly Murs”. From first-night feuds to royal revelations and her infamous outburst at the Scottish Drama Awards, The Tartan Tammies, this is the frankly unbelievable tale of a small-town lassie with big dreams, who became a legend in her own living room. A Scottish satire. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240319-06 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/jonathanfortingall/feed.xml

https://media.rss.com/helldivers-radio/20240323_110356_c75846a4445f6de2462e9b228f663c93.png

Helldivers Radio Audio Drama This audio drama is presented as a fictional radio station broadcast aimed at characters within the game world— Helldivers and civilians. Historical radio transmissions inspire the broadcast style during significant conflicts like the Vietnam War and World War II. The purpose is to immerse listeners, providing them with updates and stories from the front lines in a manner that resonates with the historical broadcasts' tone and intent, thereby blending the game's thematic elements with the immersive format of period-specific radio programming. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240325-03 RSS: https://media.rss.com/helldivers-radio/feed.xml

Fairy Tale Books - Storytime Theater Audio Book Regular Audio Theater productions, recorded at Fairy Tale Books, LLC in Jourdanton, Texas. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240322-03 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/fairy-tale-books-storytime-theater

AO SUL DA FENDA RPG DED 3.5 Audio RPG Aqui você encontra todos os episódios de Ao Sul da Fenda RPG DeD 3.5. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240319-07 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f3c09538/podcast/rss

Blood on the Motorway Audio Book An apocalyptic storm. A killer on the loose. The battle for humanity’s survival starts here. Tom is a layabout ex-student waiting for his life to start or the power to get cut off, whichever comes first. Jen works two jobs, hates both, and most days is too hungover to deal with either. Detective Burnett is trying to work out who the hell turned his sleepy Yorkshire village into a murder town. When the skies fill with a mysterious storm, each of them wakes to find streets filled with dead. The world they knew has gone, and their old lives with it. Tom finds himself at the mercy of a deranged soldier, Jen has to flee the fires burning her city to the ground, and Burnett must track down a killer who sees the apocalypse as an opportunity for more mayhem. If they can’t band together, the fate of what remains of humanity hangs in the balance. Blood on the Motorway is the British apocalyptic horror trilogy readers have called “gripping from the first page’’. If you love edge-of-the-seat action, end-of-the-world tension, and characters you’ll be rooting for with every turn of the page, you’ll love Paul Stephenson’s apocalyptic trilogy. Now you can enjoy the full trilogy, chapter by chapter, as an audiobook. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240318-05 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/blood-on-the-motorway

LEAH’S GALS Audio Drama Greed, lust, drugs, and Capodimonte combust in this low-rent, Southern fried twist on a literary classic. Leah’s won the state lottery’s biggest prize, and while her three daughters are elated by her good fortune, when one of them dares to speak truth to power it sets off a devastating chain of events. Long-held grievances and newfound wealth lead to familial treachery, violence and death. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240327-01 RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/leahsgals/feed.xml

#audio fiction #fiction podcast

[thescarletmansion]

With the new threat emerging from a horrific cocoon, Chi-Yu stood before them as everything was being set ablaze all around them.

She would not go down without a fight.

When Marowak and Excadrill both did their parts to lessen the flames (but never put them out, the fires of this malevolent woman could never be extinguished!) the others were able to make their move, albeit marginally more safely.

Wesker went first, no thoughts as to the damage done to him by the flames to his body and mind. Even with the kindness rendered to him by Matsuba, he charged forward again. This was a game of attrition to the former STARS captain now -- he just needed to continue chipping away; his sentiments echoing loudly 'better me than the rest of the team'.

Though much as he did what he could, she seemed to heal marginally from the wound he inflicted upon her, like a long dead woman in his memory who also refused to die, despite being long dead originally.

Giovanni followed suite, guided by Shirogane to slice into Chi-Yu. Her blood spilled and she struck back with a slap, pushing Giovanni away from her. When her essence touched the floor around her, fire erupted around her once more. Truly a vitriolic woman inside and out! Her wounds did not close this time, perhaps affected by the sacred metal that made up the sword that was the bane of many an evil existence.

As a counter, she would spread the fire once more, though more desperately, strongly. Fire in her eyes, if she was to be rended here, so, too, would these interlopers!

Yuri's voice rang out. "I need to get in there --someone help me get close!"

This seemed like a fool's errand, dangerous in its demand. Just what did she intend to do so close to the creature who wished to devour her flesh and power?

#thescarletmansion #SPD roll!! #12 DC #-15 HP on a fail and -5 HP on a save #immunity to the flames for Pokemon with type resistance or same typing as fire

[statticscribbles]

Lifeboat

Summary: Bucky/Reader; Post CW you’re on the raft after having been captured with the rest of team Cap, you’re , avoiding using your power unless absolutely necessary

TW: Torture, discussion of miscarriage

You can hear Wanda humming under her breath again and you let your powers trickle out telling the guards to come to you. You can hear their boots, moving closer, away from Wanda. Clint sneers as they pass, you can hear the anger in his laugh. The guards stand awkwardly at your door unsure what led them to your cell. They shuffle back and forth peering in and find you sitting curled against your bed; head between your legs trying to stop the nausea rolling through you again. One laughs, harsh and grating and the other kicks the door startling you and causing you to shift and whimper as you make it to the steel bowl they call your toilet.

You can hear Clint and Sam’s doors unlock, their daily interrogation starting. They cast a look at you and you sigh, both are free of shock collars, and Clint’s black eye is almost healed. Sam looks thinner, sick and you can tell his lip is scabbed over, you wonder how many times he bit back screams and angry comments. The guards leave you alone for the next two hours, as they bring Clint and Sam back you can hear Scott shouting something and you feel your powers surge as one of the guards pulls a taser. The guard drops the taser and the rest of them grumble and one snatches it up handing it back to him.

“Come on, just zap him.” You can tell the guard that you’re manipulating is gaining his control back; he turns sneering at you and pulling his baton out, lighting it up.

You hiss as your head starts to pound; your powers are draining you faster these days. Being kept on a constantly fluctuating equilibrium has your head spinning; the lack of food is also a worry. You’re trying to ease off using them, you know the shock collar registers how intense your powers are, and you wonder why no one’s shocked you. Ross starts a walk through and you know why when he stops at your door and nods. You can feel the agents dragging you out and you’re fighting against your powers. Don’t fight back. Don’t fight back. Don’t fight back. Don’t fight back. Don’t fight back. Don’t fight back. The guards throw you against the ground and you stagger up as best you can. The scrubs you’re wearing still allow for you to move your arms but it doesn’t help much when you see the guard you controlled leering over you. The baton flickers as he turns the electricity off.

“Wouldn’t want to hurt you too badly, you still gotta tell us where the Captain took Barnes, Y/N.” You can hear Scott laughing, Clint joins him and you can vaguely see Wanda’s lip quirk up.

“Like hell she’d tell you where either of them are.” Ross stalks over to you, smirking darkly. You tense backing yourself up so you’re in the middle of the room. You can feel the cool air from the sea. The smell of it makes you feel sick and you wince as you vomit again. Ross’s eyebrows rise before his face darkens.

“Oh.” You panic, your powers forcing him backwards as he watches you in understanding. You feel a low jolt from the collar that stops your powers; too tired to fight back you curl around yourself and wait for more punishment.

“Solitary sir?” You can hear someone’s boots stomping next to you and you curl your hands around your stomach and whimper. Your hair is grasped forcing your face up so you’re staring at Ross again.

“I have a much better idea.” You can see he holds out his hand and he flicks the dial up on the remote but not pressing the alert to send the shock for you.

You can feel your hand breaking as his boot slams into your stomach as you try to keep your arms locked around it. The other guards stand awkwardly back as Ross gives you another kick before dropping you back to the ground. You whimper and try to twist away from him. But as he steps back the other guards take his place. You can feel the first three kicks in your hands but after that they drop, your body screaming at you to use your powers. You squeeze your eyes and let go, letting your powers force the guards back to where Ross stands. They make it halfway towards him before the shocks rocking through your body cut your powers off. The guards practically run back, returning to their assault sneering. They pause to catch their breath and Ross shocks you as they move away. He laughs as he steps forward and you groan in pain as two of the guards bring you back to your cell. They leave you on the floor and you lay there for a moment trying to figure out how injured you are. You can feel your hand healing, and you wince as you look at the bruising on your face in the mirror they’ve given you.

You grimace lifting your shirt and see dark bruises against your stomach. You touch it softly, fingers ghosting over a barely there bump before you stretch slowly and lay down on your bed as the lights flicker. You curl up wrapping your hands around your stomach as you drift off.

You dream of Bucky, you’re back in the house you shared for a moment before it morphs into something in between your house and the avengers compound. You’re warm and safe wrapped in his arms as he runs his fingers through your hair kissing you softly. You smile teary eyed when he pulls away and he swipes his fingers against the tears smiling back at you. He kisses you again wrapping his hand around you pulling you closer to him. You press your forehead to his and smile again.

“We’re going to be a family, I love you so much.” He nods smiling again and you pause expecting him to say it back. Instead you catch the shimmer of red around the room.

“Wanda?” Your breath hitches as the dream fades and you wake in the dark, cold and alone. You can hear footsteps, rapid and a group. You’re not sure if it’s a good idea to sit up, so you lie on your side hand drifting back to your bruised stomach. The door is silent when it opens and you’re grabbed and can see a needle plunger moving down as they inject something into the IV port on your hand. They let you go and you sway, confused. You take a few stumbling steps as the sedative takes effect rending your powers just beyond your reach. You can see Ross’s teeth gleam in the dark. You can hear muffled screams and shouts and your feet stumble over each other as the other guards drag you out.

Your head throbs and you try to lift it, unsuccessfully as it lawls against your shoulder. You can see Wanda screaming, the sound and her movement startles you but the fear that crawls up your spine is why no one’s punishing her.

“Sir, the med bay is prepped, are you sure this is safe, what if her powers effect- yes sir.” You’re dozing on and off as they place you in a chair. The straps around your arms make you jump but the panic kicks in when you see something in the sides of your vision circle around your head.

“Just enough so she passes out. Not enough to damage anything.” Your vision goes dark before the shocks finish making their way through your body.

You wake back in your cell groggy and can hear everyone stirring as you sit up and vomit on the floor.

“Fucking hell. You okay Y/N”

“What did they do?” Your voice is surprisingly steady after weeks of disuse.

“We don’t know they said they were taking you to an interrogation. We were hoping you could tell us what happened..”

“They brought me to the medical bay, there was a chair, they shocked me with it.” You sit back against your bed sighing trying to piece together what you remember through the pain. You had woken up suddenly, you remember your arm burning and your head spinning but other than that you draw up empty darkness.

“Sorry.” You press your palm into your eyes rubbing them as you sniffle.

“They didn’t ask me anything, just shocked me, and cut my arm I think?” you look at your arms no bandages or new cuts have appeared but your IV appears to be a fresh one.

“They replaced my IV, I think that’s all they did.” You cringe when a guard walks by and wrinkles his nose at the sick on the floor. He mumbles into the radio on his shoulder and you see two more guards appear and pull you out. One hands you a paper cup and nods encouragingly.

“Take it.” He shoves the cup closer to your face and you wince, shaking your head.

“It’s to stop the nausea. Take it. Or I’ll make you.” His smile darkens when you throw the cup to the floor. He knocks your feet from under you and you land on your knees as he grabs you by the collar tugging it up, cutting your airflow off. You can hear Scott and Clint yelling but almost as soon as it happens it stops. One of the doctors they have on staff appears, injecting something into the IV. You watch as he refuses to meet your eyes.

“That wasn’t so bad, they’ve even finished cleaning your room.” The guard turns back to the doctor as you’re led away. You see Ross walking up and catch only a few words of their conversation.

“It –take — will it?”

“Not long—few hours– mess though, safer — monitor her.”

“No. Mutant’s breed mutants, they shouldn’t get safety.” Ross stares at you as he says this. The smile he had has dropped off and he turns away leaving you to your cell and your fear.

Scott’s led away for interrogation again and the guards ignore you. You try to pull at them with your powers when they take him. The guards turn slightly but the shock that pierces your concentration has them no more than hesitating when they bring him back to the interrogation room. You rub your throat slightly and let out a slight scream of annoyance.

“ Y/N you okay?”

“They’re shocking me again.”

“So that’s not surprising, you’ve been given a lot of leeway, I’m sure they’re tired of waiting for you to give up answers, so they’re trying to hurt you to get them. They’ll probably bring you for another ‘chat’ in a few days.” Sam tries to reassure you, but you can’t help the twinge of fear that runs through you.

“I- I think they weren’t shocking me for a different reason.” Your breath hitches, and you try not to panic as heat licks against your skin and a vice strangles your stomach with pain.

“Care to enlighten us then?” You stare at your hands as they tremble; you watch the way the IV jerks up and down as your hand shivers. You can see the edge of the tape peeling upwards from the sweat now pooling on your skin.

“I should have said something before, I should have told him before we got separated..” You look up to see one of the guard’s smug smiles. He taps your remote and shakes his head.

