#because amon tends to need all the help she can get

[brineffxiv]

We're having a nice chat back in Anagnorisis when suddenly we're interrupted by a researcher. A seasoned researcher, by his title. Apparently, something has happened with one of the creations. A "lykaon".

The lykaon has been indiscriminately slaughtering other creations with no provocation. It sounds like this has been an ongoing problem, and it has finally reached the point where the researcher in charge of them has concluded they need to be reverted. This news seems to distress Hermes, and he rushes off to the scene of the incident. We follow him.

No sooner do we arrive at the scene of the slaughtered okyupetes than Hermes is off again. Meteion and I catch up to him just as he himself finds Doros; the researcher in charge of the lykaons.

Doros appears to have done his due diligence in determining the fate of the lykaeons: they are unsuited to any environment and must be reverted. Nevertheless, Hermes wants to ensure all avenues have been explored. Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus will accompany him to this meeting.

Meanwhile, I get to babysit Meteion.

Which isn't a bad thing. I like Meteion.

That's a Deep Thought, little bird. You're touching on a debate we still deal with in the real world, and one for which there are no easy answers.

Meteion wants to find a flower for Hermes, to help cheer him up after what will surely be a fraught meeting. We consider several less than ideal candidates - including a morbol - before once again stumbling across Elpis flowers.

Hermes apparently has a complicated relationship to the Elpis flowers, as they reveal his internal pain to a world that can rarely empathize. When I tell Meteion that I, too, have seen the flowers dark she asks to borrow my pain. She wants me to turn the flowers dark in front of Hermes, to show him that he's not alone.

OOF. Oof, I say. Dear reader, forgive me for forgetting which of you told me to keep playing, because there was some plot I could relate to. You were right. Ouch, right in the heart.

That night, with the meeting concluded, we lure Hermes over to the Elpis flowers and I get to work thinking dark thoughts. Meteion tells Hermes he's not alone, and that others feel sad too. And, while Hermes seems to be a bit off balance at how much Meteion has told me, he takes off his mask and asks to speak with me for a time.

Oh wow, Hermes, you have lovely eyes. OMG all the ancients are so beautiful! Goddamn!

Hermes is greatly distressed by what he sees as callous disregard for the lives of the creations under his supervision; death may be embraced by man as a reward, but no other lives are afforded that privilege. "Lesser" lives are brought into being and ended at will, with little regard for the individual experiences of the creation in question.

Hang on.

Was I supposed to feel guilty about Hythlodaeus making me the robe out of butterflies?! Hermes would definitely not approve of that.

I mean... I'm a level 90 leatherworker, and I harvest most of my materials myself. I can recognize and understand what Hermes is feeling without... necessarily agreeing with him.

But then, I am reminded - of all things - of school, and being required to dissect frogs. And I thought it abhorrent that we bring these creatures to life for the sole purpose of killing them. "Education" was such a paltry excuse, when a simple diagram would fulfill the same purpose.

I think, in the real world, Hermes would be a vegetarian.

What painful irony; that which so troubles you now your future self... future incarnation. It seems unfair to call Amon Hermes' own self. But regardless, that man will delight in brining upon others that which you so abhor.

You're not alone Hermes. Please remember that.

I get the feeling you've never opened up to anyone about this before. I think if you had, you'd find that you are not as nearly alone here in Elpis as you may think. On both fronts; your respect for the lives of the beings you tend here, and your feelings of sadness. Several of the sidequests I've been doing have touched on similar themes - there was a woman who did not wish for her mentor to pass on, and a group where we preformed a remembrance ceremony for deceased creations, among others. I wish I'd known these themes would come up or I'd have taken screencaps.

To wind up our heart-to-heart, Hermes tells me a secret: Meteion is one of many. Her sisters are even as we speak making their way from star to star, searching for other worlds and the life upon them. Hermes wants to know what those other beings live for.

I am... a little bit unnerved by this revelation. Oh dear. Especially when, as we are walking away, Meteion turns and looks skyward, as though she hears something... Hermes... Has it occurred to you that not everything you find out there will necessarily be... good?

I mean, the people that created Omega are out there somewhere. And Omega was just one of their weapons.

DID ALIENS CAUSE THE FINAL DAYS!?!?

In the morning, Doros has had an accident with the lykaeons; he's managed to take out four of them, but three have escaped. Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch quickly locate the escapees and the two of them leave to take care of the ones that are flying above Elpis. Hermes and I are left to deal with the one hiding in the fields. So we do.

It was perhaps a mistake to give these creatures the power of flight.

Hermes is not dealing well with what we've been forced to do.

Hermes... This job is killing you. The responsibilities you are required to take on, the duty you are to perform... You are ill suited for it. And it's tearing you to pieces.

Emet, I swear to Zodiark if you say something insensitive... Hermes is having a wee bit of an emotional breakdown and the last thing he needs is your brand of conversation.

Oh right. That's why you're here; to offer him a different job.

I misjudged you. My apologies.

This is... perhaps not the place for it, but, in contrast to Hermes' pain, I think I am understanding why your future self looks back on the world now as a paradise. Not just because of the reasons you gave in the phantom Amaurot beneath the Tempest: it's because you are happy here. You are fulfilled in your purpose and duty, surrounded by those you love and who love you. You have friends and companions aplenty, and you are lauded and respected for the work you do. You see all of the good that your world and your people embody. What more could a man ask for?

In contrast, Hermes is-- Wait. It cannot be a coincidence that my path has led me here, to this time and place. I am here because something that happens here is the key to understanding the Final Days.

Hermes is experiencing anguish over what he sees as the wrongs of his society. He hates what is happening, feels alone in his suffering, and he's been experimenting with dynamis; the energy fueled by emotions.

Something Hermes has done, is doing, or is about to do is the key to the final days. Did he cause it?? That seems almost unfathomable. That a man as compassionate as Hermes would willingly cause what is to occur. But. Perhaps by accident?

Well, now I wonder. Is there not some dark part of Hermes that wishes to meet the same suffering that so pains him onto those he sees as having carelessly inflicted it? Whether deserving or not, if dynamis is purely fueled by emotion, not requiring logic or intent, he wouldn't necessarily need to mean to enact that, provided the correct vehicle, would he?

Satisfaction would certainly be preferrable than the fate that waits for all three of these men. Far preferrable than the "orgy of pain and suffering" Fandaniel will seek to bring. Everything that lives must one day die, Hermes. We can only hope that while we live, we live well.

Hermes, I would argue that your unique perspective is a shining example of why you should represent your people. You are seeing an issue that no one else is, and you are being offered one of fourteen positions with the power to work towards alleviating it. You have the choice to stay here in Elpis, where you will continue to suffer in silence, or to move on to Amaurot where you can actually make change happen. Take the job.

After his outburst, Hermes begs time alone to gather his thoughts. Hythlodaeus guides Emet-Selch and myself back to the Twelve Wonders, for what I presume will be the next leg of our tour. Emet-Selch appears to be deep in thought after what Hermes said... He admits to understanding, on a rational level, the sadness that comes when someone returns to the star...

Oh no, oh Emet... I wish you never have to suffer what you do.

#ffxiv liveblog #rhesh'a tag #hermes #meteion #emet-selch #hythlodaeus #I did it! I did it! I made a post!! #even with a broken hand I did it! #sorry if this post is a bit all over the place #it took me a LONG time to write it

[vacantgodling]

🎀🍬 for Hya bc those are too funny lol

DHDJDJRJRJRJJ his worst nightmare in 2 questions

🎀 Opening birthday presents in front of others, being sang to when given their cake, etc.

of the two, hya is more comfortable dealing with being in a celebratory crowd. it’s one of the many “wifely duties” in paramour — ie: managing the social scene and he’s been taught well by tagetes. i’m actually Not Sure what birthday traditions galeré has and that’s something interesting to think about but focusing on how we do birthdays TM his patience is so thin. like he’s not a huge fan of sweets but being sung to already makes him 😒—let alone when people start to tell him to blow out the candles JSSJSJ the only way he would is if aloe asked him to 💀 he also hates opening presents in front of others because He Will Judge you. if he thinks it’s a bad present he’d be all “and who the fuck bought this” and throw it out in front of you probably BDJDRJJ best bet is to just give him money fr he’s so picky and very few can get him to Not Complain about a present. (and before you think amon, it’s not. the only person who can consistently get hya presents he likes is tagetes which pisses him off SO MUCH LMAOOOOO)

so long story short: he hates it 💀

🍬 Being put in charge of a couple rowdy kids

i’m actually gonna hijack this question to talk about the kids hya canonically has in his life aka, lavendula’s children. viola (10), barbatus (9) and rumex (6). viola (similarly to her mother lowkey) is very taken by hya’s air and mannerisms and has heard so much about him from aloe that she can’t help but want to be around him and be like him which. baffles hya greatly. whenever they’re in the same room she’s always trying to talk his ear off and it is SUUUUCH an exercise in patience for him. she does kind of win him over (aided by hya moving away and marrying amon pff) because she loves books and as mentioned, hya also likes books. so when he realizes that she can have an intelligent conversation about books and themes in literature he warms up to her more (well, as much as he can being himself).

barbatus however is a different story and is more of the rambunctious type that the questions talking about 💀💀 he’s proud and hard headed and defiant but is still yknow. a child. so he gets in over his head and whines and cries when shit happens and hya is exhausted with him immediately. especially bc barbatus is more of the roughhousing type and hya is having Literally None Of That. he tends to talk back and that pisses hya off so he usually dumps barbatus onto someone else’s hands (later in life onto amon mostly) bc he can’t deal with that shit LMAO.

rumex he doesn’t quite know what to do with and similarly rumex doesn’t know what to do with him. bc rumex has always been sickly their social skills are under developed and they have a lot of separation anxiety from lavendula. they also got the worst of their father’s abuse, so they see hya as kind of similar (authoritative figure) and keep their distance. hya doesn’t care either way but it’s something that distresses lavendula;;;

and under a cut i’ll put some actual prose regarding hya and the kids PFF. idk if or where this would fit in anywhere but it’s a good explore to who he is:

“It was very kind of you to invite us to your residence, Hyacinthus.” Lavendula folded her fan with delicate fingers and curtsied.

“Tagetes insisted.” Hyacinthus eyed the younglings gathered close to their mother’s skirts, and gave his half-sister a stare that would resemble one you’d give a particularly irritating mule. “Though, I don’t recall you mentioning you’d be bringing the—”

“Your niece was desperate to see you, and I needed to get the boys out of the house. For fresh air.” Lavendula replied breezily, and Hyacinthus regarded the young girl grasping her hand with a blank stare. She looked up at him shyly, wiggling her fingers in what could be discerned as a passable wave, then tucked her face back against her mother’s purple gown. The taller, older of the boys, that stood astride his mother with his chest poked out, piped up: “Do you have a garden Uncle Hya?”

“Barbatus, manners.” Lavendula scolded gently. The boy looked back at his mother, confused. “What? He is Uncle Hya right? Why can’t I call him that?”

“Don’t be bull headed.” Lavendula looked back to Hyacinthus, seeming to beg him with her eyes. “Do you happen to have a garden that the boys can play in.” She paused. “... Preferably one with a gate.” Hyacinthus snapped his fingers and a maid standing idly by the door snapped to attention. With his wave, she quickly scurried over.

“Yes, my lord?”

“See the children out to the inner courtyard. Make sure they don’t kill themselves.”

“Hyacinthus…”

“Isn’t that what children do when left to their own devices?” Hyacinthus gave a listless shrug, and the maid, happy to be dismissed from his presence, quickly took both his niece and his nephew’s hands, then with Barbatus trailing along, headed out towards the courtyard.

#s: paramour #ren writing

[ravenstargames]

Hi! Could you please write a HC for the LIs and how they'd try to get closer to an MC with trust issues? Thank you!! (That's okay if you don't want to do this : )

Sorry for taking a while, anon!! Thank you for the ask! 💜

✦ How the LIs / ROs get closer to an MC with trust issues!

✦ Amon: His extroverted and amiable persona usually does all the work for him, so people tend to trust him pretty easily. He would earn the MC's trust by playing by their own rules and letting them call the shots, something he doesn't do for everyone.

✦ Raeya: Raeya knows trust cannot be forced, but only earned. She wouldn't pressure the MC and would leave them space, as that's a way of showing the MC respect. She has no interest in forcing them out of their shell, and she wouldn't chase after the MC but rather keep an eye on them from afar and let them approach her instead. Raeya lets her actions speak for herself; she would be there when the MC needs her to give them genuine advice and guidance when asked for it, knowing if both of them getting close is bound to happen, it will happen eventually.

