#and they have plot armour which is how they beat all these good teams | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

boop-beep-boop · 1 year

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ive loved this book to death since like 4 years ago but the 2 sequels were NOT THAT GOOD and theyre such obscure books so i have no idea why i'm posting this but anyways i present: endling: the last was a literal masterpiece and it's sequels were just disappointing.

also this is kind of a shitpost because of the terrible spelling, grammar and formatting. like i said, im not even making this post for anyone

unrealistic ending

dude a felivet is capable of murdering several trained soldiers at once. realistically, the kazar wouldve overpowered most humans. even if khara was skilled and agile enough to beat him ina normal fight, it was a. a 1v2, b she was severely wounded. her injury took 6 hours of magic for her to be able to LIVE, at this point its just plot armour. also, considering her 2 enemies were willing to fight each other instead of teaming up to defeat the wounded 15yo chanllenging them, it wouldve been at least realistic for her to pit them against each other, to make things a lot easier for her, but noOoOoO, she challenges them to a 1v2. voluntarily. bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

it lacks much of what the first book had. the first book was amazing because of a few things 1. char development 2. realistic emotional moments 3. simple pace 4. good worldbuilding and interesting adventures 5. the sense of found family and togetherness, as they meet new people and trust them and become a new family

the first book wonderfully showed a child whose whole family/species had been brutally murdered, and how she dealt with grief and survived as an endling. and built a new family. it does a great job of introducing the world and its species, its hierachy, its polictics, systems, so on so forth. it makes you cry so much because of how emotional and painful it is.

the third book? hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaahahaha

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. 1. i believe that the book was originally only meant to be a single book, but was later given 2 sequels. which is why most of byx's character development and learning is finished in book 1, and some of it in book2. by book3, instead of a child clinging onto morals and lessons from her family, she's now a mature person who has the least subtle morals running around her head. she has less depth and is just... so unsubtle. 2. most of her grieving is over. she rarely mentions her family, or her past. you cld say that its good that she moved on, but no, she doesnt even hang on to the lessons she learned from her pack. which in book1, she would reiterate constantly, because her pack was such an integral part of her life. as it should be! but now, she's "moved on", except she just... sorta forgets them. a quick namedrop wouldve been nice every now and then, to show how they and her childhood impacted her. 3. war preparations arent simple, but the pacing is just... all over the place. 4. as Ambassador, the adventures in the book are now. just. politics. diplomatic meetings. and as an important person now, byx is a lot more protected and deals with a lot less setbacks and conflicts. so the adventrues are just... not interesting. 5. the group is separated for most of the book. sure, you do need the top level people to multitask when preparing for a war, but... it's lost the sense of togetherness, the sense of the few of them against the world, travelling around, having their adventures together, just them, dealing with shit together. and thats what found family is about, at least in books 1 and 2.

writing this has made me realize what the problem is, this book is just closure. closure to the cliffhangers of "war is coming" in the earlier books, and it just wants to tie up loose strands and provide an ending. but that means that this consumes the whole book and makes it... not fun. closure is necessary, like for instance, all in was a better finale part than the hardest thing. but the hardest thing was necessary to end the story and bring closure. thing is, the hardest thing is 30 minutes. the entireity of amphibia is around 20 hours long. meanwhile, endling book3 was one third of the series. AND the hardest thing was STILL more riveting than book3. war preparations ARE boring. and book3 was completely consumed by it.

okayy so i wrote this last year and i re-read the trilogy (its like, the first book i read with my face ;))))))))))) then because the next 2 books EXIST, not that theyreup to standard, or in the case of book3, GOOD, i read them, but just very quickly skim through the second half of 2 and all of 3 with my face '_', i cant just NOT read them after reading book1, yaknow?) so im thinking

so i really hate the final climax fight, right?

i mean they literally said the arrow was barbed and 3 inches deep (thats 7.5cm. SEVEN POINT FIVE MOTHERFUCKING CENTIMETRES DEEP, NOT TO MENTION THE BARBED ARROWHEAD WOULD LEAD TO A WIDE WOUND AS WELL), and the blood was literally PUMPING from her chest. no offence but thats a death sentence.

okay so, magic was involved. but reminder that you can only start learning and using theurgy after 15, and renzo was only a year past 15, but we know he wouldnt have time to study theurgy while travelling with the gang, and all his knowledge comes from the first few months of him being of age. meaning, he is NOVICE AS FUCK.

i am fine with the notion of khara keeping her life because he was quick to do his whatever first aid and then his 6 hours of magic encantations or whatever, but it is RIDICULOUS that she could WALK and TRAVEL normally AND THEN EVEN GO FIGHT THE MOST BIGGEST AND MOST FORMIDABLE FIGHTERS OF THE PLACE

IF A FEW-MONTH-OLD MAGIC PRACTITIONER CAN DO THAT THEN THE POPULATION OF NEDARRA/DREYLAND SHOULD BE FUCKING IMMORTAL OKAY, IF A NOVICE CAN DO THAT, THE OLD PPL WHO ARE WIZARDS OR WHATEVER AND DEDICATE THEIR LIVES TO THEURGY SHOULD BE ABLE TO IMMORTALIZE YOU OR REVERSE YOUR AGE OR SMTH

anyways this is ALL BULLSHIT OKAY so waht im thinking is a re-write

book3 is kinda unsavable cuz like i said, i cant stand the politics and lack of the gang being together, but at least i can kind of try to save this plot-armour-dependant, illogical and annoying to read section

consider this: the bandits took the 3 by surprise because they were just chilling and chatting and rather laid back right? but renzo, becuase him following them was entirely to watch out for them, and he also had to look out in case THEY see him, would be on high alert.

so im thinking, what if the first arrow wasnt spot-on, but instead whizzed past khara, maybe nicking/slicing her a little, leading the same scene where she stops talking and byx to be confused, but as she has no idea what happened and it came outta nowhere, she doesn't really react to it. but renzo immediately sees the arrow and figures its an attack, and since khara isnt moving outta the way, he spurs his horse on very quickly and just gallops in front of her as a meat shield and the next arrow hits him instead.

THEN khara reacts and is like HWAT THE ACTAL FUCK and once her brain processes the situation she is enraged out of her fucking mind and goes Apeshit™ on the bandits with her cool shiny sword and kills the fuck outta them. then the same scene in canon happens, just in reverse, shes panicked as fuck and yelling for byx n tobble to bring shit and do shit for her as she tries to save his life, only problem is she doesnt know magic so...

either 1. the arrowhead isnt barbed or it didnt hit any vital organs, so she can deal with it without magic

she sends byx to go find help, find a nearby armyofpeace affiliated village where they can send supplies and medics

he fucking dies LMAO

okay no 3 is just sad although it wouldnt affect the ending where they kill the kazar and the murdano its kind of a pointless death and it will make the ending feel more empty. also you KNOW to DEATH that khara and byx r gonna blame themselves (theyre gonna do it when hes wounded as well but you know itll be a million times worse if he effing DIES) and anyways no one in byx's new family shall die it WONT HAPPEN ON MY WATCH

okay so not 3 lmao

1 and 2 dont have THAT big a difference, also i am currently spouting the word "rewrite" but in actuality im never gonna actually write this out into a fully fleshed fanfic/rewrite/wahtever so it doesnt matter that much, just the idea is that he takes the shot and is seriously wounded in place of her (but lives, yay)

khara kind of wants to call off the mission so that she can care for him but everyone tells her that this oppurtunity (both dicators just... being out there to be dueled, without their MASSIVE FUCKING ARMIES) wont ever come back once she misses it, so she, byx n tobble rush to the final fight

the final fight goes as it does in canon, just that she is ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF FIGHTING this time, also she strategically lets the kazar and the chimera fight it out first, then swoops in to challenge them when theyre both beaten down a little. okay then everything goes as it did, just with more very cute and sweet and emotional scenes when she returns and takes care of him

yes i am a sucker for cliche character-meatshields-and-saves-other-character's-life scenes but this is the only time ever that its not purely self-indulgent okay, canon scene is just. not. realistic.

i have.... more complaints.

firstly, # justiceforgambler bruh, why isnt he in the epilogue??? book1 loyalists could even argue that he mattered more than renzo, but regardless of that, it should be the 5 of them as a family. why was it randomly just 4 of them????? bro hes an integral part of the gang and a main cast member i swear why isnt he in the epilogue? OR IN BOOK 3, AS A MATTER OF FACT?? HE BARELY HAS A PRESCENCE?????? maxyn and sabito, who i do not give any shits about, get 20 times more screen time than a main cast member who saved the gang multiple times.

speaking of screentime and gambler, WE NEEDED MORE SCENES OF GAMBLER AND RENZO?!?!??! have we all forgotten that one scene where they bonded over being math nerds, and that other scene where they had a mini trip together to set fire to some shit?? arson bros for life

anyways theyre totally huge bros but we were ROBBED of more interactions and scenes with them, in favour of BORING DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS AND CONVERSATIONS INVOLVING EITHER BORING MAXYN OR BORING POLITICAL FIGURES.

speaking of maxyn, i fucking hate him?? imo his character was handled really poorly, really really poorly. (yeah ik hes a good guy but hes badly written so i hate him) the scene where his dad dies is really bad?? for one, byx, little miss i-have-no-tact, when someone crying over their dead dad reminds you of you crying over your own dead family, you dont say "i know how you are feeling" like what??? what kind of comfort is that??? if anything, im pretty sure people feel WORSE when they hear of others also having their parents DIE. also, no offence, but you DID indirectly cause the death, so uh, i dont think you should be even trying to comfort him.

also the death doesnt ever get brought up again?? it feels incredibly pointless?? like if elexor had ran off on a boat nothing about the story would change. the pacing is kinda crazy too? he dies outta nowhere and in like 2 pages the dude is over his death and in the next forever and ever, no one even cares anymore

i have more reasons that his character is bad but at this point im rambling to do waht? discredit the sequels to my favourite book? im sleepy bruh i just spent 2 hours of my life on this??? also i keep on making references to a fandom of sorts even though there is literally no fandom

bye

#endling the last #bad post

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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years

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✏, hotchreid, first kiss 🥺

You don’t just get a blurb honey, you get the whole damn night. I’ll eventually start writing blurbs and not full-length oneshots for these asks, but Cee (my love my family my favorite always) is who got me back into CM in the first place so yours was always going to be the long, fleshed out version. I love you so my dear.

((P.S. Yes I’m still working on the 200follower asks xD I’m so sorry life got in the way and I discovered hcs but I’m being responsible and finishing all of these now I promise!!!))

Personal plot bunny: Hotch invites Reid over to help with a research paper/with Jack and Reid gets to see his boss all domestic and soft, and in turn Spencer just kind of fits in his home seamlessly and Hotch kisses him as he leaves.

Word Count: 3107

It’s a perfectly ordinary day in late November when Hotch opens his apartment door to Reid standing there in the clothes he’d worn to work earlier that day. Satchel over his shoulder, wrapped in jacket and scarf, and giving him a small quirk of a smile in greeting -- still very obviously thrown off kilter that Hotch had invited him over in the first place.

When Reid said he’d lend him a hand on his most recent research paper, the younger agent had probably expected them to do it at the office. Interviews and research were all a big part of having a Behavioral Science subunit at the FBI, and published papers were a requirement from all BAU members to aid in this endeavor. Every team had to keep a steady output of resources and research studies going just to keep funding for the department afloat. He may be Unit Chief, but Hotch was no exception to these requirements, even with as much work as he has to put in on the regular.

Usually, he can do his research and piece together papers in between his daily paperwork. But this week Jess is sick with a stomach flu, and Jack hadn’t gotten to spend time with Hotch in what feels like a month. So the easiest solution was obviously to invite Reid to have dinner with them at his home, entertain him while he read over the drafted paper and helped Hotch out.

Obviously.

The only reasonable option, really.

“Thanks for coming, Reid,” Hotch greets back with a softened expression as he looks him up and down. “Did you even go home first?” The very first thing Hotch always does is change out of his suit when he gets home, shedding that armour as best he can to switch mindsets between Agent Hotchner of the FBI, and Aaron Hotchner the ever-stressed-out single dad. That evening donning worn jeans and a heather grey Henley to better accommodate himself within the space.

“Oh -- no, I didn’t see much point,” Reid shrugs, then motioning to his satchel which is now filled with books that weren’t there when he’d left the bull pen a couple hours before. “I stopped by the law library in Georgetown and found a few more references, just in case you were using the Favero citations instead of Weston and I don’t have all of those read yet -- or I didn’t. I do now. But I still brought them--”

Hotch smiles, a real smile -- small as it is, but no less fond of Reid going out of his way to help him. But before he can thank him again Jack’s socked feet come thundering down the hall behind him.

“Dr. Spencer! Dr. Spencer! Dr. Spencer!” And he’s slipping past Hotch, smooth and fluid as water, attaching himself to Reid’s legs and waist in a hug with a big smile that looks so much like Aaron’s own. When he’d been younger, only about three or four years old, Jack had been deathly scared of Doctor’s visits. It had been Reid’s idea to have Jack start calling him ‘Dr. Spencer’ to help alleviate some of that fear, associating the moniker with his non-threatening and familiar face. Reid had been much younger then, too, and that had helped the tactic work like a charm. Haley had been over the moon when his reverse psychology worked out so well.

“Jack! Woah, you got taller!” Reid’s whole demeanor changes. A little more animated, more comfortable, even -- and Hotch could remember a time when Reid hadn’t even wanted to hold a child for fear of the interaction. Now, he was always the first to talk to one if JJ didn’t beat him to it. “How’ve you been?” “Good!” Jack says excitedly, barreling over the small talk in ways only children can. “Dad says you’re going to help him with his homework, can you help me with mine too?!”

Reid smiles even wider and chances a glance at Hotch that he feels in his chest. “You bet, I love helping with homework.”

Jack just scrunches his nose up at him. “Why?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“Homework isn’t fun.”

“Well, maybe you’ve been doing it wrong.”

“Let’s let Dr. Reid in from the hallway,” Hotch interrupts with a laugh, herding his son and the younger agent inside. “Jack, go get your homework and you can do it at the table,” Hotch says as he takes Reid’s coat and watches him kick off his shoes by the door. Mismatched socks prominent against the hardwood floors. Making himself at home, shedding some of the layers and getting comfortable in the space much like Aaron does every day after work. “Hope you like spaghetti. It won’t be as good as Rossi’s.”

“Who doesn’t love spaghetti,” Spencer grins with a soft laugh. “Rossi’s is almost too fancy for me, anyway.”

“A man of simple tastes,” Hotch teases him.

“I’m easily impressed.”

“Lucky me.”

It slips out, the low, comfortable banter, and Reid’s eyes are alight and Aaron feels himself smiling enough his dimples show, and he leads the way to the kitchen where dinner is already in the works on the stove. Filling the small condo with the smell of tomato sauce and garlic.

Jack and Reid set up at the kitchen bartop where they can watch Hotch finish cooking and stay within reach of conversation. It doesn’t take long for Hotch to finish making dinner, or for Jack to finish his homework spurred on by Reid’s strange enthusiasm for math problems. With how much time they spend talking about psychology and sociology (and sometimes even philosophy) Hotch always forgets one of Reid’s Ph.D.’s is in mathematics.

“Numbers just make sense,” he explains, when Hotch brings it up while drizzling olive oil on the drained pasta on the stove. “There’s always a right answer and the rest are wrong. It’s comforting, to an extent, but predictable -- that’s why I shifted focus from sciences to humanities. There’s no right or wrong answers in philosophy, it’s all argumentative. Always evolving. I prefer that, it’s no fun having all the answers.”

And coming from someone who does always have all the right answers, that must mean something profound to the younger man. One conversation outside the walls of the BAU and Hotch already feels like he understands Reid more than he has in a long time.

Dinner runs so smoothly it’s as if Reid is always there for it. Jack even finishes all of his food and helps with the dishes before Hotch has to ask him to. Making the two men exchange a glance and Hotch ask, “You charge by the hour?” and Reid laughs into his water glass in reply. They end up talking a bit about the paper Hotch has been working on, along with about a dozen other things Reid launches into in side tangents -- from the books he’d read during his brief visit to Georgetown that afternoon, to his most recent philosophical debate he had with his doctoral advisor about his thesis paper he’ll have to submit at the end of next month.

“Do you need time to piece it together? I didn’t know you were that close to your next Ph.D.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Reid waves him off. “I just need a weekend where we are actually in town and not on a case, and I’ll get it finished.”

“I’ve been working on this paper for the past six months,” Hotch all but balks in disbelief. “How can you write a Ph.D. dissertation in a weekend?”

“Well, I’m not the Unit Chief or a single parent,” Reid points out with a gentle grin, and Hotch feels one pulling at his own lips as well. “But it’s mostly written anyway, just all up here.” He points to his head, and Hotch bets he could recite the paper verbatim with what he writes up when he has the time.

“You could always write it on the jet,” Hotch says.

“I do,” Reid smirks, and Hotch can’t help but roll his eyes. “In my head, someone is usually taking up the table with a headstart on paperwork.”

“I think they can be talked into relinquishing some table top space,” Hotch says, until Reid gives him a look. “Oh, you mean me?”

“You spread out everything to keep it organized in piles.”

“I’d share with you.”

“You told Rossi to use the couch last week when he wanted to answer emails,” Reid says with a barely contained laugh.

“Yeah, well, he’s not you,” Hotch admits before he can take it back, and Reid almost answers -- mouth open and everything -- when Jack comes back and is all but begging ‘Dr. Spencer’ to help him with his science fair project he hadn’t even decided on.

The rest of the evening ends up with the three holed up in Hotch’s office, Reid surrounded by Law books and reading material he hasn’t gotten to sift through before, Hotch with his drafted paper printed out for Reid’s ease of access, and Jack with his science textbook and a notebook already talking Reid’s ear off about a science project for the spring.

But once the time starts to tip into the later hours of the night, Hotch tells Jack to get ready for bed and say goodnight to Dr. Reid.

“Goodnight, Dr. Spencer. Thanks for your help,” Jack says politely, ingrained in him by his father and Reid smiles a little too bright and soft at the same time at how sweet it is he tries to be good for company.

“You know, Jack, you can just call me Spencer if you’d like,” he says, knowing that the older boy has already outgrown his fear of the doctor and the reverse psychology is no longer needed.

Jack looks a little confused for a moment. “Dad doesn’t.”

“Well, your dad can, too -- if he wants,” Reid says, looking to Hotch and they share a look he once again can feel in his chest. Watching the whole interaction with a carefully guarded expression, but it melts under Reid’s glance and he isn’t quite sure what is there anymore. But whatever it is, it makes Reid smile softly at him.

“Okay, goodnight Spencer,” Jack interrupts their moment, and hugs Reid around the neck from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. It jostles the younger man, and Hotch smiles wide and ducks his head down to hide it. But Reid hugs Hotch’s son back, and tells him goodnight, as well. “You’ll come back, right?”

“Of course, I’d love to,” Reid tells him, and -- satisfied -- Jack goes off to brush his teeth, leaving the two in a lull of heavy silence. “Sorry, I think I just invited myself over, some time.”

“You’re welcome anytime.” And he means that, knows Reid knows that as he looks at him a little more soundly than before. “Not just for work.” If that needed to be said.

And if Reid’s face flushes a little darker in the low lighting, Hotch doesn’t mention. No matter how much he can’t seem to look away.

Reid looks over his entire paper while Hotch tucks Jack into bed, and is already making notes on it at his desk when the man returns. The next hour rolls into two, and Hotch drags another chair in from the kitchen so they can share his desk and work through bullet points on the paper but… it was pretty much done, from the start. Even Reid’s edits didn’t take them long. After a while they dissolve into just talking, discussions and anecdotes and sitting maybe a little too close and laughing so much and so loud sometimes they have to quiet themselves so they don’t wake Jack down the hall.

It’s almost 10:30 by the time they resurface from each other, before Hotch realizes Reid probably needs to go home because they both have to be at work bright and early. But this was… this was the best night he’s had in a long, long time, and he wants to do it again. Soon. More than soon. More than once. He thinks about all of this as he follows Reid to the front door and helps him gather the rest of his things.

“We should do this again, sometime,” Hotch mentions, hands in his pockets and trying to be more cool about this than he feels.

“I’d like that, I had a lot of fun tonight,” Reid answers, standing up from tying his shoes and giving him that bright, wide smile he doesn’t always feel comfortable enough to allow. It never fails to stall Hotch in his tracks, staring a little too long at his mouth than he should be.

“What if, next time, it’s just us? And no Jack?” he continues, elaboration just in case Reid doesn’t grasp what he’s asking. Reid is watching him with this look as if he’s unsure he heard correctly, and Hotch is nothing if not patient.

“I’d… I’d be okay with that,” Reid answers, slowly as he weighs some unseen options and gauges Hotch’s facial expressions to the most minute detail.

“Good. How about Saturday?”

He can see the moment it all clicks into place.

“...Are you asking me on a date?” Reid asks, a little winded.

“If that’s alright with you,” Hotch says with a half smile. Once again sounding more confident than he should in the face of how Reid’s eyes start to dart around and he licks his lips nervously.