“It doesn’t, doesn’t matter now. It’s too late anyways.” You let the words tumble from your mouth against Sam’s protests. The guard nods, laughing as he hits the button to shock you. You can feel a scream tearing out of your mouth and you thrash as the shocks pass through you. You end up falling from your bed onto the floor as the shocks cause you to convulse. As they ease away you tremble, blood dripping from your nose and now from in between your legs. You try to stagger up but a low level shock makes your arms give out. You try to still yourself but the tremors wracking your body leave you unable to control your own limbs.

“Y/N?”

“Y/N? You okay? Talk to us, please..”

“Fine.” You croak out turning your face so you stop tasting blood for a moment. You take a shaky breath in and sigh.

“I’m okay just surprised me.” You try not to laugh at your own lie. You let the pain swallow you up. As your vision spots and black splatters creep in you decide that it might be safer to sleep through it.

“Can you at least let me set up the IV; she’s massively dehydrated and that’s just to start, I don’t even want to think about anything else, let’s just finish this then?” The doctor’s face swims towards you before pulling back and showing Ross sneering.

“She’ll be fine, her powers will heal her.” You just stare as his face moves away and the black retakes your vision.

You don’t remember waking up. The dryness in your mouth is almost a welcome reprieve from the vomit you usually spew, but it sends a bolt of fear to your heart and you can hear your breath stutter. You try to brush your hands against your stomach but find your scrubs have been replaced by a jacket with lengthy sleeves securing your hands across your chest. You know you now mimic Wanda’s position; you can feel the jolt from the collar. You look out and see one of the guards smirking.

“Ross gave us the all clear. Try your powers and see what happens.” Your head’s swimming and you get shocked for remaining silent. You can tell he’s turning the dial up again and you can feel your powers surge as the drugs clear from your system finally. The remote drops, his boot crushing it as he unlocks Sam, Clint and Scott’s cells. He’s shot in the head halfway to Wanda’s. They fire at your door, the bullets cracking the glass and the sound and movement enough to startle you to lose your hold on everyone.

“Solitary. Now.” Ross’s voice crackles over the speaker as one of the guards shoves you farther back into your cell, turning you to face the wall. He presses you as close as he can to the concrete and laughs. Your cell goes black and you can’t tell if you’ve squeezed your eyes shut or not. The light on your collar vanishes as well but a light shock lets you know it’s still active. They soundproof your cell. They skip your meals and let nothing enter your cell. You’re not sure how much time passes but suddenly the light on your collar turns on.

You squeal which unfolds into a scream as you’re shocked into silence as one of the men turn you back around, the blackness leaves your cell and they leave as well. They do not return for the rest of the day. None of the guards make their morning rounds and this causes a glimmer of hope. The lights dim and flicker well past dinner time and when you see a figure walking up you finally allow yourself to relax. Steve gets Sam out first Wanda and Clint are next and Sam helps Scott as Steve gets you out.

“Y/N, you okay?” You stare at him as he snaps the collar off your neck.

“Fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay good, I’m bringing you all with me, to a friend, he’ll keep us safe while we try to find out where it’s best for each of you to go.” Steve nods to everyone and you follow him to the jet. You curl in on yourself the minute you see a seat keeping your eyes down and refusing to look at anyone. You feel someone sit next to you and you try not to jerk away as an arm wraps around you. Your peek from behind your hair at Wanda and she offers you a sad smile and a puff of air as both of you cling to each other. You can feel her warmth prodding at your mind and you shake your head, shielding the rest of your face behind your hair. One of your hands drifts down to your stomach and you choke slightly when you feel a scar running across it. Wanda grimaces and you can see Sam through your curtain of hair looking worriedly at you.

“Y/N, you excited to see Bucky, Steve said he’ll be at the place we’re going to.” You cringe curling further into yourself.

You failed. You only saved yourself. You failed. You only saved yourself. You suck in a breath trying not to panic as Steve suggests everyone get some sleep. You’re not sure when you fell asleep but you start awake and end up falling from the seat smacking your face against the floor of the jet.

“Nightmares?” You sit up and watch Steve move over to Wanda, he tucks a loose strand of hair away from her face, and pulls the blanket that’s slipped down back over her. He checks Scott, Clint and Sam as well. Giving Clint an extra blanket and sitting on the seat close to you.

“I’m right here if you want to talk. I know it’s going to take time to undo all of what happened, but I want to make it right.” You furrow your brow.

“Not your fault, we knew what we were getting into..”

“You didn’t.” You think back to when you first met Steve, after Bucky had returned to you and explained how he was a fugitive, how he was a murderer and assassin, in turn you explained about your powers, how you’d sneak into his head and cut the nightmares off before they got too bad, how you made his brain patch the good memories first. You talk about betrayal as you run with him. You both come to terms with the lies, content to push them to the back for the moment.

You don’t tell him of the night you spent together, or the mornings you’d spent heaving your breakfast into the toilet. You decide to wait till everything has calmed down. At the airport you know you’re not going to go with them. You try to tell him but all that slips out is an ‘I love you’ before he’s gone and rubble is blocking him from you. You’re brought to the raft within the hour. You shake the fear from your head and look at Steve putting a smile up.

“I’m alright for now. Will I be able to see Bucky when we land, I have a lot to tell him.” Steve nods but you know something’s wrong with how he refuses to look in your eyes.

“Is Buck okay?”

“He’s better than he’s been, there’s people there helping him get rid of the codes, and help him be safe-“ Steve swallows rubbing his face with his hand.

“In order to do that though, he went back under, until they fix it, until he doesn’t have to be afraid.” You don’t care that your screams and sobs wake the rest. They pile around you content to hold you and keep you sheltered as best they can.

Support My Writing?

#bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #winter solider x reader #winter solider imagine #winter soldier x you #marvel reader insert #marvel request #marvel imagine #marvel #stattic

[raspberrywhipz]

🧭 Navigating My Tags

Main Category tags 

stucky fanart : all Steve/Bucky arts 

Bucky fanart : all Bucky arts without Steve appearing

Steve fanart : all Steve arts without Bucky appearing

Alpine : arts with Bucky’s beloved companion 

marvel fanart : arts including other characters 

fav arts : my personal faves 

fic art : art relating to stucky fics 

fun stuff : non-fanart stucky fun 

fandom events  

charity events 

✨

📌  detailed tags below (long list) ...

I tag very granularly so that I can quickly find specific arts and art styles 🔍🙃

🗓  Moments in Time ⏳

time passing : stucky through the ages

as kids 

youth 

pre-War 

CA: The First Avenger (WWII) 

CA: The Winter Soldier 

CA: Civil War

Wakanda 

Fix-its 

TFATWS : related to the show

What If...? 

✨

Stucky moods 

domestic 

protective 

emotional 

tender 

romantic 

loving hands 

cuddles 

kisses 

pining 

dog tags 

sleeping 

pampering 

dancing 

playful 

fighting 

humour 

kawaii : adorable 

flirty 

thirst

steamy 

lingerie  

misc outfits 

silver foxes 

family 

parenting / with kids 

vacation 

day out 

motorbikes 

heart-rending  

angst 

Hydra 

Howling Commandos 

Barbershop Quartet 

Avengers 

Team Cap

All Caps 

Brooklyn 

Russia 

✨

Steve specific 

Steve Rogers 

pre-serum Steve 

Captain America 

Nomad Steve 

bearded Steve 

artist Steve 

badass Steve 

Hydra Cap / WS Steve 

old man Steve 

dog Cap  

Steve’s birthday 

Chris Evans 

✨

Bucky specific 

Bucky Barnes 

Sergeant Barnes 

Winter Soldier 

Cap Bucky

Bucky’s hair 

metal arm 

one arm 

BAMF Bucky 

grumpy Bucky 

grumpy soft 

Buckitty

plums 

White Wolf 

Bucky’s birthday 

Sebastian Stan 

✨

🐱 Companions 🐻

Bucky Bear 

Cap Bear 

Alpine 

cats 

dogs 

horses 

creatures 

Devil Dino 

coffee 

Dodger 

✨

I’m gradually working on linking the remaining ones...  📝 in progress !

✨

⚔️ 🏈 🧚🏼‍♂️  AUs  🎸🐺🦇 

AVAC : Avengers Academy

Planet Hulk

ShrunkyClunks 

Sports 

Musicians 

Medieval 

Cowboys 

Fantasy 

Supernatural beings

Vampires 

Merfolk 

Angels 

Demons 

Werewolves 

Transformed into Animals

Fairytales 

Winged beings  

Crossovers  

Gender swap 

Multiverse

post-apocalyptic 

✨

🎄💞🎉 Holidays and Seasonal ❄️ 🍂 🌸

New Year 

Valentines 

spring 

Easter bunnies 

Pride 

summer 

autumn 

Halloween 

Hanukkah 

Christmas 

holiday sweaters 

winter 

snow 

raining 

✨

✏️ Artist Things 🎨

art process 

animated 

mood lighting 

painterly 

illustration  

drawing 

sketches 

cartoon 

story panels 

chibi 

tsum tsum 

pinups 

posters 

calendar pages 

coloring pages 

watercolour 

pastel drawings / pastel paintings 

manip edits 

manip paintings 

moodboards 

physical crafts  

toy photography  

art roundups 

artist games 

art memes 

artist struggles  

✨ 

#my tags #stucky fanart #Steve Rogers #Bucky Barnes #stevebucky #Captain America #Winter Soldier #fanart #stucky #marvel fanart

[zuihuojoui]

To Act;

Monday December 14, 2020 12pm

“You’re fucking the crazy bitch?” Ayao asked when Joui walked into her sitting room, cleansed, and cleansed again from the stench of imp inners and seen to Syuusen’s justified large meal. He stopped at the coffee table, leaning down to pull up a small cake to his lips. Ayao did love her sweets. The table was decorated in peonies and pink and red miniature cakes, some covered in gold dust. He simply looked at the elder, seated in the blush colored velvet chair, eyes focused on the white fox on her lap, petting its sleeping head. Her eyes raised, her expression clear, she was not repeating the question Joui felt no need in answering. 

He sat, legs crossed, licking the sweetness from his fingers. She was his elder, yes, but he was clan leader this side of the portal. Sometimes when his elders came into Kadeu they made the structure of hierarchy a pain to enforce. 

“You are”, she concluded by his silence and calm expression.

He felt no intrusion into his mind but Ayao could probably just tell it so, even if Joui felt he gave nothing away with his expression. Eori, his mother, would not be pleased her training in expression withholding was failing. Then again, this was the prodigy of Genun’s generation. He could hide nothing from those eyes.

She grinned, then let out a small sweet laugh. “I hear this vessel is quite stunning. You know Joui, you can save some fun for the rest of us. I am not in the habit of sharing a lover with my grandnephew.”

Joui chuckled, her statement too ridiculous to not laugh, then took the extended napkin from an attendant, wiping his hands clean. “Kadeu is not that small Ayao”, he answered then tapped his thigh.

Her smile faded, lifting the sleeping fox to her junior butler. Once the sleeping creature was free of the room, she reclined, continuing as if she intended not to wake her pet. “I know you will never outright answer the question of your entanglement with the bitch, but now that entanglement has brought her wrath and those rats from her home world.”

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” he answered, his smile growing.

“Joui”, she spoke then clasped her hands together, long pointed nails painted black in view, golden rings with pearls on three fingers. 

“Yes, I am enjoying it”, he breathed with ease. “I’m awaiting a report that should narrow my options”, he added, passing his right hand over the soft velvet at the arm of the chair. “Rest assured beloved Grandaunt, I have never lost sight of my duties and though I would love very much to torture all of her senses while carving up that beautiful host holding the vicious essence within”, he began, all but imaging the vengeance he could deal on a personal level from his knowledge of her inner most thoughts. “Then lock her consciousness away in anguish till the very secrets she shared rip her to pieces”, he paused, stripping the malice from his smile. “I know the repercussions well. The timing is not ideal.”

Ayao smiled widely at him, his own expression growing into a mirror of hers. The door to his left opened, his junior butler stepping in and bowing before both High Fae. Joui stood, walking closer to Ayao, kneeling at her crossed legs. “Bless me”, he worded, head leaning against her legs. Her smile softened, hands passing over his head, adjusting his locks behind him. She looked up, eyes holding their golden glow. Joui felt the mana yanked towards her with the precision of all her years. Her head lowered, lifting his forehead to meet his own. His eyes opened, their shared golden gleam uniting, mana passing into him, until her eyes faded back to brown. Joui closed his eyes then lowered his head in thanks, his own returning to hazel. He eased back, giving a formal bow, hands meeting above his head, his head lowering completely to touch them.

He then stood, smiling at her with thanks before leaving a kiss to her cheek.

6pm

Within his own study he let the report absorb within him, let its words map his choices precisely. The silence held after the scout gave it. He glanced around the room at his gathered captains, dressed in their armor and awaiting his order. His full guard awaited the order to march, bloodlust peeked and ready to end the whole faction if their Lord so will it. Still, Joui yet considered his actions, something the demon clearly did not do.

The ex-council members had hurriedly gathered in their chamber. The spies witnessed the rushing carriages and verified each member enter the hall. They still had eyes on them.