✦ Gael: He would do what he does best; be patient and kind. He would make sure the MC is feeling as safe and comfortable as they possibly can in his presence, making sure to listen to them and their needs. He would do his best to let the MC know he is interested in them as a person, asking them about their hobbies or trivial things like their favorite color.

✦ Envy: Deity of Trust issues themselves, Envy would have the hardest time getting closer to an MC who is as distrustful as they are, because both would keep their distance and their guards up at all times. Unless the MC takes the first step or something happens that makes them both connect and realize they have more in common than they thought, Envy would keep being the distant and mysterious being he is.

✦ Ara: She may have it rough. She's bubbly, has endless energy and can be a bit pushy—and she cannot always control that. She would invite the MC for walks, for some tea and pastries, and would do her best not to be too insistent or not show her disappointment when something doesn't go as she had been expecting.

✦ Xal: He thinks he sucks with words, so he would avoid talking to the MC initially as much as he's able. Instead, he would make 'small peace offerings', like fixing something the MC has broken, leaving warm blankets outside their room if he sees them shivering during the day, placing some flowers he saw them admire in the gardens in a vase... Things that may give the MC an excuse to approach Xal for conversation, if they want to do so.

✦ Father Pride: He would do his best to be of help for the MC as he does with everyone else, but would respect the distance the MC marks between them and wouldn't ask questions. As the god of Limbo he is used to watch over people and see to their needs without becoming close to them or even interacting with them, so unless the MC gives him a hint that they want to change that, he'd be happy to just leave them be and act as the guiding hand he is.

#lost in limbo #li asks

[sweetearthandnorthernsky]

is this more than you bargained for? (loyalty, morinel)

technically out of order but i don't actually care <3 also. early lindon is fun lots of headcanons

Lindon is starting to grow, finally. 

The trees are shooting up from saplings, dotting the barren landscape that used to be Ossiriand with more and more green and less ashy grey; and the settlements are growing from camps — where the main goal was to provide quick housing for those fleeing Beleriand to keep from dying before the land utterly sank — to towns, real towns, made of wood and stone. 

The most prominent settlement is on the Gulf of Lhûn, and she hears people calling it Mithlond — as a joke, mostly, for the grey mist and cloud cover that blows over it from the sinking of Beleriand occasionally, even now, but it is the name that sticks.

It is charming, she has to admit.

Mithlond is remarkable for another reason: the way the Eldar there mix. 

Ñoldor (Fëanorians and Nolofinwëans and Arafinwëans), Sindar (Iathrim and Falathrim) and Nandor and even Laiquendi all living together (though these last two mostly tend to the orchards or their flocks and do not care for the settlement itself very much, though they come in occasionally — selling fruits and flowers they pick) and mostly in peace. 

(Key word: mostly.)

The Gondolindrim help lay roads with the help of the folk of Nargothrond, and the roads are much better than she remembers in Thargelion or Amon Ereb or Himlad or the Gap, and she almost regrets thinking about it. 

The homesickness has not quite gone away just yet. 

Months later, Celebrimbor excitedly tells her about the trips he is planning on taking, and asks if she’d come with him.

The offer is tempting, it is, truly. 

But she has already fallen in love with Lindon — and not just as an extension of Ossiriand (and therefore Thargelion), but as its own land. 

(The homesickness still lingers around the edges, but it is almost gotten to where she can ignore it.)

But, staying in Lindon (and not following her cousin to Nenuial) lends itself to several surprises. 

The first being put on the council with Elrond — she’s not sure how that  happened, maybe it’s because of her knowledge of architecture (Mithlond, Harlond, and Forlond are all still expanding) or just shrewd political thinking. 

The second is a less pleasant surprise. 

How had so many Ñoldor — of her own father’s people (and occasionally her uncles Amrod and Amras, which she doesn’t quite get the logic there) survived without her knowing? And further, why do they seem to be melting out of the stones and finding her and then offering her their allegiance. 

It starts happening several years after Mithlond is founded, which Morinel cannot quite fathom.

The first time it did happen, she was returning from a meeting for planning out expansions, when a stranger suddenly drops to their knees before her. She offers Morinel her sword-hilt, pledging her loyalty and her life.

That...

Morinel knows how to respond in acceptance to such a claim -- but she does not know how to refuse one.

So, she improvises.

“What do you mean by this?” She demands. “And who are you? Get up!”

The elf surprises her, and does so.

There is Treelight in her eyes, and she is clearly Noldor. Her clothes are plain and her face is worn, but there is the mark of command etched across her bearing. A smile twitches at the edge of the stranger's lips.

“I was your uncle's herald,” she tells her, in the tone of giving someone a hint.

“You will need to be more specific,” Morinel says, a little crossly and without thinking, “I had rather an abundance of them.”

When the words process, she gasps but the stranger only laughs -- a sharp barking laugh that Morinel remembers. “Remlas?”

“The very same.”

“Why--” And this is a foolish question, Morinel knows, but she already started the question. “Why have you come?”

“I thought that more obvious.”

Morinel does not roll her eyes. It isn't befitting of someone her station.

(She wants to, though.)

“I meant why me.”

Remlas shrugs. She still has the air of the huntress Morinel only vaguely remembered. “Because, you led your father's people well in the war, because you are here in Lindon, a number of reasons, really.”

Remlas doesn't say it, but still: because you are closest is barely even subtext and it stings.

“If you must pledge your sword and your service to someone, the High King of the Noldor is just down the road.” Really, Morinel just wants the conversation to be over. But Remlas has no intention of making it easier.

“But it is your house who holds the oath,” — Morinel nearly recoils at this — “Of my fealty. I do not break Oaths lightly.”

Morinel exhales.

She doesn't know what else to say to get her to go away (curse Feanorian stubbornness), so Valar forgive her, because Celebrimbor may never – 

“Then if you wish to offer loyalty to one of my lost House,” she says eventually, “Find Celebrimbor and speak to him. Not me.”

Remlas studies her for a long moment.

Then with the slightest tip of her head, Remlas is gone, disappearing around the corner of the building and as silently as if she had never been.

Tyelpecal— Ningannel is next, and the shock of it jolts through her, although maybe it shouldn’t.

Ningannel was her father’s seneschal, after all, but still–

She barely recognizes them.

She has to commend Ningannel for not doing so in public – or at least, not in the middle of the square, like how Curufin and Celegorm’s people used to do to Celebrimbor when he was in Lindon to Celebrimbor’s own never-ending distress – but the words make something squirm, deep in her stomach.

They use her full name – her Quenya name – Morínallë Istafinwë, too, and that proves just how serious they are, and also kneeling and offering her their sword and their fealty, like Remlas had. 

Morinel swallows nervously.

She really wishes Emlineth were here to help her navigate this. But she is not, and instead Morinel takes a steadying breath. 

“I cannot accept your loyalty,” she says and her voice does not shake, “Please get up.” 

Ningannel does not move, and she speaks more firmly. “Here, I am no lady of my house. I am no leader. Nor am I the ruler here, which would be Gil-galad or Cirdan, depending on how you look at it.” 

She takes another breath – so she can collect her thoughts. She has felt freer than she has in years, here in Lindon.  “I do not want to be, either. Please do not make me, Ningannel.”

Ningannel favors Morinel with a dagger sharp smile as they sheath their sword, and rise.

“Very well, Lairehina, if that is your wish.”

The waves crash in Morinel's ears as she nods.

“It is.”

#morinel: curse feanorian stubbornness #me looking directly into the camera: girl. #my fic #og post #oc-tober 2023 #i am not sure how properly conjugated morinel is in quenya but. it works for my purposes lmao

[claire-starsword]

The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 9

We are back. After all the excitement for Narsha and the lack of excitement for our magic school last time, we've arrived at chapter 3 and Bustoke, the only town we'll be seeing the whole chapter btw.

And before we proceed I need to talk about promotion before I forget again. Just like in the classic game, unpromoted classes are up for promotion starting at level 10, and won't go past level 20. They still get a small drop in stats as they promote, which is so weird, I don't get why is this a thing, and their growth rates change as well, which is the part that makes sense. But I'm not here to explain basic Shining Force, I'm here to talk about the GBA changes specifically, and after praising so many of them I now have to talk about what might be my most disliked one.

The level a character learns spells doesn't adapt to promotion.

What do I mean by that? Let's pick Tao as an example. Tao learns Blaze 4 at level 20. In the classic game, this means either mage level 20, or wizard level 10, because wizard is a promoted class so the game correctly assumes you've had at least 10 levels before getting to level 1 wizard.

In the GBA version, she will learn it either as level 20 mage, or level 20 wizard. Which is at least 10 levels later.

It sucks massively. I get what they were trying to do, trying to make the promotion choice a little more interesting by making you pick between better stats and weapons versus quicker spell learning, but 10 levels is a massive difference, and for some, it's not actually a choice??? Let's look at Anri now, she learns Freeze at level 23. That means she can't get it as a mage at all, she has to promote, and wait ten more levels than she would in the mega drive version. By then I might be finishing the game! So yeah, I will be commenting more on how each character is uniquely screwed by this as they reach promotion level.

For now, the only character that can be promoted is Max, and, I'll be honest, I'm not sure Max can learn spells unpromoted?? He apparently should learn it level 12, aka the next one if unpromoted, but it feels weird. You'll understand when we get there. There's no hero-exclusive sword in this part of the game, so I'm tempted to test it, not like Max needs upgrades for now anyway.

Oh wait, I forgot to check the deals section as well.

lmao.

so, forget everything i said, there's a sword! And if you're reading that thinking "hey aren't aquatic enemies from chapter 5?", yeah! This is incredibly busted for this part of the game, and I don't know how the deals section work, but I tend to get this one fairly frequently. Very useful if you're playing with Amon and Balbaroy who need as much help as they can get, but for Max, it's very much overkill. I believe there's better use of our money for now.

We can, for example, get the beautiful Power Spear for 900 gold. Without the Power Ring, this would get him to 22 attack, same as Khris with the Power Staff, aka Really Good. With the Power Ring, though? He's now at the same level as Max and Gong, except from a distance. Perhaps I can stop bullying this man now!

jk the next battle is full of people who can beat him up from a distance i'm very afraid.

And behold, our next money sink! The Silver Ring is the cooler cousin of the Steel Ring, which is kind of an affront to our beautiful Guardiana but, we just gotta import it I guess.

Speaking of cool relatives, we say hi to Diane who won't be joining us this time sadly, but between hers, Amon and Balbaroy's weapons, and some extra loot from the circus and the abbey I had forgot about, we can already buy one ring. I definitely missed a chance to buy Charm Rings last chapter with this money, but it might be for the best, I did say this team needs defense more than magic res after all.

I hand over the new ring to Lowe, who had only 9 defense, and then give the Steel Ring we picked from the Ghoul last time to Tao, who also had 9 defense. Anri and Arthur also have 9 defense, because magic users are not very original with this stat! but they'll have to wait for now.

And that was a lot of rambling to start a post with. Let's save the game and head to battle.

The Elf Slayer is a spear, stronger than the Power Spear. I'm fairly sure it will be the strongest spear for most of the game before we finally get the Valkyrie at chapter 7. So I want this a lot. Unfortunately this is not a battle I'm confident to rush on.

And yes, it does bonus damage on elves which I think are only like, the archer enemies. I will hate on these guys soon enough so I would like some bonus on massacring them as well.

First we have to witness one of my favorite lines of all times.

Then we get to suspect that Arthur's lack of defense might not be a lack of armor, just a lack of care and brains. I can't heal you when you barely have hp, bestie.

Start of the battle is just going down to meet some skeletons, not a big deal given how the last battle went.

It indeed goes completely fine, these guys are super slow so I even get to coordinate things to get a level up for Anri who is still a bit behind the rest of the team along Arthur. She gets… +1 HP. And nothing else.

These two, man.

We're now at Turn 4 and that's when the real battle begins.

We need to break through this mass of enemies, and a pair of Dark Mages can always cause big damage. I guess Max can tank them because he's like that, but there's still only so much he can survive so we gotta deal with these guys fast.

The worst however is these guys i promised to hate on. Dark Elves. What's not to hate? They have Elven Arrows even though we can't buy those until next chapter. And that weapon? Can one-hit kill. That's right baby our "minimize deaths" goal is now on the hands of RNG. Thrilling.

The best case scenario is that Max never gets close to these guys, but I doubt that will be possible, only Gong also has the defense and HP to tank the other enemies. We can try to advance slowly but with how narrow the passage is, it is bound to become a mess at some point anyway.