“I don’t know how -- how good I am with dates.” There’s a story behind that, and Hotch wants to know it, but he does his best to press Reid gently. Because… he’s been holding off asking the younger man for a long time, now, but after tonight he gets the feeling that he might not have needed to be so hesitant, after all.

“Oh?”

“Just -- the ritual of it all always throws me off. Dressing up and going out, and making conversation over dinner while trying to eat and maintain the other’s attention, and then keeping it all going if you manage to do that I just don’t always do so well one-on-one and --”

“Reid.” He pauses, then -- “Spencer.” And that stalls his stream of thought to words, catching Spencer’s attention and snagging it in the best way. “...we just did all of that. And it was great.” Hotch knows his own expression has softened around the edges over the course of the night, smiles easier to hold, eyes more expressive, and Spencer takes in every change and nuance with a well-practice eye and is… very obviously stunned by what he finds. “So -- I’d like to do it again. Saturday?”

Shocked, eyes a little wide, breath lost to the wind, Spencer waits a beat too long to answer. Enough to make Hotch nervous, before he answers in a sound that could have been a whisper if it had been quieter. A slight crack to it that betrays his emotion.

“Okay.”

Hotch gets a turn to be stunned, because he thought this had been about to take a very different turn. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“--Okay.”

Intelligent men that they were, that was the extent of the conversation, and then Reid is smiling that bright, sunshine laced smile and Hotch is trying to contain his own and -- Reid still needs to go home. So, biting his lip, Reid turns as if to leave -- is just about out the door when he stops and turns back so quick he almost runs into Hotch on the threshold.

“So… technically, that means this was our first date, then. Right?” he looks so goddamn hopeful, and like he has something further to add, that Hotch smiles outright and this time doesn’t bother hiding it.

“Technically, yes.” He supposes it was. And it really had been… a great night. Not a bad first date, at all.

Reid takes far too long trying to string together words after that. Keeps looking to Hotch then away to gather his thoughts, then back again as if in search of something; and it’s after about the third time that Hotch realizes what he’s getting at. What he’s trying to find a way to ask.

It hits him so silent and hard it about knocks the wind out of him.

Oh.

He can do that.

Hotch steps closer, about the same time Spencer opens his mouth like he’s finally figured out the right combination of words within the range of the English language to form a coherent sentence, and they all die on his tongue the moment Hotch guides him back with a hand on his hip. He’s done it before, gentle leading when Reid strays the wrong way or needs to be shifted in a crowded room on cases, and this time is just as easy and no different.

Except this time, Hotch isn’t maneuvering them to get past him. This time, he presses Spencer’s spine to the doorframe and leans in to capture his lips with his own. Right there, in the open doorway.

Hotch kisses him, and it’s perfect.

The gentle slide of lips is over before either know it, lasts longer than his racing heart can measure, and before Hotch can decide his next move Spencer tilts in closer and kisses him back, slow and methodical and Hotch feels that. Feels it the way he’s felt every moment they had and shared the whole night. His free hand finds that sharp jaw framed in messy curls getting longer all over again, and Spencer doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands beyond grasp at Hotch’s shirt at his sides and then --

Then Hotch pulls back enough that he can nudge his nose against Spencer’s carefully, a punctuation that ends the kiss soft and apologetic. Silently says that’s all they can do tonight. That there’s more, awaiting them, but that…

That had been one hell of a good first kiss.

“See you in the morning, Spencer.”

For once, Dr. Spencer Reid is speechless in an entirely new way, and he merely nods with lips still parted and a little darker from the kiss. From kissing him, and Hotch knows he stares more than he should, but that’s been a frequent occurrence lately. It’s just getting harder and harder to turn away, watch Reid -- Spencer -- smile at him in that quiet way only ever directed at him, and then walk away. But he lets it happen, feels every step even as he shuts the door behind him.

Because Hotch will see Spencer tomorrow.

And, one day, maybe he won’t have to watch him walk away at all.

#I'm so tired I can't even tell if this is good or not because OF COURSE these dorks would flirt over a damn research paper #tell me I'm wrong #also I'm a sucker for domestic hotchreid we all know this #but I hope you like this my dear I know it's hella long it just got away from me #Cee my love my light ilysm #asks #HotchReid #Heid #katyswriting #200followerasks

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zosonils-art · 3 years

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Do you have a robot master OC (of the eight plus Drum) that you’d say is your favorite? If you haven’t done an infodump for them yet then you should do that one next

i couldn't choose a favourite if i tried, i love them all, but since you mentioned drum i thought i'd give her some new art and a proper dedicated post too! infodrump [ayyy] under the cut

drum, serial number SWN-002, is my take on the popular [????? i'm still a bit of a mega man fandom newbie i don't know hjdfn] 'wily equivalent to roll' oc template! she keeps things running at the various castles and fortresses and hideouts and whatever else her dad holes up in, whether that's by doing housework, planning schemes, or dodging taxes. whenever wily is trying to take over the world, drum acts as his second-in-command, ensuring that everything goes according to plan and ordering around the latest group of robot masters

she's every bit the edgy mid-00s teenager she looks: sarcastic, apathetic, and always talking back to her dad. she's more obedient than bass is, but she doesn't care for her job at all and will resort to any flimsy excuse or act of malicious compliance she can come up with to slack off. due to her purpose as an organiser and commander, she's a bossy control freak who's quick to anger when things don't go exactly her way, although when she's off work the worst of these traits recede in favour of more conventional teenage apathy. she sees herself as above the time and effort it takes to go out of her way to be mean to people like wily and bass tend to do, but she's equally uninterested in being nice on purpose and her default attitude is squarely on the nastier side

when she doesn't have work to focus on - and sometimes when she does anyway - drum is the lead vocalist and guitarist in a garage band, of which she is [currently - a friend's ocs get involved later, but that's a whole different post] the only member. i'm not good with music terms but she's into whatever genre stuff like wake me up inside and crawling in my skin is [i know those aren't the names hdfjf it's just the words i know people will recognise]. the sort with the crunchy guitar and the very loud lyrics about being sad and/or angry. playing or blasting music helps her to calm down when she's in a bad mood, which is pretty much all the time. the first warning sign of a new wily plot is a spike in search popularity for my chemical romance

i haven't gotten around to designing it, but drum has a non-armoured form like most of the other more explicitly kid-like robots, which she mostly uses for loitering around malls when she has an excuse to not be at home. she rarely buys anything, just hangs out and radiates an aura that makes suburban white women hurry their three kids into the next shop. drum often ends up hanging out with like-minded teens in the same vague area of the goth/punk/emo venn diagram she occupies, and makes a bit of a game out of seeing how honest she can be about her life without revealing that she's one of the world's most wanted robots. she tells herself that it's just something she does out of boredom and curiosity towards humans, but it mostly stems from loneliness and the desire to have literally any friends that aren't her brother's dog

as a sort of contrast to the healthy and positive relationship between their lightbot counterparts, drum and bass absolutely DESPISE each other and make no secret of it. each of them thinks of the other as an insufferable prick and they'll get into petty arguments over just about anything, from whose turn it is on the xbox to who treble loves more. [for the record, it's drum. she lets him hang out in the kitchen while she's cooking and sneaks him food scraps when bass isn't looking. he's the only family member she has an even remotely positive relationship with.] pretty much the only thing that can get them to stop fighting is mutual hatred of a bigger prick, and so far the only person to consistently get them to put their differences aside like this is wily himself - as much as the wily kids hate each other, they hate their dad just a little more, and have a history of teaming up just to mess with him. sometimes mega man can spark that spiteful cooperation, but drum's total apathy towards the light-wily family rivalry means she usually sees him as not worth her time and just finds bass' obsession with beating him even more annoying

drum wasn't made for combat, and as such she doesn't have a signature weapon or any fancy tricks like the copy chip. usually she just orders other robots to do the fighting for her. however, she is equipped with a standard arm-mounted buster, and can hold her own in battle with a 'fight smarter, not harder' approach if she has to. she's also outfitted with the same treble adapter that bass has, so if she's backed into a corner she can call on him for a power boost. treble is capable of supporting both adapters simultaneously, so as an absolute last resort they can all combine into treble-boosted drum & bass, who theoretically has all the combat power of bass plus the strategic thinking from drum and the boost in power from treble. in practice, though, drum and bass are so at odds with each other that they can barely hold together in the same body without either fighting for control or outright splitting apart to argue harder. again, it takes a lot of spite to get them to work together, but if something draws their combined ire and convinces them to cooperate they're an utterly terrifying force to be reckoned with

the game idea i vaguely have in my mind would feature drum as the final-not-final boss before wily reveals he was the mastermind behind it all and surprises absolutely nobody. she was put in charge of the latest world domination attempt, probably as the result of a 'why don't YOU take over the world if you're so smart' conversation, and in true drum fashion she follows a standard wily plot outline to the letter - including the blatant flaws, like all eight of her chosen robot masters forming a rock-paper-scissors wheel just begging to be exploited by the copy chip, and making a clear path from just outside the death fortress to her base of operations. after she's defeated in combat, she sarcasically wonders aloud how mega man could have possibly bested her plan and then helpfully points rock directly to wily's castle. she didn't wanna do the stupid scheme in the first place

again, i love all my ocs too much to possibly choose a favourite, but i'd say drum was the most fun to come up with if only because i had the help of some mates in a discord server. someone was like 'hey if there's bass is there a roll equivalent called drum or something lol' and i SPRINTED to microsoft paint to rough out a character design and the next entire day was just a constant stream of all of us bouncing ideas off each other and creating the meanest girl in the universe. her design changed a little bit from the initial sketch, most notably she used to have the half-shaved hairstyle that every gay person tries at some point before that changed to a midpoint between phoenix wright and sonic the hedgehog, but overall everything about her as a character flowed really well from the start. while she's fallen mostly into my hands since the initial brainstorm, she absolutely wouldn't exist without those friends' input and i feel that that's important to mention!

i'm very tired and i've been working on this on and off for the past day so i'm gonna call the infodrump finished here - thanks for giving me the excuse to talk about her! unfiltered and transparent versions of the art below as always

#i already talked about drum in my first post about her long long ago but i think she deserves a new infodump #zos draws #mega man #mega man oc #robot master oc #drum wily #zos talks #zos answers #aprofessionallurker #man there's so much art i gotta do of her. gotta draw her civilian form and her treble boost AND treble-boosted d&b eventually

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luna-rainbow · 3 years

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Sorry, didn't mean to go off on in response to that ask 😬😖 but it's so frustrating how both Sam and Bucky got nerfed so hard in regards to their abilities. Idk whether it's laziness, or lack of understanding around fight choreography or what.

I remember watching as it aired, and Bucky's downgrading was so obvious to the point of it being painful (like the fight on the trucks. Barely able to stay upright in a fight against untrained (albeit) super soldier's, when we have literally witnessed him mowing through multiple highly trained super soldiers before.)

But after it finished, and after rewatching tws and cw it struck me how much they downgraded Sam too. We've only seen him fight in short snippets before, but he is highly competent. And there's no doubt in my mind that he's even better than what we've seen.

They didn't have to downgrade Bucky in order to showcase Sam, because Sam was already on par with Bucky, just with a different skillset/fighting style. They could have been presented as equals, and complementary to each other, but instead they... Idk even what they did really. It's sort of like they pitted their styles against each other's instead of using it as an opportunity to show how they grew and worked together as a team. Idk... Sorry to rant in your inbox, feel free to ignore 😅

(Yay I finally got the chance to answer! (And sorry it got super long)

Honestly I’m on a bit of a TFATWS criticism spree here so please stop reading if you love this show.

I think the problem is (at minimum) twofold:

A) Most of the action scenes only served to move people from place to place without regard to what this meant for their characterisations.

The net result is that out of all the characters it was John Walker who got the main character treatment of having a logical character arc and fight scenes that all served to build on his character.

1 - Truck fight: Sam and Bucky are BOTH nerfed in order for Walker to save them. This was supposed to establish Walker as well-intentioned and on par with our heroes. Except both Sam and Bucky were clearly punching wayyyy below their movie level while waiting for him to arrive. 2 - Wakandan fight: This fight served as a turning point for John as he became overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy. However, to set up this fight, SAM went out of character to stop John from taking Zemo (this part was completely inane because Zemo ran away after this so clearly they didn't need him). And don't get me started on how Bucky went out of character to upset the Wakandans in the first place to set up this fight. 3 - Lemar/Flag Smasher death fight: I mean, let's be real, the protagonist of this entire fight was John. The target was John, the death was John's friend, the one who underwent major character evolution was John. Sam and Bucky were both on the sidelines, pulling their punches (although there's adequate in-plot justification for this). 4 - John vs Sam & Bucky fight: I already wrote half a chapter with Sam raging at Bucky's awful fighting style here so I'm not going to do it again LOL. But even SAM was brought down a peg to let John be a threat. Sam landed like...3 punches before he was pinned down and had his wings ripped off. And the characterisation in this fight? I'd say it built more of John getting deranged with the serum (don't @ me, he aimed for Sam and Bucky's heads multiple times while they were down)...with maybe a character beat for Sam coming to terms with the shield at the end. 5 - Final fight: Sam got some good sequences (I'm not sold on the Batroc fight), but John was able to finish off his character arc by a redemption. I'm not going to comment on Bucky because it will just remind me of Spellman's infuriating quote.

In other words, John was the only one in the series where the fights themselves told a coherent story, and in fact Sam and Bucky’s characters were warped to facilitate this. Examined purely from the quality of character development to the care paid to consistency and continuity, you’d think John was the main character, and that’s just...ironic.

B) A conscious decision to make Sam and Bucky not carry any arms against the Flag Smashers.

I feel like this is to parallel current events with Sam and Bucky representing police, and the Flag Smashers representing POC youths. Without getting into whether this allegory is appropriate or effective: it takes away what Sam and Bucky have been using in previous movies. Sam was always backed up by guns in the air, and Bucky also either used guns or knives. The easy fallback is to say that they seem weaker because they're not using weapons anymore, but it doesn't have to be this way.

As I said in my earlier post, Gundam Seed showed it is absolutely possible to have a main character who is staunchly non-lethal but still kicks major ass.

I know Kira has a lot of detractors but here's his signature move: disarm enemy armoured suits without killing the pilots. (GIF by mecha-gifs)

I know this is obviously a completely different type of fighting but Kira, as a main character, sustained this philosophy for the majority of 2 seasons of 50 episodes. He also started off in a basic suit which doesn't let him disarm multiple enemies like this, so his earlier fights were all "hand to hand" fights but he still managed to (mostly) avoid killing people. What I mean is, if they really tried, they could definitely make Sam and Bucky kick ass while being non-lethal. They just...didn't try.

#sorry to go on a tangent #once again horrified by the length of my own post #gundam seed #tfatws critical

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sodamnbored · 3 years

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I so badly want a Roman prequel series. More than a Solangelo book. There could be so many great things in it.

Ideally, we’d get a series, basically original PJO but on the Roman side, presumably then following Jason in the same way we originally followed Percy.

But that would just be rehashing what we’ve already seen! Jason’s story would be too similar to Percy’s! - I hear you cry. But bear with me.

Yes: there would be some big similarities - following a son of one of the big three as he grows up and masters his powers and all that. And yes it would also conclude with him fighting a titan. But! I also think they’re different enough that it would read more as parallels than just copy and paste. It could be really interesting.

For one thing: Jason is starting way earlier than Percy. And I am desperate to know about the wolves thing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all the info we have thus far is pretty vague, no? We know he went to the wolves when he was about two years old. But we don’t really know how long he stayed with them.

There’s the idea that he was raised by wolves (which don’t get me wrong I love that) and only went to the Legion when he was older - for parallels sake say about twelve. But we don’t know that’s the case for sure. He might’ve just spent the more or less normal time period with the wolves, or even if he were there longer than most - a year, two years even - he might’ve toddled off to camp still pretty young.

Cause this is another thing: we know very little about Camp Jupiter. In CHB you see for a fact that there are plenty of young demigods there, talking ten and under. Unless I’m mistaken, we never really heard mention of any little kids in the Legion right? Hazel was what, thirteen, in SoN, which is fairly young, but I don’t think there was any mention of anyone much younger than that. There was the little girl helping Terminus, but she was from New Rome not the Legion. And the Legion isn’t a summer camp of course, that’s a crucial difference.

They are quite literally an army, preparing for war should one ever arise. So do they have a minimum age requirement? Would not be unreasonable to assume they would. We know the majority of Legionaries are legacies from New Rome as opposed to actual half bloods, so it’s not unreasonable to think these kids live normal lives in New Rome until they hit a certain age and get conscripted/have the option to join the Legion for training.

If this is the case, then Jason might not’ve been with the wolves for years at all. He could’ve done his time and then been passed along to the care of New Rome. Set up somewhere to go to school and grow up and have something of a life to prepare him for his future in the Legion. That would be an interesting difference from Percy who had grown up not knowing about his heritage, for Jason to be fully aware of his godly parentage and to grow up knowing he was heading to the Legion as soon as he was old enough. I’m not sure about timings because in The Lost Hero pretty sure he’s fifteen and has twelve lines on his tattoo “for twelve years of service in the Legion” according to the wiki; but the wiki for the tattoos alone says the lines can be for years at Camp Jupiter or for completed quests and such, so it could mean he was toddling about CJ at three years old in mini Legionnaire armour like Caligula (oh the irony), or just that he crammed a crap load of cool stuff into just a few years when he was older.

So the series could quite happily start with him joining the Legion and maybe just summarise his life before that, have the important parts explained as relevant to the plot, I dunno. But it would give us more info on how Camp Jupiter actually works because personally I am clamouring for more info on the Romans.

Presuming that Jason is at least a Probatio by the time he’s about twelve (and it’d be cool to see him earn his full place in the legion too), that also means we’d get to see other people’s stories happening alongside his.

We know he fought the Trojan Sea Monster at some point, so that would be a cool quest to see play out. We don’t know a lot of other things he’s done, but we can assume he’d have been in the Legion when Reyna turned up, which would also be a really interesting story to follow.

We know from tSoM that Reyna and Hylla were on Circe’s island, when Percy was about 12/13, and it seems in SoN that he and Reyna were both around the same age, 16 or so. We know Reyna and Hylla spent some time after tSoM on Blackbeard’s ship before she made it to Camp Jupiter. So somewhere between ages 12-16, she would pop up at camp and I firmly believe she would’ve been Jason’s friend before they both became Praetors. And I would kill to see it. I wanna see them go on a quest together so badly. They would be an awesome team.

But we’d get to see Jason go through the steps, Probatio to Centurion to Praetor. We’d see him improving the Fifth Cohort’s standing in the Legion. We’d see Reyna become Praetor. (We’d ideally see Jason and Octavian gently bitch at each other like with Percy, but that’s just for me.) We’d get to see Jason and Reyna being Praetors together for a bit hopefully. That would be cool. And no doubt the series would conclude with their side of the Titan War, with Krios’ defeat - which would be so cool to see!

Being able to see more of their side of the war would also be really interesting as well. Because surely, there was more to it for them than just that one battle out of nowhere right? They must’ve been aware of the war and enlisted by the gods to help out right? Maybe there were some other titans for them to fight, maybe they had defectors too? Perhaps they were under the impression Kronos was still chopped up in little bits and Krios was running the show, either wanting to take Kronos’ place as the big cheese, or thinking the titans were working to reform Kronos, but they were kept out of Luke’s side of things so they didn’t realise that he already had been? Who knows. Certainly not me, cause we don’t have any books on it.

And there would be opportunities to have almost crossovers. Particularly regarding the war. They might just overhear things that don’t necessarily make sense to them but that we get, stuff like that. See some aftermath from one of Percy’s visits to the area. So many options.

Oh also actually, just for added angst and a different view than Percy’s, there was that freaking tragic bit in HoH I think where Jason thinks about his mother. The part about following orders and rules bothered him, but he insisted on doing so and keeping his promises because his mother had abandoned him and broken her promise. That would be an interesting aspect for the narration and his point of view because it’s the exact opposite of Percy. Percy doesn’t mind pushing the limits with the gods and exploiting loopholes or calling them on their faults, focused on surviving till the end of the day when he can go home to his mother and forget the gods and their stupid rules. Jason, on the other hand, doesn’t have anywhere to go back to. Camp Jupiter and the roles he’s given there are quite literally it for him, so even though he may resent it as much as Percy, he feels the need to bite his tongue and do everything in his power meet expectations and stay in line, etc. And yes, it’s for the benefit of others like he said in HoH, but maybe also the threat that if he makes too much trouble, where else is he gonna go and who else outside the Legion does he have?

Unfortunately we wouldn’t get to see Frank and Hazel come into it as newbies because that would’ve only happened after the war, so unlikely the series would continue after they beat Krios. But it’d still be a good set up to lead back into HoO alongside original PJO.

Also, I wanna know if Jason would’ve been particularly aware of his dad handing him off to Juno, or if she took a back seat until yoinking his memories out his head and dumping him on a dusty bus. I quite like the idea of him knowing, that she wouldn’t have been shy about popping up now and again as his patron, maybe sending him quests, offering occasional assistance like Poseidon did for Percy. Juno cared about her little champion, you can’t tell me different. I’d like to see her drop by from time to time. Or if he just accepted he was Jupiter’s and his dad basically never wanted to talk to him, and was a bit blindsided when Juno popped up after his hit on Krios.