Joui thought it through, turning to look to the crackling fire, its blaze an option in itself. He could very well burn the bastards alive. Syuusen would see to that easily since they were all gathered neatly in one place, but what he didn’t understand was why. 

Why had they gathered when Valentina was sole Ace? 

He stared at the fire letting his thoughts free to find the most probable answer. Realization turned him to face the captains with a grin. “They either intend to rid themselves of the demon or she is already incapacitated. That summoning must have taken much out of her. With their combined skill they could have taken back control”, he hummed then looked over the map on the table in front of him. “And are preparing to re-elect themselves Aces. Such freedom they have in that democracy”, he spoke earning laughter from the captains.

Tapping along the map on the table, he gave their positions, ensuring their amulets were ever ready. All the while the image of his new antler head friend faded into his mind, their conversation and its lasting impression replaying. To act. 

And so he did. Taking a small force of 20 he rode in darkness, down the road he took to meet Valentina on their arranged days. The cabin they kept at the very edge of the city, hidden under brush and darkness could only be met by two roads, one from his faction, the other from her own. Both saw nothing else but darkness and the wall behind. Down the road he met the house that looked all but abandoned, but didn’t stop, taking his guards around it and up the road towards Diamonds. It was the easiest way in, past the LEA and the border he closed. Up the road their horses were left hidden in the houses sheds, team moving into the house at the corner and under the planks that hid a secret she shared. Even a being as old as she, while claiming to fear none, her mistrust built tunnels to move around the city of her influence. The only error was passing that knowledge to the High Fae. 

Now that their romance was over, from her own doing, her demands to possess him like an object rending any affection, he was free to use all her gifts for his benefit. Down the stairs, the stench of sewer filled his nostril rapidly, urging his steps. The team moved quickly, down the path, the solitary flame of a fire elementalist leading the way. At a fork she stopped, looking to the Fae who pointed right; Left led to her home. Right they moved, happily away from the stench of filth and rot, and up flights of narrow stairs. At the landing a painting of the Ace’s current host, seating pleased in pink. Joui stepped forward, pulling the panel from the eyes already cut out that gave sight into the room. 

There they were, { @merirobin​ } Seated around their table, missing one that made the set. The six were gathered, panic on their faces. He could hear their conversation and none of it mentioned the demon, just the attack and him, and what he might do. 

What the fuck happened to Valentina?

He closed his eyes with a breath, opening again linking himself behind the barrier and blessing Ayao extended, and lined the casts, projecting the illusions for the the gathered party behind the faux wall. Their senses were disrupted, the last images of the room filled with just their number still present in their minds, barring from the true sight of Joui and his team stepping within, encircling  the ex- council members. 

The elite Academy mage earned a shifter on his lap. The talent with black painted lids whined how beautiful their now prisoner was but still did their duty. Fangs bared and a kiss to his neck injected the snake venom to the prominent artery, then another two to his wrists for good measure. The other members saw to daggers and blades pointed to their throats. 

Once the color of the mage’s skin began to alter and the poison had spread far within his blood, Joui pulled the cast, hand going to the table to steady himself from the effect. He sat atop it and watched the widened eyes focus on him as the illusion faded. “Before you feel admirable, brave, or any other foolishly timed heroics, consider my words quite carefully”, he said pointing a dagger pulled from his side to the dying mage. “Sen’s poison’s has taken this one and they are quite gracious”, he worded smiling at them seated still on the dying man’s lap as he tried gasping for air that would not come. “They will happily have you share this delight but I, I am not quite in the sharing mood”, Joui added, eyes moving to the LEA Chief.

“There is a small army of my Elite Fae guards, and our allies as gifted as beautiful Sen”, Joui continued earning a giggle from them, “outside awaiting my mark. And of course, a dragon in the sky above you”, he said tipping his head back. Night had concealed Syuusen’s movements with its altitude but Joui still felt his presence. “I can either have my comrades here, slit all your throats, and paint this room a wonderful hue of crimson, or my dear dragon can engulf it in flames, and no, Meri, my sweet”, he said looking to the familiar face, recognizing that expression of anger taking her beautiful features just like it did the last time they met. “Your aquatic wonders will not save you from my dragon, but you can try”, he said with a grin. “I would love to see it”, he breathed, leaning in her direction, eyes shifting to gold, his intrusion of her mind teasing the memory of the illusion he once gave her, the cuff burying into her shoulder. “Or”, he began looking to the Academy head, then to the Palace owner, “we can continue being friends.”

He let silence fall in the room, his secondary cast pushing into their minds, filling it with the growls of his dragon, the marching of his army, and the sensation of their skin ablaze. There he watched them shift uncomfortably in their seats, inching from the pointed blades ready at their throats. “No?” he asked pulling the cast and willing Syuusen closer. “Friends it is”, he said sheathing his blade back at his side, though his guards did not move their own. He moved to the LEA chief, whispering commands into his ear, then rested his hand to his shoulder while he pulled his amulet free. 

“Now, answer me honestly”, he said letting his eyes again shift to gold. “Where is Valentina?”

8pm

He almost fell over from the laughter when told of Valentina’s end. “Sealed in a box, by a fucking actress { @ara-kadeu​}”, he said enjoying the end the demon received. “How amusing. Do have them sing this in an opera this year. A wonderful warning to bad children this Yeon Nen”, he mused then sat still. “You will bring this box to me. Perhaps I want to sing sweet songs of loss to it, comfort my old friend”, he said though his expression darkened. “I must thank Ara for this service she has done me.”

He eased off the table and walked around slowly, settling at Meridith’s side. “Your faction is now mine. Worry not, I hate gaudy posters and care not for most of the idiotic things you Diamonds need to feel alive”, he said placing a hand on the desk. “But be not fooled, I have taken it. As she wanted with mine”, he said then sat back on the table. “Your lacking backbone and years of corruption has done this to you. This farce of system that proclaims to be led by the best, has done nothing. Your people are dying and those with the natural ability to help, chose riches over basic decency. And that’s coming from me, the Ace of Hearts, who prides his money more than anything, right?” he asked, eyes narrowing at Meredith. “ And yet I have fed my own.” He spat with disgust, looking across the room. “The cost of rebuilding my faction, healing my injured, burying my dead, comforting their loves, you will pay. Your water elementalists will offer water to your lowranked for a subsidized price that you will pay, and a fair price to all else. You will open your storehouses and feed your fucking faction”, he said shaking his head, irritation raising his voice as he has to direct the basics to this room of pompous fools. “You are all fucking children, unfit to sit in this room, to dare have the same rank as me, to dare think yourselves my fucking equal”, he said then heard Syuusen’s roar outside, echoing the anger he felt.

He stood and walked to the window, the tail end of the creature visible. Below a portion of his guard awaited him, LEA forces dead and covered before them. The chief had given them the order to stand down, before the blades returned to his throat and plunged within. His valiants had saw to anyone loyal still to the old demon. “Making me trek near refuse”, he complained. “Cobwebs and vile insects attempting to disrespect by body. In that damp dark, horribly paved tunnel. I will be scrubbing the smell of that place off my skin and from my hair for fucking weeks.”

Journalists had began showing up on the steps below. A dragon roaring in the sky wasn’t hard to miss. The Heart force before the monument of Diamond leadership was also hard to miss. Yet there was no bloodshed, save the dead and covered LEA, no burning of the city, even after the senseless attack to Hearts the day before. 

Joui walked from the chamber with the newly reinstated Aces, down before the press and his guard. There he told how he fought the imp invasion sent by the wicked Diamond Ace Valentina, saw the devastation first hand as he tried to protect his own. He told of the lasting damages, the trauma to the living and sadness of the dead, all who provoked none of this senseless behavior. He reminded of the corruption already plaguing the continent and how he had opened his own storehouses, paid exorbitant prices for fresh water from corrupt water elementalists to keep the sickness at bay and keep his people free to live their daily lives without that worry. He told how the Aces aside him joined him to fight the demon fearlessly, while his guards held back her personal forces. He told how they vanquished the evil and restored order. He told how two of their own had been slain in the struggle but fought for the freedom of their democracy. Now was the time for Hearts and Diamonds to work together to see business prosper and people have the freedom to live free from tyranny. 

He shook the hands of the returned Aces, journalists clamoring for further updates, while his dragon coiled behind him along the steps. He let the Aces revel in the cheers of their return, let them be hailed righteous heroes. Such was as he wanted. 

Syuusen drew closer, nuzzling at the High Fae’s shoulder. He nodded, knowing the dragon felt what his smile hid. He would return to his estate to rest, to see to the state within him, to nourish himself well. He would knowing he had progressed the wish of his elders. By their blessing his duty upheld, his vow to their goal moved ahead.

Indeed the timing was not perfect and the situation would have to be revisited but there were steps made. Best yet, steps made out of sight of the press and the farce of a press conference he held giving the fools recognition, while freeing blame from rightful actors. Their forces would be purged, their economy wholly dependent on him, and a few high households turned to ash. But for now he let them smile, let the continent be none the wiser.

He had acted, without being seen, but the goal well accomplished.

#sp: To Act #Syuusen #dictator barbie arc #mr steal yo faction #merirobin #ara-kadeu #whew #evicts this

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #16- All the Greatest Love Songs are Secretly About Heroin

Dang, been a minute since we got into the series proper. What all happened again?

Oh. Right. That.

…So anyway, let’s brush up on our Ultra Magnus history!

There was a massive fight on top of a spaceship. Swoop was there, Impactor was there, Overlord was there, Heretech was there, Killmaster was there- shit was lit. Ultra Magnus was doing his thing, though it looks like this was before he got LASIK done, because he’s got a visor on.

Then Ultra Magnus got shot in the gut and fell off the spaceship. It was so scary his hand started spasming.

Later on, we return to a place we’ve seen before, albeit from the Decepticon side.

Magnus, your badge isn’t up to code, my guy! Better get that sorted, before your current self comes out of his medically induced coma, invents time travel, and comes to beat you up.

Also, Pious Maximus? What is your friggin’ DEAL, bro? What the actual hell is your deal?

All the K-Cons start falling out of the sky, and Magnus orders everyone to take cover, as a familiar-looking bomb that literally has his name written on it lands bang on target. It’s such an intense experience, his hands start spasming.

Later still, Magnus is in the middle of dealing with the Simanzi Massacre, and it looks like his visor’s seen better days. Hopefully it was a reading pair, and not something he actually needed to see. Rotorstorm is also there, because his character apparently only exists to suffer. Magnus and his team rise from the muck and the mire, coming ashore right on top of a Cybernought, which promptly fries Magnus with its hand lasers. He gets so crispy, his hands start spasming.

For anyone having trouble parsing the scraps of rended metal that used to be Rewind of Lower Petrohex here, allow me a moment to break him down. That cylinder in the lower left corner is his camera, the wire coming off of it is where it plugged into his head, and that squarish chunk with the clean, round hole in it is probably part of his helmet. The other chunky bits I couldn’t tell you what they are, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that Chromedome absolutely put the dog to sleep with that blast last issue.

Inside the Lost Light, Swerve’s trying to be a nice guy by putting on some tunes for Ultra Magnus, who got his spark shot by Overlord last issue, but all it’s really done is make Ratchet get distracted.

Magnus is in a bad way, as was established by First Aid last issue, and it doesn’t seem like Ratchet’s having any more luck than had been predicted. Swerve’s here for emotional support, and also because he’s got medical training. Tailgate’s here for cleanup duty. Drift’s off in the corner making snide remarks about the medical equipment, probably because he’s mad his legs are still off.

Drift looks like he’s been chiseled out of stone here, and I kind of love it. Forget softboi uwu Dwift, I want more of this guy who’ll bite into a teddybear cactus and not even flinch.

Agustin Padilla’s back on the scene for this issue, and he’s decided that everyone’s going to be elongated in as many ways as he can manage in 20 pages. Tailgate and Swerve? Tallest they’ll ever be in the series. They’re as tall as Cyclonus, and he’s a fucking space jet. Someone’s got a chevron? You better believe that thing’s scraping the gotdang ceiling. Drift’s kitty-cat ears almost never fit into the panel, because those suckers are LONG today. It’s like they’ve all been put through a taffy-puller. There are a lot of little quirks with this art, but this is one I can kind of get behind, if only because it’s so distinctive.

Getting back to the story, Drift’s talking about the Death Clock here- no, not the animated band from Adult Swim, but an actual medical device that can calculate the moment a shrinking spark will give out, down to the second. It only measures the lifespans of the terminally ill, so Swerve hasn’t accidentally given himself even more depression by sticking his little hands in the shiny light without a thought as to what the device he’s messing with might do.

Ultra Magnus has about ten days to live. This makes Tailgate incredibly upset, because he, unlike everyone else on the ship, hasn’t experienced the horrors of war and death.

Ratchet’s right, though. There’s certainly a chance that Tailgate, who’s been shown to react to stressful situations by having panic attacks to the point of blacking out, could have a very severe response to what is his first major catastrophe. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder usually isn’t an immediate development, but being proactive about your mental health is never a bad thing if you can swing it. Hell, with how bad the Overlord situation was, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rung was booked solid long enough for Tailgate to actually have time to develop PTSD.