Sigh. It's not gonna get better from talking about it. Let's attempt this.

We get a very good turn. Max baits a Dark Mage, taking 7 damage, and Arthur gets to show off the Power Spear + Power Ring combo by killing them instantly. Now there's a Skeleton is front of Max, but these are already weak so who cares. The real problem is that, as you can see, one of the dark elves already came down. We should kill them as fast as possible. Did I mention they have high evasion? They have high evasion. There's also two more skeletons in the way. I hate this battle.

Max and Tao team up to deal with the first Skeleton, and now is Gong's turn. You know, the guy who keeps dying in this run. I think he has enough defense and HP to tank everything here, but the elven arrow is a looming possibility, I don't see any way to wipe this elf right now. And if I don't place Gong here, it's likely they'll go for Max instead, and if he dies that's a loss. They could also go for Tao, who is naturally squishier and also a ranged AoE user, something we desperately need here. So alas. Go Gong, I'm so sorry man.

hoo boy now there's two of them. Gong tanked the mage, but the dark elf that was already here hasn't moved yet. I'm gonna heal just in case. Just to feel something.

THE DARK ELF PROCEED TO SAY, "excuse me skeleton brother can i pass through you please, i'm way too jealous of elves hotter than me to attack anyone already on my range" AND SHOOTS TAO ANYWAY.

did i forget to mention the elven arrow has more range than the arrows available to the player at this point? Yeah that's also a thing. i hate these guys so much. Tao still survived though, so get wrecked. I would love to know how to do this battle in a sane and reasonable way though. Assuming it's possible.

Mister overpowered hero you better deliver i want this fuck dead. And yeah this does put Max in range of the other guy but honestly he was in range for this one too. I'm definitely not smart enough for this.

*sob*

"And this is why I prefer magic."

This finishes the skeleton and thankfully Gong hits the elf to finish the job. Very glad I healed him last turn actually because we might be taking a lot of Blazes as long as I keep focusing on the elves over the Dark Mage. I regret not healing Max actually. Now Khris has to focus on Tao who would definitely die to another shot.

hoo boyy this is not great

Arthur somehow manages to sneak in the turn order exactly between the other dark elves and this one. It's risky to send Arthur like this but, it's 20 attack from the elf versus 9 defense, he should survive a normal hit, and again, a killing hit is better on anyone else besides Max.

Hatred festers in my heart as Arthur misses, but, the elf just moved down??? Legit don't know what they're trying to do, sometimes they do weird things trying to get to Max but, Max was in range. Many people were in range. Why this.

Not complaining though! Lowe, slowest member of the team, can now heal Max in peace.

Gong then gets a chonky counter on the Skeleton.

I won't know true peace until the dark elves are all gone though, so I'm going ahead.

And that's a real one-hit kill, asshole!

Tao has seen better days but Khris will get to heal her soon and I think she can survive the occasional hit. Also I really want this mage gone. They have 50% magic resistance and 8 defense, so the Power Staff is definitely the right call.

i hit the tumblr image limit though, so this is a neat cliffhanger for you until the next reblog :3

#shining force #shining series #guardiana magic school run

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

[storydays]

Season 1, ep 4, p2

You and Bolin walked up to Korra, who was petting Naga's belly. "Hello, fellow teammate!" She looked up and smiled slightly. "Oh, hey Bolin." Nevermore and Pabu ran off together playing happily. "Missed you at practice this week." Bolin continued awkwardly. "Yeah, sorry about that." Korra turned towards Naga, who continued to wag her tail happily. "Aw it's all right. We're probably out of the tournament anyway. Unless some money miraculously drops out of the sky by tomorrow. Anyway, reason I came by was to give you this. Ta-da!" 

He held out a pretty red rose and a cupcake wrapped up neatly in a plastic bag. "Wow, thanks. What's this for?" She wondered. Bolin's eyes widen from where he was currently handing you a (favorite treat) and a yellow rose. "Uh...oh, I can't remember now. Oh, yeah, now I remember. You guys saved me from Amon." He smiled happily like a puppy who earned a treat. 

"Oh that? It was no big deal." she shrugged it off, while you rolled your eyes, gently watering the flower in your hand.  " 'No big deal?' Are you serious? I was totally freaking out when he was coming at me with his creepy mask, all: 'I will take away your bending forever.' I mean that is scary stuff. I still can't sleep well." He sighed, sitting next to Korra on the steps who hummed.

Your (e/c) eyes narrow at her suspicious behavior. "Delivery for Avatar Korra." You all turned to the stringy man. "Tarrlok sends his compliments and urges you to reconsider his offer." He smiled pleasantly. "Tell him I haven't changed my mind." "Yes Avatar Korra. Oh, Councilman (Y/N)? You have a letter from Waterbender Master Katara." "O-Oh, thanks!" The man bowed and left Air Temple Island. "Whose this Tarrlok guy? Is he bothering you? Huh, 'cause I could have a word with him." Bolin threatened. 

"Heh, no. It's not like that. He's just some old guy who works with Tenzin and (Y/N) on the council." Korra laughed at Bolin's goofy nature. "Oh good. Good, that's better. I like that better." Bolin rubbed his hands together, making you raise an eyebrow curiously, before shrugging it off. You sat next to Korra and opened Gran Gran's letter. 

'Dear (Y/N), 

                         It sounds like your ESP powers are starting to show. Do not worry, all will be explained when you come visit me. Take care of  yourself.

                                                                                   Love, Gran Gran.'

You sighed, making your bangs puff slightly. Typical: elders seemed to like talking in riddles. "Everything okay?" Korra wondered. "Yeah, just some Grandmother Grandson stuff. Nothing to worry about." You smiled before you all yelped when Nevermore and Pabu rolled by squealing, and nipping each other. "Ah, Bolin! Help me!" The two of you raced over to your respective animals who were very aggressive and unusually angry with each other.

"Hey, what's wrong girl? This isn't like you." You frowned, as Nevermore pouted. Bolin laughed uneasily. "It's like their siblings, huh, (Y/N)?" He laughed sheepishly, tending to Pabu's wounds. You chuckled dryly,  wrapping Nevermore's wing, while sending Bolin an amused look. "Reminds me of when we first started training together for pro-bending." The Earthbender had the nerve to grin impishly. "Wait, what happened the first time?" Korra asked curiously. "Well.." 

*Flashback*

You step sided an Earth disk and a burst of flames before sweeping underneath their feet with ice cold water. You then took off your blindfold, walked over to the side of the arena to see your teammates and friends frowning and pouting (in Bolin's case) up at you. "How?" Mako said blankly, looking more serious than a 10 year old should. It's been two years since they became a family with the pro bending gym. You've still had a ways to go before you fully knocked down Mako's walls, but he's slowly warming up to you. 

You laughed, jumping down before hanging on one of the lower beams by your knees, near the boys. "I'm the grandson of Waterbender Katara, who is friends with the Greatest Earthbender of All Time. I've learned a few things, Mako."  The brothers then smirked at each other, before they began splashing you, and eventually Mako pulled you into the water and you joined into the fun, acting like a child instead of an adult for once. 

The three of you were so busy having fun, you didn't even notice Aunt Kya and the gym owner smiling at the three of you. "This will be good for the three of them." He said quietly, Kya placing her hand on her hip, loving how happy you looked, being around children your own age. 

"Yes, it will." 

*End Flashback*

"And that's how we our first training session went." You laugh softly, eyes closed in memory. "Ahh,  seems like yesterday that happened." Bolin hummed, running a hand over Pabu's back. "Yeah, and look how far we've come. Interesting, huh, Korra?" Your eyes met hers. "Yeah, sounds like fun." She smiled at you. "Well, I've got to get going, I need to see what Mako wants to do for dinner. See you guys at practice, next week!" He waved with Pabu chattering at Nevermore. 

"Yeah, see ya." You waved before turning to study Korra. "What?" She asked, feeling defensive. "Nothing, Avatar. I'm going to go check on Ikki, I owe her a story. Catch ya later." You waved backwards, leaving the Water Tribe girl alone. Nevermore flew up and away to play with some of the bisions. 

*10 minutes later*

You found Ikki and Meelo playing in a Sato Mobile, chattering away to Tenzin. "Beeeeeeep! Beep, beep, beep!" she exclaimed, Meelo repeating her. "Beep, beep." "Nice ride." you whistled, looking at the gift tag. "Ugh, Tarrlok is annoyingly frustrating." Your Uncle hummed, agreeing with you. "Yes, he is. Have you seen Korra, nephew?" "Yes, Uncle. She was heading towards  the ying yang training grounds..." He started to walk away before he stopped. "(Y/N), are you..doing all right?" He asked hesitatingly. 

"I-," you looked at your curious cousins before smiling unconvincingly at the airbending master. "Yes, Uncle. I'm fine. However, I'm worried about Korra. Could you--" "Do not worry. I will talk to her." He smiled at you before leaving. Meelo pulled back his arm with a (favorite flavor) pie, and began to throw it at you but yelped when it was suddenly thrown back into his face. Ikki began giggling wildly, before she yelped as she was suddenly thrown into the air and began throwing air back at you. 

"You two brats are sneaky, but guess what?" You all were suddenly drenched in water, and Meelo was all muddy. "I'm sneakier." Pema was laughing from where she was standing next to a giggling Jinora, and a few Air Acolytes were laughing at the scene. You merely blinked and held your arms out to catch Ikki bridal style. "Aw, Mommy! We were playing! We're still in the middle of a prank war." Meelo pouted, running up to the group of women. 

"Yes, dear, you can do your prank war later, it's bath night." At the word of, "bath," Meelo tried to run, but was grabbed by his ankle with a water hand, and was hanging upside down in front of you. "(Y/N), I hate to be a bother but would you--" "Say no more, Auntie." You set Ikki down, and she left with some of the Acolytes, before you grabbed Meelo, slung him over your shoulder and then began walking to the men's dorms. 

"But (Y/N)! I don't want to take a bath!! Baths are gross, and how can the ladies love my natural self if--" the airbending rugrat yelped when he was suddenly in warm water, without clothes. He spat water at you, and glared at you. You were smirking, your hair tied up, your normal clothes gone, and you were wearing swimming shorts. 

"Well, Meelo, let me tell you something about women," you leaned down be face to with him as he leaned in excitedly. "Ladies don't like stinky brats." You booped his nose with suds, and laughed softly as he exclaimed. "(Y/N)!" He giggled as you rubbed his bald head with his washcloth. "Seriously though, little cousin. Women like men who take care of themselves, which includes taking baths or showers regularly." 

Meelo closed his eyes as he sighed happily. He liked bath time with you; you make bath time fun. "How do you know that?" He asked curiously. You froze before rinsing the mud off his body. "My mom used to tell my dad that when I was younger." He turned around to face you with curiosity on his face. 

You didn't talk about Aunt Lotus, your mother very often. In fact,nobody did. You smiled at Meelo. "I'll tell you a story about my mom later, okay? I got to get ready for my shower." You drained the water, and dried off the little monk. "Go get dressed, and I'll join for dinner soon." He ran off, and you ran warm water, before locking the door and sighing as the water ran over your sore body.

It's been 10 years since your mother passed away, and her birthday was coming closer, and it never got any easier. You usually shut yourself away on certain days concerning your mother, and tried to forget about the pain you were feeling. You refused to cry because your mother wouldn't have wanted that. 

After all, you were always her strong solider.  

*Crunch*

You blinked, bringing your trembling hand to your chest, and hissed as warm water ran over your now bloody and bruised knuckles. So trapped in your thoughts, you didn't realize your knuckle was in motion until you were staring at bloody water. Sighing in annoyance, you let your hair cover your sight. "Damn it." 

*20 minutes later*

You walked to the courtyard, a towel on your wet hair. Knuckles wrapped in fresh pristine white bandages, slippers on your feet,  sweatpants loose on your hips, tank top clinging to your skin. On your wrists, two Northern Water Tribe bracelets. You leaned against  a column underneath Korra, watching Ikki and Jinora play a game. You both perked up to see Tarrlok's assistant run up. 

"Avatar Korra, I have something for you!" Annoyed, Korra jumped down. "It doesn't matter how many gifts Tarrlok sends." She used the Earth to turn him around before kicking him in the butt. "I'm not joining his task force!" "Sheesh, Korra." You laughed into your hand. "It's not a gift. It's an invitation." He pulled out said paper. "To what?" asked the blue eyed Avatar, snatching the invitation. 