Maybe he was just heading to bed after a long day of Titan slaying, thinking what he’d have for breakfast tomorrow and poof - Juno staring at him in his PJs, doesn’t he feel underdressed. Barely gets out an “um-?” before she’s like “got a quest for you. Surprise!”

(Since we got The Fall Of Jason Grace from Apollo in ToA, this series could be called something silly like The Rise Of Jason Grace to mirror it. I dunno.)

Either way, I need this. We deserve this. I will literally pay like 20$ per book if we could get this.

Wrote this hella sleep deprived and without sources and I’m still in ToA and haven’t read the extra books yet like demigod files and the Probatio one, so anything I’ve missed, had been answered, or is just plain wrong, let me know.

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goldenwoods · 3 years

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Sokka (Avatar) and his conflicts surrounding sexism

Just rewatched Avatar and what stood out to me (positively) was how show portrayed Sokka and his process of questioning sexism beliefs and assumptions.

It really helped me grow as a person to see Sokka, someone who we is one of the good guys, and has consistently been the good guy, obviously portrayed as being very sexist. In my opinion, it really helps that this person that I’m supposed to root for is prejudiced, and actively called out for it. It feels way more helpful, in my opinion, to have this person we are supposed to like and maybe relate to hold sexist notions, so we can uncover, learn about and grow from engrained prejudices with Sokka. Instead of having a discriminatory rival/initial antagonist/bully, discriminatory authority figure, or discriminatory villain, in other words, someone who we are decidedly not supposed to root for. I find that with them, I sometimes just take their prejudices as one of the numerous ways the narratives try to show his evil-ness or ignorance, or a convenient plot device to give him some motivations and inconvenience our protagonists. But when one of the protagonists is the sexist one, it makes me looks so much deeper and made me reconsider some of my own assumptions which I initially thought had nothing to do with prejudice. Like he isn’t openly malicious or despises women, he clearly is very protective of them, particularly his sister and all the other southern tribe villagers. But he absolutely is sexist.

ATLA probably isn’t the only media that does this. But it just really stood out to me, and it was done really well.

Especially, I liked how the narrative is so blatant about his sexism. Like this wasn’t just some mistake that Sokka made, one of the numerous times a protagonist has lashed out due to anger or some other understandable reason and hurt his friends, like it was just a mistake. Apologise, forgive, move on. His sexism was part of his characterisation. Katara calls it out (explicitly using the word sexist) almost right after we get introduced to them. It’s clear that this was a part of Sokka that he needs to grow from.

At the same time, I like how he isn’t the sexist guy on the team to prop up Katara as an empowered female character. Sokka is a great guy in his own right, which we also immediately see. He stands up for his village in front fully-armed, fully-armoured fire nation soldiers. He is hilarious and very entertaining to watch. He was likeable from the start, but he was also very prejudiced. It was both rewarding and a learning experience to watch him grow out of it. They managed to make a point with Sokka, but they also didn’t make it seem forced because he wasn’t just generic sexist guy who the strong female characters have to beat up. He was a genuinely likeable guy who had to work through his problems. And he also isn’t just shown that he is wrong either. He is shown things that challenges his sexist notions, he faces conflicts, and he challenges his assumptions. He takes actions to learn how to fight from a group of female fighters, not just have the sexism beaten out of him (although getting beaten up is also part of the process for him). And to me, that is much more meaningful.

This thing has gotten way longer than I expected and I’ve got no idea if I’m expressed what I want to express properly but in conclusion: I don’t think ATLA is perfect in its portrayal of sexism. But I think the effort they put into it is obvious and they did a very, very good job.

#avatar #atla #sokka #atla sokka #atla thoughts

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evabellasworld · 3 years

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Storm of the Republic

Chapter 5

AO3 Link | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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Summary: When Tup murdered General Tiplar during a battle, Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex dispatched Ahsoka, Fives, and Yara to solve the mystery that was plaguing the Clone Army. Meanwhile, Senator Padme Amidala contacted Commander Fox, Commander Tori, Riyo Chuchi, and Dipper to help her continue investigating the death of Palpatine, suspecting that Dooku was behind the evil plot. But when Dooku send an ISB agent to stop them, the team had to race against time to search for the truth, which could alter the course of the galaxy.

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Starting the game with the king’s pawn, Commander Fox could only smirk as Tori was sitting in the opposite direction, planning her next move. He was confident that he could win the game of chess, considering his rival was not so great. “Are you going to move?” he teased, much to her frustration.

The short-haired clone rolled her eyes, careful not to swear in front of Frieda, who was sitting on her lap. Since she found the little girl on the streets, Tori made sure she would be a good example for her child, even if it means giving up her desire to drink alcohol. The first few days of staying sober were rough, but thanks to the alcohol patch given by Red Cross, she could get over it.

“Mama, move,” Frieda uttered, leaving her lips curled up. Six months ago, the five-year-old girl barely said a word or two, but now, she can speak freely. Tori could thank the Jedi Healer for everything she did, from treating rashes on the child’s skin to helping her with speech therapy. It wasn't easy for both of them, but they persevered.

Taking a deep breath, Tori moved the first pawn one step forward and crossed her arms. I don’t even know whether I’m doing this right, she doubts herself. I bet Foxy would win this round of chess, as usual.

Fox raised his eyebrows, noticing her silence. “Is everything alright, Tor?”

“Just move your next piece or something,” she replied in an annoyed tone. “This game is taking forever, anyway.”

He grinned. “You know, I would completely understand if you want to quit. I won’t judge you.”

“How sly of you,” she retorted, resting her hands on her cheeks. “Tell you what, I’m going to win this round, no matter what.”

“Of course you would, vod,” teased Fox, as he moved the queen’s pawn. Tori snickered at his moves, leaning against her seat while supporting her child on her lap. Is that all he got? What a fucking loser.

Stretching her right arm, she took a deep breath as she moved the third pawn in front of the bishop, building a defense line against her opponent. “It’s your turn, Foxy.”

“For the last time, it’s Fox, not Foxy.”

“What’s the difference?” shrugged Tori. “I mean, it’s spelled the same way, and it rhymes too.”

He shook his head. “How are Fox and Foxy the same thing? One has three letters while the other one has four letters.”

“Well, it’s nice to know that you’re an expert in linguistics,” she snarled. “Usually, you don’t say shit to other people, unless they serve a greater purpose than yours.”

“Did you just swear in front of the kid?” Fox pointed out her major flaws, turning to his comrade, Commander Odd Eye. “Did you see that, Odd Eye? She just swore in front of the child. Can't you believe that?”

Odd Eye sighed as she handed Tori a glass jar, which was filled with credits and sweets. “Pay up,” she gestured, much to the former’s annoyance.

“Seriously?” Tori groaned. “Don’t you have anything else to do, like I don’t know, rest?”

“I am resting,” the purple-eyed commander replied, rubbing her pregnant belly. “If anything, I should ask you that question instead, Tor. I mean, how long has it been since you had a good night’s sleep, anyway?”

Tori glanced at her dalmatian keychain, which was given by the twins. Lira and Eva bought them for her at a souvenir shop on Lambda, which fit the pink spots on her armour. Being a dog lover, Tori cherished the gifts so much that she carried them everywhere she went for good luck. She wasn’t a superstitious person, but so far, the keychain had kept her alive.

If only they were still here with me, she wondered, staring at her chess piece. They would have loved Frieda like how they loved each other.

“You’re thinking about them, right?” Fox highlighted, as he was aware of her close bond with her Jedi Generals, which was something he never had.

Tori could only bob her head, avoiding his sorrowful eyes. “What if they’re still out there, Fox? I mean, both the girls cheated death many times. They could be lost somewhere in the galaxy.”

“I understand your pain, Tori,” he empathised with her, realizing that his sister pronounced his name correctly. “But eventually, you have to let them go. Clinging to them won’t do you any good at all.”

“It’s easy for you to say, considering how you never had something like this with the Chancellor. Am I right or am I wrong?”

“That is true, but Tor, you’ve barely even slept because of them. Seriously, you shouldn’t sabotage your mental health.”

“Foxy is right,” Odd Eye agreed with her older brother. “You can’t continue latching to the idea that Lira and Eva are still out there. Trust me, I had a similar experience after losing Erhan and Gowon and it was downright depressing.”

“Look, I understand what it was like losing someone you love, really. I can sympathise with you about the tragic outcome for the girls, but you can't carry your heavy burdens with you for the rest of your life.”

As much as Tori wanted to argue with her, Odd Eye had a point. She was in a secret relationship with General Wuxar, and she lost him during the Battle of Coruscant, along with her best friend, Gowon. Odd Eye and Gowon's friendship went all the way back to Kamino, when they were only cadets.

She remembered accompanying her friend to the medic, where she went through a UV scan for her unborn child. At first, Odd Eye didn’t say a word or two, but then she tearfully confessed that it belonged to the late Jedi General, and how much she missed him very much.

Thankfully, the Galactic Republic didn’t exist anymore, so her sister was spared. The Kaminoans also couldn’t do anything about it, since their facilities were already shut down. Tori was never a fan of her creators, and while she’s glad that she no longer belongs to them, it also means that their fleet has depleted in half.

Before she could say something, one of her men, Dipper, entered the tent. “Commander, the General wants all of you at HQ,” he told her. “She said it was crucial.”

“We’ll be there in a flash,” Tori nodded. “Thanks, vod.”

“No problem, commander,” the ARC Trooper saluted as he left the tent. Getting up from her seat, Tori strapped Frieda with a baby carrier. Fox and Odd Eye, on the hand, put away the chess set in the box and grabbed their helmets.

Guess I’ll beat Tori another day then, he smirked.

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a-student-out-of-time · 3 years

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Twisted Sister Arc Review Part 2

Mindwipe

Welcome back everyone! Last time we looked how Kanade killed everyone, got the shit beaten out of her by a lot of people, mainly Nikei and Hibiki though, stuff the Mod doesn’t want to talk about and now that timeline is DED. Now it’s time to deal with Kanade proper as we already wasted a life on her (actually she ate two lives now, as she was responsible for Hajime dying the first time, he lost a life) and we don’t need any more lives being lost.

With a reset and briefing of the QC of how Kanade got strok, it’s time for Hajime and Nikei to beeline to Hope’s Peak and this time they are not fucking around as Kanade racked up a decent body count last time, and that’s not an experience they want to repeat. But first thing’s first time for Hajime to keep his promise to Massacre!Nikei and make sure that Iroha doesn’t become the first victim to Kanade and start the chain reaction off. I think we Anons do kinda feel guilty for getting Iroha killed the first time around as she was supposed to be on a date with Makoto that day, and of course Makoto’s wonderful luck meant the Prison Break had to happen on that day, and rather than stay with Makoto, she rushed in to stop Kanade. Then again, we all assumed that Kanade was still the same pathetic serial killer that Hajime and Sonia dealt with in the Concert Arc and didn’t get more generous buffs then Samus did from Smash 64 to Melee, so hindsight 20/20, I guess? Anyway, they get Iroha to go back to her ahoge boyfriend and now at Hope’s Peak it’s time for Hajime’s grand master plan to bring…EVERYONE FROM CLASS 77-B! *Insert Smash Ultimate meme here* Oh and Juzo, he’s useful too, I guess. Kanade arrives to begin the plot of Carrie, but instead gets tear gas in her face, a swift pound down from Class 77-B, and Juzo, and then is quickly disabled by Mikan. Again, like with the whole Kanade Vs. Hibiki fight beforehand, I would love to see an animation of Class 77-B just beating the living snot out of Kanade and this is much better imo then when Sonia kicked the living shit out of Kanade. There our reasons for hating Kanade were basically all the shit she pulled in SDAR2, but here we just had a bad timeline where Kanade killed a bunch of people, and likeable people as well, and thus as they say…the fallen have been avenged.

Of course, getting Kanade’s arse handed to her was half the battle, as now the focus is on; what the heck is going on here? A quick check from the biology people revealed some very worrying facts. The first one is that Kanade’s syringe contained an addictive which not only can keep a person awake for days, but the chemical compound is unique, only came out for a few months in 2003 and all the people involved in it are in jail. Then there is the fact that she has dermal armour which looks like skin on her, which while flexible like skin, is strong enough to block bullets and blades. The experimental nature of it makes it highly expensive as well, meaning whoever is behind this, they are loaded and have resources. And then there is the confirmation that yes, she has a BCI. One that is full of combat data and information on Class 77-B. This is the most worrying part in my opinion. Anyone in the Despairs with enough money and resources could do all the above but VERY few people knew that Hibiki came over to Hope’s Peak and bonded with Class 77-B. The data required for that narrows suspect list down a lot and the implications are…worrying. Whoever backed Kanade, they are not to be underestimated.

And then comes when Yasuke is relevant to the plot for once and the whole Mindwipe proposal. So first let’s talk Yasuke. A lot of people hated the idea he was on the side of good here, as they prefereed it when he was just Junko’s boyfriend. Thing is though, I feel like Yasuke could work here. Remember he never bought Junko’s despair ideology and while he is an arsehole, he could be the ‘Byakuya’ of the group in which he is a cold jerk who says harsh things, but said harsh things are required as there are uncomfortable truths out there which the rest of the QC are either too afraid or too polite to say. I just hope Mod doesn’t bow down to peer pressure and make Yasuke a bone fila villain just because people hate him, but maybe tone down his jackarsey a bit. I know its canonically accurate but not everyone has read Zero and as such I don’t think people are used to that kind of harsh words coming from a non-antagonistic character.

And then there is the Mindwipe…naturally this a decision which has caused many readers to be split on it, and even for the QC to have a scrum debate over it. Don’t lie, you all heard the music. And unlike with a scrum debate where one side is clearly one, here both sides have a point. Mindwiping Kanade is ethically wrong on so many levels, and easily the darkest thing the QC have done, but they also don’t have a lot of options because there is a Prison Break to deal with, and Kanade was gonna be killed anyway so this is keeping her body alive but just killing her mind. They may be the good guys here, but given how morally deprived their opponents are, sometimes you do have to swoop to their level because you have little choice in the matter. It’s also interesting to see everyone’s viewpoints on it, some stating that from leadership like characters such as Sonia and Nikei arguing that at times you do have to make difficult choices and they don’t have the luxury of being morally right all the time, pragmatic characters like Sora stating that a mindwiped and redeemed Kanade could be beneficial to them if they do go down this route, to those who have spiritual issues like with Gundham, moral problems like with Chiaki and ethical problems like with Kyoji. Nobody is split in the middle, you either think mindwiping is the best possible solution, or if it’s so wrong it cannot be done. Arguing got so bad that Yoruko had to step in and get Hibiki, the most important person as far this matter goes, to decide. And Hibiki vents her feelings on the matter, and decides that since both sides have good points, to just vote on the matter.

This is one of the best parts here because it isn’t done by the characters but rather the audience. After all, given this is such a morally questionable decision it makes sense for the audience to decide what path they are going down. And thus, votes are casted…a lot more people read this then I suspected, and a significant majority go towards mindwiping. I dunno how they explain the votes though as there clearly isn’t that many people voting so how does one in-universe count the Anons’ votes? But again, I’m not surprised the mindwipe came through as Kanade is a popular character in the fandom (She ranked #2 in the official SDAR2 popularity poll, just behind Sora) so any chances of Kanade getting a redemption arc especially as we would have a Ryoko-espe character with her, would be something the fanbase would gobble up. I just hope none of the QC resent this decision, they may regret it but they have to remember it’s a hard choice for all of them and they didn’t have a lot of options. Even those against the Mindwipe would have to do their part, after all they are a team. At least Yasuke is considerate enough for all blame regarding the consequences of the mindwipe to be directed at him as he kinda forced the decision onto us. Hopefully Kyoji and Kokoro made sure he didn’t turn Kanade into a Despair Sleeper Agent or something. However, I did genuinely enjoy the audience participation here and I hope more chances like this come up in the future as it gives the audience a greater degree of control on how the story pans out.

That’s Kanade dealt with, but The QC cannot rest yet, because her escaping wasn’t the only bad thing to occur, there’s a Prison Break and tons of criminals running around that need wrangling! And with that the second part of the review concludes. Next time for the final time we talk about dealing with them damn prisoners and my final overall thoughts on the Arc! See ya then- Review Anon

#a student out of time #submission #review-anon

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darkblueboxs · 4 years

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Behind the Scenes: Iron and Ember

These are scenes from earlier versions of Iron and Ember that ended up getting completely rewritten in later drafts. I felt bad about leaving them to rot in my files forever though, so consider this an insight into the writing process/ an au of an au/ bonus content/ whatever

(Link here if you haven’t read I&E!)

This one comes after Neil and Kevin are attacked by Riko in the forest. It was later replaced by the boat confrontation to fix issues with characterisation/plot holes, but I’m still a sucker for the angstier elements, so:

They wait until the dawn of the following day to return to what remains of the Fox’s camp. The battlements lie in smoulders, their tents shredded and their shelters kicked to pieces. There is no sign of the other foxes. No blood, no bodies, nothing.

In the middle of the main pavilion they find the body of a fox-antelope, its orange fur matted with red. Neil levers the scroll out from beneath its head and scans it over before handing it to Kevin.

The Foxes have been captured. Riko will release them on one condition; Kevin hands himself over. If not, they will all be killed.

The sound Kevin makes is not recognisable as he falls to his knees. Neil stays standing, but barely. For as long as he can remember, being captured by the Fire Nation was Neil’s greatest fear. It’s only now, faced with the loss of his Foxes, that he realises there is something he fears more than his own death.

He hauls Kevin back to his feet despite the shaking of his own limbs. Kevin’s expression echoes the white-hot fear shaking through Neil’s body. For months, both of them have lived in the relative safety of the Foxes’ encampment, both leaning on the sturdy foundations of Andrew’s protection. The steady presence both of them have grown accustomed to has been ripped out from beneath them, and the ground no longer feels sturdy beneath Neil’s feet. It takes a few moments to remember how to breathe again; when Neil opens his eyes, Kevin is bolting towards the camp’s perimeter.

Thankfully, Neil has always been the quickest of all of them. He tackles Kevin to the ground. The following fight is quick, vicious, and without a clear winner, both of them too exhausted after a night of fight and flight to come out on top.

“You’re not going back to them,” Neil snarls, hands fisting in his collar. “One of us has to survive! Don’t you understand? One of has to make it.”

Kevin grips Neil’s wrist, trying to wrench it back. “And it’s going to be you.”

“No,” says Neil, and it’s as though all the fight leaves him in one syllable. “No, it isn’t.”

Kevin doesn’t understand; Kevin can never understand, because the day he discovers who Neil really is will be the day that Neil’s life with the Foxes is over. Neil can barely live with the danger he puts them in as a runaway of the Fire Nation. Now Kevin and Riko know he isn’t just any runaway, but the Butcher’s son, and the danger has doubled. If any of them discovered that he was an avatar, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Riko would tear the world apart to get his hands on Neil, and destroy anyone who tried to stand in his way.

And they would try to stand in his way. Neil’s Foxes, stubborn, obstinate, endlessly caring. They never know when to back down from a fight, and he loves them for it. They wouldn’t give Neil up without a fight.

This leaves him with only one option.

He has to let them go.

“I have a plan.” He lets go of Kevin’s collar, taking his shoulder instead and squeezing. “I need you to trust me.”

Kevin has no reason to trust Neil now; he understands better than anyone the past which Neil has kept hidden. He knows their opposition, and he knows the fate that will meet them should they fail. All the same, he places his hand over Neil’s and nods. His skin is hot against Neil’s; the blood of firebenders calling to each other in perfect understanding. “I trust you.”

Neil leads the way, and Kevin follows.

They find Riko’s camp a mile north. The distance is insultingly short, like Riko has left the welcome mat out in the surety that Kevin will soon be kneeling on it. The guards lower their weapons and step aside as they approach, granting them access without comment. A circle of red tents have been erected around a central firepit. Riko stands before it, cast in silhouette by the bonfire at his back. Their encampment has not been erected with even the pretence of military strategy; the thin canvas tents are unprotected, and were it not for the presence of armoured guards it would look like a leisurely camping trip.

As Neil’s eyes adjust, he can make out the figures on the far side of the campfire, and his heart falls through his stomach. He had wondered how the small group of Ravens had disabled and kidnapped eight foxes with so little fuss and bloodshed. The answer comes in the form of Jean Moreau, who stands at the end of the kneeling row of Foxes in a frozen ready-stance. Despite coming from the Southern Water Tribe, he wears the Fire Nation’s red garb, which drains the colour from his sea-grey eyes. Kevin has told Neil of the Fire Nation’s vicious attacks on the Northern and Southern tribes, and how the Fire Nation dealt with the prisoners it took. Some, like Jean’s family, took any deal they could to get into the Moriyama’s good graces, up to and including selling Water Tribe secrets to gain a position at the royal family’s side. Those that could not please or provide for the Fire Lord…

Kevin hadn’t needed to finish that sentence.

Jean was the only waterbender to be admitted to the Raven Academy, but despite a lack of instructors and guidance in his native element, he appears to have mastered waterbending as well as anyone.

It isn’t his waterbending, however, which holds the Foxes in place as though cuffed by invisible ties. Jean Moreau is bloodbending.