Rodimus is on the intercom to address the situation that just took place, because man oh man, was it a doozy. He intends to hold an inquiry to figure out just what the hell happened and how Overlord got on the Lost Light to begin with. As he tells everyone what’s going to happen, our focus shifts to Chromedome, who’s standing on the outside of the ship, staring off into space.

Man, I hope Chromedome’s on the front half, because this is a fucking grim scene to witness.

Skids comes out, having been looking for Chromedome. Trailcutter of all people pointed him in the right direction- which I suppose makes sense, given that he was on the Ethics Committee on Kimia. He probably would know Chromedome and Rewind decently well by this point.

Chromedome turns around to show off his mourning black Autobot badge, freshly photoshopped onto his chest for our viewing pleasure. It’s especially blatant when contrasting with Padilla’s rougher linework style.

Skids asks our brand-new widower how he’s holding up, and Chromedome says he’s fine, which is funny, because the other day he was all:

Chromedome has a moment of reminiscing, playing connect-the-dots with the stars like he and Rewind used to do all the time.

Skids, they were married for 250,000 years.

Skids might actually have been one of the worse people to have found Chromedome, if this is what he’s going to say, and then immediately leave. He’s so awkward and clearly uncomfortable and doesn’t want to be there. Does he feel weird about Chromedome knowing more about him than he himself does? Does Skids not have access to any of his memories related to mourning? Geez, I hope nobody needs him to help them through a difficult emotional time for a good while, because this was painful to watch.

Back inside the ship, Rung’s come over to Rodimus’ room to see what all the crashing and banging is about. It would seem our dear captain’s upset, and has decided to work through his frustrations by destroying his private quarters, perhaps in an attempt to summon the wrath of Ultra Magnus, thus saving him through the power of his own mess-induced rage. Rung comes to sit with Rodimus, I guess giving up his search for Chromedome, and the two of them discuss Magnus. Specifically, they discuss Magnus’ memos, and how much Rodimus despises receiving them, because they make him feel like he’s not doing his job right. He stopped even opening them, they made him feel so bad.

If you subscribe to the headcanon of Rodimus having ADHD, you could potentially read this as being a manifestation of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. As it is within the story proper, Rung’s decided to ignore this tidbit of information to get at the more pressing issues, like why exactly Rodimus felt the need to wreck his room.

This is about the point where the art for Rodimus becomes roughly 90% spot blacks, and it’s highly suggested that Rung get out while the getting’s good.

Oh, well this is going to be awkward.

Later on, we’re at the funeral. There’s five coffins, though not all of them actually contain a body. Everyone’s here to see their friends off, even Cyclonus, who was invited to the wake by Chromedome himself. Awful nice of him to do that, given their history.

The lineup in the front row is a bunch of chatterboxes, and they prove that very quickly as Swerve, Skids, and Whirl theorize on the contents of Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase, which is also here at the funeral. Swerve swears himself to the duty of finding out what’s inside, on threat of death should he fail.

A short time skip is had, and Rodimus is revealed to be wearing his ceremonial funeral cape and terrifying vampire arm spikes to this shindig, as he sends Tripodeca, who is surely the most beloved of all Autobots, off with as many kind words as he can muster in the time they have. Everyone says goodbye, and we get to Rewind’s turn. Rodimus has a moment of pause, as Rung gives him the most withering look I believe he will ever produce in the entirety of the run of MTMTE/Lost Light.

Rodimus concedes to giving Rewind the credit for saving everyone from Overlord posthumously, as well as Fortress Maximus and Chromedome, labelling himself as a failure on that front. Chromedome comes up to the podium for a few words on the love of his life.

…well, it’s been a long day for everyone, I suppose.

Chromedome sits back down, right next to Brainstorm because they’re besties, as Brainstorm stares him down like he knows something Chromedome doesn’t.

Probably because he does.

After the funeral, Brainstorm pays Chromedome a visit, finding him in the middle of spring cleaning. He’s taking all of Rewind’s stuff and shoving it in a box to be destroyed.

Does it count as foreshadowing if it’s like a page before the reveal? I guess so.

Chromedome is trying to ease Brainstorm’s mind about the inquiry Rodimus is conducting, saying that the guy ought to talk to Drift before he gets TOO antsy about spilling the beans- perhaps a touch too late there, Domey- but Brainstorm isn’t here for any of that.

So you’re saying Chromedome/Dominus isn’t going to be endgame.

Turns out Chromedome’s been collecting dead spouses, and he wasn’t even aware of it. When faced with this inherent truth about his personal relationship with grief, Chromedome only has this to say:

Time for a pop quiz!

When the burden of life is too much to bear, what is an addict most likely to do? Is it:

A) Quit cold turkey

B) Seek help for their addiction

C) Relapse

If you answered C, you get a gold star, and a harsh reminder that addiction is a fucking monster that will devour your life and meaningful relationships, leaving you with nothing but itself for company.

Chromedome has had a problem with injecting since he got good enough at it to get his own set of finger needles, and he’s been completely dependent on other people to get himself to even close to stopping the habit. His character bio on the crew roster page has, up until this point, outright claimed this.

Now Rewind’s gone, and there’s really nothing stopping him from just taking that pain away. Brainstorm certainly can’t do it, though not for lack of trying.

Chromedome says that he won’t go through with his plan, but Brainstorm knows he’s lying, because they’ve done this song and dance before. At this point, asking Chromedome to not inject is just a courtesy to the deceased.

No wonder Chromedome invited Cyclonus to the funeral- probably figured why the hell not, since he wouldn’t remember it anyway.

Brainstorm gives Chromedome a data slug- the last one Rewind ever made, shot through the door just before it sliced Chromedome’s arm off, and found by Fort Max. Brainstorm leaves, probably to go prepare himself for that awful, hollow feeling he’ll be getting the next time he sees Chromedome.

Over in the shuttle bay, Rodimus is addressing the crew, Chromedome is retconned into being Toxin because he’s not supposed to be in this scene, and Drift is named as the sole conspirator in the Overlord debacle. Rodimus just starts tearing into Drift, and while he does, we cut over to the medibay, where some zombie nonsense is going on.

Golly, seems like there’s some flavor of undead on the Lost Light every other week, doesn’t it?

Rodimus strips Drift of his Autobot badge and tells him to get the fuck out.

Back at Chromedome’s room, he’s decided to take a gander at what Rewind left behind, plugging the data slug into the computer.

Man, this part always makes me a little weepy.

I can’t do Rewind’s final message justice, not in the choppy format I present here- which is perhaps a bit ironic, given the nature of how it’s presented. In the final moments he had, Rewind pieced together a plea for Chromedome to love himself, and to remember that he was- and still is- loved. He shared his own fears of them being apart, and how he knows how hard the coming days will be. He begged Chromedome to be kind to himself, because he- whether he believes it or not- has grown from the person he was in the New Institute.

As this message plays out, we see Drift swarmed by furious Autobots, who get violent as he makes his way off the Lost Light, only to be helped back to his feet by none other than Ratchet, before climbing into a shuttle, surely never to be seen again.

Shane McCarthy slipped Roberts a twenty to set up a slowburn between his OC and Ratchet all the way back in MTMTE #4. This is the start of the pining portion of their relationship.

God, just- there’s a reason Roberts has claimed this issue as one of his best, and it’s this fucking message. Please, if you somehow have gotten to this post without reading the comics- well, first, how, and second- go and READ THEM. I promise it’s worth it, they’re beautiful and funny and full of heart, even when everyone’s being a dick to each other.

Rewind leaves Chromedome with one final piece, which probably didn’t feel like enough, but was all he could manage in the time he had left.

I’m basically legally obligated to post this panel.

Let’s take a moment to consider Rewind as a character. He’s an archivist, and one who’s gotten very good at his job over the millennia. The guy’s OBSESSED with history, and recording as much of it as possible.

Which stands to reason that he knew about Chromedome’s past conjunx endurae. I mean, why wouldn’t he? It would be public record- even if you don’t necessarily get a marriage license on Cybertron, Chromedome would have been on the paperwork with these other guys somewhere, and the fact that he wouldn’t be able to answer the question of “Who’s this guy you lived with for several thousand years?” Would imply some… rather unfortunate things.

Rewind also has a hard time letting go of things- he gets jealous of Chromedome’s past relationship with Prowl any time it’s brought up, and he’s still looking for his ex-husband after what’s probably been at least a million years. That, combined with the way Rewind lives his life- you know, recording every single moment of it- gives me the impression that he really, really wouldn’t enjoy the idea of being forgotten. He wants Chromedome to stop injecting because it’ll kill him, of course he does, but he also wouldn’t want to be erased.

The video cuts off, leaving Chromedome alone. It’s all up to him now, whether Rewind gets to stay in his heart now.

Chromedome/Dominus is still on the table.

With THAT crisis of love dealt with, we move back on to that weird zombie nonsense we saw a little bit ago. Ultra Magnus is missing. Odd, that.

Ratchet, how many times are your patients going to have to disappear from your medibay before it’s less of a “them” problem, and more of a “you” problem?

As Ratchet goes off to search the rest of the ward, Tailgate accidentally bumps into the death clock, which gives him a nasty little surprise: apparently he’s only got three days to live.

Yeah, this is the point where the comic kicks into overdrive, plotwise- there are no brakes on this train anymore.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 16 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #comic script writing

[secret-engima]

Random Titus HCs for Future’s Blurry Verse

-Smol Murder Child.

-Quickly becomes the Tol Murder Child because he was always on the Tol side but now with Glaucus and Ardyn stuffing him full of good food (with Besithia chipping in surprisingly, even if his dietary rants borderline nature documentary tone on the “care and keeping of angry adolescent homo sapiens”), he shoots up in height like crazy.

-Was never more smug than the day his latest growth spurt made him taller than Glaucus. GLORIES in being the tallest person in the room just about wherever he goes.

-Rabidly dedicated to Glaucus and Co. Even Besithia, for all they fight and snark like the worst kind of siblings.

-Ardyn is the Team Mom. Titus is Ardyn’s Team Mom since no one else is going to do it with regularity.

-Proudly proclaimed himself Ardyn’s Shield.

-Ardyn choked on his spit.

-Glaucus just laughed and then dryly asked why Titus wasn’t HIS Shield, to which Titus said that one, Glaucus didn’t need any help in a fight, and two, since when couldn’t Titus be BOTH their Shields?

-Ardyn flinched at that because THANKS FOR THE TRAUMA GILGAMESH and anyway Glaucus will probably pick up an OC for his Shield at some point anyway so it will be a moot point.

-Will Throw Hands with literally anything. Only reason he didn’t run off to Throw Hands with Gilgamesh on Ardyn’s behalf is because Ardyn and Glaucus make a point to NEVER MENTION that Gilgamesh is still around after telling Titus and Besithia Ardyn’s backstory.

-Guess what happens when they meet the Chocobros 1.0 and Clarus and Regis mention the Tempering Grounds within earshot of both Murder Children.

-Gilgamesh is MORE THAN A LITTLE AMUSED at the sight of Glaucus busting into the Tempering Grounds right in the middle of the Climactic Battle, already cussing out the two winded, frazzled, very humbled Murder Children for this stunt. He doesn’t even protest Glaucus taking them home even though they technically “lost” the fight by leaving with Glaucus.

-btw Gilgamesh now is missing an arm (again, same one as last time too, funny) and has a deep rend in the back of his armor. He’s impressed by how well the two hyper competitive murder children worked together in a pinch.

-Titus and Cor get along like two Really Aloof cats that you THINK should hate each other and fight all the time but instead like to lurk in a corner together and brood over their respective idiots adults.

-Are still hyper competitive.

-Do not stick them on the same battlefield if you want the other side to have any survivors.

-When not brooding together, Titus and Cor play wrestle (and by play wrestle I mean try to kill each other without Glaucus noticing, so basically everything but broken bones and stabbing implements are allowed).

-Titus is basically Cor’s older, taller, crabbier twin sib.

-Somehow Titus is the Braincell when they run off together. Probably because he’s used to momming Ardyn. Titus is not thrilled to discover this but it does nothing to stop them from running off and Doing The Things anyway.

-Titus will forever hold his greater height over Cor’s head (literally and pun intendedly).

-Cor has taken to spring boarding off Titus’s back during battle.

-Tank DPS and Rogue DPS, that’s Titus and Cor in a fight, basically.

-Both Cor and Titus look up to Glaucus. A Lot. Glaucus is a Despair™.

-Titus thinks Regis is weird.

-Then again his measuring stick for LC behavior is Ardyn and Glaucus so it’s no wonder he thinks Regis is weird.

-Likes pushing Clarus’s buttons. It’s fun.

-Think’s Weskham is the best thing since sliced bread. Mostly because Weskham can successfully Mom Ardyn, which gives Titus a much needed break.

-Calls Cid “Gramps”.

-Cid does not appreciate this nickname.

-Not sure if he’s gonna be Captain of the Kingsglaive or not, but I know he WILL meet the the glaives and end up riding herd more than once.

-Titus is a Regret™.

-He takes back everything he ever did to stress out the adults in his life.

-Glaucus stop laughing and HELP. THE ULRIC IS DOING A DUMB AGAIN.