"Tarrlok is throwing a gala in your honor. All of Republic City's shakers and movers will be there. The Councilman humble requests your attendance. You as well, Councilman (Y/N)." You rolled your eyes, before accepting the invitation. "Fine." you and the girls laughed as Neo growled at the assistant to leave. "Yeah, see ya there, dude." You shook your head as Neo sat down for Jinora and Ikki to rub his belly. 

*The next night*

Jinora, Ikki,Meelo laughed seeing how amazing the party looked. You trailed behind Korra and your Uncle Tenzin. "I-I can't believe this is all for me." Korra breathed. "I'm not sure what Tarrlok's plotting, but keep your guard up. It's not like him to throw a party just for the fun of it." "Uncle's right, Tarrlok is sneaky as a snake." They turned to you snacking on a pig in a blanket, with a handful of other treats, in your hand.

Your hair was half up, half down, complete with a few blue beads here and there.  "Wow, (Y/N), you've cleaned up pretty good." Korra complimented, stealing one of your treats. "So glad you could make it, Avatar Korra. If you'll excuse us, the city awaits its hero." Tarrlok smirked, urging Korra to follow him. You stuck your tongue out childishly, before laughing when you notice what Meelo was doing. 

"Uh, Uncle?" You outright laughed as Tenzin rushed to get his son. "Meelo, no!" He gasped, turning blue. "That is not a toilet! Oh, dear." He sighed, rushing over to grab his son, clearly embarrassed. "Hey, (Y/N)." You turned around to see Asami, with her arm hooked with Mako's, and Bolin trailing behind. Korra stood next to you, with an annoyed look on her face. "This us my daughter, Asami." Hiroshi introduced. 

"It's lovely to meet you. Mako's told me so much about you." Korra crossed her arms. 'Oh, no.' "Really? Because he hasn't mentioned you at all. How did you two meet?" Korra asked, snappily. "Oh, Asami ran him down with her motorbike." You said, casually. "What? Are you okay?" Korra's mood switch, as she turned to the firebender. 

Ohhhh. You realized why she was acting like that, and you felt a smirk creeping to your face. 'This is going to be fun.'  "I'm fine, more than fine. Mr Sato agreed to sponsor our team. We're back in the tournament!" Mako grinned when Bolin wrapped his arm around his brother with an even bigger grin. "Isn't that great?" "Yeah, terrific." Korra's face dropped.

The whole team thing was still sore between the four of you. After all, the Fire Ferrets was your team, you were the one that created the team! 

"Chief Beifong, I believe you and Avatar Korra have already met." Tarrlok said slyly. "Just because the city's throwing you this big to-do, don't think you're something special. You've done absolutely nothing to deserve this." She said, narrowing her eyes and walking away. Korra looked down, discouraged. "Eh, don't mind her, Korra. She's just grumpy because this is interrupting her self care time." You grinned at Korra who smiled weakly. "Thanks for trying, (Y/N)." She walked away. 

Tarrlok led her to the stairs where the press was waiting for her. "I've got one more question, Miss." "Hold up, hold up!" The reporters chattered but stopped when a voice spoke up. "Avatar Korra, you witnessed Amon take away people's bending first hand." "Uh, no. Councilman (Y/N) did, I was busy dealing with some of his goons." You grumbled under your breath as you hid behind your Aunt Lin. 

"How much of a danger does he present to the citizens of Republic City?" "A real danger." "Then why haven't you or Councilman (Y/N) joined Tarrlok's task force?" "Why do people keep bringing me into this?" You hissed to your Aunt Lin who in turn laughed quietly. "Aren't you going to help her?." Lin questioned. "No, she needs to learn to deal with the press. It's part of being apart of the lime light." You said, chewing on a candy stick. 

 "As the Avatar, shouldn't you be going after Amon?" "Well, I--" Korra tried to explain, but the same reporter continued to question her. "Why are you backing away from this fight?" "What? No! I've never backed away from anything in my life." Korra defended. 

"You promised to serve this city. Are you going back on that promise?" "Do you think pro bending is more important than than fighting the revolution?" "How do you think Avatar Aang would've handled this?" "Are you afraid of Amon?" 

"I"M NOT AFRAID OF ANYONE!" She shouted, as you finally came from behind Lin.  "If the city needs me,then we'll join Tarrlok's task force, and help fight Amon." You scowled and glared at Tarrlok. "There's your headline, folks." Cameras flashed and questions echoed through the building, as you felt your blood boil. You watched Tarrlok wink at a certain reporter and realized it was a trap. 

You followed the reporter, and grabbed him by his neck. He yelped and was shaking when he came to face to face with you. "So, what did Tarrlok bribe you with?" You demanded, while he played with his fingers before finally talking. "I will tell you everything I know, but it's not much."

*The next day* 

"My fellow task force deputies, tonight we will execute a raid on an underground chi-blocker training camp located in the dragon's flats borough. According to my sources, there is a cellar underneath this bookstore, where equalists train chi-blocking in secret." You were kneeling next to Korra but sat on top of the truck, more there as backup and for medical knowledge. You bent water to the next teammate. 

"Get ready, anddddddd now." You said boredly, waving your hand as the task force attacked. You watched Korra run after two Chi blockers, and sighed. You ran after her, seeing no one was injured. Korra fell on the floor, and gasped sharply as someone fell down and tried to attack her. You used ice to trap him, and freezing the other behind you. "Oh, nice timing. Thanks (Y/N)." You helped her up, and gave a lopsided grin. 

"Of course,friend. Let's go." She smiled as you lead them out, pulling your gloves tighter over your hands, keeping your distance away from Tarrlok, but staying close to Korra. 

At the moment, she was too unstable to keep her guard up for much longer. 

*At the pro bending gym* 

"No Korra for practice again?" Bolin asked. "Doesn't look like it. " Mako sighed, reading his newspaper. You were currently practicing some similar movements to make your agility smoother. You tuned into the radio, "Avatar Korra and Councilman (Y/N)  have bravely answered the call to action. With the three of us leading the charge Republic City has nothing to fear from Amon, and the Equalists. Question for the Avatar: Amon remains at large. Why have you failed to locate him?" 

Korra's voice came over the radio. "You want to know why? Because Amon is hiding in the shadows like a coward. Amon, I challenge you to a duel. No task force, no chi blockers, just the two of us, tonight at midnight, on Avatar Aang Memorial Island. Let's cut to the chase and settle this thing...if you're man enough to face me." With that the radio turned off. You pinched the bridge of your nose, steaming mad. 

"Ugh....this girl."

*That night* 

You were sitting on the ladder, watching Korra wrap up the rope from the pier. "Korra, this is madness." Your uncle's voice stated from behind you. Korra's dark blue eyes snapped to the airbending master. "Don't try to stop me, and don't follow me. I have to face Amon, alone." You studied her movements, ignoring the adults arguing behind you. "This is all your doing." Uncle snapped at Tarrlok. "I've tried talking her out of it too, but she's made up her mind." Tarrlok defended himself., giving Korra the opportunity to zoom away.  

"No Uncle. " Everyone turned to look at you, but you kept your gaze on the water changing color below you. "This is something Korra needs to do, or she will never understand." "Understand what, Nephew?" Tenzin asked curiously.

You looked up at the stars, determination in your eyes. 

"That is is okay, not to be okay." 

"(Y/N) is right. And if anything truly goes wrong, I have a fleet of airships ready to swoop down." Tarrlok said, attempting to re-assure Tenzin. You leaned down to allow your hand to feel the coolness of the water, and suddenly you weren't leaning on the pier, waiting for Korra. You were in a vision, great. 

*Vision*

You opened your eyes to see a young child running through luscious green gardens. The child was tearing up, until he finally collapsed on the ground. Your vision cleared to see a younger you, about 10 years younger. It was raining down hard, and the tiny you was soaked to the bone, and stiffled your sobs. "(Y/N), where are you?" "Son? Come out!"  you simply curled up tighter, clutching your head. 

You heard footsteps stop near you, and a breath of relief. "Oh, (Y/N), there you are." You looked up to see Uncle Tenzin standing there, with a warm blanket. He knelt down and opened the blanket, silently urging you to run into his arms. He grunted when you tackled him, and clung to him with a vice grip. Tenzin sighed softly, running a hand through your hair as you shook in his arms. 

"Nephew, it's okay to not be okay." He murmured. "No, not for me. I just have to be  strong. I just have to." 

*End vision*

You opened your eyes and jumped into the air, opening your glider, and taking off. "Uncle, let's go!" He followed you, soon the two of you were flying around looking for a sign of where Korra was. You went higher, and landed near an opening,  before seeing Korra crying into your Uncle's chest. "You were right. I've been scared this whole time. I-I've never felt like this before,and Tenzin, I don't know what to do." she sobbed.

"Admitting that you're afraid is one of the first, but most difficult part of healing." Tenzin's voice echoed through the tunnel. You leaned against the wall, waiting for them to step out.

'She'll be okay.'

#lok imagine #legend of korra #legend of korra x reader #x male reader

[hnybnny]

properly introducing my main fanservants!!!

LOTS OF PHOTOS/ART AND SUCH UNDER THE CUT BUT LIKE,,,, THIS IS JUST. A QUICK INTRODUCTION. TO MY PRIMARY SERVANT BASTARD CHILDREN- (in order of appearance; Sebastian Moran, John Watson, Enola Holmes, Columbia, Thomas Edison (True), Nicolas Flamel, Captain Stormalong, Edgar Allan Poe)

Feel free to hop in my ask box if you wanna talk about them or have any questions!!! Thank you for reading ily- 

Colonel Sebastian Moran (Assassin)

My primary servant OC by far! Professor James Moriarty’s chief-of-staff and right hand man- the second most dangerous man in London, after the Napoleon of Crime himself. Nicknamed ‘Basher’ or ‘Tiger Jack’, among others..

Moran is- or was- the most skilled marksman in the British Army, before he was dishonorably discharged. There are only a handful of men on the face of the continent able to shoot as well as he. As well as being an unnaturally skilled shot, he is a devoted sportsman and big-game hunter, and has notoriously tangled with tigers by himself in India- a predator that rather aptly describes the man himself. He authored two books, and his feats are still legendary in India, where his record 'bag of tigers' still goes unmatched. Although his outwards appearance was that of a respectable London gentleman and honorable military veteran, he gained a reputation in the evil underworld and was recruited by James Moriarty, serving as his 'chief of staff' of his criminal empire as well as his personal assassin for jobs that required his peculiar skill with a rifle.

The man is, as one Chaldean staff member puts it, a 'stone-cold badass'. He has a nerve of iron, and is vehemently loyal to both Professor Moriarty and his Master. He lives for danger, and the thrill that comes with 'kill or be killed' situations. Moran is also extremely easy and obvious to read- smiling 'like an idiot' when happy, and 'frowning like thunder' when angry. He does rather enjoy killing people, and is overall a man of few morals (although still having more than the Professor)- which, paired together, is what led to his leave from the military as he's practically a walking example of the 'Colonel Kilgore' trope. The more challenging the kill, the more enjoyment he gets out of it. As a strange upside, Moran has no illusions of how he's a right bastard.

"Ask anyone who knew me in the army, and you'll hear the same things about Basher: tiger in the field, bounder in the mess; a good man to have your back, but a bad man to show your back to; trust him with a fight, but not your sister, your wallet, or a deck of cards."

His Noble Phantasm, which represents his unmatched skill with a rifle, is called  BEBR DER KHANH KHALI - Persian for ‘the tiger in the empty house’. 

The bullet shot is, unlike others, a specially-made expanding revolver bullet which makes Moran unable to be likely linked to the kill. Much like a ghost or a tiger stalking its prey, he is completely silent in his attack, and the target can never see him coming before they're already dead- and just as quickly he is gone, seemingly disappearing into thin air without a trace.

No matter the conditions or distance, as long as Moran can see his target in some way- whether by the naked eye or through his scope, or perhaps in some other manner- his shot is guaranteed to hit its mark with deadly accuracy.

Also, if you find him not wearing his coat, it’s probably because he gave it to Jack. He loves knife child. They deserve proper clothes.

(source: amon-sheep on twitter)

(source: manalmmune on twitter)

[[LINK TO HIS CHAPTER IN MY FANSERVANT FIC]]

--

Doctor John Watson (Caster)

The famed Boswell and best friend of the great detective himself. Aman who is most like his traditional origin, as opposed to the heavyset comedic figure modern media tends to make him out to be- aka the Watson that is described by Doyle as a former rugby player, an army man, and popular among the fairer sex due to his handsomeness, intelligence, and charm. 