Kevin makes the realisation at the same time Neil does. The noise he makes is strangled as though an airbender has sucked all the air from his lungs. By the time they reach Riko, they are close enough to hear the sick gurgle of suspended blood, hanging thick and terrible in the air. One wrong move, and Jean could halt their blood flow entirely, starving their brains of oxygen and leading them to a slow, painful death. Sweat is beading on Jean’s brow, and when he sees Kevin his eyes slide closed, jaw clenching, somewhere between disappointment and relief.

“Kevin.” Riko opens his arms, as though expecting him to walk into them. “And you bought Wesninski too. A peace offering?”

At the sound of Kevin’s name, several of the Foxes’ eyes fly open, and heads jerk, fighting against their invisible constraints to look their way. He hears a slurred motherfucker from Matt, a low groan from Nicky, a stream of curses from Aaron and Dan. Their voices are horse, worn out from screaming or because of the pressure on their bodies, it is impossible to know. Neil looks to his family. He can’t help himself. He has never been on the receiving end of bloodbending, but he has heard second-hand experiences. The pain, the fear, the total loss of control. Matt is the closest; his expression is twisted as though possessed, and every vein stands out against his skin, swollen and blue. Dan is next, twitching constantly as though trying to beat back Jean’s bending with every movement. Nicky and Allison’s eyes are wet, but Allison glares with the fury of a saber-tooth lion, her arms straining against the lock holding them at her sides. A gag has been tied around her mouth, but Neil knows her muffled tones well enough to catch the gist of her intent. Aaron’s gaze is distant, and beside him, Renee’s eyes are closed, her body loose and relaxed, although Neil isn’t sure how she can expect to meditate her way free of this.

Andrew. Andrew’s gaze is the hardest to meet. There is no twitch or strain to his suspension, but unlike Renee, his body remains tense, as though caught mid-seizure and held there. His jaw is clenched tight as a trickle of blood paints his temple deep red. His eyes burn with questions, accusations, betrayal. Neil was supposed to keep Kevin firebending, keep him rebelling from the nation that was once his home. Instead, Neil has walked him back into the arms of the man Andrew swore to protect him from. Neil tries to put a thousand words into his answering gaze, but in the end settles only on one. Trust.

“Where’s Seth?” Kevin says lowly. Neil realises with another panicked twist of his gut that one of the Foxes was missing. Seth wasn’t a firebender, but he was from the southernmost Fire Islands, and officially a Fire Nation citizen. He was just as much a runaway as Neil.

“The non-bender? He should have known better than to put up a fight,” Riko says, eyes dancing with unrestrained delight. “We have to make an example of draft-dodgers, Kevin. I’m sure you remember.”

Neil’s eyes move against his will to the bonfire at Riko’s back. “No.”

Kevin jerks forward with fire in his eyes and in his hands. Normally, Neil would be delighted to see that he had grown a spine at last, but now is not the time for heroics. Not for Kevin, anyway. He holds out an arm and pushes Kevin back, placing himself once again between Kevin and Riko.

“Don’t be a fool, Wesninski. I am willing to let your insubordination slide in exchange for my brother’s return, but you would do well not to press me. Many people back home would love to watch you die a slow and painful death, many of whom are good friends of mine. Don’t tempt me to bring another little present home for them.”

“Neil, Kevin, what are you doing?” Matt hollers. “Get the fuck out of here!”

A guard steps forward and strikes Matt with the butt of his spear, and Matt’s head lolls.

Neil forces back the acidic taste of fear and bile at the back of his throat, throws water on the burning hatred stoked by Seth’s death. They were never friends, but they were a team. “I have a better deal for you.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“You let Kevin go. You let the foxes go. In return, I will give you something far more precious.”

Riko cackles. “Do you know how much time and effort we have exerted in bringing our lost Raven home? What could you possibly have to offer us?”

“I can give you the avatar.”

Riko goes very, very still. Neil swears he can hear a collective intake of breath from the surrounding soldiers.

“What?” Kevin’s voice comes out strained. “Neil, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Shut up,” Neil answers through gritted teeth. He turns back to Riko. “Do we have a deal?”

Kevin and Riko have been raised from birth to be the Fire Nation’s very best. The search for the Avatar has lasted years, crossed nations, caused countless bloodshed. Finding the Avatar is perhaps the only accomplishment that could render Riko worthy in the eyes of the Fire Lord, and this is what Neil is counting on. Everything depends on Riko’s need for his family’s acknowledgement outweighing his need for Kevin.

Riko’s eyes flick from Neil, to Kevin, to Neil. He steps forwards, close enough that Neil can smell the bonfire on his clothes. “We have a deal.” The hunger in Riko’s eyes is bottomless. “Where is the Avatar?”

“I will tell you when the Foxes are free and far from here,” Neil replies levelly despite the thudding in his chest. “Not a moment before.”

Riko flicks his fingers, and Jean drops his arms, falling into a heap as the Foxes are released.

“Don’t,” Neil says sharply before any of them can start a fight. “Go. Now.”

“Neil.” Dan fits a hundred questions into the single syllable, but it’s all Neil can do to shake his head.

“I said go.”

She nods. “We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” She casts Riko a look so venomous Neil is surprised it doesn’t kill him outright. “When he said the Foxes, he meant all of them.”

“All who remain,” Riko corrects her sweetly. Renee grabs Allison around the waist before she can react.

Neil can’t meet Dan’s eyes. He doesn’t know what will happen to him when Riko discovers the truth. He can only hope that a kinder version of his story makes it back to the Foxes, one that explains that he wanted to return to them. One that cuts around the pain, that of Neil’s past and that which surely awaits him.

The Foxes file out of the camp, passing between the silent sentries, quietly promising that if Riko didn’t hold up his end of the bargain there would be hell to pay. Andrew steps smartly over Jean’s form, which still shakes with exhaustion, and stops dead in front of Neil.

“Go on, mutt,” says Riko. “Take your master and go.”

Neil tries to force his features into some approximation of a smile. “Thank you.” He can’t bring himself to elaborate with Riko standing between them; for the bending, the kisses, the trust. “You remembered the firebending moves.”

Andrew’s gaze doesn’t move from Neil’s. Kevin glances at Riko’s expression and takes Andrew by the arm, pulling him away and after the others. If Kevin has any suspicions, Neil can’t read them in his expression, only panic, and an underlying vein of betrayal. Riko wasn’t the only one who spent a lifetime searching for the Avatar.

Neil counts to ten in his head in every language he can think of, counting the distance the Foxes will have placed between themselves and Riko. He’s startled from his thoughts by the press of a blade against his jugular.

“Tell me what you know.” Riko’s smile has tipped over the knife-edge from mirth to mania. “Where is the Avatar?” Neil looks at the mounting hysteria of the man before him and feels an ice-cold calm settle over him.

“Right in front of you.”

Riko’s expression freezes, as if unable to decide between laughter and fury. Before he can accuse Neil of lying and gut him like a fish, Neil pops open the waterskin at his hip and pulls a twisting trail of water from within.

His second-ever attempt at waterbending doesn’t last long; he holds the form long enough for comprehension to dawn before letting the shape collapse into the earth.

“Earth kingdom,” Riko says, barely audible. “You were supposed to be from the Earth Kingdom.”

“My mother was.” Neil flicks the lid of his skein closed. “Worked out pretty well for me, really. Just think, I was right under your nose for all that time. How many years have you wasted searching the earth kingdom? Fair warning, it doesn’t matter. You could find a thousand Avatars, it still won’t make Daddy love you.”

Neil feels the crackle of charge build in the air as Riko’s smile twists and falls in on itself.

“Jean,” Riko says without turning. “Hold him down.”

Jean drags himself to his feet, and suddenly Neil’s body seizes, his blood turning to thick slush in his veins. A scream catches in his throat and stays there and his lungs burn.

The last thing Neil remembers is Riko drawing back, lightning cracking and flashing around him, and then everything goes black.

This one came after Neil’s reunion with the Foxes. It ended up being replaced with the scenes in the air temple (and a more peaceful fall of the Fire Nation) but I still like the andreil dialogue soooo:

“Show me again.”

Andrew sighs. “Junkie.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Neil smirks even as Andrew clamps a hand over his mouth.

“That mouth,” Andrew growls, infusing enough emotion into the two words that he doesn’t need to complete the sentence. They stay that way a moment, waiting each other out. Andrew’s palm is warm against Neil’s lips, and he can feel the pulse roaring beneath.

He’s better at this now, sensing out the shift and glide of the world around him, layers upon layers of intermingling elements pulsing with a nameless energy, calling to him. He can pick Andrew out anywhere in a crowd, in the pitch black space between asleep and awake, in hurricane or thunderstorm or earthquake. He knows the weight of Andrew’s body and the pace of his footsteps, he knows the way he holds himself like he can take any hit the world throws at him. He knows the way the air fits in his lungs and the way his blood pumps in his veins and the way fire burns in his heart the same way it does in Neil’s, no matter how well-hidden. He feels Andrew in constant orbit like they’re celestial bodies caught in each other’s pull.

He isn’t sure if this sense is a side effect of being the Avatar or a side effect of being with Andrew.

He feels the huff of Andrew’s breath ripple the air around him as he gives in to Neil’s request. He turns to the nearest statue – another horrendous effigy of the deceased Fire Lord, singed but not destroyed in their takeover of the capital – and plants his feet on the ground, pulling the metal figurine apart.

The metal tumbles to the ground in twisted pieces, lost instantly to the scattered debris that litters the Royal Plaza. Reconstruction is well underway already, invaders and invaded joining together to rebuild a better world.

“Your turn,” Andrew says.

Neil approaches the next statue – Ichirou, whose profile still sends a jolt of panic down Neil’s spine. The man himself is safely confined in Boiling Rock, where he will remain until negotiations concerning the Fire Nation’s future governance and territory are complete. Neil’s earthbending remains next to non-existent, but he squares his stance all the time, imitating Andrew’s movements. He seeks out the call of the earth within the metal and comes up blank.

“Shit,” Neil says. It was only in the aftermath of storming Capital City that Kevin grudgingly admitted that Neil had mastered firebending sufficiently to move onto other elements, but Neil already feels miles behind. Kevin was insistent that Neil begin airbending, as was the traditional order of the Avatar cycle; Neil was equally insistent that he avoid the element for as long as possible.

“You’re trying to run before you can walk.” Andrew flicks a pebble at him, which bounces off his forehead. “Learn to earthbend. Worry about metal later.”

“I’ve done it before,” Neil says snippily. Andrew’s eyebrows twitch upwards. Through the course of their travels, they have yet to encounter anyone else with Andrew’s metalbending abilities. Neil says Andrew is a pioneer; he has discovered an entirely new form of earthbending, one which no one else in the world is capable of. Andrew is highly doubtful. Neil calls him the greatest earthbender who ever lived; Andrew tells him to shut up. Andrew still remains strangely detached from the element he has mastered so thoroughly, but Neil can see the change in his eyes, feel it in his pulse. It comes in times like this, where Neil watches him with hungry eyes as Andrew leads him, step by step, into the rocky core of his abilities.

Andrew steps between Neil and the statue with sudden focus. “You metalbended.”

“So you care about metalbending now, do you?”

“No,” Andrew says. He takes Neil’s chin between his finger and thumb. “Tell me.”

“Just the once.” Then, because he can say things like this to Andrew, and Andrew will accept it without horror or disgust or fear, “On my father. It killed him.”

“Good.” Andrew steps out of Neil’s path, opening his view to the statue once more. “Do it again.”

I hope you found these snippets from my recycle folder interesting - I have a lot of fragments like these but these were the ones I wanted to save most. Thanks for reading!

#aftg #andreil #my fic #iron and ember #tfc

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eveningcatcher · 4 years

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Main six + courtiers playing D&D part 2

"And then," you changed the fog, showing a campfire with orcs and goblin's in front of it, barbequing an already dead man. The floor was separated from the tiles, and their characters were hiding behind some rocks and trees.

"We can beat them up? Finally! It was about time!"

"Before you start though," you said, "I suggest that you position yourselves however you want, and I also advise the fighters to take out their weapons."

After a while of rambling and shouting, all of them have positioned accordingly: Muriel was next to Asra, who was near a group of 4 goblins, Volta was right behind Vulgora and Lucio who went straight for the ogres by the campfire, while Portia teamed up with Nadia and Julian. As for Valdemar, Vlastomil and Valerius, they formed a small team together, with Valerius right in front of the group of orcs and goblins, protecting the two spellcasters.

Read the whole chapter here

"Shall we begin then?" you asked as you handed them all d20.

All of you rolled the dices, and once you've all finished, the turn's looked something like this:

Valerius, goblin 1, goblin 2, goblin 3, goblin 4, Julian, Muriel, orc 1, orc 2, Valdemar, Lucio, goblin 5, goblin 6, goblin 7, Vlastomil, Portia, orc 3, orc 4, orc 5, orc 6, Asra, Nadia, goblin 8, goblin 9, Volta, Vulgora.

"How am I the last one?!?"

"You rolled 1," you simply responded to Vulgora's complaints.

"You know what? Fuck it, I'll beat them all anyway."

"Alright," you ignored Vulgora's comments and asked Valerius, "What do you do?"

"Let's see..." he took a glance at everyone's position, then on everyone's turns, "Those four goblins will kill you two," he told Asra and Muriel, "So I will throw one of my javelins at the goblin 1."

"Let me just check quickly if you can do that," you counted the tiles and said, "Yeah, you can. Roll a d20."

"I'm near him, so I expend one of my bardic inspiration dice for the attack!" Julian said.

"Okay," he said and threw the d20. It rolled on 15.

"Just enough," you smiled happily as you threw him two six-sided dices, "Now roll these two for the damage."

Once again, he rolled the dices without much care, getting 5 on both of them.

"It seems like you get just enough of everything," you said, a bit surprised, " But you made the goblin fall on the ground, dead. Now, it's the other three's turn," you raised a d6, "I'll be fair since the two of you are right next to each other. If it rolls on an even number, one goblin will attack Asra, but if it rolls on the uneven number, one goblin will attack Muriel, alright?" once the two of them nodded in agreement, you rolled the dice three times, "Let's see...6...5 and a...1. So, Asra, you will take 1 hit while Muriel will take 2. Now, let's see... Muriel, what's your armour class?"

"16..." he said, sighing.

"Okay, and yours?" you asked Asra.

"Eleven," they took a deep breath and straightened their posture, trying to look bigger, "But it's the strong eleven AC."

"Doubt it..." Julian said.

"Alrighty then," you took two d20 dices and rolled them, "Five and nineteen... One goblin misses you, Muriel, but the other one hits you with a..." you took a small notebook in which you've written all of the monsters, "Let's see..." you flipped through the pages until you've found a goblin, "He hits you with a scimitar and deals," you threw a d6 dice which landed on two, "Two plus two is... four damage."

"Write you new health points here," Asra explained to Muriel.

"As for you, strong wizard," you picked up one d20 roll, and threw it, "Four. The goblin failed."

"What did I tell you? My armour class is unbreakable!" they grinned with pride.

"We'll see about that..."

"Now it's my turn," Julian said happily, "Sooo, I'm going to move that one scary orc away with one of my amazing spell - DISSONANT WHISPERS!!!"

"Was that long introduction really necessary, doctor 069?"

"Roll a d20, and if you succeed, you must come up with something scary to say," you said.

"Very well then," he rolled a d20, rolling on 15.

You looked down at the list of the monsters, "How lucky..."

"And now, my 3d6!" he exclaimed dramatically as he grabbed the three nearest 6-sided dices and rolled them as he added, "There is a huge moth on your back!"

"Like Valerius, you rolled it perfectly," you commented, with a grain of salt in your voice, "I expected you to struggle..." you scratched the orc's name and continued, "Well Muriel, what will you do?"

"Do I have to fight?" he frowned, "Why did we attack them in the first place... Couldn't we just go other way?"

"No, because the plot demands it."

"Hey, I have an idea!" Lucio commented, "How about we start doing the exact opposite things of what MC wants."

"Do that and I'll send an army of orcs at you."

"Who gives a fuck about orcs! I'll kill them all!"

"Maybe if you get the chance to take your turn."

"I don't have any spells for attacking..." Muriel started.

"Then why did you even take the spells in the first hand?" Vulgora asked sarcastically.

"...But I have a scimitar... So can I attack one of the goblins?"

"Sure, roll a d20."

"19..." you looked at the dice, "You sure did hit him! Now roll a d6"

"5, not too bad!" you wrote something near the goblin 2, "It's now bloodied. Now, it's the orc's turn to attack! Since the first one is dead-"

"You're welcome," Julian added.

"The other one will attack, and it has to choose between you, Portia and Nadia... Let's see, if I roll 1 or 4 it hits you, 2 or 5 it hits Portia and 3 or 6 hits Nadia," you rolled the dice, "Two," you commented, "Portia, what's your AC?"

"Sixteen!"

"Alrighty then, let's see... the Orc hits you with a greataxe and they," you rolled the dice, "Hit!"

"Dammit..."

"And they will deal... 8 slashing damage."

"Well that orc can go fuck themselves too!" she commented as she edited her health points.

"Come on, don't get angry, it's just a game," Julian smirked.

"Valdemar, what will you do?"

"Well, I suppose I should get rid of that orc, no?" they pointed at the orc on the left, closest to them.

"Sure, what are you going to do?"

"Attack with inflict wounds," they rolled the d20, which landed on 20.

"Oh my god Valdemar!" you stared at the dice.

"They never played it and they're already winning."

"Give me the ten-sided one," they ordered with a touch of joy in their voice.

"Now roll it 6 times."

"Well then, let's see... five... nine... three... four... five... ten."

"Honestly, just the first three times were enough," you checked orc 4, "Now Lucio, what will you do?"

"Attack that one," he pointed at the one who was right next to Volta, "With a rapier," he rolled a dice, landing on 14. Once he checked to see if he dealt damage, he took a d8 and rolled it on 6.

"Alright, the third orc is bloodied!"

"And now the three goblins are attacking!" you said as you looked at Valerius, Valdemar and Vlastomil, "If I roll 1 or 2, they hit Valerius, 3 or 4 Vlastomil and 5 or 6 Valdemar!" you rolled three d6 dices, not wanting to waste time.

"Why me?!?" Vlastomil asked.

"Because I rolled 3 and 4," you gestured at the dices, "See?"

"Your ACs?" you asked the two of them.

"Sixteen," Valerius said.

"AC is this, right?" Vlastomil asked Nadia, who nodded, "It says twelve... That's bad right?"

"Well, it depends on what I'll roll. So, they all hit with a scimitar," you grabbed the three nearest d20 dices, "Let's see if they'll hit you, Valerius," you rolled one dice, which rolled on twenty, "Consul," you took a glance on him, who knew this was not good for him, "Please don't kill me for this."

"Don't worry," he sighed, "Just get over with it."

"Alright, the goblin deals... eight slashing damage."

"That one is so dead on my turn," he muttered.

"And me?" Vlastomil asked, a bit worried.

"As for you praetor," you rolled two d20s as you glanced over at the papers, grinning to yourself, then checking at the dices, "Two and twelve. One misses, while the other one hits you just strong enough to deal," you rolled a d6, "Five slashing damage."

"See, it wasn't so bad," Valerius said as he sipped his wine, "Stop making a fuss over everything."

"So, it's your turn now."

"I use chaos bolt on them!" he threw the dice a bit too fiercely, hitting Asra's glass.

They leaned over the dice and said, "Fifteen."

"Yeah, you hit them, now let's see the damage," you gave him the three dices.

"Three and two fives, " he said.

"Alright, good job, I won't ask you which damage you dealt, it doesn't matter, you killed it."

"It's what it deserved!"

"My turn now!" Portia shouted, "Let me kill that orc that hit me!" she took the d20, "I'll use my feat sharpshooter on it!" she rolled the dice, "Nineteen... ugh I was so close!"

"Still, you hit him," you commented.

"I did?" she asked with delight in her eyes, "Sweet! Then I'm going to deal," she rolled the dice, "Eighteen damage! Take that!"

"It's dead."

"As it should be!"

"As for orc 5 and 6," you said, "They go for the three of you," you told Volta, Vulgora and Lucio.

"Bitches can try," Vulgora puffed their chest.

"Eek, oh no, that's bad, really bad, what will I do?"

"Nothing tiny Volta, you're just going to heal us while we kill them for you," Vulgora pat her back.

"One or two-Volta; three or four Vulgora; five or six Lucio," you said with excitement in your voice, ' They're close,' you thought as you rolled the dices, "Both of them hit you, Lucio!"

"Bullshit!" he looked at the dices, "You better heal me after this!"

"Oh I will, I will," she bit on the last potato in one of the plates.

"My AC is sixteen, is that good enough?" Lucio asked, a bit nervous.

You rolled the dice and frowned, "Yeah, the right one didn't do anything, as for the other one... he deals 12 damage!"

"But my health points are only 15!" he complained.

"At least be grateful that you lived!" you ignored his other complaints and turned to Asra, "So, what will you do now?"

"I'll get rid of that weak goblin with firebolt!" he said as he rolled natural one.

"Yeah, maybe on the next turn..." you grinned, "And you Nadia?"