-Adores Noctis and Prompto with every fiber of his being. Every. Fiber. Will Throw Hands for them against anything.

-Is Very Not Sure how to handle the day Cindy gets a Massive Crush on him.

-Help how does one deal with one’s pseudo-niece stuttering and blushing in his presence all the time. Help.

-Cor, who has been dealing with crushes from just about every prepubescent human being ever since he was 15: Pretend you’ve never had an ounce of social awareness in your entire life. If you ignore it hard enough, maybe it will go away.

-I cannot emphasize the sibling vibes between Titus and Cor enough. These two are Murder Children who are united in their Murder Child-ness. They have the same deadpan sense of humor and are the only person who can get away with cussing out or nicknaming the other.

-Titus calls Cor twerp.

-It took YEARS for Cor to stop trying to stab Titus whenever he did that.

-Only stopped because he was tired to Titus tucking all of the knives into his armiger and not giving them back.

-Cor, in retaliation, calls Titus a VARIETY of things, the mildest of which is Beanpole and Pickpocket.

-Titus has no need to come up with multiple nicknames in retaliation since “Twerp” gets a reaction every time.

-Everyone picture the faces of the new Crownsguard recruits the day Titus visits and announces his presence with an amused, “Hello, Twerp.” And their MARSHAL, the FAMED IMMORTAL (Titus is called the Undying, which is basically the same thing but mass media needed a way to differentiate between them btw) twitches violently and flings a knife at the newcomer who just entered on instinct. Titus just catches the knife and tucks it away, inciting a garbled, wordless growl from Cor. Just.

-The Marshal. The famed Immortal. Their BOSS.

-And this guy who walked in just called him Twerp and lived to tell the tale.

-Then they realize this is Titus Drautos, the Undying, and figure ... yeah if anyone can get away with it it’s Titus.

#Secret Engima Rambles #The Future's Blurry (the Past is Trap) verse #titus drautos

[mostfacinorous]

Stoki Whumptober Day 7: I’ve Got You [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Loki came to again, vaguely aware that he was moving due to the passing of lights overhead. The rapid flickering as it dimmed then brightened again was perhaps what pulled him back to consciousness. He doubted it was the gentle sway of the cart he’d been strapped to.

“Loki?” He turned his eyes toward the voice, and saw the Captain’s concerned face, upside down above him.

“You’re in a SHIELD hospital. You got hurt getting us out of Hydra’s base. We’re on our way to see a doctor now.”

Loki shook his head.

“I can do this.” He croaked, his voice rough and his throat incredibly dry. Just moving his head had made him dizzy, but there was little enough time to focus on that, when he was being moved through a twin set of doors and into a room that was evenly bright– though he could not be grateful for that.

He snapped his eyes shut with a wince.

“Loki, the doctors are just going to make sure nothing vital was damaged when the knife went in or came out, okay? I’m right here.”

Loki snapped his eyes open.

“I don’t trust them. Why should I trust you?” He felt like he was floating, barely alert enough for this nonsense. But he was lucid enough to register the hurt on the Captain’s face.

“Because you got hurt saving me. Let me help, now. Let me return the favor. Trust me.” He spoke lowly, earnestly, and it was almost drowned out in the flurry of activity and voices around them.

“Excuse me, Captain, but we’re doing to need to put him under now,” a new voice said, and Loki felt hands closing around his arms and legs as a mask descended into view.

“Hey, Loki, I’m right here. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Rogers was insisting. Loki felt another sharp spike going through him, though this one was of fear. Humans… what did they know of… of…

Whatever was in the air went to work fast. The last thing he saw was Rogers’s face, still upside down, looking concerned for his enemy. Like some kind of idiot.

o0o

When Loki woke again, he was somewhere new, someplace he’d never been. He was comfortable enough, he supposed, taking stock of himself.

His back was stiff, in a way he didn’t really expect, but that seemed less pressing than the fact that he was bound to the bed again.

It was the work of half a moment to set himself free of that, but when he moved his arm, he found tubes feeding into his skin, things taped to his hand and squeezing on his fingertip.

He licked his lips, unsure what any of this was.

“You’re awake!” He heard, and turned to see Rogers coming through the door, the Soldier obediently in tow but clearly not pleased about any of this.

“You mean your doctors didn’t kill me when they had the chance?” He asked drily.

“Why would they? I brought you here for help, not–” Rogers looked upset again, and this time Loki only felt smug about it.

“Leave it, Stevie, he’s being an ass. Look, you’re awake now– congrats on not dying. Why did you warn me to be careful with the stone? What do you know about it?”

The Soldier pulled up a chair and sat in it, getting himself closer to Loki’s eye level and all but ignoring the captain in favor of staring unblinkingly while he waited for answers.

“The stone…” Loki licked his lips, wishing for water and unwilling to ask. “You still have it, then? Hydra didn’t–”

“I’ve got it.” The soldier was curt.

“You should not use it in rapid succession. Even twice within an hour is too much. You create tears, rend the fabric of time. It is impossible to say what can happen if you are careless.”

“You used it twice in just a couple of minutes to get us out of there.” Rogers pointed out, speaking only to the Soldier.

Loki’s brows rose.

“I was only aware of the once.” He said slowly, trying to puzzle through the rules of how this brand of magic worked.

“Anyone I’m not touching gets turned back. Or, I guess, two degrees of contact works, too. I used it once I got to the location– turned time back forward to after you’d arrived. I was a few hours early.” He shrugged almost apologetically, and Rogers blinked.

“So you jumped forward and allowed your friend to be beaten, then burst in to save us like some kind of hero?” Loki could scarcely believe the stupidity, or the audacity in his failure to look truly sorry.

“I’m doing my best here, okay?” The Soldier demanded, then settled back, slumping into his chair. “So yeah, that was first, then you guys had the whole building collapsed on top of you–”

“What?” Loki asked, before remembering Rogers disappearing from in front of Rumlow’s gun, and his words about their needing to get out of there.

“Rumlow fired off his weapon,” the Captain said softly, watching Loki’s face entirely too closely for his comfort, as if looking for signs of fear or trauma.

“Yes I’d worked that out, thanks.” Loki responded. He refused to ask what had happened to him in that timeline, that had Rogers treating him so gently.

“And then there was the time I turned it back and you came with me and we ran. That was it, though.”

“Thrice, then… and still you let me be stabbed and bleed out.” He raised his brow, and the soldier shrugged.

“Priorities.” He said simply, popping his plosive with such indolence, Loki would have smacked him if he didn’t worry for his own present fragility.

He glared at the soldier just the same.

“So now what? I imagine you aren’t interested in my attempting to coax you to hand the stone over to me.” And he knew Rogers would hardly allow him to take it from the Soldier by force. Besides, even had he not nearly perished recently, he doubted he could handle the both of them teamed up against him.

“We’ll see. I have some stuff I want to undo, first. Things I need to make right. I haven’t figured out how to jump around more than a couple of hours, though. Steve says you can help me understand this thing.”

Loki found himself looking to the Captain.

“It seems to me we can make a deal– the knowledge we need to do what Bucky needs to do, and once that’s done…” He trailed off, obviously hesitant to offer what wasn’t his, and what neither of them were certain they should trust Loki with.

Loki looked back to the soldier.

“Going back too far will not only tear the world as we know it apart, it may destroy you. You’re only mortal, after all… and if you change what’s made you as you are now, if you don’t do it with surgeons’ precision, the current you will cease to exist, and so be unable to go back to create the new version of yourself, and the entire thing will unravel.”

Rogers’ eyes went wide and round, but the soldier’s narrowed to thin slits.

“Are you saying you won’t teach me?”

“I will not teach you.” Loki confirmed.

He knew that wasn’t what the Soldier wanted to hear, and still he flinched when the man slammed his way to his feet and stormed out.

Rogers did not stay to comment, only casting one reproachful look back over his shoulder.

And then Loki was alone.

#Stoki Whumptober2020 #Stoki #frostshield #Loki #Steve Rogers #Captain America #MCU Fic #Whumptober #That writing thing I do #oh good lord #so read mores are just broken then? #thanks tumblr #and apologies for your dashes

[primordialpaper]

The Composition of a One Wendy Marvell

Irene Belserion was no stranger to less than ideal living conditions.

She had languished for three years in the dungeons of her own castle.

She had roamed the country aimlessly as a dragon for hundreds more.

She had spent years further still, enduring the unique agony that was the tasteless, sleepless, skin-crawling existence of a dragon masquerading as a human.

Thus, it was with no small amount of contentment that she regarded her current residence within the subconscious of a one Miss Wendy Marvell.

Now existing as a force of personality; less than a spirit, more than a thought-projection, Irene was blissfully free from the prison of scales and Enchanted flesh that was her old body. She savored every decadent moment of consciousness without the sensation of being crammed and bound into a facsimile of her original human form.

It might not have been the same as when she was the sole, commanding occupant of the young Dragon Slayer’s body, but Irene was more than willing to remain a passive presence in the back of the girl’s mind. 

However, that didn’t mean she was above offering her host a few pointers every now and then. Her fellow Enchantress was a prodigy, truly, and it pained Irene to see such tremendous talent be hampered by the lack of a proper mentor. Fortunately, Irene had, quite literally, written the book on Enchantment magic.

“I know of a spell,” she declared in the midst of a scuffle between Wendy and a horde of cultists. Her teammates were sufficiently scattered across the decrepit shrine they’d been enlisted to bring down, and thus out of earshot. “that inflicts terribly painful boils upon the target of your choosing. These men would be more easily dealt with if they were scored with debilitating blisters, no?”

“That’d just be cruel.” Wendy admonished, nimbly evading a mage’s wild sword swipe. In the same motion, she swung her foot up and around to strike her assailant’s head, the following gale bodily hurling him and a few others away. “Our job is to subdue the dark wizards and hold them until the Rune Knights come to arrest them. I can do that without being needlessly vicious.” 

If Irene had retained physical eyes, she would have rolled them. Did this girl not possess even an ounce of spite or fury within her? What was the point of doing battle against such sufficiently distasteful foes- fanatics of Ankhseram- if you didn’t take the opportunity to make them suffer a bit? It’d certainly been more entertaining than her current ‘bash them into unconsciousness’ approach.

In the midst of her apathy, Irene cast her gaze over her surroundings. This could only be the coven’s ritual chamber. It contained all the necessary accoutrement: chisels for carving runes into stone, a skylight to incorporate any lunar or celestial elements, no shortage of candles and braziers, and an intricately drawn latticework of chalk on the floor. It was an aesthetic Irene could certainly appreciate. In the vernacular employed by Wendy and her companions, Irene... stanned? The configuration of the room? Was that the proper term?

Before her mind could descend down the rabbit hole that was this era’s incomprehensible slang terminology, Irene’s attention was caught anew by the chalk lines on the floor. To someone with centuries of experience in all manner of dark magic, like herself, it was clear these patterns were from a particular branch of tributary rites, specifically, one that involved the tithing of proffered souls to a higher, infernal power.

Unease settled in her non-existent stomach at the thought of just what Wendy’s team had interrupted...

Irene was about to suggest as much to the girl, when she felt the cold steel wires of horror twine themselves around her host’s chest and limbs, catching her breath in her throat and binding her legs in place. The Sky Sorceress was struck speechless, paralyzed by the scene her conquest had led her to.

Gods... Oh gods...

Through both Wendy’s eyes and a wall of wrought-iron bars, Irene observed two figures huddled together within what looked to be a holding cell of sorts.

One was a bedraggled woman, and the other, clutched desperately in her arms, was a child who couldn’t have been older than six. Their bodies were slack and unmoving, and were it not for Wendy’s advanced hearing picking up their faint breathing, Irene would’ve thought them dead. The gags over their mouths, their humble civilian clothing, and the assortment of scrapes and bruises that littered their bodies were as stark identifiers to their roles as the tags that were affixed to slaughter-approved livestock. 

In the eyes of these cultists, both groups were indistinguishable from each other, it seemed.

With no foes around at the moment, Wendy dashed over to the cell door. With a few muttered words of power, the padlock was summarily torn away by her dainty, glowing hands. Those same hands quickly settled against the two prisoners’ foreheads, thrumming with spectral blue light as she assessed their condition. 

“They’re unconscious- under a sleeping spell, most likely. Based on the level of malnourishment, they’ve been here for a couple of days at most. The boy is in the early stages of a fever. They both have minor injuries, likely from when they were captured, and... lacerations on the feet, so they couldn’t r-”

Wendy went quiet at the sound of numerous approaching footfalls. The hateful presence they carried in the air revealed them to be more cultists.

Slowly, Wendy stood. Her hands had become fists, and shook faintly. The air around her picked up.

Irene could feel the stirrings of something vast and terrible, like the calm just before the onset of a hurricane. If Wendy’s horror was cold wires, then her fury was the hot winds that spun into a storm.

Murmuring under her breath, Wendy summoned a translucent, multi-hued dome over the mother and child, shielding them from any further harm. The candles and torches within the chamber all sputtered out, felled by the tempest now whipping throughout the room. 