He quickly becomes a proper ‘fatherly’ figure in Chaldea and especially to Master, due to his big dad energies, despite never having the chance to be a father in his life. Chaldea also appreciates finally having a proper doctor that isn’t a Berserker or... whatever’s going on with Ascelpius. Watson is Holmes’s life compass, the loyal companion always by his side who balances the detective out. 

Although he’s a caster, he also wields his trusty wartime revolver, and is curious in that, unlike most casters, he has one offensive Noble Phantasm- it’s his secondary, and his primary ‘Conductor of Light’ crystallizes Watson's role as a 'whetstone' for Sherlock Holmes's mind and unmatched stimulator of his famous flatmate's genius. As Holmes himself summarizes, “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.” This Noble Phantasm is purely supportive, serving to bring out the absolute best in an ally- whether it be manifested in power, magic, or inspiration- and temporarily unlocking a vast wealth of potential that they might not have even known they had. The exact limitations or bounds of it is not known, as it can seemingly extend in purpose as far as Watson or his Master might need it to in a given situation- able to provide buffs, grant moments of unmatched mental clarity or courage, and even unlock hidden abilities and Noble Phantasms if the moment is dire enough. His secondary NP is one he rarely uses, and hates to do so, because of the bad memories it dredges up- called ‘The Reichenbach Solution’, it creates a reality marble recreation of Reichenbach, with the roaring waters and a single shot from Watson himself sending the enemy tumbling off the falls to their demise. 

Watson was old friends with Moran in the army, and reconnect during their time in Chaldea (despite Holmes and Moriarty’s protests), and he also joins the ‘author squad’ and spends much time with them. He is a rational man and sturdy as they come, always there when needed; whether it be to patch up wounds, help solve mysteries, or to help Master deal with all the mental trauma from their adventures (because holy shit they need HELP-). Also Also he probably just straight up adopts Mash, he and Holmes are her new gay dads.

(source: gomooink on twitter)

--

Enola Holmes (Ruler)

If Sherlock is the representation of all great detectives, then the teenage Enola Holmes is the representation of all female sleuths. Originally far too weak to be a servant- her source material being extremely modern (Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer), she contains the essence of the great detectives of the fairer sex, but most importantly of two Divine spirits- Athena and Persephone (not Ma’at, despite what the image says-), both Greek goddesses. Athena is the dominant of the two, and a maternal figure to Enola, while Persephone is content just to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes (and sometimes, the mysterious elder sibling Sherrinford), Enola is much like her more famous brother- similar in lanky stature and physical features, including the prominent hawk-like nose. She is plain in appearance but behind bright eyes hides an intelligent, clever mind, albeit a stubborn and hard-headed one. She is a rebel at heart, resisting the efforts of society to shove her into the mold of a perfect subservient Victorian woman. Enola often uses being underestimated due to her sex and age to her advantage, and, like Sherlock, is quite adept at the art of disguise. With her Spirit Origin also containing figures like Nancy Drew and Miss Marple, Enola is a talented private investigator with a knack for seeing things from angles that other’s can’t- like that of a woman.

Also yeah, she gay. Keep scrolling. She would like to hold hands with Mash very much. 

(enola w/ her brother mycroft; source, dewa-chan)

(concepts for her ascensions, mostly cemented, again courtesy of dewa-chan who i owe my life to always and forever-)

--

Columbia (Ruler)

The Divine Servant calling herself Columbia is a complex individual. At face value, she is the personification of the United States of America, often visualized as a goddess; a quasi-mythical figure first written about by the enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley during the Revolutionary War in her work To His Excellency, George Washington. Columbia is, in fact, an amalgamation of two lesser Divine Spirits. One of them is the Roman goddess of liberty, Libertas. The majority of personifications of liberty are merely aspects and appearances of her, including the Statue of Liberty and the unidentified woman in the painting Liberty Leading the People, leading to Libertas having a more powerful- if rather confusing- Spirit Origin compared to most other minor Roman deities. The other is Columbia herself; a goddess first encountered by Chaldea during the odd adventures with Paul Bunyan. She is the symbol of America, and although she is technically a goddess, she is not worshiped- instead existing as an anthropomorphic personification akin to Uncle Sam. She is a goddess crafted by humankind, a manifestation of the thirst for freedom and equality that resides in the heart of man.

However, her existence is still closely intertwined with Libertas, having come from her 'lineage'; Columbia explains that if other personifications of liberty were to manifest, such as Marianne- the French icon of liberty, they would have to have Libertas accompanying their own Spirit Origin to be anything more than a Phantom. Columbia is not only linked to the nation carrying the name America, but to the land itself- in her earliest incarnations she served as a representation of the Americas- both South and North- to those across the Atlantic. She protects all who walk across the great frontier, and all those who have walked it before. Geronimo often voices his hopes that she is the same goddess that brought the first peoples of the yet-unnamed land delicious maize in abundance; Columbia only ever gives a knowing wink, always keeping the answer to herself.

Columbia tries to speak like a newscaster- that is, without an accent- to hide that fact that her true accent as a Servant is the thickest fucking New York brogue you can imagine. AYYYY, SHE’S WALKIN’ ‘EEEEERE!!!!

She has two Noble Phantasms- a support one, her main, called ‘ TORCH OF THE NEW COLOSSUS: THE DREAM OF A NATION ‘, and an offensive albeit rarely used NP called ‘ STRIKE FOR FREEDOM: DO NOT WEEP, FOR WAR IS KIND ‘ that has anti-Country parameters /because it straight up fuckin’ manifests the american military from all across its history-/

Columbia is just... a big country mom. who can grow to the size of the statue of liberty. whoops. 

[[LINK TO HER INTRO CHAPTER IN MY FANSERVANT FIC]]

--

Thomas Edison (True) (Caster(?))

BASTARD MAN. BASTARD. This Thomas Edison, though being initially called an Alter, is actually the True manifestation of the ‘Wizard of Menlo Park’ without the influence of so many presidential heroic spirits. To match Tesla, he’s a 5*. I have him as Caster but... that’s still up in the air, tbh. 

He will steal your Noble Phantasm and claim it as his own. It’s actually one of his Skills- ‘Intellectual Copyright’. It blocks an enemy's ability to use their Noble Phantasm, sealing it for a length of time, while also buffing Edison in return- the strength of the buff received is proportionate to the strength of the sealed Noble Phantasm. This embodies Edison's habit of taking other people's ideas for his own, and while he often improved upon them, he still claimed them as solely his creations. He can copy the abilities of others and shape them to his own needs, always at the ready with a lawsuit in hand if anyone dare complain!

He is not allowed around Ivan or Ganesha due to his history with elephants and electrocution.

His Noble Phantasm (he may have more than one, he gets VERY shifty when asked) is a manifestation of his most terrible and deadly creation- the electric chair. He can also create a reality marble of a fantastical Menlo Park, a thriving center of innovation and invention, using his Territory Creation. 

Did I mention he’s a bastard? God, he’s a bastard. He’s incredibly intelligent BUT HE IS A BASTARD. He’s Evil alignment (arguably, may be Chaotic Netural-). It pains Tesla to admit that he actually likes normal Edison (furry man) much more. 

Ask him what he did to Louie Le Prince and he’ll sock you in the jaw and take off running (and also not answer). 

--

Nicolas Flamel (Caster)

The Alchemist, the great and immortal Nicolas Flamel himself. He’s a sad old lanky Frenchman DILF dad who misses his wife a lot, and is always ready to throw hands with Merlin and/or Paracelsus. He’s a potential candidate for the Grand Caster class, but is behind Solomon and Merlin in ‘line’.  Flamel was a successful French scribe who would gain a reputation as an alchemist after his death in 1418- or at least, his presumed death. He was rumored to have been successful in his creation of the Philosopher's Stone, an artifact with the ability to transmute base metals, and with it was able to create a way to achieve immortality. This Stone was his magnum opus, and he was the first to successfully create it- a fact he makes sure that Paracelsus is aware of at all times.

Also, much like Merlin, he’s not a true Servant. This is THE Nicolas Flamel. But... what happened to Perenelle, his wife? He does not like to talk about it.

He enjoys peace and quiet, educated debate, and reading. Flamel gets on quite well with his fellow Frenchman Dantes, as well as with Waver/El Meloi. 

THE DRAGONS OF FLAMEL (Skill): Flamel summons a staff of Cadeceus. Carried by the Greek god Hermes in mythology, it is said "...wake the sleeping and send the awake to sleep. If applied to the dying, their death was gentle; if applied to the dead, they returned to life". In the hands of Flamel, it can stun an enemy or counteract the effects of a stun-inducing skill upon an ally. As well as that, it can channel the effects of its corresponding god-named element mercury, able to dissolve many metals like silver and gold at will. However, like mercury, this skill is extremely volatile and prone to backfiring violently on Flamel if overused.

ELIXER OF LIFE (Skill): The ultimate alchemical creation- the solution, part of Flamel's legend, that granted he and his wife immortality. He keeps a small flask of the elixer on him at all times, and can be used in a pinch to heal all of Flamel's physical wounds, or that of a singular ally. However, it is not enough to grant an ally immortality, nor is it enough to heal multiple mortal wounds. The substance takes exactly one week, given the right materials, for Flamel to remake and refill his flask with some of the elixer.

He has two Noble Phantasms, one being ‘The Stone of the Philosphers’, and the other being ‘The Book of Abra-Melin the Mage’.

[[LINK TO HIS INTRO CHAPTER IN MY FANSERVANT FIC ALSO THERES A LATER CHAPTER WHERE HE ATTEMPTS TO THROW HANDS W/ PARACELSUS]]

--

Captain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong (Rider)

Captain Alfred Bulltop Stormalong is, plainly put, pretty much a nautical version of Paul Bunyan. Like Bunyan, he can change his size at will, growing to huge proportions. His giant ship was said to have hinged masts so as not to catch them on the moon, and had a stable of Arabian horses on board for his crew to get from one end of the ship to the other! Stormalong is said to have had a lifelong rivalry with the fabled Kraken- but unfortunately for the legendary sea beast, it got summoned alongside Stormalong and has begrudgingly taken up residence in his hat in a somewhat smaller form.

His main weapon (not drawn) is a ship's anchor he wields like a flail. His pipe is really just for the aesthetic as he can't use it to smoke, but it does blow bubbles! His Noble Phantasm is The Courser and the Kraken (Massive all-enemy damage + stun).

He’s a good boy who loves boats, the water, and clam chowder. 

--

Edgar Allan Poe (Foreigner)

The alcoholic author himself, Edgar Allan Poe is a Foreigner-class servant, being linked with the King in Yellow- Hastur the Unspeakable.

Sometimes you can find him locked in a tiny pitch-black closet with Dantes and Sherlock, all three of them puffing away in utter silence on their tobacco. Hastur most often takes the form of a multi-eyed raven chillin’ on his shoulder, and is capable of speech- if prodded, he will shit-talk the patrons of Poe’s fellow foreigners. He really doesn’t like Cthulhu and Yog, even if Poe has psuedo-adopted Abby, WHOOPS. Hastur, to his credit, is the least malevolent Elder God/patron in Chaldea- though if he is seen chatting with Moriarty by any servants or staff, Master must be alerted immediately.

True to form, he’s very macabre, with a unique dramatic way of speaking much like his writings. He’s unsettling and creepy, but has impeccable manners and likes to chat (he’s very lonely-). He enjoys a good mystery, and is prepared to find Arthur Conan Doyle if he be a heroic spirit and beating the snot out of him for treating Holmes so poorly- Poe was the inventor of the detective fiction genre, after all. Most of skills manifest visually as references to his most famous works. His NP is ‘ A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM : THE CRY OF THE YELLOW RAVEN, NEVERMORE ‘ 

He doesn’t know what a ‘Hot Topic’ is, but it sounds intriguing!

And no, he doesn’t know what the hell was up with his death either. Weird shit happens in Boston.

#sebastian moran | assassin #john watson | caster #fgo oc #fanservant #fate grand order oc #enola holmes | ruler #captain stormalong | rider #nicolas flamel | caster #columbia | ruler #thomas edison | caster (true) #edgar allan poe | foreigner #servant #fate grand order

[aion-rsa]

Old: M. Night Shyamalan’s Twist Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/3kKtl2y

Contains spoilers for Old.

Old is the new chiller from director and screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan who is very well known for his twisty plots and rug pull endings. Fans who go to the cinema for that will not be disappointed.  

Inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle, by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on a dream holiday get taken to a secluded private beach which they discover is causing them to age very rapidly. But how? And why?

Well, that’s not revealed until the end of the movie. Here we break down what happens and what it all means.

Who Dies in Old?