"Since we've cleared all of our enemies," she started, "I'll go to the campfire and take out the orcs before they kill Lucio," she grinned.

"Sure, and who will you hit with what?"

"The one that hit Lucio-"

"No way, I'm going to kill them!"

"With my quarterstaff," she ignored his complaints and continued, "I can use my dexterity for that-"

"You can," you agreed.

"And I'll use my unarmed attack as a bonus action."

"Cool, now go on and try," you waited for her to roll the dice. She didn't bother to throw it too harshly, and it turns out it was a good decision.

"Eighteen," you muttered, "Yeah, you kicked him," you waited once more for her to roll a d6, "With nine damage. The orc is bloodied. And your unarmed strike should be... 6, right?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Well, the orc is dead."

"You're welcome Lucio," she grinned.

"Now goblin 8 and 9 will attack you!" you told Vulgora, Volta and Lucio, "Remember those numbers I told you! Let's see if you'll die now, Lucio!"

"I'm not going to be the first one to die!"

You have, once again, ignored his cries and rolled the dices. "Oh, both of them hit you, Vulgora!"

"Those two... I'll crush them!"

"They hit with a scimitar and," you rolled the dices, "If I remember correctly, your AC is 13, right?"

"Yes!" they proudly shouted as they saw that the dices showed 10 and 6, "Hah, what losers! They're dead!"

"Is it my turn now?" Volta asked.

"It is, what are you going to do?"

"Oh, I will heal the count!" she said proudly.

"Hurry!"

"Alright, alright," she winced, "I use cure wounds for that," she rolled Nadia's dice.

"You healed him for ten hp!" you exclaimed, "Congratulations!"

"Thank you," she blushed as she munched on a salad.

"And finally it's my turn!" Vulgora said, "I'll use my chad great axe to kill the remaining orc!" they rolled the dice, "Just enough!" they grinned as they rolled a d12, "Twelve, I rolled twelve!" they shouted.

"Twelve plus four..." you scratched the orc, "There are no more orcs! Valerius, what will you do?"

"I am a man of my word, therefore I shall go against that goblin! I'll throw a javelin," they said as they rolled the dice, to which he frowned, "Thirteen..."

"But with the dexterity bonus and proficiency, it's enough," you added, "Roll the d6,"

"Six..." they frowned once again.

"But, again, with the dexterity bonus, it's just enough. The goblin 6 is dead. Now, goblin 2, 3 and four will attack!" you rolled the dices, as all three of them landed on two, "Oh, sorry Asra."

"Don't worry," they smiled, "They won't be able to get through my unbreakable AC!" they joked, even though they seemed a bit nervous.

You rolled the d20 three times, "Let's see... nine, one and three... I might start to believe that you are right!"

"What did I tell you?" they sighed, relieved.

"It's my turn!" Julian said, "And I'm coming to the rescue for these two," his PC walked to Asra and Muriel, "I'll attack the hurt goblin with Vicious mockery!"

"Alright, you don't need a d20 on that, however, you have to insult them somehow," you laughed as you rolled the saving throw on it, "Your spell save is 16, right?"

"Yeah," he grinned.

"Alright, roll a d4," you said.

He grabbed the dice and threw it, dealing 3 damage.

"You should be able to kill it in the next turn, are you going to do it, Muriel?"

"Sure," he rolled the dice, "Is fourteen good enough?"

"Yeah, now roll that one," you gave him one of the dices.

"Just how many do you have," he muttered as he rolled a three.

"And it's dead, good job!"

"I'll kill that one," Valdemar said, "With chill touch."

"Alrighty, no need for a d20," you told them as you handed them a d8.

"This will take a while to clean," they commented as they looked at the table filled with dices and sheets, and rolled 5.

"It's now bloodied."

"I'll finish it off with my rapier!" he rolled the dice that landed on 12.

"Go on."

Lucio grabbed one of the d8 dices that were lying nearby and threw it, "Four, I killed it, didn't I?"

"Yup," you nodded, as you were scribbling something down, "What will you do Vlastomil?"

"Shoot them with my light crossbow," he said happily as he rolled the dice.

"Nine... sorry but it didn't work," you said as you rolled three d20s, "Maybe Portia will do better."

"Oh I will!" she said, "I'll use the sharpshooter feat and kick their asses!" she said as she rolled 13, "Oh... maybe sharpshooter wasn't a smart idea..."

"But if you add the proficiency and dexterity it's enough," Julian added.

"Ooh, nice," she smiled, "So, it's an instant kill?"

"Yeah, no need for you to roll the dice," you said as you rolled more dices, "Asra, will you do the deed?"

"I think I will," he chuckled as he took a glance at the spells, "With firebolt once again!"

"Thirteen," you took a quick glance at the dice they threw, then buried your head in some papers, "Good job, now roll the d10."

"Eight! All of them are dead!" they proudly said.

"Great, can we go get that dagger now?" Muriel said, a bit annoyed.

"Oh, but, you are at the Saint Milu's," you grinned as your plot twist unveiled, "Just not at the saint Milu's you thought you were at," you started to manipulate the fog as you talked in a low, raspy voice, "Hey there, look at what Milug found! A big tasty lizard!" a tall, heavily armoured orc said, "Milug can't wait to eat this one!" he raised the lizardfolk that struggled to get out of his grasp, "Love how it struggles!" he squeezed the lizardfolk's neck tighter, "Huh? Why is everyone sleeping...Wait, who are you?" he looked at the team, "What you do to Milug's friends?" his face got redder and redder, "You'll pay for hurting Milug's friend!!!"

"Alrighty," you straightened your posture as you took a glance at the enemies, "More of them appeared! And I've rolled their stats already, so the order should look something like this! Valerius, Milug, Julian, Muriel, Valdemar, wolf 1, orc 1, Lucio, Vlastomil, orc 2, orc 3, orc 4, orc 5, Portia, Asra, wolf 2, orc 6, Nadia, Volta, wolf 3, wolf 4, Vulgora. Notice that Milug is no ordinary orc! His attacks are much stronger and his health is higher! So beware!"

"I can't believe you did this to us!" Lucio exclaimed.

"Why are you surprised at this point?" Valerius asked, "Just try to count how many times they have trolled us in these..." he looked at the clock, "Four hours have passed already?!?"

"I told you that time flies quickly, didn't I?" you giggled, "So, what will you do?"

"I... guess I'll kill one of those wolves," he said, rolling a dice, "With a javelin."

"Alrighty," you looked at the dice, a bit taken aback, "Nineteen... Damn, not too bad, consul."

He rolled the d6 next, rolling it on 2, "So, only three damage?"

"Yeah," you said, "You should raise your dexterity on the fourth level. Now, Milug will attack!" you said as you changed your voice, "You're gonna pay!" Milug charged at Nadia with a great axe you rolled the dice, "Sixteen..."

"My AC is 17!" she said relieved.

"But you didn't calculate his bonuses!" you said with a smile forming on your lips.

"So he will attack dealing... 8 damage!"

"Valdemar, what will you do?" you turned to them.

"I'll use the spell from the scroll to attack Milug," they grinned, seeming to be excited about all of this just as much as you are.

"Go ahead, but that means you'll have to approach him..." you warned them.

"I don't care," he turned to Volta, "You'll follow right after."

"Why me, though?" she complained.

"Because you're the only healer," they grinned, "Plus you also have inflict wounds," they rolled the dice, "Is sixteen enough for this beast?"

"With all of the bonuses yes," you responded.

"Good," they said as they rolled 3 d10 dices, "Two, five and seven-plus my wisdom modifier?" they asked you.

"Yes," you commented, "So eighteen points less for poor Milug..."

"It's still not bloodied?" Lucio asked, surprised.

"Nope! And now wolf 1 and orc 1 will attack you Lucio~!"

"Why me again?!?"

"Because you are the closest! Now, let's see... none of them hit you though..."

"Haha!" he cheered proudly, "Now I shall kill that wolf with a rapier!" he rolled a two.

"Nope, Vlastomil?"

"I'll try to hit the wolf with a crossbow," he rolled 12.

"Yeah, you hit it."

"Good," he rolled seven.

"Just perfect," you smiled as you scratched that wolf, "But now there are four orcs... Two are near Portia, while the other two are near Vulgora and Volta."

"Eek," Volta shouted.

"Let's see what will happen to Portia first."

"Oh no, they won't!"

"We'll see," you said as you rolled the dices.

"See?" she pointed at the dices, "They didn't hit me!"

"Yeah, but I suggest you run away ASAP, you only have 2hp left," after you old Portia that, you turned to Vulgora and Volta, "As for the two of you, if I roll even number, it hits Volta, but if I roll uneven it hits Vulgora," you rolled the dices, "Six and four, sorry Volta."

"Oh please, please don't! My AC is only fifteen!"

"Fourteen and ten, how lucky," you commented, "So Portia, what are you going to do?"

"I'll run away from all of the enemies!" she stopped dramatically as she raised both her hands as if she were to shoot an arrow, "Then I'll hit Milug!"

"With sharpshooter?"

"No, because I assume the AC is too big," she rolled the dice, "Nineteen!"

"Yeah, you hit him," you said.

"Dealing eleven damage!" she said after she calculated the damage.

"Now, what will you do Asra?" you asked them as you wrote down Milug's new health.

"I'll attack the wolf!" they said, "With firebolt. Though only after I get to Portia..."

"Alright," you moved Asra's PC, "Roll the dice."

And so they did, rolling 10.

"With all of the bonuses, you hit it," you stared at the d10 they rolled, "And you dealt 10 damage," you wrote it down, "So close! But now the wolf and orc will attack you, Valerius! ... but they failed..." you looked at the dices with disappointment.

"I'll run away from Milug and try to kill wolf 3," Nadia said.

"Alright, roll it."

"Fourteen," she grinned as she rolled a d6 "So three, plus five, plus-"

"Yeah, it's dead," you stopped her and turned to Volta, "What will you do?"

"I told you already!" Valdemar looked at her.

"No way! Come here and heal me!" Portia said.

"I'll heal you," Valerius said, "Let her get to Valdemar."

"You can do that?" she asked.

"Once per long rest."

"Alright then..." her PC walked behind Valdemar's, "I cast inflict wounds!" she rolled seventeen, "I hit them, right?"

You nodded.

Once she saw your approval she rolled three d10s which landed on 10,7 and 5.

"All of that, plus your wisdom modifier..." you muttered to yourself, "Congratulations, Milug is bloodied!"

"Finally!" "Also," Vulgora said, "I'm activating rage!"

"Alright, so now wolf 4 will attack... you Vulgora!" you rolled the dice, "It succeeded-"

"That fucker!"

"Dealing 6 damage!"

"Fuck him!" they said, "I'm going to Milug and attacking with my greataxe!" they rolled the dice.

"Yeah, you hit him."

"So I dealt..." they started calculating, "Twelve damage?"

"Yes," you wrote down the new hp, "Congrats, you're getting the hang of it! Valerius, what will you do?"

"I'll go to Portia and attack Wolf 2 from a distance."

"Hey, what about healing me?" Portia asked, a bit angry, "You said you'll heal me!"

"Afterwards!" he responded, "Stop worrying, I'm in no better situation than you."

"I have 2hp while you have 4hp, so, I say you're doing better than me!"

"Whatever," he sighed, "I'm hitting wolf 2 with my javelin..." a grin formed on consul's face, "20... I suppose the animal is dead!"

"Yeah, don't bother with rolling the damage," you said, "Now it's Milug's turn! Since you're closest to him, he'll attack you, Valdemar, with his greataxe!" you rolled the dice, "But he failed..." you stared at the 2 on d20, disappointed.

"Well, then I shall attack orc 1!" Julian said, "With my amazing vicious mockery!"

"It failed a save," you sighed.

"And now, I shall deal," he rolled a d4, "Two...plus four-Sixx damage!" he stopped as he thought of an insult, "Your mom is so fat when she walked over the play in a theatre, I missed 2 acts!"

"Julian that joke is terrible," Portia giggled, "But whatever..."

"I'll go to the orc1 and attack with the scimitar," Muriel said, "I succeeded, right?" he asked.

"Yeah."

He rolled the dice.

"Congrats Muriel!" you said, "The orc is dead!" you scratched the orc's name, "Valdemar, what shall you do?"

"I'll cast poison spray on our dear Milug," they grinned.

"Sure, you're not hitting anyone," you rolled the d20 for Milug's saving throw, "I'm sorry, but with that natural 20, you failed."

They just rolled their eyes, "Whatever," then they turned to others, "Volta, you stay here, while others go and kill the other orcs."

"Who are you to give out the demands?" Lucio asked, angrily.

"Why shouldn't I give orders? Do you know anyone better for that?" they mocked him.

"They do have a point though," Nadia explained, "If we kill all of the orcs, then we will be able to focus only on Milug."

"Ugh fine... I'm going to orc 2 and hitting it with my rapier," they rolled the dice. Once he's seen it's enough, he rolled the d8.

"Seven damage... the orc is bloodied."

"I'll move to Portia and Valerius, and shoot that orc with my crossbow!" Vlastomil said.

"For a sorcerer, you don't use that many spells," Valerius commented.

Vlastomil ignored the rude comment and rolled the dice, "Twenty!" he rolled a dice, "Seven damage!"

"You roll once more," you explained to him.

"Oh, how great!" he exclaimed as he rolled the dice again, "Three..." he stared at the dice, disappointed.

"You killed the orc though," you said, "Now the other three shall attack! Since none of you is near them, they will have to move back to Milug!"

"You gotta be kidding me..."

"Nope, so anyways - 1 and 2 for Valdemar; 3 and 4 for Volta; and 5 and 6 for Vulgora!" you rolled the dices: 5, 3 and 3.

"So, they attack Vulgora, but since they have rage it's pretty much useless..."

"Haha, there you go, fuckers!"

"So, Volta..." you rolled the dices, "Eight and fourteen... wow, you're so lucky!"

"Phew," she sighed in relief.

"Portia?" you asked.

"I'll attack that wolf with sharpshooter!" she exclaimed as she rolled the dice, "Natural twenty!!! Oh my gosh!!! Let's see... 10 from sharpshooter, plus 2 plus 6."

"It's dead, therefore, now you only have orcs. Asra?"

"I'll attack the orc 6 with firebolt!" they rolled twelve, "that, plus my wisdom is enough!" he rolled the dice, "So... with everything combined... nine damage?"

"Yeah, it's bloodied now, and ready to attack... it walks to Milug and decides to attack you, Volta!"

"Oh no..."

"...And it hits, dealing... nine damage!"

"I only have 1 hp left!" she panicked.

"Don't worry Volta," Nadia said, "I'm coming to them, attacking Milug with the quarterstaff," she rolled nineteen, "And I'll deal... five...plus five... plus my bonus attack- sixteen damage!"

"Volta, what will you do?" you asked her, "Milug is close to dying, but so are you."

"Uhh...I'll use cure wounds on myself!" she rolled the dice and grinned, "Six, I rolled six!"

"Good job, tiny one!" Vulgora grinned, "Now I shall kill Milug!" they rolled the d20 which landed on 18, "Is this enough?"

"Yup, go ahead."

"Fuck yeah!" they rolled a d12, landing on twelve, "Is Milug dead?"

"Yes."

"Let's finish orcs now," Valerius said, "I attack the hurt one with rapier... And with this eighteen I hit it, dealing... seven damage!"

"It's dead."

"Now I will attack orc 3 with vicious mockery!"

"Again?" you asked as you rolled the dice, "Sorry, but it succeeded."

"Dammit..." Julian sighed.

"I hit the orc with scimitar," Muriel said.

"You hit him," you said.

"Six damage..."

"And this time," Valdemar said, "I'll go in front of the orcs and cast poison spray!"

"Let's see if you'll succeed," you rolled three dices, "You hurt everyone except for the fifth one."

"So, I should deal...thirteen damage combined?"

"Yes, orc 3 is dead, while orc four is bloodied."

"I'll go for the orc 5," Lucio said, "With the rapier!"

"Yeah, you hit it."

"And I shall deal... Two only?!?"

"Two plus three... five damage," you concluded as you wrote something down.

"I'll walk to them and use poison spray too!"

"Sure Vlastomil... no, I'm the one who will roll dices."

"Alright..."

"Yeah, you hit them."

"Oh, how great!" he said as he rolled d12, "Ten damage!"

"You killed them both! Congratulations, you've won! Now, as for the experience... let's see... Overall, you've gotten 2160xp. You can all share it amongst each other, which means everyone will need 120xp to get to the next level, or you can ration it amongst each other so that some of you can advance."

"Let's just share it evenly," Nadia suggested, "We'll get more XP later on."

"I agree, let's not waste any more time. We should go and tell the whole village we killed Milug!" Portia said.

"But didn't that girl say that we need proof?" Muriel asked.

"Don't worry, I'll fix that in a second," Lucio said as he took out his rapier and cut off Milug's head, "This should be good enough."

"Can we take the enemy's weapons and sell them?" Valerius asked.

"Yeah, you can, but the price will be less than the original."

"Alright, let's take it all!"

"But who are we going to sell it to? That shopkeeper doesn't want to see us!"

"Ilya can go there. Maybe the guy will feel pity over him when he sees his face again."

"Oh come on, why do you have to make fun of my face?!?"

"So you will take their weapons... which means you will take over 10 great axes?"

"Now that you mention it... how are we going to do that?"

"Maybe, like, we will take turns on bringing the axes?"

"Or how about we take only the most preserved axes?" Valerius suggested, "There is no point in carrying those," he pointed at some of the axes.

"He has a point," Asra said, "Let's take those five axes, I'll use prestidigitation to clean the axes, as well as clean ourselves."

"Sure, you'll take 6 great axes with yourselves."

"Alright!" Portia said as she nudged Muriel, "Lead the way!"

"You've been walking, and walking and walking until you got to the edge of the village."

"Let's go sell the great axes!" Portia said, "Come on Julian, let's got together!"

"Alright, the two of you went inside while others are waiting for you," you changed the background into the inside of the shop, isolating other players, "Sorry, but I have to."

"Oh no, it's you rascals again! I'm calling the gu-"

"Wait! We're here to sell things, see?" Julian showed great axes.

"Where did you get those?" he asked.

"We killed Milug!"

"Like hell you did."

"But we did sir," Portia picked up one of the axes that were in better condition, "It even has his autograph," she showed him the handle with a bad carving on it.

"You, you killed him!" the shopkeeper shouted as he realised it, "I, I can't believe my eyes... I'll buy it for 700 gp!"

The siblings looked at each other, trying to think if the offer was worth it.

"I say we go for it," Portia said.

"Not so quickly," Julian shrugged, "I'll roll my persuasion check to see if I can raise the price for 760gp."

"...Sure," you said after a moment of silence, "The AC is 18 though."

He prayed quickly and rolled the dice. After a couple of moments, it stopped near you, landing on 13.

"Your bonus is?"

"Plus six."

You shrugged, a bit disappointed, but still, you kept your word," Alright, you succeeded. That greataxe is sold for 760 GPS. As for the other 5 great axes... You can sell each for 11gp."

"Fair enough," both of them said.

"Alrighty, you sold things. Do you want to buy anything?"

"Um.... ten arrows?"

"Sure young lady," the man said, "That will be... 2 GPS."

"Here ya go," she said as she wanted to write her money down, "Wait, how much money did I gain then?"

"Everyone gained seventy-four gp, with one gp left for all of you to share amongst yourselves."

"Or..." Portia said with a smirk, "Maybe we could share that goldpiece between the two of us!"

"Others shall never find out about this," Julian handshake Portia in agreement.

"Very well then, I'll keep my lips sealed too," you said.

"I don't need anything, so let's leave already."

You broke the walls that deafened others, who immediately asked, "So, how much did everyone gain?"

"Seventy-four GPS each."

"Good enough," Nadia said, "Now let's go find that girl and get the reward."

All of them walked through the town, getting glares from people as they looked at Milug's head.

"Oh mi gosh!" the girl ran to them, shouting, "You did it! And you came back alive. I can't believe my eyes!" she stared at Milug's head, "That must be him, right?" with her finger she trailed the old scar on Milug's jawline, "That must be the scar my mom gave him... I remember when she came back after the fight with him....all bloody... and the only thing she said before she died was, 'I only scratched his jaw.'" she put her hands away from the hand, staying quiet.

"Yeah, that's depressing and all of that shit," Vulgora started.

"Not really," Valdemar cut them off.

"But what about the reward?" Vulgora continued talking.

"I..." she was silent for a moment, taken back by the apathy those two showed, "Follow me." she dropped her head low, leading them all to her house.

"Volta is sorry, so sorry for what happened to you," Volta's PC hugged the little girl, "Here," she offered a few her food rations to the girl, "Food always makes me feel better."

"No wonder you eat so much," Valerius commented.

"Thank you," the little girl hugged Volta's PC before she took the small pastry Volta offered.

"You know you're going to die of starvation if you continue giving everyone your food, right?"

"Why are you so generous to the useless NPCs of all characters?"

"You give food in the game like it's nothing, but you would bite my arm off if I tried to take even a bit of food."

Volta just winced at everyone's comments, unsure of how to react.

"Don't worry Volta, just keep doing what you want to do," Nadia reassured the tiny procurator.

"Oh thank you, countess! You're always so kind to Volta!"