More cultists poured into the chamber, guided only by a solitary torch one of them held aloft. They saw that their prisoners- sacrifices- had been discovered. One dark wizard at the mob’s head hurled a roaring ball of flame at Wendy’s back. The attack was dismissed, diffused into little more than a wave of smoke, with a careless handwave from the Enchantress. The smoke was further dispersed when the girl blinked out of sight in a blur of dark blue.

With a high pitched shriek of rending air, Wendy appeared behind the cluster of dark mages, her presence alone more than enough to snuff out the final torch. As the room was plunged into darkness, Irene was able to admit her error in judgement.

Wendy Marvell, at her core, was not a spiteful or vicious girl. It wasn’t in her nature to cause undue harm or misfortune to others. She was a healer at heart. But through that same heart pumped the blood of a dragon. Those healer’s hands were also the instruments of an Enchantress. The powers to mend and maim were both within her purview, and would be employed with the cool ruthlessness of someone who’d decided exactly how much she was willing to take from the world, and exactly what she’d do when that line was crossed.

Wickedness might not be this young witch’s forte, but wrath? Her’s could be as frightful and destructive as the skies she ruled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Team Natsu, sans one errant bluenette, had posted up alongside the Rune Knights that had been dispatched to collect the dark mages they’d helpfully rounded up. Under the Fairy Tail mages’ watchful eyes, the slightly singed, starstruck, frostbitten, battered, or otherwise incapacitated cultists were loaded into detainment carriages to be carted off to their awaiting prison cells. 

Natsu and Gray were boastfully comparing the amount of mages they’d taken down (“Open your eyes! My pile’s clearly bigger than yours, Ice Pop!” “Because you went for the biggest guys you could find! In terms of numbers, my pile has the most, Flame Brain!”). Erza looked about ready to intervene, either to break up their dispute, or to claim that her own pile was clearly superior. Lucy was committing to memory the layout and atmosphere of the decrepit temple- it was practically begging to be featured as a setting in her new novel. 

Regardless, all four wizards looked up at the call of, “A little help, please?”

Out of the mouth of the shrine stepped Wendy, who, while looking none the worse for wear, was supporting a bedraggled woman with an arm over her shoulders. With her free arm, the woman clutched a small boy to her chest. In her other hand, Wendy held what looked like a sack of dark cloth.

At once, there was a flurry of activity, with Erza summoning a cushioned chair for the unsteady woman, while Lucy helped ease her into it. Gray was alerting the Rune Knight’s Captain of the presence of civilians, while Natsu tore back into the temple to check for any other remaining scents. 

“Ma’am, are you alright? Are you injured?” Erza urged the woman, who had begun crying silently as she held her son close.

“N-no, no. I was, b-but she-” still freely crying, the woman’s gaze sought out Wendy’s, and she reached out to clasp her hand. “You saved us. Thank you, oh thank you!” 

Wendy’s smile was a soft, warm thing, and she gave the woman’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Of course.”

Before more could be said, the Knight’s Captain stepped in, offering the names of two missing residents from a nearby town, to the enthusiastic confirmation of the woman; Rose Perkins, and her son; Adam. 

From the side, the Fairy Tail mages listened as Wendy explained in low tones how she’d discovered the two townspeople imprisoned, mended their injuries, before leading them out of the shrine.

“You conducted yourself very well, Wendy.” Erza commended, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder, only for a frown to pull at her face. “I must ask, though, where are the cultists you subdued? We’ve yet to reach the number of dark mages specified in the job request form.”

Wendy’s expression was blank for a moment. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh!” she held up the cloth sack- closer inspection revealed it to be one of the black robes worn by the cultists- she’d carried with her out of the temple. “They’re here.”

Her teammates’ faces paled, expressions’ ones of almost comical horror as they gazed, frozen, at the small bluenette. Not that Wendy noticed. Her attention was focused on undoing the knot she’d tied in the makeshift sack now resting at her feet. 

“I would’ve smelled severed heads, I would’ve smelled severed heads-”

“We should’ve never let her hang out with Gajeel!”

“It’s even worse than I envisioned! Wendy you’re too young to go to prison!”

The group’s panicked muttering was cut off when the sack fell open, it’s contents revealed.

Lucy shrieked.

Natsu and Gray both grimaced in disgust.

Even Erza took a step backwards.

Upon the rumbled black fabric was a pile of gleaming, squirming slugs. Small, dark, slimy slugs.

Expression uncharacteristically dark, Wendy snapped her fingers. “Deus Zero.” There was a great puff of smoke, which then dispersed to reveal a pile of dark mages in place of the glistening gastropods. Some were unconscious, and all bore marks indicating that, before being transfigured into slugs, they’d received quite a thrashing.

“Now, you have an idea of how things felt for the two innocent people you held captive. Helpless and at someone else’s mercy.” Wendy’s voice, normally soft and gentle, carried with it an undercurrent of both crackling magic and simmering wrath. “Now to see if you’ve learned anything.” a hand brimming with pulsing green light was held aloft. “Are you going to surrender quietly to the Rune Knights, or do you want to be taken into custody as slugs?”

The single menacing step forward that followed her question was all it took before those cultists that were conscious nearly trampled their companions in their haste to put distance between themselves and the enraged Enchantress. Luckily, after recovering from their own moments of horror and disgust, the surrounding Rune Knights moved in to take them into custody.

Letting out a sigh, Wendy turned back to her companions, looking sheepish and scratching the back of her head. “When I saw they’d kidnapped Ms. Perkins and her son, what they were going to do to them, I sort of... lost my temper a bit. I thought that they ought to look as vile on the outside as they are inside, and see how they like being trapped and helpless. Slugs were the first thing that came to mi-”

“Miss Marvell!” the Captain called out from beside Rose Perkins and her son. “If you don’t mind, Adam here says he wants to say ‘thank you’.”

“Oh, of course!”

As the rest of Team Natsu observed Wendy crouch down to meet eyes with the young boy, smiling kindly as he stuttered out an expression of gratitude, they felt themselves relax. Their little Sky Sorceress certainly wasn't one to be trifled with, but in terms of the composition of Wendy Marvell: witchcraft and whirlwinds took up much less space within her than that which was allotted to healing charms and gentle breezes.

#primordial post #fairy tail #irene belserion #wendy marvell #lucy heartfilia #erza scarlet #natsu dragneel #gray fullbuster #my writing

[teaminstinctinwonderland]

Doctor Who 12x05 Fugitive of the Judoon Review

*Spoilers included*

wow, such an episode, where to even start????

Let’s start with the utter joy that is Captain Jack Harkness.  First of all what an entrance! Even though his appearance was limited, and the doctor didn’t see him, it’s nice to know that one of our favorite characters is still very much himself.  He’s fun, cheesy, badly behaved, and genuinely cares for the doctor.

Now, onto the other shocks of the episode. The build up of Ruth’s identity was extremely well done. It did feel a little rushed as this is only one episode, but this season seems determined to grab us by the lapels and drag us along at pace. so that’s not surprising. 

I’m not one to speculate on where a story is going to go, largely because i hate being wrong, so I’m not going to go into theories of who Ruth’s Doctor is in regards to parallel universes, forgotten lives, etc, etc. Having said that, the character is so intriguing and well done so far that i find myself wrapped in it regardless of how it’s going to pan out. The actress playing Ruth is superb and watching her and Jodie Whittaker together is just a joy. 

The inclusion of another time lord, Gat, is also quite intriguing.  And the doctor talking about the destruction of Gallifrey is heart rending.  The possibilities this storyline opens up are endless.  Having said that, this also means it is incredibly risky.  If not done well this is just another plot line that fails to deliver.  And Chibnall will either prove to be brilliant or look like he was smoking something when he wrote it.

Now, we need to talk about Team Tardis. Quite frankly they’re as hot and cold as the doctor right now. First laying into her, partly  justifiably, about going off on her own, looking for the master, keeping secrets. And then at the end of the episode they’re right there for her.  Which, I appreciate.  Like most families they might fight and have tension but they’re there for each other. It’s painful to see the doctor mean to them, and later when she left Ruth and was clearly distraught it was equally painful how yaz and ryan just dropped the jack bomb on her. Even though she was clearly in a bad way. 

Quote of the episode: “I’m coming to ya. you can get excited now”

Hero of the episode: The Doctor. Stuck to her guns, metaphorically, in the face just oh so many new challenges and surprises. Sparred with her other self, and stood her ground with Gat. Even is now starting to open up, albeit reluctantly, with her fam.

Idiot of the episode: As much as the fam frustrated me, I’ve got to go with Gat. She is a clearly impressive character, but when faced with an adversary she’s been chasing for a long time she does something idiotic and just continues to try to kill her with the gun that was handed over way too easily.

#doctor who #Thirteenth Doctor #Yasmin Khan #Ryan Sinclair #graham obrien #spoilers

[weaselle]

Scry Capers hashtag fictionblast

      In the far future, more than half of humanity lives on the Moon. There are also a few populations on in-system space stations, the Mars Colony, and the Fleet Crews that live on the enormous ships that travel between them all.      The last of the earthlings inhabit a dead and deadly Earth, ruined by humanity’s failure to properly steward our planet and ravaged by terrible wars. Vast abandoned mega-cities return to nature and yet become home to the unnatural: altered animals/people that are either cybernetically Upgraded or biologically Enhanced beings. Scavengers and Privateers make illegal loot runs to Dead Earth for anything of value to smuggle into space colony black markets.       The situation for the few million people still living on Earth is growing worse and a final chance of rescue off-planet is taking place, a cooperative mission organized by the governments of the Moon, overseen by the newly formed and nefarious Planetary Evacuation and Transfer Agency, who takes violent measures to protect against “infiltration” of the Moon by any who are not “pure” humans.       This is not a welcome policy for the various UpGraded and Enhanced people who have become a part of Dead Earth society - lifelong lovers, leaders, parents and friends in the communities left to fend for themselves for so many generations. Into this hotbed of unrest and wreckage sails the crew of one small smuggling ship. Come explore this future with them. Basically it’s about a space smuggling ship of rag-tag adventurers who raid the surface of Dead Earth and sell goods on the Lunar black market. They wind up chasing down a series of ancient sites that answer questions about the deep origins of humanity.