In short: everyone except Trent and Maddox, the now grown children of the family we begin our journey with. But characters die in different ways and that’s significant. Old is thematically MASSIVE. It essentially attempts to sum up the entire human experience in one movie, indicating a variety of ways a life could go – with twists and turns of course.

Rufus Sewell’s Charles is a doctor with racist tendencies and his rapid dementia sees him become violent. He murders rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre), tries to kill Guy (Gael García Bernal), and eventually is killed himself by Prisca (Vicky Krieps), who stabs him with a rusty implement giving him super-rapid blood poisoning. His mother has already died of what seems to be a heart condition at the start of the movie.

His wife Crystal’s (Abbey Lee) calcium deficiency causes the most horrific deterioration scene in the whole movie; her bones crunch and become contorted into hideous and unnatural shapes as they crack and then heal too quickly. It’s a medical condition, sure, but there’s an implicit judgement of Crystal in the background. The beautiful, much-younger wife of Charles is positioned as being overly fond of her looks and as she starts to age and her body lets her down, she hides in a cave in the darkness rather than be with other people. 

Crystal’s daughter Kara goes from being a little kid to a teenager, is pregnant, and immediately loses the baby (harrowing). Later she tries to climb her way to freedom but falls to her death.

This is a doomed family: a disjointed group who essentially all die horribly and alone, as opposed to the family we meet at the start. Mum Prisca is thinking of divorcing Dad Guy; she’s been having an affair, but both parents love their children fiercely and ultimately love each other too.

Only Prisca and Guy are given a ‘good death’ – they live out the minutes of their lives together. The couple reunite and solve their differences, row with each other and their children but eventually make peace with themselves. Though she has lost the hearing in one ear and his vision is severely impaired, they sit together on the beach at the end of their all too short lives and agree there is nowhere they would rather be than together.

Third couple Jarin (Ken Leung) and Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) have narratively significant deaths. Jarin attempts to rescue the group by swimming around the coast, but despite being a strong swimmer he doesn’t survive. This death emphasizes that the group has tried everything and can’t escape. Meanwhile Patricia dies of an epileptic episode. This becomes very significant later in the movie when we understand the drugs she’s been given have prevented an episode from happening for 16 years (more on this later).

What’s the deal with the rapper?

The first people at the island are a famous rapper (according to young Maddox) with the stage name Mid-Sized Sedan (real name Kevin) and the woman he is with. She has taken a swim (naked) and later washes up dead, sparking the first wave of conflict on the beach as racist Charles immediately accuses Kevin of murdering the woman. 

As a catalyst this works narratively and comes loosely from the graphic novel Sandcastle though in Sandcastle the man is an Algerian Jeweler rather than a Black rapper. 

Read more

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How The Empty Man Became the Ring Video of Streaming

By Kirsten Howard

We do wonder though, why, when his companion swam out into the sea he wouldn’t have been a bit more bothered about that and wouldn’t have asked the others for help as soon as they arrived? Also her body doesn’t appear to be especially decomposed when she washes up (while she decomposes very rapidly once on the beach).

Any thoughts about what’s going on here? Let us know in the comments.

So what is actually going on with the beach?

Electromagnetic material surrounding the beach is causing cells to age incredibly quickly – at the rate of around a year every half an hour. The kids are still growing so their aging is more obvious than the adult characters. The adults don’t get grey hair, according to a throwaway line, because hair and cells are dead and so aren’t affected – the same reasoning why they don’t all suddenly have very long hair and fingernails.

Though the film has a strong existential and allegorical angle there is actually, in theory, a real world solution – as in, the answer is ‘science’ and not ‘magic.’ This is why there are no fish in the water on the beach, and why it’s significant that when Trent and Maddox emerge from the other side of the coral they suddenly see a school of fish. The explanation for why they can’t just leave the way they came is that reversing the rate of aging very quickly causes an enormous shock to the system (like resurfacing too fast from deep sea diving), which causes them to black out before they can get anywhere.

So why on earth has the holiday resort actively decided to send people – and these people specifically – to suffer a horrific fate on the beach?

Turns out the resort is really an incredibly elaborate front for a pharmaceutical company…

What does the pharmaceutical company want and why?

This pharmaceutical agency discovers the beach and sees the potential for whole-of-life medical trials to be carried out in just over a day. In theory these trials mean vital medicines can be tested incredibly rapidly for efficacy and also for side effects. Okay, not terribly reliably – medical trials don’t tend to involve observing patients from a distance with no actual lab tests and checks, and the beach is hardly a real-life adjacent or controlled environment. But this is the logic.

Candidates are selected who are having treatment for various specific conditions already. Prisca has a tumor which she thinks is benign, and it’s through her that her family is selected. Others on the beach with them also turn out to have conditions. 

The facility has arranged all of the families’ travel and accommodation and taken their passports away from them – there (supposedly) is no evidence that they even left home, which is how the pharma is able to carry out its plans without being caught.

The system is flawed (it’s obviously massively morally flawed and also doesn’t hold up to medical scrutiny either since it’s hardly a meaningful test when it’s on individuals whose bodies don’t behave at all like regular people, but we digress…). One of the employees points out how unsound it is to put test subjects with neurological disorders in with those with conditions that do not affect the mind. Charles killing Mid-Sized Sedan and stabbing others rather interferes with the results.

On arrival guests are given specially mixed cocktails supposedly based on their preferences and dietary requirements – these cocktails are drugged with whichever experimental new treatment the lab wants to test. 

Another possible hitch: surely treatments aren’t usually one dose and then you’re done for your entire lifetime? But different rules apply here, hence the children needing to eat lots of food to account for their changes in body mass but the grown ups who stay at roughly the same weight don’t have the same issue. 

When the twist is finally revealed, we learn that the events we have been watching are part of trial number 43, and the team are celebrating a victory – the epilepsy drug given to Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is a success and stopped her from having a seizure for 16 years. (Just as well Charles didn’t murder her first.)

How do Trent and Maddox finally escape?

For a time it actually looks like they haven’t escaped. M. Night Shyamalan’s nefarious surveiller who has been watching the island the whole time is convinced the two have drowned.

Read more

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Thank goodness, though, that they have not. While we know countless families before them have died on the island, it still would have been almost too unpleasant not to spare these two. For a start we’ve been with them the whole movie, they’re our focal characters and all of the different actors who play the two as they grow keep us hooked. But these are all children – 11 and six at the start, who’s lives really are being stolen from them. They are not sick. They are not instrumental in progressing medical research. No fancy drugged cocktails for the kids, they are literally collateral damage – loose ends to be tied up. Kara has plummeted to her death but the now grown up Maddox and Trent (Amon Elliot and Embeth Davidtz) are the last hope.

And it turns out to be another child that is their salvation. Trent remembers that he never translated the note that his young pal Idlib (Kailen Jude) gave him in their special code. With frankly nothing more pressing to do than await his death, adult Trent decides to take a look. The amazing Idlib has given him a clue about his uncle not liking the coral. Turns out the tunnel of coral provides the sort of casing it requires for them to be able to get away from the force of the beach without immediately blacking out.

What about the diary?

The diary left by a previous islander is key to the ending of the movie, avoiding having to waste the audience’s time with police incredulity. 

Back at the resort having escaped the beach, the now grown Trent spots a man he’d met when he was six and playing the (narratively handy) game ‘what’s your name, and what is your occupation?’ This guy, he remembers, is a cop.

The diary documents all the things learned by another victim of the beach and the families that were there during that trial. It documents the names of everyone on the beach, as well as the things this person – who, like Trent and Maddox, was a child when they arrived – learned during their last days. The cop is able to quickly cross reference and find that everyone on the list is a missing person, missing at the same time.

Maddox and Trent get their happy ending (kind of) – they are able to expose the dodgy pharma company, prevent any further victims, and are airlifted away after saying a sad and grateful farewell to Idlib, who is very much still a child. 

We do need this ending. The film as a whole is incredibly bleak, and giving these two a chance to save the day is a tonic. Old is careful not to present this ending as too cheerful though. In the flight away from the resort Trent talks about contacting his aunt and when asked about his reaction he replies:

“How would you feel if a 50-year-old man called and said he was your six-year-old nephew?”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

They are free and they are alive, but what will happen to Trent and Maddox now is a different story.

Old is out now in cinemas.

The post Old: M. Night Shyamalan’s Twist Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3kPlFMr

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[pandoraborn]

DAY 13 BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT. || oxygen mask. ||

------------------------------------------------------------------

So much for trying to print up ‘Missing’ posters for Erin. Between the printer jamming and the tea almost burning because of their worry, there are now four people in Henrik’s living room, most of them covered in blood. Jameson’s jumping to his feet, dropping his cup of lukewarm tea onto the carpet, spilling the liquid everywhere with his hands flailing, signing his confusion at a rapid pace. Henrik pauses briefly, wanting to demand answers, but the sight of Jackie unconscious and bleeding profusely has him already turning on his heel to storm off toward his lab. Priorities: Jackie first, everything else second.

It makes no difference if people show up by ambulance or portal, he’s going to ask no questions, he’s just going to bark orders for Amon to follow him down to the lab. Inside, he pulls a bed out and clears it for Amon to set Jackie down. Henrik gets to work, poking at Jackie and figuring out where all the injuries are. There’s hardly a spot on Jackie’s body that’s free of blood or any sort of marking, so Henrik mutters to himself in German as he rushes around, grabbing things he may need, or even may not need, but might find use in anyway.

As the sole medical staff present, he feels a burden he doesn’t like feeling, like Jackie’s fate is completely in his hands. It’s overwhelming, his mind racing with thoughts of trying to save Jackie and thoughts over Erin missing. Come to think of it, it hadn’t just been the kids going missing, Marvin and Jackie had turned up missing as well, and had been for a few days now. Henrik sucks in a few deep breaths as he tries to focus only on the task at hand.

One thing at a time.

He grabs his portable oxygen tank and drags it over. Placing the mask over Jackie’s face, Henrik makes sure it stays in place before rummaging through his cabinets for drugs, anesthetics, and anything else that’ll help numb the pain. He wishes he had better equipment to help stabilize Jackie’s breathing, because the flimsy mask is barely doing anything. 

Don’t panic. Just focus.

His movements are methodical, calculated. He hasn’t realized he’s even stopped speaking completely as he drags the syringes and bottles back to Jackie’s side. Stitches. Surgery. Coma? Maybe. Probably needed.

Next is a blood bag. Jackie’s going to need a blood transfusion. He has the blood for it. Not a whole lot, but a couple of bags for Jackie’s blood type should be enough to help, until he can get more. The hero also needs stitches. Surgery might be needed, to reset and fix splintered bones. Henrik knows he has synthetic materials for that very purpose.

What he wants is a team.

No, no, no time. He grabs one syringe and fills it with an anesthetic. He’s going to have to put Jackie in a coma in order to do everything he wants to. He gets about halfway when Marvin jumps to his feet, cluing in on what Henrik’s doing.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Marvin protests. He gets up, as if to stop Henrik, but Chase throws an arm out to block him. “I can help-”

“Nein, Jackie needs medical attention. He’s suffered too much damage to his body. I need to put him in a coma, I need to perform surgery, I need to do so many things to heal him. Where were you?” His own voice is short, temper barely kept at bay. He’s not angry at Marvin, he’s angry at Jackie. He’s angry at himself. He’s angry at this entire situation in which he’s left out of the loop and has a child missing.

“I was with him!” 

“No you weren’t,” Amon whispers. “You were outside your apartment.”

Marvin feels like his head is going to burst, along with his heart. Seeing his husband in critical condition, barely clinging to life already aches, but now that Amon is throwing digs at him, it’s even worse. Marvin is struggling to breathe as he tries to keep the tears at bay. “Jason...Jason he…”

“Enough. I do not need to know details,” Henrik snaps. “Jameson, please take all of them upstairs so I can tend to Jackie. I need to concentrate!” He leaves it unsaid that he’s not going to let them distract him; he refuses to lose Jackie right here when Jackie’s in his hands.

He washes his hands and puts gloves on, just as Jameson gently guides the other three out of the lab and back up the stairs. He watches them leave, before carefully injecting Jackie with the anesthesia, purposely giving him a higher dose than normal, to ensure he stays asleep for awhile. He knows Jackie can handle the dosage.

“I’m sorry for the coma, mein Freund. But I’d rather you not feel pain anymore.” He wipes his own eyes with his sleeve before grabbing all the tools needed to operate on Jackie to make sure he lives. On top of all this, he’s worried for Erin. All the kids have been missing for days, and Henrik and Jameson had no idea where everyone had gone off to. He feels like he missed something important, but hopefully Marvin can offer the missing pieces when Jackie’s stable.