"Here we are," the girl opened the doors of a big house, "Come on in. Please don't break, nor steal anything."

All of them walked into the house one by one, some struggling to fit through the door. The girl led them through the hallway, turning back from time to time to check if they were stealing anything. At the end of the hallway, they turned left, to the single door. Before she knocked, the girl turned to them, saying, "Please behave," then she turned back to the door, knocking, "Dad, it's me, I brought the adventurers I told you about."

After a couple of moments, a loud, sharp, 'Come in' could be heard at the other side of the door. Once she heard that, the girl opened the door, leading them all into the room.

"So you did it," the man stood out of his chair, walking towards Lucio who held the head. He took it from his hand and examined it, "It really is Milug," the man smiled as he put the head on the table, "Words cannot express how grateful I am for your actions," he shook Lucio's hand.

"But money can," Julian added.

"But money can," the man repeated Julian's words with a smile, "You've done this village a favour, so here," he walked back to his table, picking up a tray with 11 pouches, "Here, take them. Each one of them should contain 150gp, along with," he took the coupons from the bottom of the tray, "These. Each one of these coupons can give you 50gp from our dear shopkeeper."

"Thank you," Asra said, "Do you know any place where we can spend the night?"

"Do not worry, my friend, I'll let you sleep here, but just for tonight."

"That's all we need, thank you," Nadia said.

"Do you know where Saint Milu's church is?" Portia asked them, "We wanted to go there."

"That church has been abandoned for as long as I remember," he said, "But if you wanted to go here, sure. It's east from the village, a half-day of walking after the bakery."

"Thank you, we shall head there tomorrow," Valerius said, "But now we should finish the long rest, no?"

"Yeah, he's right, let's sleep now."

"Fine," you shifted the surroundings, changing it into dark bedrooms that are separate from everyone. All of them could hear you, but not each other. "You sleep and recover fully, yay. Also Volta," you turned to her, making sure others can't hear you, "When you woke up, you found the note beside your bed: 'Thank you for confronting me today,' with a necklace attached to it."

"Oh, that's so kind of her," Volta said, with small tears forming in her eyes, "It's so nice that people in this game are nicer to Volta than people in real life!"

"The necklace requires an attunement though," you told her, "Just wear it while all of you travel to the church. That should be enough time."

"Alright, Volta will do as you say," she put the necklace on, hiding it beneath the layers of her PC's clothes.

"So anyway," you shifted the surroundings yet again, putting them all together, "You've healed completely."

"Let's go to the shop and buy something!" Portia said happily.

"Sure, you went to the shop," you showed the inside of the shop, once again, "What will you buy?"

"I'll buy ring mail," Volta said.

"Oh, yes, I have one of those just for you," the shopkeeper smiled, "That will be 40gp."

"I also want a scroll with cure wounds."

"So 90gp total, young lady."

"Alright," she handed the man the coupon with additional 40gp, "I have leather armour if anyone needs it," she said.

"Can I take that?" Asra asked, "I'll give you 7gp for it."

"Sure."

"Thanks!" Asra said, turning to the shopkeeper, "I'd like to take a healing potion."

"That will be 55gp, young man."

"How much is it for 20 javelins?" Valerius asked.

"Hm," the shopkeeper mumbled something to himself, then after a couple of moments thinking, finally responded, "3gp."

"I'll take that, along with a longsword and lance."

"That will be 35gp!"

"Can you give me the remaining 15gp from this coupon?" Valerius asked him.

"No, sorry sir, you'll have to spend it here."

"Guess I'll use it some other time."

"Give me studded leather armour," Valdemar demanded with a grin.

"I, I here," he handed them what they wanted.

"Pleasure doing business with you," they said, putting the coupon on the shopkeeper's table.

"I'll also take a potion of healing," Nadia said.

"I'll take inflict wounds spell scroll!" Vlastomil said as he handed the shopkeeper the coupon along with 5gp.

"Question, do you have Charlatan's die?"

"Yes my scarred friend," the shopkeeper told Julian, "That will be 75 gp!"

"Alright," he handed the man the coupon along with money, "Now I need to attune to this?" he asked you.

"Yup, but you should be able to do it while walking," you said with a smirk, "I'll put the rules aside for now."

"Something tells me we're going to be fucked up," Portia said with a nervous laugh.

"Yes," you responded with a grin as you looked into the papers, "You've come to Saint Milu's church!" you changed the surrounding to the front of an abandoned church, "What now?"

"We get in!" Vulgora shouted.

"Very well then," you changed the terrain to the party's familiar tiled floor in the church. The church was old, cold with some small ponds of water in it. But ahead of it all was a huge white dragon, "You'll have to defeat the dragon in order to get the dagger."

"I told you we're fucked!"

"Should we roll the initiative?" Nadia asked as she took the dice in her hand.

"Yup."

After all of them rolled and calculated their initiative, the order was, as shown:

Dragon, Nadia, Valerius, Vulgora, Portia, Asra, Julian, Volta, Lucio, Muriel, Valdemar and Vlastomil. As for the positions, they decided not to part yet, so they put the ones with the strongest AC, Valerius and Nadia in front, along with Vulgora, who just wanted to go and beat the life out of that dragon. Right behind them were Lucio, Julian, Muriel and Vlastomil. All the way behind were Asra, Volta, Valdemar and Portia.

"Well then, this dragon has 200hp."

"Two hundred?!?!?" Vlastomil asked, clearly shaking, "How in the world are we going to kill that?"

"There is eleven of you, this shouldn't be that much of a problem," you commented, "Plus everyone will advance to level three immediately after this fight."

"Seems like a good offer," Nadia said with a smile, "So, the dragon will attack?"

"Yes, using it's mighty claw to attack you, Nadia!" you rolled the dice, landing it on 4, "And it fucking fails!" you said a bit frustrated, "How did I succeed to fail... Whatever," you calmed down, "Nadia, what do you do?"

"I walk towards it and attack it with my quarterstaff!" she smiled as she rolled 14.

"Yeah, you hit it," you said, still a bit salty, "You hit it when it had 18 AC! Fucking eighteen, and I couldn't hit you..."

"So I have the same AC as the dragon," Valerius smirked.

"I hit it with my quarterstaff, dealing, five plus five damage," she smiled, "And I will attack it once again, dealing 6 damage!"

"Good job, countess, now I will walk near it and hit it with my longsword," Valerius said as he rolled 14.

"But before that, I activate rage!" Vulgora said with a grin.

"You hit him too," you said as you watched Valerius roll a 5 with a bit of envy, "So you dealt 8 damage. Vulgora?"

"I run to that son of a bitch and hit it with my handaxe!" they said as they rolled 15. After that successful roll, they rolled d12 which landed on 10.

"So ten plus your strength and rage bonus," you calculated for a moment, "Sixteen damage."

"Ugh, I can't use my sharpshooter," Portia said with a sad expression on her face, "Unless..." she thought for a moment, "If the AC is 18 and my," she continued mumbling, "So I can use the feat if I rolled higher than 17?"

"Yeah," you said after giving it a bit more thought, "But do you think you can do it?"

"I believe you can do it," Julian said with a smirk, "I give her one of my bardic inspiration dices!"

"Alright," she said with determination gleaming in her eyes, "I can do this!" she threw the dice a bit too strongly, making it land in Muriel's empty glass of lemonade.

He took a look inside of his glass and read, "Twenty."

"OH MY GOD!!!" Portia and you shouted, "I did it!!!" she smiled as she rolled two dices, with a comment, "From now on I'm always throwing the dices in your glass!"

"Six and five," you said, "Julian, how much from bardic inspiration?"

"Six," he said with a smirk, "I have charlatan's die, remember?"

"Oh, right, so overall, you Portia dealt... Thirty-one damage."

"Alright!" she smiled triumphally.

"I'll hit the dragon with my firebolt," they rolled the dice, landing it on 9, "Guess I didn't hit it."

"I'll use dissonant whispers on that dragon!"

"It has a saving throw of +6" you warned him.

"And I don't care!" he said as he watched you roll a natural 1.

"So... I deal double damage?" he asked you.

"..." you stared at your hands for a moment, not believing how they all seem to be killing the dragon even though they are all the first level, "Yeah. Roll 6d6."

"Soo... three, two, four, four, two, five, plus 4 because of my spellcasting ability... Twenty four damage!"

"Alright," you said, losing hope, "The creature tries to run away from you, but it has nowhere to go."

"I, I will use my spell bless on Vulgora, Valdemar and Nadia."

"Good job, small one!"

"And now, the moment you have all been waiting for!" Lucio exclaimed, dramatic as always.

"You'll finally leave?" Muriel asked.

"What? No!" he said, "I'm going to that dragon, attacking it with my rapier... Seventeen!" he exclaimed happily once he saw what he rolled.

"Yeah, you hit it, now, let's see how much damage you'll do."

He rolled the dice, dramatically as always, "I rolled a six!"

"So nine damage in total," you wrote down on the paper, "Congratulations, the dragon is bloodied."

"Can I use my cantrip shape water?" Muriel asked you as he pointed at one of the ponds in front of the dragon.

"I, uh," you looked at your list of cantrips, "Sure? But why would you do that?"

"I shape the water and put it in the dragon's nostrils," he responded simply.

"Wait, you what?!?" you looked at him in disbelief.

You know very well that he can do that after all the water was about three feet below the dragon's head, who was already tired from the fight. But if he did that, then he would kill the dragon. It does have resistance to cold damage, but it can't breathe underwater.

"I uh..." you started, "Well yes, you did it, but you didn't deal instant damage. Instead, the dragon will take a... let me think real quick... 2d4 damage as long as you keep using the cantrip. How about that?"

"Sounds good enough," he simply responded, hiding his joy. He didn't want to admit it, but he actually enjoyed the game.

"Good job man," Portia gave him a pat, "So how much damage will you deal?"

He rolled the two dices, "Five."

"Eight," you corrected him, "You need to include your wisdom modifier."

"Well then," Valdemar said with a grin, "I'll use chill touch on the dragon... eighteen," they chuckled, "How lucky of me, right MC?"

You stared at them for a moment, debating whether you should summon another dragon just because they are being a dick. In the end, you decided that it would be better if two ancient black dragons guarded the next artefact, which will hopefully be able to attack, "Yes, how lucky of you, quaestor," you responded through your teeth as you watched them roll 8 on the dice, then 2 on the Volta's d4, "Fourteen damage. Vlastomil?"

"I, I'll hit the nasty thing with my crossbow... I failed, didn't I?" he looked disappointed at the 16.

"No, you hit it," you said, a bit annoyed, "You need to add your proficiency and dexterity bonus to that."

"Oh, how delightful," he smiled, as he rolled 1 on d8, "So... three damage?"

"Yup."

"And now for the main attraction!" you said as you rolled the dice, "I rolled a natural 20! Sorry Valerius, but you'll have to-"

"I use my lucky feat," Nadia stopped you.

"You what?" you asked her, dumbfounded.

"I have a right to use my lucky feat three times a day to ask you to reroll the dice," she explained to you, "So do it," she said with an evil smirk.

"You, you can't do this..." you stared at her in disbelief, "I, I swear I won't go easy on you next time..." you said as you rerolled the dice, "But I rolled 16! Which is enough to-"

"Reroll it again," Nadia repeated with amusement in her voice.

You stared at her for a moment, thinking about how putting two ancient dragons next time is a great idea.

"Fine..." you rerolled the dice, "And I didn't do shit now. Happy?"

"Yes," she smiled, "So now I will attack the dragon, as usual," she said, rolling 18, "And hitting it, dealing..." she looked at the d8 with a bit of disappointment, "Only 6 damage. But then I will hit it with my unarmed strike, and I'll use a d4...dealing 10 more damage!"

"Valerius?" you asked.

"I hit it with my longsword," he rolled the dice, "But I fail," he sighed in disappointment.

"Now I will go for that dragon!" they said as they rolled 16, then 8, "Dealing 14 damage!"

"You can also add Volta's d4, remember?"

"Oh shit you're right!" they said as they rolled 1, "Whatever. Fifteen damage total."

"I'll use longbow!" Portia said proudly as she rolled the dice.

"I'm giving her the dice," Julian smirked.

"And I'm hitting it, dealing eleven damage, plus six, right Ilyushka?"

"Mhm," he said with joy in his eyes.

"Alright, the dragon is left on 17hp!"

"Also, I'm giving Asra my dice too," Julian said.

"I'm hitting it with firebolt this time!" Asra said as he rolled sixteen, "Told you! And now I will deal... thirteen damage!"

"I'm attacking it with vicious mockery!" Julian said proudly.

"Yeah, you failed."

"I can't do anything because of bless, right?" Volta asked.

"Yup," you said with joy.

"I'm hitting the dragon with a rapier!" Lucio said proudly.

"No, you're not."

"I'm still balancing the water in his nostrils," Muriel said as he rolled the dices, "I rolled seven, so... ten damage overall?"

"You did it..." you said, a bit disappointed as you showed the illusion of the dragon collapsing on the ground then slowly melting down, "You killed the dragon. It didn't even bruise you... So, everyone gains 909 XP from this, which means all of you levelled to 3rd level. Look at the features you gain on second and third level..."

After half an hour, everyone decided on all of the features they were going to get and they expected more of the story to come.

"So what loot do we get?"

"You get the dagger," you simply responded.

"Cool, let's try the dagger," Portia stared at the rusty old dagger, "Wait, this is the dagger?"

"Yes, why," you gave them a grin, "Is there a problem with it?"

"Obviously," Vulgora said, "Look at that! It's useless!"

"Wait, I use my religion stat to recall the lore about the dagger," Valerius said.

"Alright," you said, "DC is 15."

He rolled the dice in Nadia's direction, "Sixteen."

"So, the story goes like this. It was a rather lovely evening in the church of Saint Milu, however, Maila's dreams weren't like that. In that magical world, the Abaddon appeared, imbuing her with the holy knowledge, answering one of the most important questions- what happens when you die? The girl knew that keeping such knowledge would mean a catastrophe, so she used her to create this holy weapon, hiding the knowledge inside of it. To make sure that the weapon remained hidden, she put it in the Milu's statue. She thought that abandoning the knowledge was for the best, however, that only led to more miseries. From that point on, nuns kept gossiping between each other how they could hear Milu's statue talking to them, from small things such as reciting the prayers, to starting a conversation. Nuns were convinced that it was Milu talking to them, so, over time, they would talk to the statue, asking it for the advice. And thus, the innocent nuns learned the truths that weren't meant to be known. Over time, they started to spread the dagger's knowledge to common townsfolk. Such knowledge brought misery to the townspeople, making them more focused on stopping death, rather than enjoying life. A certain white dragon watched all of that and decided that it was upon him to end people's miseries. It went into the town, completely destroying it, killing everyone. Then it went into the church and ate all of the nuns, accidentally eating the statue with them. Upon consuming the statue, it also gained the holy knowledge and decided that it was not meant for small, weak humans, so it made a deal with the gods: The dragon will keep the dagger safe from human hands, and it shall live for as long as the dagger is in its possession. It was a great deal which benefited both parties, the dragon didn't have to watch more innocent people dying, while gods were sure that such knowledge won't be used against them. So every time some of the humans would take the dagger, the dragon would die, however, whenever gods returned the dagger, the dragon would come back to life."

"So, what you're saying is," Portia concluded, "That we killed a dragon who just wanted to protect all of us, and the only way to bring it back is to give the dagger back?"

"Yeah."

"Hm," Nadia thought for a moment, "So basically, the only thing that can kill the gods is not the dagger, but rather Abaddon's knowledge inside of it?"

"Mhm."

"So then, can we listen to the dagger's knowledge, then give it back to the dragon?"

"Yeah, but you need to roll 23 on insight."

"Who has the highest wisdom?" Julian asked.

"I believe that would be me," Valdemar grinned, "My wisdom modifier is +4."

"Yeah, it's Valdemar."

"I cast bless so that Valdemar can add a d4," Volta said.

"Okay, I'll allow it."

"I use my bardic inspiration on Valdemar!"

"Very well then," they grinned as they took the rusty dagger, shifting it closer to their ear, listening to it as they rolled the dice.

"Thirteen plus 3 from Volta and plus 6 from Julian... So close!" you said with a grin.

"What about my bonus on insight?" Valdemar asked.

"Oh, right..." you said, "Well then, congratulations, you got the first artefact!"

"Finally!" everyone sighed in relief.

"So, I'll return the dagger if that's alright," Julian said.

"Wait, don't do it!" Asra warned him, but too late. Julian had already put the dagger in the middle of the pool of the dragon's leftovers. As soon as the rusty metal made contact with the strange liquid, it started to shape itself back into its original form.

"Quick, Vulgora," Vlastomil said, "Go talk to the dragon!"

"Fine... Hey buddy," Vulgora's PC stared at the dragon who was ready to kill them, "Look, we're sorry for killing you."

"Doubt it," the dragon responded with spite.

"Well, in the beginning, we weren't, but once we've learned you did it all for the good of us, we felt sorry, so we decided to return the dagger."

"But then why did you come here, if not for the dagger?" the dragon leaned to Vulgora.

"Well, we came for a weapon to kill a god! But it turns out that all we needed was the knowledge inside the dagger-"

"That was the only thing you shouldn't have taken."

"But everything is fine, see?" Vulgora pointed at Valdemar's PC, who seemed to have a different kind of shine in his eyes, "They learned the knowledge and haven't gone insane!"

"I..." the dragon looked at everyone, "So you want to kill gods?" it chuckled, "Why?"

"So that everyone would be forced to become atheists," Vulgora exclaimed proudly.

The dragon gave a deep, loud laugh: "I haven't laughed like this in centuries! You aren't the brightest pests, but you sure are hard to kill. And that seems to be more important nowadays... Fine, I can't deal with the Gods' bullshit anymore-"

"Neither can we!"

"So, I will let you use this place as your home. Just don't disturb me."

"And that's it for today!" you exclaimed as you let the fog die out, "Next time, let's have a group of 6 come over so that it could be manageable."

#the arcana #the arcana headcanons #main 6 #the arcana asra #the arcana nadia #the arcana julian #the arcana muriel #the arcana portia #the arcana lucio #valdemar #consul valerius #valerius #volta #vlastomil #vulgora

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

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So let’s say you’re now in charge of creating a Spider-Man TV Series, as many seasons and episodes you want, as long as it remains genuinely faithful to the comics; Peter gets his powers when he’s 17, only Flash and Liz are with him in high school, ect, and ending it all with a Revelations like series finale. You’re allowed to streamline some things now that there’s the benefit of hindsight. You’re also allowed to be as faithful to the comics as possible. What do you create?

Lol I’ve been planning this for like 15 years. Currently I’d do this. 12 seasons 26 episodes each, and 3 movies.

I’d play it as a biography of Peter’s life from the day he became Spidey to the day he stopped, with a mind of making a version of the MC2 universe the canonical future for this version of Spidey. I’d set it in the 1960s as depicted by Ditko but have the technology and fashions change to broadly speaking reflect the time periods that Peter spent parts of his life in. In other words his high school episodes will be set in what looks like the 1960s, Gwen would die in what would look like the early 1970s and he’d get married in what would look like the late 1980s. But cultural references would be kept to a minimal. Effentivly it’d be set in a world where fashions and technology happened to occur way more quickly thanin the real life, so 1962-1998’s fashions and technologies all happened but across like 12 years.

Also I’d have Peter’s look change. He’d start out with the Coke bottle glasses and keep them throughout season 1, and he’d have a black and red costume, complete with a big blue spider on his back and web pits. The idea being this is a rookie spidey who’s awkward and not yet become the Spidey we perhaps recognize. He’d sell his glasses in the final episodes and get his costume wrecked in the finale, requiring him to make a new one, the classic Romita Senior outfit minus the web pits. He’d keep that until he got his black suit which would be modelled on Frenz’ take upon it. the cloth Black suit would have more of a McFarlane influence with huge eyes. MJ would make him a new red+blue costume before his first big showdown with Venom which would resemble the McFarlane/Bagley 90s look. Obviously Scarlet Spider’s look would be modelled on Bagley’s design, Spider-Ben on Romita Jr’s and his final outfit would be modelled on Romita Jr’s too. And Sal Buscema’s take would be the outfit worn by Flash when he pretends to be Spider-Man.

Movie 1: Amazing Fantasy: The Birth of Spider-Man: The origin, MAYBE rounded off with ASM #1’s plot.

Season 1: Basically everything up to when he graduated with every issue serving as an episode. I’d omit guest appearances like the F4, the Torch, DD, the Circus of Crime. I’d supplant the ASM #5’s plot with one about Jason Macendale armed with tech abducting Flash when he’s dressed as Spidey. He’d be a stand in for the Headman from Untold Tales and the episode would end with his mysterious boss speaking to Spidey remotely through a camera. This would of course be the Goblin who I’d have debut in what was his second appearance hijacking the Spidey fan club. I’d have Doc Ock unmasking Spidey end that episode and have most of it dedicated to Betty Brant’s origin told in flashbacks as she’s abducted. I’d do Spider-Man No More here, combining it with ASM #18’s plot line as it’d redundant to have him quit in big ways twice. So one episode would be ASM #18’s plot with bits of ASM #50 mixed in, ending with him throwing away his suit. Then the next episode would be about his Spidey free life before he triumphantly returns. The Molten man episodie would end with Aunt May collapsing rather than Spidey graduating.