In addition to the Martian and Lunar Colonies, there are the Space Stations, and The Fleet. Originally, the Fleet was the Station Supply Fleet, created to service the seven space stations humans had built. Life on these stations was secretive, and their smaller populations tended toward high I.Q.s in the top of their various fields of study, who then raised  several generations of children who were certainly very, very smart, even if thus far unproven to be genetically enhanced to be extra intelligent, as several stations were rumored to do. Stations were little worlds unto themselves, and along with developing various needed commodities in their areas of specialty (such as nano-tech, medical research, the production and improvement of various foods and technologies) they also developed their own ways of life. Likewise, the Service Fleet, many ships crewed by up to two hundred men and women on between-station journeys that could take three years or more, acquired their own culture. The stations began to have differing opinions about what the law should be on-station.Those opinions disagreed with the opinions of Earth and the Lunar colonies, and when one of those disagreements came to a head on Station Delta, Space Command  found out very quickly that one of the things all the stations had in common was an opinion that attempts at military boarding and take-over of a station would not be tolerated. Initial reports by surviving members of the Lunar Military incursion team were to the effect that yes, the extremely intelligent people of Station Delta had, in fact, thought to engineer quite efficiently against armed intrusion. Planetary authorities were further caught with their pants down when the seven stations of Sol System immediately unionized, announcing themselves an alliance of self-governing bodies. The Sol Union then gave the fleet that serviced them (and relied largely on the stations for refuel and supply) an offer: “join us.” On each ship of the Fleet, decisions were made. On some ships, there were votes. On other ships arguments were more pointed. Explosive, even. Two ships were lost entirely. In the end, the Council of Captains was formed (some of whom were very new to their captaincy indeed) who defined each ship as an autonomous entity within the Captain’s Council, and unanimously offered an alliance with the Sol System Union, simultaneously offering Earth and the Lunar Colonies a peace-treaty with trade agreements. Once the Sol Union signed allegiance with the Council of Captains, there wasn't really any choice for Terran government; the station labs produced a lot of the best goods and technology: medical equipment and vaccines, personal electronics, as well as widely enjoyed arts and entertainment- that last bit was particularly tricky for Space Command to get around. It was extremely difficult to garner the support of the citizenry when the 'enemy' was so damned popular. And the ships of the Fleet were almost all of the serious space-craft humanity had made; there was no space navy, or any kind of second fleet to provide shipping. In effect, the rebel space stations, while refusing to trade any of those things with Earth or the Moon, had agreed to sell to the Fleet. And the Fleet was offering to sell those things to the Earth and Moon. And buy goods from them to sell to Sol Union, of course. Terra couldn't afford to refuse, and indeed, the Delta Solar Treaty worked well for all concerned.  ______________________________________________________________________ The ship is a Sprite Class escort ship repurposed for surface raids and smuggling. The crew is 12 strong 1 AL Short. Buff. Mechanic. Loves vehicles. Missing two fingers. Weapons of choice: sawed off shotgun, hammer, and explosives. Seems fierce but is a big softie. Loves sandwiches and beer. Very seriously insists that he is not of the magic race of dwarves. Always winks afterward. Pet/companion: robot badger. 2 PAIGE Navigation officer. Bookkeeper. Researcher. Woman of Persian heritage. Smart, plays chess, loves books. Grew up half her time on a Space Fleet ship half at a space station. Excellent cook. Weapons of choice: tranq gun full of customized doses and a poisoned dagger. Pet/companion: cat. 3 FEY the captain’s left hand. Loyal to a fault. Black-haired lady of Irish decent. Deadly with several weapons, as well as hand to hand, for some reason, likes the compound bow. Pet/companion: a raven. 4 Q (sometimes Quade or Quin) Tech savant. Computer engineer, code monkey, inventor, robotics tech. Ship pilot. Genius. Always listening to weird music. Androgynous ace black person. Pet/companion: probably-sapient robot built by Q. Resembles a spider the size of a chihuahua  5 DOGWOOD (or maybe Jinx) Being of mystery. So many tattoos. Unrecognizable ethnicity. Witch, probably. Constantly picking pockets and pulling little cons. Tarot cards for poker, winners hands come true. Weapons of choice: hands, random items, the surrounding environment, and pure luck. Flirts with 100% of everyone. Pet/companion something that is probably a coyote but might be a fox? some kind of jackal? Smarter than it should be.  6 . SIX Six is trouble. Don’t bother Six. Six is emotionally fragile and also might rend you limb from limb. Let’s just, let’s just leave Six alone. Pet/companion: the beast within 7 LIEUTENANT WOLFE (usually just called Lieutenant) the captain’s right hand. Weapons of choice, rifle, axe. Russian and Scandinavian ancestry. Companion/pet, clearly, a grey wolf, grey, named Shadow (follows him everywhere.) 8 EIGHT-BALL. Rogue. Gambler. Half-Japanese black trans woman. Loves pool and casinos. Loves cash, jewels, and reeeeaaalllyyyy expensive whiskey. Quickdraw artist with a pistol. Personal pool cue houses a sword cane blade. Laughs easy, holds grudges. Pet/companion: raccoon. 9 THE CAPTAIN. Also referred to as Boss. Trying to navigate the group to success. Slow to give up personal information. The crew are all family the captain would die for. Non binary person with ancestry in mongolia as well as various east asian populations. Pet/companion: Siberian Husky.   10. DOC. Not actually a doctor, more like a paramedic, field surgeon. Sort of a vet for humans. A mostly Tibetan person. Might be 40 years old, might be 90 years old. Pet/companion: saker falcon. 11. SU. Sometimes Suke. Assassin. Bodyguard. Not a talker. Japanese. Highly specialized weapons. Pet/companion: venomous cyborg snake.  12. The Client / possible new adoptee, a well-off lad from the lunar colonies, disowned for his stance against the political status quo, with powerful political enemies. He has hired the crew to help uncover proof of a big secret he is trying to bring to light, and he has his own secret from the crew. Meanwhile, he does his best to unlearn some of his lunar colony privilege and preconceptions, out where population gene pools aren’t screened for designer mutations and cybernetic upgrades don’t define you as less than human. Companion/pet: cyber-ferret. _____________________________________________________________________ Here is some background and world building, and please, I know it says prologue, but it’s really just, like, rough world building notes

#fictionblast #scry capers #writing #fiction

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Rebuilt

For a month or so after the events of "Me vs. You" and "Wager," the members of Team Legends have watched Sara and Snart slowly rebuild their friendship and learn to work together again. Eventually, everyone knows, something will have to give.

(Of course, knowing the Legends, it might take something strange to give them that push.)

Takes place a month or so after "Me vs. You" and "Wager."  (Find the series here.) Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

Can also be read here on AO3.

It’s been an interesting month, all right.

But honestly, Mick thinks, it’s been a pretty good one.

No one’s quite sure what’s going on with Sara and Snart—including, perhaps, Sara and Snart. By Mick’s best guess, they haven’t slept together again, but they’re…easier with each other. Frankly, they’re acting much the way they used to, way back in the beginning, after St. Roch and before the Oculus, all circling around each other and card games and eye sex with a side of innuendo. They even got in a bar fight, trying to apprehend a leprechaun who’d completely bought into the stereotype and taken over an Irish pub in Boston.

That was fun. Mick approved.

And when Sara and Snart are actually talking, and working together instead of against each other, they make a damned good team. While Mick knows he and Snart make a good team too, Snart had been right—that dynamic had always been between the brains and the brawn before, and that’s changed a little now. Mick isn’t proud…he knows he’ll always be the brawn…but he’s used to working with others now, Sara and Haircut and Pretty and New Girl and Charlie, and he doesn’t instinctively look to Snart to tell him what to do these days.

And that could have hurt a lot (and would have once, he thinks), but miraculously it doesn’t, especially not now, when the pieces are starting to fit together again, probably better than they ever did before. He and Snart, they’ll always have each other’s backs.

Crew’s just bigger, that’s all.

Even Nate's gotten used to Snart’s presence on the team. Sara had pulled him aside and although Mick doesn’t know what she’d said, the historian was rather more thoughtful after that. And then Snart pulled him out of an ambush by a group of what Constantine called redcaps, which were essentially lawn gnomes with attitude and big honkin’ teeth. Teeth capable of rending metal, which would have gone very badly for Pretty if Snart hadn’t dropped into their midst, laying about with his gun, clearing a path for them both to run for it.

Yeah, since then, even Nate has acknowledged Snart’s place here. Haircut, of course, is still pleased as punch the former thief was back. Zari herself has taken a great liking to Snart, and Charlie, while still dubious, has inexplicably decided that any friend of Mick’s is a friend of hers.

(Mick still can’t figure out why he’s Charlie’s favorite person on board. It pleases him and unnerves him in equal measure. She looks like Amaya, who he’d come to...to care for...but she’s also a badass, fire-breathing shapeshifter. Which is awesome, but...why him?)

Constantine, of course, is being his usual obnoxious self. He’s stopped barging into the cargo bay or wherever Sara and Snart are hanging out, trying to catch them at something, ever since he nearly got one of Sara’s knives through his eye. But he still thinks he deserves that bottle of whiskey, or maybe it’s just an excuse to be a prat (to use his own word).

(Given the man’s tendency to poke at things he really shouldn’t be poking at, Mick honestly wonders how he’s survived so long. One of life’s mysteries.)

And then there’s the Time Bureau.

Gary keeps watching Snart like he’s afraid the other man's going to go full supervillain right before his eyes. (Mick still thinks he peed himself the first time Snart actually spoke to him.) Ava, meanwhile, has accepted their assertions that Snart isn’t what she thought he was—but now she clearly suspects there’s something up between her ex and the newcomer, if Mick’s any judge. And she’s clearly not sure how she feels about that.

That’s fun. “Fun,” in this case, meaning “likely to blow up and be a problem at the worst possible moment.” Mick has decided, however, that it’s not his problem. Not yet, anyway.

At any rate, the balance isn’t perfect, but it works. And who knows how long they could have continued like this, really, if it hadn’t been for the hydras.

“The what?”

Zari’s voice is disbelieving. Mick can’t blame her. In fact, they’re all staring at John Constantine in varying degrees of disbelief, because no matter how many of these mythological whatsits they deal with, it will never stop being weird.

Well. Most of them. Charlie just nods. But then, Charlie is a sort of amazing being herself, and she sometimes seems to forget that she doesn’t have easy access to her dragon form here.

“Isn’t that...some sort of evil organization?” Haircut asks, looking around. “I thought...”

Constantine shrugs. “That sort does like its creature names, but no. Not in this universe, anyway.” He turns away before any of them can continue that line of questioning. “They’re bad enough, let me tell you. Reptilian critters. They have nine heads and, just like the stories say, if you cut off one, two grow back.”

Sara closes her eyes in a “give me strength” sort of expression. The captain is leaning against the holotable, on which Gideon is now projecting an artist’s rendition of a hydra, and Mick can’t say he blames her, either.

“OK,” she says then, opening her eyes. “Where and when is it? I’ll set the course, and then we can start talking about a plan.”

Constantine gives her a wary look. “Well, that’s not all. They’re resistant to magic. In fact, they’re attracted to it.” He steadfastly ignores Sara’s sigh. “And, their blood is poisonous, deadly poisonous. Even if you only get a whiff of it. So, no blades, luv,” he says, pointing at Sara. “Sorry. I do know you love your pointy objects.”

Sara’s even louder sigh is drowned out, though, by Haircut, who’s perked up.

“Fire,” he says, looking over at Mick with a grin. “That’s what Hercules used. In the stories. He did cut the heads off, but then cauterized them with fire.”

Constantine points at him. "Bingo. Whatever removes the head without actual bloodshed. I mean, you need to take precautions just in case, but better if they’re not needed.”

“And ice,” Snart interjected laconically. “Frozen things smash.”

Mick notices him idly rubbing his right wrist as he speaks. Ah, damn. He still can’t believe the bastard did that, smashed his own hand off, whether it was to keep him from killing the Legends or keep the Legends from killing him.

“So where are these things?” he cuts in as the old guilt surges. “I want to burn something.”

Constantine nods to him. “1958 small-town Pennsylvania,” he says, leaning on the table himself as a map appears. “Out in the sticks, fortunately.” He points to a random plot of green on the grid. “We got a breeding pair here in the hills. Need to banish them—or better yet, just dispose of them—before we get a mess of baby hydras. No one wants that.”

Mick thinks later that he should have known at that moment that things were going to go sideways.

They have a good plan when they land just outside Benjamin, Pennsylvania. Even Mick thinks so. Sara had taken the newer capabilities of both his and Snart’s guns into consideration (with much consultation with Snart, a fact no one missed) and, with Constantine’s information on the habits of hydras, concocted a plan of attack that involved luring the pair of hydras out of hiding and into the line of fire.

And since Constantine had come to them, and hydras were both resistant to and attracted to magic, he got to play bait.

“I’m not going to make one of the others do it when you’re so perfectly suited,” Sara had told him mock-innocently when he’d objected. “You can throw a little magic around, draw them out. We’ll protect you.”

Constantine complained and Constantine sulked, but then Constantine did as told. While Charlie stayed by the ship (so no residual aura of dragon could scare off the smaller hydras), the others split into teams of Leonard and Sara, Mick and Zari, and Ray and Nate, one for each hydra and a “utility infielder” sort of pair. Each team has one person who can provide some sort of hydra-vanquishing firepower (or ice power, as it were) and one as, well, a hydra-herder.

Then Constantine saunters out into the field, gives them all a long-suffering look, and throws a fireball into the air.

It’s magical fire, not real, but that’s the idea. As the sparks rain down around him, he folds his arms, turns to face the others, and scowls at them.

And then there’s a hissing noise from the hill behind him.

The creature that emerges isn’t quite as big as they’ve been warned it could be, but it’s big enough. It’s a muddy green color, with four stumpy legs off a body that looks a little like an alarmingly large alligator, and its tail is lashing back and forth with what seems to be ire at its visitors.

And so are the nine sinuous necks that emerge from where the creature’s head would usually be.

“Whoa,” Haircut breathes. Nate’s jaw drops. “Where’s Percy Jackson when you need him?” he yells, looking around as if the fictional demigod is going to appear out of nowhere. (For all Mick knows, he could. No weirder than murderous garden gnomes now, is it?)

(What? He reads.)

Fictional characters aside, though, Mick swears at the sight of the thing. His gun is already primed, but he raises it then, trading glances with Zari and looking over at Sara. The captain is watching the monster calmly. Snart, his own gun primed, is at her side. Then she looks at Mick and nods.

That’s all he needs.

Zari throws her hands in the air and then buffets the creature with a gust of wind, distracting it, while Mick runs for its other side. He raises his gun and aims for the leftmost several heads, firing and grinning as they crisp and the thing howls, other heads whipping his way. But then Zari’s fanning the flames, and Mick ducks to the other side, and Haircut’s firing at one of the heads with his suit’s blasters, and...

Mick hears Constantine yelling and, out of the corner of his eye, sees the other hydra coming. But then he hears the whine of Snart’s gun and Sara’s crisp voice and...they know their business. He has his own, right now.

In the end, it doesn’t take so long, really. There are two dead monsters, with some combination of 18 heads charred, blasted, or frozen and shattered. Mick prods one with a boot, then raises his gun and, at a nod from Sara, sets them on fire. Constantine had said the best way to dispose of them was to burn it all, which should even negate the poison.  They’ve already churned up the dirt so much here that the blaze shouldn’t spread, but he’ll keep an eye on it.

He’s come a long way from the man who wanted to watch the world burn. He doesn’t even want these hills to go up. People live ‘round here.

Constantine wanders over, studying the burning corpses, then turns to peer in the direction the second hydra had come from.

“The female came from a cave over there,” he says, nodding. “ ’Cross the field. If they have a nest, that’s where it would be.” He shrugs. “There might be eggs; there might be babies, though that’s less likely. Either way, cold will do for them.”

Snart rolls his eyes but holsters his gun again and starts that way. Sara falls into step with him. Mick smirks, then looks over at Ray, who’s removed his helmet and part of his suit, tinkering with something. “You OK there, Haircut?”