Upstairs, it’s quiet. Marvin still feels like he’s going to burst, and no one’s looking at each other. Amon especially is avoiding his gaze, so Marvin just gets up and walks outside, a little relieved to see Jameson following him.

{I know you’re distressed over Jackie, Marvin. But we’re going to need answers.}

“I... Everything’s a mess, Jameson. The kids are still missing, Vin’s missing, Jackie’s dying, and I just. I feel alone and helpless. I don’t know who all is doing what anymore, and I can’t breathe.”

Jameson mulls those words over for a minute before shaking his head. {I’ll start off by reminding you you’re not alone. But I need more to go off of than that, please. Erin is my son too.}

Marvin sucks in a breath, dabbing at his eyes. He murmurs a quiet thank you when Jameson offers a handkerchief, and blows his nose into it. “Jason captured Jackie and me, held us captive. He spent the whole time torturing Jackie, and I managed to escape when Jason’s back was turned. I didn’t have enough time to grab Jackie too, and my hands were bound-” 

{Yes, I can see the markings around your wrists, and I could see the condition Jackie was in. What about Erin? What about Nebula and Alphie?}

“We think Jason got them too. I don’t know. You can ask Amon too, he and Chase might know something.” Marvin winces when he realizes how bitter he sounds. Is he subconsciously mad at Amon for blaming him? Marvin doesn’t know anymore.

{Amon isn’t my concern right now, you are. You showed up covered in blood. It doesn’t matter if it’s Jackie’s blood, you’re clearly not handling things well right now. I’d like to help, and please don’t tell me I can’t.}

“No, you can help. I’m so used to-”

{You and Jackie being the protectors, I know. Henrik and I know how to fight as well. Maybe not as well as you, but we have our own ways of outsmarting an enemy. I would like to know who that enemy is. I’d like my son back.}

Marvin nods absently. “You’re right. You’re right, I’m so stupid.” He lets out a quiet sob, leaning against Jameson for comfort. Jameson wraps his arms around Marvin, giving him the comfort he clearly needs right now. They both remain silent as Marvin cries for a long while, letting most everything out. He’s not sure what scares him more: two people he loves losing faith in him, failing as a parent, or just feeling utterly helpless at this point. It’s too overwhelming.

{We’ll figure out everything together. We need to be a team now. Can you come back inside and tell us everything we need to know? I don’t want to lose more sleep over worry.}

Marvin nods and pulls away, dabbing at his eyes with a clean corner of the handkerchief. “Yeah, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

He falls quiet again as they head back inside, where he sits down again. The scene is much the same: with Amon and Chase sitting on the couch together. Chase is staring at the floor, playing with his hat, and Amon is purposely ignoring Marvin. Marvin sits down in a chair and slumps back, fighting the overwhelming urge to sleep. He hasn’t slept in days, he’s aware, but he knows if he tries now, he’ll fail.

{Start at the beginning, please.}

“Danielle has the kids somewhere,” Amon pipes up. He’s sitting up straighter, wings folded around his torso again. “At least, I think she does, or at the very least, played a role in taking them. One of her lackeys said as much when I was trying to escape out a collapsing building. 

{Where was this building?}

“Middle of the city. She drugged me with something to make me vulnerable to smoke and debris, so I barely got out with my life. Jumped timelines to get Chase’s attention and help.”

{Ah, I was wondering.} Jameson manages a small smile. {It’s lovely to meet you, Chase. I do wish it was under better circumstances.}

“Likewise.” Chase returns the smile. “Amon took me back here and we ran into Marvin unconscious in front of his apartment. He had shackles around his wrists, so we took him inside. I had ‘ta saw them off.”

{Marvin, what happened when Jason had you?}

“He had Jackie and me locked up in some dungeon-esque room.” Marvin shrugs, letting his head fall back so he can stare at the ceiling. He doesn’t do that forever, because he’ll still need to communicate with Jameson, after all. “He shackled me to the wall and kept me silent with a gag so I couldn’t perform magic on him. He spent the entire time torturing Jackie by poisoning him, shocking him, kicking him around. At one point, he made a taunt about the kids, so I assumed he had something to do with it.” 

{That’s two different people who have a role in where our children have gone. Something doesn’t seem right here. Would they be working together?}

“Doubtful,” Chase says. “I don’t know this Jason, but I know Danielle, and she’s really calculating. If she’s working with someone, it’s because she’s drugged them into complacency.”

“Jason doesn’t seem like the type to let someone get that close to him,” Marvin points out. “Chase, is there anyone else from your timeline that Danielle might know? Or anything that might connect her to Jason?”

Chase hesitates, setting his hat back on his head. “There…is someone else.”

Amon nods. “It’s Cian. I didn’t get a great look at him, I only saw him from a distance. But I saw Vin with him.”

{Pardon, but who is Cian? Isn’t Vin-}

“Vin is Marvin, yeah,” Chase says. “Cian is a fae, but not like your average one.”

“Let me explain this,” Amon says sharply. “Think of your worst encounter with someone. Imagine them to be a fairy. Now this particular fairy doesn’t just steal your name or is averse to iron, he’s deadly and dangerous. He doesn’t care about petty tricks, he actively seeks to cause chaos and strife. Hell, wouldn’t put it past him to be influencing us right now, especially if he’s in this timeline.”

Jameson’s expression turns into a worried one. {This can’t be good. Isn’t there a way to stop him?}

“The best we can hope for is to try to find where he’s got Vin.”

“What if Vin is working for him too?” Marvin asks. “He was corrupted awhile ago.”

“No,” Chase snaps. “Vin’s smarter than that. I know my best friend, I know he’s not about to fall for some stupid demon or otherworldly creature’s stupid magic twice. No, if he’s with Cian, it’s not by choice.”

“So. Then we need to find where Cian might be. If we find Vin, we could probably find the kids, too.”

“If a dark fae wants to have his way, there’s only one place he’d store a prize for all eternity, and it’s not a place I want to think about going to.” Amon wrinkles his nose. “It’s going to be deadly and we need a ritual to open the portal.”

“You don’t mean-” Marvin lurches forward, mouth agape.

Amon nods. “Better get some sleep, Marvin. Eat some god damned food because you’re going to send me to Tír na nÓg.”

---

TAG LIST

 @caori-azarath @inspiredrawaw @shadowtigress2 @burnt-toast-life @lilsprout-exe @randowaffle @oasisofgalaxies @sibling-ursidae @reboosh @scarletender @alphaqwerty7 @imma-gummibear @writingandwhump @dmnfox @thebluejaysworld @immcgill @scubacatwoman @zel-lk @definitely-asexual-volcano @kami-theawkwardmess @n-anon @sleightofsight @imabinerd @elycia1805 @gutter-sun-fun @spiccykels

#whumptober2020 #no.13 #oxygen mask #jse community #septic egos #fic #ego shipping #long post #miishae writes

[growingingreenwood]

What’s your headcanons regarding Queen Mereneth, we’ve heard only a couple things about her. What’s her backstory, her physical appearance, personality? How did she and Thranduil come together as a couple? How did Thranduil’s parents feel about her. What happened when she reunited with Legolas and later with Thranduil. I’m really curious about learning more about the Elvenqueen.

She was a lot like Legolas, which is part of the reason Thranduil and Legolas love each other and get along so well. She always tried to look on the good and bright side of things, she was open and loving to anybody and anything that seemed like they needed it. She had a laugh that was almost musical and it happened often, for she was such a happy person. There were very few people who met her and did not like her. 

Physically, she was very noticeably ‘Silvan’. She had dark brown hair saturated with beautiful curls and deep brown eyes to match, her skin leaned heavily towards a dark olive tone and was dusted with dozens of freckles. She was shorter than Thranduil, around 6’3, if that. She came from a very common family that lived in a village far away from Amon Lanc, and for that reason she tended to be more connected to the forest than most who lived right next to the city. 

She had left her village to come work as a scribe for the healers, with the hopes of being accepted as an apprentice healer. Thranduil and Mereneth met after he had injured himself doing something super dumb. He was forced to spend a few days on bedrest, and managed to continuously sidetrack her from her work. Every. Single. Day. 

Not that she minded TOO much. 

After that meeting, Thranduil had basically already fallen head over heels in love with her. In his opinion, she was the smartest and kindest elf he had ever met and he often forgot how to speak correctly whenever she was around. 

Oropher….wasn’t the biggest fan of her until they met again in the Undying Lands. (In my headcanon Thranduil's mother died the same night that Thingol did, as she was with him when the dwarves attacked them over the necklace) And it ended up causing a huge rift between Thranduil and Oropher. 

He didn’t like her because he thought that Mereneth ‘changed’ Thranduil too much, and was turning him into something he wasn’t. He also thought she was a very bad influence because Thranduil used to ditch all of his formal duties to go see her. Like, constantly. 9000x worse than before. Oropher thought that Thranduil was too distracted with her, that it was infatuation and not love. 

When Oropher managed to keep them apart, or force Thranduil to be where he was supposed to be, they sent constant letters to one another Via Galion. Like he was a carrier pigeon. (Thranduil kept every single letter, and brought them with him to Valinor when he finally did sail.)

Oropher and Thranduil were still fighting about it off and on the day that Orpher died, and its one of his biggest regrets.  

The moment Thranduil finds out that his people plan to name him the new King, he decides he needs to marry Merenth before that happens. Because then she can always be his number one, she can be his eternal promise of love and loyalty before the Kingdom. And so the two of them get married in a rushed garden ceremony just before midnight the day before his coronation, with Galion tearfully officiating. 

The entire woodland realm was beyond ecstatic when they found out about the union, because they had all been watching their prince (now king) fall so thoroughly in love for years. 

Regardless of the losses he just endured, the years he spent married to Merenth were always considered the happiest in all of long life years. When she died, it shattered Thranduil in ways he never learned how to describe, and never could recover from until he fell into her arms again in Valinor. 

She was sooooooooooooo in love with Legolas, even before he was born and she spent nearly every minute of everyday with him until her death. They spent their days playing games in the garden, reading stories and going on ‘adventures.’ Even with being such a new king, Thranduil was sure to spend as much time as possible with his wife and son, not a single moment was squandered within their family. 

Even the endless fond memories didn’t make it hurt any less once she died. 

When Mereneth met Legolas again in Valinor it was literally one of the most stressful moments of her entire life. She was so lost as to how she was supposed to try and be a mother to one of the biggest heroes of all the ages, when hadn’t known him since he was new to the world. It felt like it would be wrong for her to do so. How was she supposed to protect and guide him when he had led warriors into battle for centuries, when he knew how to run a nation, when he had helped to destroy the one ring. 

She didn’t know where to even begin to get to know him.

Even worse, she was terrified that he would be angry with her for leaving him, for not getting far enough away so that he could not hear the sound of her death. Or worst of all, that he wouldn't remember anything about her at all. 

It took her nearly an hour to get the courage to approach him when she did find him. 

It was only by pure luck that she managed to try to introduce herself. She only got as far as : “I’m so happy to meet you, I’m-” 

Before Legolas interrupted with “I know who you are” and threw himself into her arms and started to sob uncontrollably. 

She forgot about all her fears the moment her son was in her arms, because it felt the same as it had all those years ago when he had hardly learned to talk. The only difference being that he was taller now. And so, so much like her beloved Thranduil.

Once she was reunited with Thranduil too, the three of them stayed together for nearly two months straight. After that, it took nearly ten years before Thranduil would even so much as consider spending a single night away from her. 

Nobody had ever seen Thranduil so happy, not once. 

#thranduil head canon #good dad thranduil #thranduil headcanon #thranduil #thranduils wife #thranduils wife headcanon #legolas #legolas greenleaf #legolas headcanon #greenwood #answered asks #haleigh speaks

[alloveroliver]

The Cradle, Vampire Alternate Universe HC.

Ikemen Revolution

A/N: I couldn’t get this AU out of my head after I wrote my last vampire fic! Below you will find a HC for all the suitors and then some. Lore is down at the bottom with a list of traits and weaknesses. Let me know what you think! I will be doing more with this HC soon so stay tuned!

• ·  .  ·  ´  `  · . ·•· . · ´ ` · . ·•· . · ´ ` · . ·•· . ·  ´  `  ·  .  · •

Neutrals:

Oliver Knight is human during the day (always an adult) and a vampire during the night. He makes an amber synthetic ether potion and sells it. He also works with humans and makes weapons to protect them from the Vampires. Never killing them, only incapacitating them until the humans can get away safely. Got turned into a vampire by accident after an experiment with vampire blood and magic went horribly wrong.       