This would lead directly into the MP Trilogy’s main storyline but to spice things up the Master Planner would hire some of Spider-Man’s villains as extra obstacles in his way, thus we’d adapt the original Sinister Six story too. The last episode would end with Peter graduating and then sitting alone to make a new suit. Also Betty would leave town.

Season 2: It’d kick off with a recovered Peter starting college and someone hiring Kraven to go after Spidey like in ASM #34. The key difference here being that Kraven dons Spider-man’s old costume and when Spidey finally shows up to deal with him he’s sporting his new red and blue Romita Sr threads. Then we’d get the Robot Master stuff, the first Rhino story and a few other stories before around episode 6 or 7 getting to the Goblin unmasking Spider-Man and revealing himself as Norman. I’d have Norman seriously injured to the point where Spider-Man has to save him or else he’d die. He’d sweat about Norman knowing the truth like in Spider-Man: Blue before finding out Norman has amnesia and that most people don’t recover their memories. Seeing how happy Harry is, he decided to let it go and give Norman a chance. The rest of the season is basically adapting the big Romita era stories (sans Spider-Man No More of course), with an emphasis on Kingpin and fewer Doc Ock stories. POSSIBLY I might do Doc Ock’s origin from Unlimited #3 here, I dunno. It’d either be here or next season though. The season would wrap up with George Stacy’s death and with Gwen leaving.

Also I’d foreshadow a little that Norman has a healing factor via his speedy recovery.

Also, also, rather than space spores creating Colonel Jupiter, I’d have it be the Moon Gem that actually turned him into man-Wolf. It’d be an artefact he’d bring back from the moon and it’d increase his strength and affect his mind so that he’d desire to have the gem for some unknown reason (we’ll find out later).

Season 3: This would be half a team up season, introducing characters from the Marvel Universe who’re relevant to Spider-Girls’ stories, so the F4, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, Spider Woman, Arana, Julia Carpenter, the Avengers, the X-Men, etc. It’d begin with Peter heading to London to find Gwen and inadvertently winding up in a team up, I’ve not figured out with whom yet (maybe Ice Man and Firestar for funsies, MAYBE Excalibur so we’d get Spider Phoenix????), anyway it’d adapt ASM #95 in any case. Then we’d go to the drug trilogy but I’ve not yet decided how to handle this. On the one hand it’s iconic. On the other it’s questionable by modern standards to have Peter see Norman remember the truth and then just let him go on, hoping he doesn’t remember. Maybe you could play it as him being worried that turning Norman in could trigger his memory, I dunno. I feel you could swap out the action part of the story with something else, provided you kept all the Harry drug stuff the same, and maybe had the story be about Norman STARTING to remember and unravel. When peter goes to him for a job though he’d catch a glimpse of a weird painting, depicting the Scriers and Norman would give a little background on their alleged history.

I’d also have the Six Arm Saga and debut of Morbius happen here, but link it in with some illegal genetic experiments someone within ESU is doing on the side for the mob. These experiments would lead to the creation of Vermin who owns Spidey’s ass until he’s saved by someone at the end of the episode. After Vermin beats a retreat, that someone helps Spidey up and it’s Captain America! Cue an ep of Spidey and Cap on the helicarrier with Chameleon using Artificial Life similicra to infiltrate it. Cap is abducted at the end of this episode and the Avengers show up accusing Spider-Man of it. Cue the next 2 episodes where Spider-Man teams up with the Avengers to take on the Hulk in Canada and Seth, the Serpent God of Death. This would then lead into the final 2 episodes which I’ll get to in a moment.

Also in this season I’d have a two part team up with Spidey and Spider Woman. Madame Web would summon them and reveal she is a member of the Spider Clan. Her granddaughter Anya Corazon, has been abducted by the Tarantula clan and Peter and Jess need to rescue her. This would allow Spidey to meet Madame Web, Jessica Drew and Anya of course and foreshadow the Black Tarantula. The Tarantula Clan’s outfits would resemble Julia Carpenter’s Spider Woman and Arachne outfits. This would lead to a ‘filler’ ep about Spider-Man fixing his suit and daydreaming about other costumes and powers he could have. This would be an excuse to pay homage to the Spider Armour, Captain Universe and a few other classic outfits for Spider-Man. the episode would end with him tossing away a doodle of the black costume inspired by his previous adventure. Later we’d get Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut but the story would end with the X-Men showing up. The episode after that would be a Spidey/X-Men team up but Mastermind would mind control them into fighting, thus we’d get Spider-Man vs. the X-Men like Secret Wars #3

The final 2 eps would be the Death of Gwen Stacy. I’d keep this pretty much the same but with the exception of having Gwen awake and trying to escape. The moments just before she’s knocked off the bridge Peter would try to earn her trust by starting to unmask.

Season 4: It’d kick off with the Jackal hiring Punisher to take out Spider-Man. Apart from that it’d be basically ASM #123-149, all about Peter grieving Gwen, falling in love with MJ, etc. I would cut some of the dumber stuff out though and condense some multi-parters into single stories. I’d whack in some team ups for good measure too as MTU was around at this time. One major change I’d make is that I’d have Man-Wolf show up as a result of similar experiments that created Vermin and ditch the moon gem stuff. However, Man-Wolf would eventually go after the Moon gem but it’s energies would in fact revert him to normal. The clprit behind Man-wolf and Vermin would be revealed as Miles Warren.

One smaller change I’d make would be to omit ASM #150. It’s a great issue but it’s not a great season finale like ASM #149 would be. BUT I’d keep the MJ scene from it by simply moving it to the events of ASM #149. The idea is that when the bomb hits zero, everything fades to white, Peter would wake up amidst debris, when Gwen asks how he knows he’s the real one, he’d respond that ‘he just knows’. Later as he’d be approaching his apartment we’d get a flashback revealing that he was thinking of MJ as the bomb hit zero and so he couldn’t be the clone. Cue him finding MJ in the apartment, end season.

Season 5: Basically the Len Wein run with a dash of Marv Wolfman. It’d wrap up with a combination of 3 Wolfman era stories. MJ proposing to MJ, Spidey vs. the Burglar from ASM #200 and finally Peter graduating. A major change would be that MJ would literally leave town immediately after rejecting Peter, and it’d be a break up not just a rejection. But we the audience would see a private moment with MJ where we can tell she wasn’t nearly as casual about it as she let on.

Movie 2: Mayhem in Manhattan: Mid way through the season I’d adapt this Spider-Man novel into another animated film.

Season 6: It’d kick off with Spider-Man meeting Black Cat. The season really would be about Peter dating different people casually and more seriously. Deb Whitman, Cissy Ironwood, etc. He’s work for the Daily Globe and start Grad school. The season finale would be the Owl/Octopus War ending with Felicia seriously injured and Peter ripping out Otto’s arms as a result. The season would end with Spider-Man and Black Cat now an item. But I’d omit the events of Spec #77-79. Also at the Daily Globe Peter would meet and work with Eddie Brock.

Season 7: It’d start with the debut of the Hobgoblin, cover Felcia’s recovery, gaining new powers (from other people continuing Warren’s experiments with animal DNA), MJ’s return, Peter dropping out of Grad school, MJ’s big reveal and origin, and culminate in Peter and Black Cat breaking up and Kingpin leaving NYC. The Kingpin battle would be taken from Wolfman’s run moreso than Spec #100 because that’s just a better fight.

Of course the Alien Costume Saga would happen. I’d keep the canon stuff but add in the elements of it corrupting him, with the extra spice of Felicia actually preferring this darker Spider-Man.

Peter would get the costume differently though. Instead of Secret Wars, criminals would try and obtain the Moon Gem, which was being hosted as ESU. The fight would culminate in a Kinglsey clothing factory and as a last resort Spidy would smash the gem by throwing it into one of the machines in the factory.

Licking his wounds afterwards he’d be leaning against the conveyer belt when a tiny black ball would emerge from the shards of the Moon Gem, enlarge and when Spidey noticed it we’d recreate Secret Wars #8.

BTW, to give readers clues to the Hobgoblin’s identity I’d have him record a voice journal but with a voice changer so we get his inner thoughts sorta.

Also Jason Macendale would show back up but not as jack O’lantern.

Season 8: It’d start with ASM #260-261, the Rose/Hobgoblin story where they abduct a pregnant Liz Allan. The season would omit a lot of irrelevant stuff like the golden notebook subplot, the Beyonder, etc. But it’d keep stuff like Crusher Hogan, When Commeth the Commuter, Web #13 and other classic stories. The three central subplots of this season would be the Ned/Flash/Betty love triangle, Peter and MJ’s ‘will they won’t they’ romance and the Hobgoblin mystery. However instead of Lance Bannon, Eddie Brock would be one of the suspects. Brock would be threatened directly by Spider-Man when he starts writing Sin Eater articles and that’s just about the only thing I’d change from the Death of Jean DeWolff storyline. Most of the real important stuff from this era (sans Doc Ocks mental breakdown) I’d keep the same with the exception of not making Jason Macendale the new Hobgoblin. After Peter and Felicia break up I’d have Betty go all Cult of Love from later in the comics before the finale being yet another way later story: Hobgoblin Lives. It’s just more logical to wrap up the Hobgoblin mystery here rather than end it badly and wait years to fix it.

Season 9: This is kind of the least accurate season but hear me out. Okay so we start off with Peter proposing to MJ, her rejecting him, then her agreeing, just like in the comics. BUT...we don’t have them then get married. Something as huge as your protagonist’s wedding should be the first or final episode of a season, not episode 3 or 4 or even the mid-season finale. So I’d grab a load of post-wedding stories and tweak them to be about Peter and MJ as an engaged couple. The stories would be selected to somehow tie-in with their relationship. The idea is to have the couple gradually develop doubts. So we’d have Jonathan Caesar. We’d have the Drunk Spider-Man issue but with Jason Macendale now the Demogoblin (it’s just a costume no demonic stuff) instead of the Hobgoblin. MAYBE we’d even have a heavily rewritten Jason Jerome subplot. We’d have Felicia turning back up to stir up trouble as she did in the 1990s. You get the picture. Because the finale is the wedding, which is obviously light on action, the episodes before the wedding I’d finally do Venom. Venom is great at generating dynamic action set pieces so he’d kind of compensate for no action in the actual finale. Venom is also an ideal choice because this whole season is about a romantic relationship, and Venom is in a sense an ‘unholy union’ between two entities. We’d draw upon the fact that Brock’s wife left him and ASM #300’s climax happening in a church bell tower is just too perfect for the wedding theme of this season. One element I’d throw in though would be for Spidey to have his ass handed to him by Venom once only to get away. MJ makes Spidey a new red and blue costume. The idea being that in wearing Venom’s colours the colours Felicia preferred him in, the colours that don’t represent his true self, he won’t win against this dark version of himself. But the red+blues are Mj’s preferred suit, MJ’s colours and reflective of who he really is.

The season finale would be the wedding but split over 2 episodes. The first ep would end with Peter going to see Felicia the night before his wedding and MJ going off with Bruce (or maybe Jason Jerome).

The actual final episode would be them vocing their doubts and insecurities to Felicia and Jason/Bruce and through talking with them, and reflecting on the events of the season and their lives in general they realise they’re just getting jitters. If they weren’t going to go through with this they would’ve walked away a long time ago. In fact their hardships this season prove they can handle it and make it work. So they get married but in typical Parker luck fashion their ride gets caught in traffic en route to the honey moon, so they gotta web swing their way there into the sunset.

Movie 3: Fearful Symmetry: Kraven’s Last Hunt: I briefly considered making this the opening of the next season, the season finale of the last season or the mid-season finale of the last season but it just didn’t work. It’s too iconic to change up like that it HAS to happen shortly after the wedding. Making it a movie would help sell the fact that for the first time ever we’re suddenly hearing Kraven and Vermin’s inner thoughts which would be weird to happen randomly in the middle of a season. A movie though can sort of be it’s own thing.

I wouldn’t change anything beyond adding a kind of prologue chronicling Kraven’s history up until now, who Vermin is, Peter and MJ’s marriage, Ned’s death, just some stuff that’s a small story unto itself and can allow the movie to stand on it’s own a bit more.

Season 10: Basically this is the Harry Osborn Saga from DeMatteis’ run. I’d cut down on the Vermin stuff. Maybe I’d cut out Peter’s parents from Child Within. I dunno because I would totally do a rewritten Robot Parents story arc in this season because I think that story could be compelling if done properly. I’d just have it happen BEFORE Harry dies, which naturally would be the season finale. Also in this season we’d introduce Carnage, Tombstone, the Joe Robertson/Tombstone subplot and the Return of the Sinister Six. One thing I’d add into the latter story would be the character of Carolyn Trainer who’s quite taken with Doc Ock. Spidey and Ock would have a huge showdown adapting their battle from Spec #79 since that’s probably the best Spidey/Ock fight ever. I might also do an adaptation of Soul of the Hunter and/or Torment, both because it’s a famous Lizard story and because it’d set up Kraven’s death withint he context of the show and thus give Chameleon motivation for the Robot Parents stuff.

Season 11: A heavily abridged and rewritten version of...the Clone Saga!

I’ve actually plotted this episode by episode. The gist is Aunt May has a stroke, Ben shows up, we introduce Carrion who busts out Carnage in exchange for some of his symbiote. Spidey fights Carnage but when they’re both affected by a poison Carrion tests out, Ben steps in to help. Venom also escapes, leading to Ben becoming Scarlet Spider. Peter is dying of the poison leading into the Web of Death story where Doc Ock cures him and Kaine then kills Otto. Web of Death could’ve been the ultimate end for Doc Ock so in a show that’s finite it makes sense to end him with that.

Anyway, Peter learns MJ is pregnant, he and Ben reunite with the Jackal, Carrion and the Gwen clone. They learn Carrion is a clone of Warren and was in fact the Warren from Shea stadium, he’s got telepathic powers and is using them to keep Gwen’s clone (Joyce Delany) under Warren’s control. Warren sows doubt as to who the real guy is.

Aunt May dies, Peter goes to jail, a third Peter Parker shows up. But instead of being Spidercide I’d make him a human/symbiote hybrid, and he’d be this show’s version of Toxin.

Peter becomes Scarlet Spider to clear his own name, learns who Kaine is, finds out he’s a clone, DOESN’T hit MJ but he does run away distraught, etc.

I’d have Maximum Clonage happen but very, very differently. No army of spider clones, no Punisher, no nonsense like that. Warren is going to unleash his virus but wants to keep MJ safe as her baby could be interesting to study. So he abducts her and gives inoculations to the virus to everyone. MJ refuses so he asks Gwen to do it as she’s MJ’s friend. Gwen’s clone is kind of not all there due to the mind control so when MJ breaks her own dose of the inoculation, Gwen simply administers her dose to MJ. Ben shows up to save MJ and knocks out Carrion. Carrion as it turns out was keeping Toxin under control so he freaks out, grabs MJ and Gwen, asks Ben to choose between them and tosses them both off the roof, but then he pins Ben so he can’t save either. Peter shows up to save MJ, Warren instinctively jumps after Gwen to save her but out of nowhere, a new Green Goblin shows up to save her and Warren dies. The Goblin, Kaine, Ben and Peter fight Toxin who’s gonna be losing until he bonds with Carrion and is now too much for everyone else. Gwen meanwhile would be trying to defuse the device that’d be administering the virus, but starting to degenerate due to the stress.

Her last ditch effort would be to implore Carrion/Toxin to save them all. He’s a clone of Peter and Miles Warren so he loves her and since she’s not inoculated she’s gonna die. Carrion/Toxin smother the virus and absorb the poison into themselves, dying.

Kaine takes Gwen’s clone away as he understands the pain of degeneration and Peter retires, making Ben the new Spider-Man.

The second half of the season is a condensed Spider-Ben era but with Lady Ock, Spider-Carnage, Green Goblin V and Blood Brothers as the central storylines. We’d do some flashbacks to Lost Years and wrap up with Revelations. As a final little change I’d have Peter’s new Spider-Man costume be one created by Ben before he decided to make his own one.

Season 12: Basically the post-Clone Saga era. This final season would be wrapping stuff up, giving a lot of characters their swan songs, but the focus would be on Peter and Norman’s rivalry, Norman owning the Bugle, etc.

We’d introduce Black Tarantula, have a final gang war storyline in which Kaine is hired as a mercenary, Daredevil and Richard Fisk would die, and Kingpin would finally go to jail for good.

I’d also sort of adapt the Revenge of the Green Goblin storyline. I’d have Mysterio on Norman’s orders create a ‘dream’ for Peter Parker where he imagines MJ dies in a plane crash and everything goes wrong, Norman would torment him and try and tempt him into becoming his son and heir. Peter resists and escapes the nightmare.

The season/show would wrap up with Peter reclaiming baby May and a final showdown with the Green Goblin. Norman would be rocking his Marvel Knights armour and be juiced up with Phil Urich’s strength enhancing Goblin mask. Also Phil Urich will have been black mailed into becoming the Goblin on Norman’s behalf so he could clear his own name.

I’ll spare you the details, but essentially Norman’s plan involves murdering billions of people, taking control of the world and potentially endangering the life of baby May. He’s ultimately killed when his identity is revealed to the press, his glider decapitates him and triggers a gagillion explosions. Said explosions would wreck the Bugle leading to Spidey lifting it up like in the Final Chapter. Before he died though, Norman would try to beat Spidey by administering an antidote to his powers that he would’ve tested on Scorpion. He’d not give Peter the full dose though.

When all is said and done, Peter’s got an injured leg (but he’s not lost either of them) and his spider powers are gone, maybe forever, so he retires to be a family man.

This then leads into Spider-Girl where we learn over time he regained some of his old powers but they amount to allowing him to crawl on walls, have a vague reading from his spider sense and render him fit for his age. His leg injury still plays up though. Basically he’s got power but not so much that it’d be reasonable for him to go back to heroism.

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scope-dogg · 5 years

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Planet With: Final Thoughts

That was a short series, but probably one of the most memorable I’ve seen any time recently, which is a pretty solid achievement given that I watched it right after another very memorable series in the form of Macross 7. Planet With’s bizarre and zany presentation betrays a surprisingly solid plot with likeable characters that’s delivered at a satisfying pace given the short 12-episode run it had.

It’s tricky to go into that plot without going too hard into spoiler territory, but just the first episode was enough to grasp my attention in a big way. The setup that’s delivered is that Soya Kuroi is a highschooler with amnesia who lives with Ginko, a gothic lolita girl, and a giant cat who only goes by the name Sensei. One day, a giant floating object sent by an alien force called Nebula appears over the ocean, only to be taken down by a team of seven superhero-like figures who create giant suits of psychically-powered armour. It’s then that Ginko and Sensei give Soya a new mission - not to help the heroes, but to defeat them one by one and take their power in order to accomplish Nebula’s goals. To accomplish this, Sensei will swallow Soya whole, which triggers a psychic reaction to create a cat-shaped suit of psycho-armour. So yeah, a completely normal day for a highschooler.

It’s a lot to take in and is portrayed in a baffling manner but the story does an incredible job of weaving all the insane elements of its presentation into something that’s only coherent, but actually pretty compelling. Despite the short length of the series, it’s basically a non-stop rush of strong character development for pretty much every named character, while the events that transpire span far wider than might first be apparent. It’s probably one of my favourite stories I can think of - I really liked the characters and how they interact with each other, the general pace of the plot, the individual beats of the story, and I also really liked the themes that it strikes upon - I kind of wish I could say more, but I honestly feel like giving too much away would be a disservice to whoever decides to watch it.

While this is definitely more of a plot-heavy series than one focused on raw action, it was definitely plenty satisfying on that front too. The show does use 3D animation for its mecha, which will probably turn some people off, but at the same time it’s about as good looking as I’ve seen in a mecha series. Besides, that’s made up for by the strength of the mechanical designs. I never caught a name for the cat-shaped robot that Sensei turns into (in fact, “Sensei” is probably the aptest thing to call it - or rather, him) but speaking as someone who doesn’t typically go for the kind of big-head, somewhat super-deformed style of robots I thought it looked incredible, as do the two upgrades it gets. The other psycho-armours that appear over the course of the show are similarly well realised. That said, the action was probably the biggest casualty of the short runtime and is probably the one thing I wish there was more of in the show. Elsewhere on the presentation front, I thought the soundtrack was fine and the animation quality was solid - it’s pretty much right on par for modern anime.

Overall this was a really pleasant surprise and is definitely one of the most unique series I’ve seen in quite some time. The fact that this only came out last year only goes against the reports of naysayers who says this genre is dead, as its shows there’s plenty of potential still here both for quality and for truly original ideas. I do kind of wish the series could have been longer, but its short length also makes it easier to recommend as it’s less of a commitment than something longer. The general weirdness of its aesthetic might turn some people off but I really do think this is worth giving a chance at the very least.

#planet with #mecha #respect the robot

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cepmurphy · 4 years

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“I always think I’m rid of them. Never am.”– Resolution

S11 ends with It Takes You Away and then Resolution, and I will accept no arguments.