The other man nods. “Yeah.” He glances up, a little sheepish. “That thing caught me with its tail, sent me sprawling. Going to have to fix the propulsion system.”

“Well, at least you didn’t get chomped.”

“Yeah,” Nate says with a grin, joining them. “I can’t believe it. A plan actually went...according to plan!”

Mick groans. “Don’t say that kinda thing, Pretty!”

“What?”

“You’ve been part of this team long enough to...”

That’s when they hear it.

It sounds like…hissing. Higher pitched than before, but louder, as if it’s coming from more throats, even though it seems farther away. Mick, frowning, turns, and bumps into Constantine, who’s staring at the hill where he’d sent Sara and Snart.

Mick looks too. Then he squints.

Some of the greenery on the hill, it’s...moving?

He realizes what’s going on at the same moment Constantine curses. “It’s a damned nest!” the warlock yells. “And those aren’t babies, they’re half grown!”

“Are you tellin’ me those are teenage hydras?” Mick bellows, drawing his gun again and taking a few steps. But he already knows he can’t make it there in time. None of them are going to be able to get there in time. Especially not with Haircut’s suit on the fritz.

Mick sees Sara and Snart, visible near the faint dark cave opening at the bottom, look at each other, sees them both draw weapons, and then...

Then the swarm is on them, and they’re fighting.

Mick knows that they’ve been training together again. Actually training rather than “training,” too, because the one time Constantine had interrupted them in the training room, he’d gotten an eyeful of no more than two fully clothed people experimenting with how Snart’s new cold gun worked and the best ways of utilizing it in battle.

(And then Sara had gleefully decided that the warlock needed a little more physical conditioning if he was going to run with the Legends. Constantine had limped about complaining for days, gotten off the ship again as soon as humanly possible, and only returned when he needed the Legends to help take care of another myth-turned-real.)

Still, this is the first chance anyone’s had to see what that training might be amounting to.

They’ve backed up to a sheer incline, and Snart’s shooting one critter after another, keeping the heads back, as Sara smashes them as soon as she can. She’s moving in her usual graceful fashion, like it’s a dance, and they’re working together, like they can read each other’s minds, and damn, that’s a pretty picture.

Even though he knew the swarm would descend before they arrived, Mick’s crossed the field anyway, but it’s almost as though stepping in at this point would mess up the dynamic, so he waits, watching, to see if he needs to help. The others skid to a halt near him, all of them staring.

Just in time to see the maneuver that ends the battle.

Mick hears Sara yell something, sees Snart nod, and then sees something pretty amazing. Amazinger. More amazing.

Sara steps back. Snart ducks, going to a knee, but then he slides something on his gun and raises it, pulling the trigger. A spray of blue emits, fanning out a lot farther than the blast of the cold gun usually does, and Snart holds it rock steady--even as Sara steps up, planting a foot on his shoulder, and uses it as a springboard to launch herself forward, into the air….and sweep her bo across as the blue light dies, smashing at least 16 hydra heads into icy shards as she explodes through them, landing neatly on the ground.

Nothing else moves.

Sara lowers her bo. Snart holsters his gun in one smooth motion. And then they look at each other.

Damn.

Zari shakes her head, stepping up on Mick’s left side.

“I feel like I should either applaud or tell them to get a room,” she whispers. “Maybe both?”

Mick doesn’t have words. He just nods.

Constantine wanders up on the other side. Even the unflappable warlock is, well, flapped.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters. “I didn’t even take part in that and I feel like I need a cig.”

They watch as Sara and Snart head their way. They’re both ruffled, but they’re side by side, and Mick doesn’t think it’s his imagination that they’re walking more closely than usual. Sara smirks at them, but Snart manages to maintain his usual cool expression…but Mick, at least, notes a certain gleam in his eye.

Constantine clears his throat.

“I don’t say stuff like this casually, you two,” he says. “But that was...amazing.”

Sara laughs, then, looking around.

“It was, wasn’t it?” she says, a smile tugging at her lips. “C’mon, team. Let’s get home.”

It’s just the aftermath of one mission out of many, but their get-together afterward feels like a victory feast, probably because they all suspect there was no way they should have been able to walk away from a confrontation with nine hydras, even if seven of them were only partly grown. Especially with their mission accomplished and no real casualties.

Constantine had stayed behind to make sure there was no further cleanup work to do. He’ll turn up at some point, Mick knows, probably with his eager buddy from the Time Bureau, and try to drag them into new trouble (probably succeeding) and resolve his wager. Maybe Mick will even try to make the pair in question ‘fess up, just because it seems a bit ridiculous to even pretend there’s nothing going on there.

Even now, right there in the galley, with the whole Waverider team present, there’s tension.

Oh, it’s not a bad tension. Not now. Snart’s leaning back in a chair at the table, balanced in a way that should probably have him crashing to the floor if he wasn’t, well, Snart. He’s not even looking at Blondie, who’s checked her hip against the counter and is talking to Nate, who seems to be blathering on about monsters throughout history, and which ones might be real, and how he wants to write a paper and other such nonsense.

But they’re clearly aware…no, aware…of each other. Even Mick, who knows perfectly well he tends to be oblivious to some things, can see that. Every once in a while, they glance at each other, and…yeah.

Finally, Sara makes a noise of contentment. She glances around the room, and while her eyes don’t particularly land on Snart, Mick’s pretty sure no one misses the smile that touches her lips as her gaze slides past him.

“Well,” she says, stretching. “It’s been fun, celebrating a clear victory for once, but I’m beat. We’ll stay in the timestream for a bit, at least until something else presents itself or John turns up again like a bad penny.”

She pauses, then meets Mick’s eyes. “You have the ship,” she informs him. “OK? For at least a few hours. I need the rest.”

He nods, but Sara barely seems to notice. Turning, she gives Snart a long look. He returns it, expressionless. And then Sara turns and walks away, toward her room.

For a long moment, the galley is quiet and relatively still. Snart takes another sip of his scotch. Ray gives Mick a look that’s frankly a bit distressed. Nate becomes preoccupied by his napkin, and Zari stuffs a miniature éclair in her mouth.

Charlie looks back and forth between them all, confusion on her face. And then, before Mick even realizes what she’s going to do, she speaks up.

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” she asks, looking at Snart. “Because you really should. Even I can see that.”

Nate chokes on a drink, much like he had back when this all started, and Zari closes her eyes. Ray looks like he’d wished he’d said it first. Mick stifles a sigh.

But Snart actually gives Charlie a slight smile. He looks down, considering his drink, then nods, tossing it back before sitting the glass down and climbing to his feet.

“I believe,” he tells her, “that you’re entirely correct.”

And then he smirks at Micks, nods to the others, and saunters after Sara.

The silence lasts a beat or two past when he’s moved out of sight, and then more than one person lets out an explosive sigh. Zari shakes her head and reaches for another eclair, and Ray and Nate exchange glances, smirking.

Charlie cocks her head to the side and then grins at Mick, pleased with her own actions. And Mick, after a moment, gives her a smile in return.

He just really hopes those two don’t fuck this up.

“All right, then,” he says, getting up himself. Time to switch to coffee, if he has the ship. “Anyone want something else to drink?”

#rebuilding bridges #Captain Canary #sara lance #leonard snart #legends of tomorrow

[imreadingafuckingbook]

          A  List  Of  Halloween  Book  Recommendations

1.  Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

1990. The teen detectives once known as the Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in the Zoinx River Valley in Oregon) are all grown up and haven't seen each other since their fateful, final case in 1977. Andy, the tomboy, is twenty-five and on the run, wanted in at least two states. Kerri, one-time kid genius and budding biologist, is bartending in New York, working on a serious drinking problem. At least she's got Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the team. Nate, the horror nerd, has spent the last thirteen years in and out of mental health institutions, and currently resides in an asylum in Arhkam, Massachusetts. The only friend he still sees is Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star. The problem is, Peter's been dead for years. The time has come to uncover the source of their nightmares and return to where it all began in 1977. This time, it better not be a man in a mask. The real monsters are waiting. With raucous humor and brilliantly orchestrated mayhem, Edgar Cantero's Meddling Kids taps into our shared nostalgia for the books and cartoons we grew up with, and delivers an exuberant, eclectic, and highly entertaining celebration of horror, life, friendship, and many-tentacled, interdimensional demon spawn.

2.  The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth by Sarah Monette

The dead and the monstrous will not leave Kyle Murchison Booth alone, for an unwilling foray into necromancy has made him sensitive to--and attractive to--the creatures who roam the darkness of his once-safe world. Ghosts, ghouls, incubi: all have one thing in common. They know Booth for one of their own . . .

3. The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns. Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price. Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times–bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love. Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, these tales will transport you to lands both familiar and strange—to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse. This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, all of them lavishly illustrated with art that changes with each turn of the page, culminating in six stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.

4. The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken

"I would say it's a pleasure to meet thee, Prosperity Oceanus Redding, but truly, I only anticipate the delights of destroying thy happiness." Prosper is the only unexceptional Redding in his old and storied family history — that is, until he discovers the demon living inside him. Turns out Prosper's great-great-great-great-great-something grandfather made — and then broke — a contract with a malefactor, a demon who exchanges fortune for eternal servitude. And, weirdly enough, four-thousand-year-old Alastor isn't exactly the forgiving type. The fiend has reawakened with one purpose — to destroy the family whose success he ensured and who then betrayed him. With only days to break the curse and banish Alastor back to the demon realm, Prosper is playing unwilling host to the fiend, who delights in tormenting him with nasty insults and constant attempts trick him into a contract. Yeah, Prosper will take his future without a side of eternal servitude, thanks. Little does Prosper know, the malefactor's control over his body grows stronger with each passing night, and there's a lot Alastor isn't telling his dim-witted (but admittedly strong-willed) human host. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Alexandra Bracken comes a tale of betrayal and revenge, of old hurts passed down from generation to generation. Can you ever fully right a wrong, ever truly escape your history? Or will Prosper and Alastor be doomed to repeat it?

5. The Dire King (Jackaby #4) by Wiliam Ritter

The fate of the world is in the hands of detective of the supernatural R. F. Jackaby and his intrepid assistant, Abigail Rook. An evil king is turning ancient tensions into modern strife, using a blend of magic and technology to push Earth and the Otherworld into a mortal competition. Jackaby and Abigail are caught in the middle as they continue to solve the daily mysteries of New Fiddleham, New England — like who’s created the rend between the worlds, how to close it, and why zombies are appearing around. At the same time, the romance between Abigail and the shape-shifting police detective Charlie Cane deepens, and Jackaby’s resistance to his feelings for 926 Augur Lane’s ghostly lady, Jenny, begins to give way. Before the four can think about their own futures, they will have to defeat an evil that wants to destroy the future altogether.

6. Spectred Isle by KJ Charles

Archaeologist Saul Lazenby has been all but unemployable since his disgrace during the War. Now he scrapes a living working for a rich eccentric who believes in magic. Saul knows it’s a lot of nonsense...except that he begins to find himself in increasingly strange and frightening situations. And at every turn he runs into the sardonic, mysterious Randolph Glyde. Randolph is the last of an ancient line of arcanists, commanding deep secrets and extraordinary powers as he struggles to fulfil his family duties in a war-torn world. He knows there's something odd going on with the haunted-looking man who keeps turning up in all the wrong places. The only question for Randolph is whether Saul is victim or villain. Saul hasn’t trusted anyone in a long time. But as the supernatural threat grows, along with the desire between them, he’ll need to believe in evasive, enraging, devastatingly attractive Randolph. Because he may be the only man who can save Saul’s life—or his soul.

7. The Restorer by Amanda Stevens

My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe. It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I've been hired to restore. The clues to the killer, and to his other victims, lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

8. Of the Abyss (Mancer #1) by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

After decades of strife, peace has finally been achieved in Kavet—but at a dark cost.  Sorcery is outlawed, and anyone convicted of consorting with the beings of the other realms—the Abyssi and the Numini—is put to death. The only people who can even discuss such topics legally are the scholars of the Order of the Napthol, who give counsel when questions regarding the supernatural planes arise.

Hansa Viridian, a captain in the elite guard unit tasked with protecting Kavet from sorcery, has always led a respectable life. But when he is implicated in a sorcerer’s crimes, the only way to avoid execution is to turn to the Abyss for help—specifically, to a half-Abyssi man he’s sworn he hates, but whose physical attraction he cannot deny.                            

Hansa is only the first victim in a plot that eventually drags him, a sorcerer named Xaz, and a Sister of the Napthol named Cadmia into the depths of the Abyss, where their only hope of escape is to complete an infernal task that might cost them their lives.

9. The Rook (The Checquy Files #1) by Daniel O’Malley

"The body you are wearing used to be mine." So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her. She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own. In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.  

10. The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg

Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.

#all hallows read #all hallow's read #book reccomendations #spooky books #books #halloween #reading #all hallows read 2017 #meddling kids #edgar cantero #the bone key #sarah monette #the language of thorns #leigh bardugo #the dreadful tale of prosper redding #amanda bracken #spectred isle #kj charles #the restorer #amanda stevens #the dire king #william ritter #of the abyss #amelia atwater-rhodes #the rook #daniel o'malley #the ice princess #camilla lackberg