There’s a cliché that a Doctor isn’t truly one until they’ve fought the Daleks. They’re the one foe just as iconic as the Doc. They’re a British icon. They’re so cool, they could have 50% of their TV appearances be a bit crap and we still want them. They’re almost certainly what the BBC said “Chibnall, you HAVE to include them if we let you have all this freedom on the other episodes” about.

But how will they fit here, in the more grounded and less flashy S11?

Chibnall cannily takes the Russell T Davies approach: there’s just one Dalek, it’s loose on Earth, and we see how dangerous it is because that one single, solitary Dalek is pushing the Doctor to the brink. This will also start off moving the Christmas Specials to New Year’s, and it harkens back to the old RTD approach there again – this, a time of year when everyone’s got free time and families are vegging out together in front of the telly, so now’s the time for a crowd-pleasing thrill ride.

And what a ride! We’ve had runarounds and battles and the like before, but the budget is stretched as far as it will go here, a story of car chases down real highways and tanks trading fire with aliens and a climax in front of a supernova! This is a real battle, and not on Ranskoor Av Kolos!

There are parts where the plot doesn’t quite work and veers into the same now-it’s-3407-years-later stabs at being ‘epic scifi’ for the sake of it: the Order of Custodians are really a nothing thing with little explanation (how did the Custodians found it when they’re so far apart?), there’s a company buying up alien tech on the black market (WHAT?!) but they’re just to explain a Dalek gun (couldn’t it be from the dig?). The joke that with no power, families are forced to talk to each other is lame at the best of times but jars when it comes surrounded by scenes taking the Dalek’s threat entirely seriously. But unlike Battle or Tsuranda, the episode is charging ahead so fast and doing so much fun stuff that it’s easier to ignore.

Before the Dalek, because there’s a lot I want to talk about there, the humans.

Mitch and Lin, our meet-cute archaeologists, are very quickly sketched out as characters and a couple in their first minute, with Mitch needing clarification about a kiss particularly adorable. We care about her quickly, which makes the Dalek’s takeover of her all the more painful. (Though points deducted for how, at the end, she seems over being made to kill people! Points deducted too for Yaz never having a reaction to fellow Sheffield police being killed)

Ryan, Graham, and Aaron are, of course, the main human activity. After a series of build-up, Ryan’s dad is here and we can’t blame Graham for immediately going “no” and shutting the door on him, not after all we’ve heard. But Aaron is not what we’ve been led to expect: he’s not cold, he’s not unfeeling, he’s not abusive. (Or not intended to be seen as abusive, as there is a reading of him as emotionally abusive) What he is, is pathetic and needy and aware he’s pathetic, but unable to express things. He hopes he can just sidle back in, and he’s frustrated to find Ryan and Graham (who won’t even look at Aaron) have bonded, and angry he’s being treated like this.

But over the course of S11, Ryan has been getting better at expressing himself instead of bottling things up. Here’s where that ends: being able to tell his dad exactly how he feels. “Don’t come walking back in, demanding respect, because that ain’t where we are.” He’s able to express that his dad made him feel like he was unworthy of being loved; he’s able to express exactly what Aaron needs to do and say.

Aaron can’t express well. In the café scene, Aaron is bigging up the microwaves he helped make and he so clearly wants Ryan to be impressed, and is pained when he realises “I make it sound like a con. So maybe I’m not cut out for that.” When he finally admits his failings and weaknesses, it takes work, and Ryan is not sympathetic (and would you expect him to be?). Graham is the one who, despite all his contempt and anger for Aaron earlier in S11 and this very episode, is sympathetic enough to reach out to the man who he was once afraid would take his grandson away. He’s old enough to ask why Aaron didn’t come to Grace’s funeral for his own sake, to break down the last barrier – that Aaron was scared to accept the death.

While Aaron will go on to help stop the Dalek, the way S11 runs, the moment he breaks and admits “I wish I was better at life” and can express his failings so they can be fixed is the point where he can be redeemed. In S11, male characters have been repressed and needed to get past it to be better people, for their own sake and for others.

(Yaz, neatly, does not need that – her immediate response is to help Ryan, telling him that he and his dad can have a conversation in a very nearby café. Also the Doctor, the voice of the show’s moral code, the character who bluntly cuts to the chase for Aaron where others don’t: “You let him down.”)

And with humans done, the Dalek.

The Recon Dalek is one of the most formidable showings we’ve seen from the pepperpots in years. It’s cruel, it’s cunning, it has the highest on-screen bodycount of the entire series, it takes the Doctor’s entire team to stop it and then keeps coming anyway. It also gets a whole new bag of tricks we’ve not seen from a Dalek before, as now it can forcibly control another’s body and outgun a bloody tank. When it wipes out soldiers, smoke drifts over a battlefield like you’ve just watched a war drama.

And with the creature loose from its armour and possessing Lin half the time, we get a new reading on old cliché lines like “you are an enemy of the Daleks”. There’s a glee in it when it comes through a human mouth. ‘Lin’ smiles when she kills; the Dalek is enjoying this. This nastiness brings us back to the recurring horror beats of S11. The Dalek is scary again. (The massacre of GCHQ is a good example: nothing but distant, terrified screaming as SOMETHING comes your way. Also the clear pain Aaron’s in when the Dalek is jammed into his spine.)

But there’s more there. This is the Dalek equivalent of The Woman Who Fell To Earth.

The Dalek is completely unarmed and powerless and unaware where it is when it pops up in Sheffield, just like the Doctor was. The Dalek turns to the nearest people for aid, just as the Doctor did. The Dalek has to improvise with what’s around it to defeat a better-armed foe, just as she did. And just like the Doctor built her new sonic, the Dalek constructs its new shell out of scrap and welding. The Doctor is aware how the Dalek thinks, and it thinks a lot like she does.

As with last episode, the Doctor is using technobabble a lot more than she does in most of S11 – but this time, it’s barely working. Instead of being a handy resolution for a plot, it’s part of a battle of wits against a Dalek. Have a magic scanner? The Dalek can block it. Hack the city’s traffic cameras? The Dalek knew you would. Hack satellites? Not enough. Eventually what does stop it is practical engineering with the microwave, but even there, the Dalek adapts.

All of this, again, the sort of thing the Doctor does! The Dalek even ignores when the Doctor mocks its apparent weakness, just as she ignored Tim Shaw in her first go. Just as in Dalek, they’re two sides of the coin but unlike that story (or Inside The Dalek), it’s more that the Dalek would make a good Doctor. The Doctor wins, sure, but it’s a very close thing. How does she win in the end? As she did in Woman Who Fell, collaborating with a group of disparate people with something to offer. The Dalek, in the end, has no one but the Dalek, and that’s what beats it. One last thing: “I’m so sorry, UNIT operations have been suspended pending review… following financial disputes and subsequent funding withdrawal by the UK’s major international partners.” If you have to write UNIT out for a story, that’s a hilarious way to do it. Nobody wanted to pay for defending Earth. That’s a political jab that’s not likely to age for a long time! ** Tomorrow, S12 starts. We’ve seen more monsters in the trailer than S11 had. There’s implications of an arc. S12 may be quite different from S11, it may go for a bigger scope and more monstrous foes that are monsters, and that can lead to good episodes. But S11 was something new – it was a version of the show where smaller stakes were still important, where practical work saved the day, where the alien could be benign and the humans the great threat. It stands as a model of another way you can do the show.

#doctor who #doctor who s11 #doctor who reviews #Jodie Whittaker #dalek

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metalempire · 5 years

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Fire Emblem Three Houses Review: A Great Game Crippled By Squandered Potential

Now that the clickbait title has grabbed ur dick and engaged the hate boner it’s time to sit down and take a look at the newly released Fire Emblem game everyone loves (including me, to an extent, despite what the title says.)

I’ll put the whole thing under a readmore to safeguard from spoilers, save dashboards and for anyone who doesn’t give a shit to just stop reading now at a convenient point. As for mobile users, fuck you, I’m a phone hating old man. Read this on an Apple Refrigerator or die.

The TL:DR version is: Game good overall, but not enough variety and near lazy repetition makes both gameplay and story feel a bit disappointing overall once you play all the routes.

Also you can’t fuck Rodrigue so 0/10 worst game in the series.

Right now I’ll address the good points about the game since I do in fact have heaps of praises to sing it’s just easier to clickbait with negativity of which I do have but the positive bits come first cos I said so.

The gameplay is good Fire Emblem, unlike SoV which was ass don’t @ me, as the kids say. Aside from fog of war and a very occasional desert map there’s not too much unpleasant shit and there’s not really any spam which is great since the past few games were getting guilty of that. The maps are a bit plain in layout but they’re not bad either and the enemy placements, choices, map features and terrain are all nicely put together to make a fairly pleasant experience with each one. There are no desert fort maps surrounded by 5 range archers on all sides. There are no cantors spamming infinite terrors or infinitely spawning faceless reinforcements. The weapon triangle might be absent but the breaker skills have been retooled and brought back to allow you to choose if you feel like opting into it or not on your own end. It allows alot of units and weapons to shine and combined with the class freedom the game gives to allow you the wiggle room to make your own playstyle, so if an entire army of Wyvern Lords if your thing then the game is nothing short of an enabler there. Combat Arts are back and nicely well balanced and feel more useful than in SoV, not to mention gambits being a natural expansion on them, Battalions being a positive this game brings to up the scale of warfare rather than it just being Anime Teens VS The World and adds another combat art not tied to a weapon and nice stat boosts and effects to change how you interact with enemies, such as using Assembly to drag a boss off a heal tile, and so forth. The more options the better, and the game is full of freedoms for you to play around with.

Garreg Mach Monastery is where most of the game takes place and where a good chunk of hours are spent. Being able to train weapon and movement type ranks outside of battle is also great and adds more micromanaging onto a series about alot of micromanaging and helps units keep up with each other, as well as letting you farm your own resources, bond with the gang and do little activities to give you some reprieve between fights. You can tell Koei Tecmo did alot of work on the development of Three Houses since this section of the game reminds me of Dynasty Warriors when you go back to your base and sort things out there and wander around. It also breathes some life into the setting and gives a good sense of permanence to the world and its’ characters.

The world of Fodlan is also a major strong point, there’s lore, backstory, history, politics, a culture and even clashes and divides. It’s the most well realised world in a Fire Emblem game since Jugdral which it clearly has drawn inspiration from and I cannot praise Fodlan enough for being as well realised as a setting as it is, since the characters and exposition really give you a proper impression of how this world functions on social and political levels. The school setting of Garreg Mach is one I was initially iffy about but it fits surprisingly well and definitely grows on you over time since the game does a good job of immersing you in the role of a teacher.

Tying into the world is also Crests, which, when combined with the Ability system, is great, making you pay attention to your characters crests, what they do, how they can benefit you, how you could use them, and to pay attention to enemy bosses and minibosses to see what crests they have, and in turn, pay attention to abilities some more too, to both create your ideal units, and keep an eye out for the same on the enemy team. It’s quite well balanced overall and is a sneaky hint of a possible Genealogy remake on the way someday.

The characters are also wonderful, often three dimensional with their own political views, own social perspectives, quirks, oddities, backstories, character conflicts, relationships, and of course, boatloads of trauma. Watching them all interact with each other and reacting to the story events and getting to know them was an excellent experience in proper character writing and interactions that the series has been starved of thanks to the very hit or miss (mostly miss) characterisation from Fates. The main lords are also incredible, from Edelgard and her dark as fuck backstory and her powerful resolve and willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve her wider scale goals, to Dimitri and his intensely personal conflicts and emotional baggage and his journey of highs and lows, to Claude and his boundless charisma and similarly his own ambitions and dreams all wrapped together in a charming package. The characters are all great and I can’t really find myself with any grievances about them that don’t boil down to wanking off over nitpicks over Hubert’s left testicle being out of place in a cutscene or something daft like that.

The soundtrack is good. Not my favourite one but as always with Fire Emblem it’s good and makes the maps more fun since you can listen to a nice tune while thinking about how to murk the pair of armour knights. My only gripe really is the normal versions of songs all sound better than the in-battle variations they get. I also like that a boss theme or miniboss theme will continue to keep playing on the map itself until you beat that character, so you dont have to dip and dive into chip damaging Lyon to hear The Prince’s Despair anymore.

The overall story is fairly decent, not as bad as Fates’ writing, or the fairly bland writing of some of the past games like Awakening that play it too safe. It’s willing to go in dark directions and focus in worldbuilding with its’ plot. However I do have alot of negatives to say about it by contrast but know that the overall story of the game and its’ many routes is one that I don’t hate, but I certainly feel wasn’t as well handled, especially in the second part of the game, as it should be. On an individual level, each route is decently well paced, aside from Edelgard’s route which is mysteriously 4 chapters shorter than the rest for no discernable reason at present until developer interviews shed light on that. The plot is for the most part decently well executed on an individual level.

Now I’m going to insert a very important opinion of mine. I think a game can have a bad story, or no story at all, and still be great, so long as the gameplay is good, because gameplay is what makes a video game a video game, rather than just a dvd with an interactive menu. A game can have a great story, but if the gameplay is shit, the game suffers as a result, and it needs to play its’ focuses very well in order to redeem that. I try not to put as much important on story if I can’t help it, since I’m playing games for the game part first and foremost.

I bring that up because unlike Fates, where you can ignore the plot and have a good time with it, Three Houses isn’t so merciful, due to how much raw time is spent in cutscenes before, during and after battles, as well as engaging with the story at the monastery too, alot of time in Three Houses is not spent in the gameplay portion, but interacting with the story instead, so I have to place importance on the story because the game is, so I have to put more focus than I usually do on it because the game does by necessity of raw amount of time. Otherwise I honestly wouldn’t mind either way if the story was bad or good.

This is to transition over to the negatives.

For the bits where I’m not tying the gameplay and story together for reasons seen in a bit, understand that I was wary about the removal of the weapon triangle. While I don’t mind how it’s been handled, I still think the game is missing something for not having it since the beginning, and it’s definitely a core aspect I enjoy about the series, since now you can forgo unit variety and planning weapon level ups and just use whatever to win, and that level of freedom can hamper strategy in thinking on a more necessity based level, which in turn has subtle but noticeable effects on difficulty.

The amount of time you spend not doing maps is honestly still jarring. Most of the time in these games if you’re ever spending lots of time between maps, it’s usually to get through a mountain of supports you forgot about, rather than spending alot of your time in cutscenes and doing stuff in a monastery. While I don’t hate it, I find alot of my time is spent not doing the Fire Emblem parts of the Fire Emblem game I’m playing and considering the fact that each route is 18-22 chapters long, compared to most FE games which go more than that typically, and you come to realise that the other stuff is sort of padding to distract from the low chapter count overall.

Now this is where I tie gameplay and story together in terms of the more major flaws to the game and what really held it back for me.

Three Houses has 4 routes, all of which I’ve played; Edelgard’s route, Dimitri’s route, Claude’s route, and the Church route. The big problem here in both story and gameplay is the raw amount of repetition and lack of variation the game has with this. Unlike Fates, where the three routes all featured both unique maps, variations on maps, or if they did share maps, usually put them at different stages in the game, Three Houses doesn’t do that at all. Map variety is something this game is weak in, since paralogues just reuse story maps, and so far, only 2 or 3 maps seem exclusive to paralogues, and even then can be repeated by other paralogues. Worse still, earlier paralogues, like Ingrid and Dorothea’s, can spoil maps later on, and don’t even make sense when you get the context for that location. In every other past FE game, the paralogues all got their own maps. Repeating maps in a single run is already a risky business, but then there’s overall repetition. The first part of the game is exactly the same on all routes, it follows the same story and overall beats, an the only variation is chapter 12, if you’re playing Edelgard’s route, if not, it’s the same for the other 3. And for context, I did Edelgard first, Dimitri second, Claude third and Church last. In hindsight, that was a terrible order, since I basically ended up repeating myself 3 times in a row thinking I was getting something different. When the timeskip hits you expect each route to get different, but only Edelgard’s does. the other 3 routes are all about fighting the Adrestian Empire to save Rhea. That’s it. Dimitri, Claude and the Church routes all follow the same story, and by extension, maps, making you do them all in the same order as each other, with a minor variation here or there like Dimiri getting a chapter to retake Fhirdiad then resuming the static map path. The only difference is in the plot contrivances that don’t come up on the other routes despite following the exact same events to steer you towards a different final boss. Those Who Slither In the Dark are a great example of this. They destroy Fort Merceus only in Claude’s route, and for no reason are barely involved in the fights of the other routes and are never dealt with. They themselves are also wasted villains, with Kronya and Solon shown off once, then killed off in their second appearances, then Thales barely being in the game only to die in Claude’s route. The game sort of forgets about them in the other routes, and, insultingly, they’re fought by Edlegard in her route, but only in the epilogue, rather than having her missing 4 chapters cover that conflict.

Really, the only point to playing a route is to get a different final boss, and to get some different lore in the final chapter. You only learn about Nemesis right at the end of Claude’s route, you only learn Byleth’s origin story at the end of the Church route. Outside of things like that, you’re just playing the same game, same maps, and same story but with different playable characters over and over again with no real variety until right at the very end, which is highly hollow. Edelgard’s route offers the most variation on all this, and yet it’s 4 chapters shorter than the other routes, so you’re either condemned to play the same shit over again, or you barely get any time with the one that’s a bit different. It really sucks since the map variety really is nonexistent. You play the exact same game for 12 chapters, think you’re getting some variety, then just get the same shit as the last run, or, only get a few maps and then you’re done. Either way, the sheer lack of variety in maps and accompanying story really makes the hyped up timeskip feel like a colossal disappointment in hindsight, and when Fates, a 3DS game, has more map and story variety (yes even if that story was awful) than a home console game, then something is deeply flawed about this game.

The pacing is also fairly bad if not close to terrible. At most the game is 22-23 chapters at the most, 18 at the least, and it spends 12 of these on the Academy phase of the game. The game drags its’ feet with the story for the first half, slow burning its’ way along, feeding you hints of lore to come and setting things up and, to be honest, doing a good job at worldbuilding. Then the timeskip happens and the war phase just rushes by at one hell of a fast pace. The maps being the same across them doesn’t help, but pacing can also damage the routes. For example, Verdant Wind builds up to fighting the Agarthans, it builds up to them but only with hints and setup while you’re busy fighting Edelgard, and then once’s that’s done, you have two chapters left, one of which has you fight the Agarthans in one map, beat them, and then have the final battle with Nemesis, which, while the map itself is arguably the best of the 4 and really feels like a final battle, story-wise comes out of fuckin nowhere just to have a cool end to the game. And then there’s Crimson flower, which steamrolls through the game and is definitely missing chapters, with key events like the battle at Gronder just not being there at all. In general the story pacing is just too wonky and every route really needed more chapters to flesh out the conflicts rather than rushing along the most engaging bits of the game.

Also the graphics are kind of weird looking for a 2019 game and some of the cutscenes are animated so stiffly it’s strange to watch. Honestly the visual presentation in Fire Emblem has never really been very good outside of fully rendered cutscenes in previous games like Awakening or Radiant Dawn, but it’s a shame the Switch’s capabilities weren’t fully utilised, especially with some textures, although Warriors with its’ JPEG stone floor in Hoshido Castle is no doubt to blame as well for that influence. That said, it’s not all that big of an issue for this series, and you really don’t notice it as much, just felt the need to address it since it is there and the Switch launched with Breath of the Wild which looks wonderful and then there’s Three Houses looking like it just got out of bed by comparison.

My main issues with the game stem mostly from the larger segment above, the constant repetition of maps in almost perfect order after each other, the exact same story playing out for the majority of what should be different routes, and the school phase being the most repetitive as well really dragging the game down. The first time I played the game I loved it, no doubt, but the subsequent runs made me realise that alot less overall variety was put into the game than I thought would be, and that hurts the quality for me, to know that 3/4 options have me doing 95% the same thing but with different units, and the other option is just a bit too short to be able to fully enjoy what it has to offer. Fire Emblem is a bigger name now than it used to be, and Three Houses honestly deserved to be a bit better than this overall.

Also you can’t fuck Felix’s dad so what’s even the point of it all, really.

I have no doubts though that people will still love this game, and rightfully so, it’s a great entry in the series, just not the best. I’m sure people who’ve only done one or two routes will think it’s fantastic, but once you do all four of them, I think the honeymoon period will pass by, and the initial spark of excitement of a new game will wear off, and just like how everyone tore into Fates a year after release, I think Three Houses might end up suffering a slightly similar fate as well once people realise that the game really doesn’t offer as much variety as it seemed to be offering. Maybe there are people who don’t mind all the repetition and the sameyness of it all, but for me, it held the game back from being truly great. The Lords are what really carry their respective routes, due to their character strengths, and a certain route definitely suffers for only having Byleth (and Seteth of all people) as the main driving force of that route.

All that said, I really recommend any Fire Emblem fan or even any Switch owner to play Three Houses. It’s not perfect, and it certainly loses it’s magic over time and really needs some reworking in places and major injections of variety, or a really good DLC, but it’s still definitely got plenty of good quality to enjoy and the bits that are good are really good and worth sticking through each route to be able to play with.

The score this game gets is a

Forever Pissed I Can’t Marry Rodrigue/10

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fire Emblem #FE3H #long post

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