Harr Silver also makes ether, but he gives his away to Loki to sell. His ether is from naturally grown plants out in the forbidden forest. He specializes in clear ether and pink, (the aphrodisiac)  to everyone's surprise. Harr hates that he became a vampire, making him bolder when he is hungry due to his survival instinct. He has a bit of self-loathing going on. His magic seems to be gone, but it's replaced with superhuman abilities he prefers. Still teaches Loki magic.

Loki Genetta is a vampire-human mix. He was born to a father that was a vampire and a human mother. He’s able to use magic since he is part human. Sells Harr’s ether during the day since the sun only gives him a bit of a sunburn. He wears his hood to hide his skin. His vampire family shunned Loki for being a halfling, ignored by his human family for being a ‘monster,’ and picked up by ancient vampires at the magic tower for his unique abilities.

Blanc Lapin is an ancient vampire, yet neutral. He's been around longer than anyone can count. Used to use his hypnotic stare to sway women to let him feed on them for many years. Now he's tired of that and refined to just asking nicely since vampires are more common. He drinks the ether that's meant for the humans, and no one can figure out why.

Black Army:

Ray Blackwell is a vampire that fails to feed regularly. His friends were worried until they realized it was his own way of curbing his superhuman abilities. He's able to control his hunger, even when he's beyond thirst, to slow down his body's capabilities. This makes him feel less like a monster and can focus on his tasks as King. Wants to be sympathetic to the humans in this regard. Has lots of willing women from the territory to feed on if he ever needs it.

Sirius Oswald exhibits signs of being a vampire. Sharp teeth, superhuman strength, pale skin, immortality, drinks blood. Yet, he can walk in the sun just fine. He seems to know more than he's letting on, but everyone is curious why he’s so different. Disappears often but always gets his job done beforehand.   

Luka Clemence was born into an old vampire family. All of the members have vampirism. He watched his brother go through brutal training to be in control of his thirst, but Luka was given free roam. Since he was the second born and not designated to titles, they allowed him to feed on whoever he liked. Play dates as a child ended badly due to his unending thirst, but he didn’t understand how horrible it was until he was older. After understanding how brutal he was as a child, he taught himself how to hold back, and prides himself on his self taught strength.

Seth Hyde holds it together pretty well until he’s hungry. Seth is always happy go lucky and keeps up a front that everything is fine. Deep down he's deeply disturbed by what he's become and is disgusted with himself. Yet, his instincts take over, and his mind switches into survival mode to feed. He hides his past from everyone but somehow knows random facts about the ancient vampires that the public doesn’t know, catching everyone off guard. 

Fenrir Godspeed has a particularly rabid form of vampirism. He goes to Oliver for a potion that settles him down. Forgetting to take it, he will fly off in a blind feed. He has the capability of killing an entire village in a matter of seconds before his mind gains control of his consciousness again. Keeps this extra potion on him at all times.

Red Army:

Lancelot Kingsley is an old old vampire, but not as old as Blanc. He’s also able to use magic to everyone's surprise. He can only become magical when he’s fed recently. He keeps a vile of his lovers (or someone's) blood with him at all times just in case. He feeds frequently, indulges really, to make sure he's the strongest he can be at all times. His father and mother were part of the ancient vampire race.

Jonah Clemence was born into an old vampire family. As the first born, he was raised with the families customs. He didn’t have his first feed from a live human until he was well into his life and ever since he has a hard time stopping. His family thought it would help him control his urges, but he became somewhat impulsive and indulgent because of this. Many people died at his hand due to his inability to stop. He’s been put on synthetic plasma and not allowed to drink from a person by the King's orders.    

Edgar Bright freely indulges in vials of blood he creates regularly. Its looked down upon by the other officers, making him look weak and unable to wait until feeding time but he doesn't seem to care what they think. He enjoys the blood of someone after they’ve eaten their fair share of cake and candies. The sweet taste of their blood is more of a treat than a necessity to feed. He can’t help that he's a sweet tooth. He feeds more than Lancelot does without anyone realizing it and happens to be the strongest out of the whole red army because of it.  

Kyle Ash is a newly turned vampire. He tries to take patients regularly but finds himself hypnotizing them with his stare to allow him to feed on them willingly. Uses his healing tongue more than he would like to. Kyle wants to help people, but his need to feed tends to be stronger than his morals. He also scared off his last lover by going too far. He drank so much of her blood she passed out for a couple of days making Kyle distraught. Once she came to and recovered, she left him and moved out of the cradle entirely. He feels guilty and goes out with Oliver and Blanc at night to drink away his gloomy feelings.

Zero has no memory of his past other than about five years back. He’s a vampire, but he has no idea how long he's been like this, where he came from, or who his family is. He has impressive control when it comes to feeding and knows when to stop. Zero hides a symbol on his neck that looks similar to what a breed of ancient vampires uses to mark their clan.

Other Citizens:

Amon Jabberwock is from an old order of vampire, the ancients. He was turned when he was only eight years old. He appears to look 19 now even though he's centuries old by now. He wants to subjugate the humans, making them into thralls for his ultimate purpose of making his clan the most powerful group of vampires in history.

Dean Tweedle was a professor when one of his favorite students became a vampire and joined the red army. Later, the student came back to ‘thank’ him by changing Dean into a vampire. He was distraught after he accidentally killed someone, and sought help from his brother only to find he was jealous of his humanity.

Dalim Tweedle was changed into a vampire by his twin brother without his consent. He’s angry at Dean and refuses to speak to him for the rest of their many many years. He also prefers to never drink from the same person twice. The ether you give humans can become addictive, due to is pleasurable feeling and can connect the vampire and human over time. He doesn’t want to get too attached to anyone as long as he’s a monster. 

Mousse Atlas pretends to be human in front of Alice. He denies all connection to vampires and firmly believes he will find a cure one day on his travels. He spends a lot of his time mapping out places with lore that have a vampirism cure. However, when his thirst grows too much, he hypnotizes someone to forget his face while he drinks from them.

Vampire traits:

Immortal(ish): They have a very long lifespan, but it does come to an end eventually. They do age, but it's very slow.

Fast: Can run at high speeds, or move so fast it appears as an instant to the human eye.

Superhuman strength: Depending on human ability their vampire traits are multiplied by that. (i.e., if someone was capable of amazing feats as a human they will be a stronger vampire.)

Appearance: Skin becomes duller than their human tone, sometimes pale looking. Their eyes gain a sort of filament at the back of their eye that is reflective. This helps them see in the dark. Nails become as strong as diamonds. Their skin is impenetrable by any known substance, even another vampire's nails/claws.

Hypnotic Stare: They can persuade people to do things for them/think a certain way by putting them in a hypnotic state.

Healing Tongue: Their saliva can heal humans wounds within seconds.

Humanity: They hold their humanity still, yet it's hard when their thirst becomes strong.

Food: Feeds on the blood of living things or synthetic plasma.  

Enthralling: Vampire thralls are made by over hypnotizing someone after they’ve been drained of blood. The vampire bites them over and over telling them to obey their every command. This technique can be used for many things, but a thrall is a typical outcome. The human is broken and is at the whim of their sired master.

Weakness’: Vampires can't use the cradle magic since they became the magical creature themselves. (Typically) Sunlight: Five seconds will burn their skin, but up to 30 seconds would kill them. Fire: Burns them to a crisp they can’t recover from. Not eating: If they don’t feed, they will grow too weak to hunt and eventually wither away.  

Ether: This is a potion that humans take to feel no pain. The pain is replaced with either numbness, warmth, or pleasure depending on the color of ether you drink. Clear is numbness, amber is warmth, and pink colored is pleasure. Vampires in the cradle use this on the ones they wish not to harm.

Lore: Most vampires are used for the armies since they are the strongest. Humans and vampires coexist in the Cradle to an extent. The main argument between the Red and Black armies is a moral one. The Red army believes everyone should be turned into a vampire, since they are stronger, and serve their army to grow it. They want to turn anyone loyal to the red army into a vampire while locking up others who are not. 

The Black army intends to prevent the turning of humans so that humanity can thrive. They actively chose never to turn anyone unless it is a dire situation or everyone has voted on and agreed to. The humans still have a choice in both territories thanks to the actions of the black army and their efforts with the government to create laws for both vampires and humans.  

To turn into a vampire, you must drink one's blood and allow the poisonous blood to kill you or die by any means. Either way, vampire blood will kill a human slowly.

#ikemen revolution #vampire au #oliver knight #harr silver #amon jabberwock #loki genetta #blanc lapin #ray blackwell #sirius oswald #luka clemence #seth hyde #fenrir godspeed #lancelot kingsley #zero #edgar ikemen #jonah clemence #kyle ash #ikemen revolution headcannon

[kyogre-blue]

Nanowrimo, day 3 (wc 1880)

~.~

Day 3 - Chapter 3: Imuchakk

“Achoo! Man, it’s cold...” Alibaba muttered, his teeth chattering. “Sin! Put on a cloak, you’ll freeze!” 

The idiot at the prow didn’t listen. Alibaba had no idea how he was still so energetic despite wearing only his old short-sleeved tunic. They were well on their way to Imuchakk — they could tell because they were already surrounded by floating ice. It was only Sinbad’s preternatural ability to read the sea that kept them from crashing. 

As someone who had lived his entire life on Balbadd’s balmy coast and then out in the desert, Alibaba morally objected to this. 

But what choice did he have? Even though he didn’t need to worry about messing up history since this wasn’t really the past of his world, Alibaba thought it would be too much of a shame if Sinbad’s great journey didn’t occur as it should. And Valefor in the frozen north was the famous second dungeon that Sinbad had conquered. 

When Sinbad wondered where to go, what could Alibaba do except suggest Imuchakk? 

It worked out for Alibaba too. He could try Yunan’s first suggestion — going into another dungeon, to see if the gate sent him back where he belonged. 

But why did it have to be so cold?

If Sinbad wasn’t going to wear the spare cloak, then Alibaba would, right over the two cloaks already on him. 

“There’s something up ahead,” Sinbad said suddenly, leaning forward to peer across the icy sea. 

“Land?” Alibaba asked hopefully. 

“No,” Sinbad said. “It’s coming closer. Hold on!” 

His warning was too late. Their small ship heaved suddenly, sending Alibaba rolling across the deck. He managed to grab hold of the railing just in time to keep from going overboard, but the ship continued to buck wildly, frigid waves splashing over the sides. 

"What's going on?!" Alibaba hollered. 

As if in answer, something burst out of the water and arched through the air, trailing sparkling droplets. 

It was huge, easily several times larger than their small ship. Its long, thick body blotted out the sun as it passed overhead, and the splash as it struck back into the water on the other side was like an explosion. The ship jumped again, nearly capsizing. 

“Whoa I’ve never seen a fish so big!” Sinbad exclaimed in admiration. 

“That’s clearly a monster!” 

Sinbad laughed, his heart already set and Baal’s sword in his hand. “I gonna to catch it!” 

“NO!” 

...Huh? Just now, hadn’t someone else yelled the same protest as Alibaba? Sinbad and Alibaba both blinked in surprise and looked up, as an unknown black spot sailed overhead and dropped toward them. It hit the deck like a stone, making the wood creak threateningly. 

It was a giant man. Why was everything so giant? Was this just how things got in the far north? 

“No!” the man yelled again, jabbing a finger at Sinbad. “That rampaging unicorn is my prey! I’m the one who’ll catch it!” 

Sinbad’s eyebrows rose, though his grin was amused and interested, rather than appropriately scared or put off. If anything, he appeared to find the challenge exciting. “We’ll see about that!” Sinbad called out. “You haven’t caught it yet, so it’s fair game!” He turned, sword raised, just as the ‘rampaging unicorn’ burst out from under the waves again, its red horn glinting in the sun. 

A smaller figure followed it up, and flung itself toward Sinbad. 

“Not so fast!” the girl — giant girl, easily Sinbad’s height and more muscled — yelled. She crashed into him, and the pair went down in a tangle of limbs, Sinbad’s natural slipperiness matched by her greater strength. “I won’t let you interfere with my brother’s hunt! Hina! Spear it now! You can do it!” 

Her brother’s expression, hidden as it was by his long, lanky hair, flashed through surprise, gratitude and determination, before he turned to face the beast. Drawing back his arm and the harpoon he was holding, he let out a roar and— 

Flinched at the last moment. Even Alibaba, watching this entire mad sequence with muted disbelief, could see it. 

Just before letting the harpoon fly, the giant man wavered. Although the weapon still shot through the air with devastating force, it was enough to throw off his aim. The tip of the harpoon clanged against the rampaging unicorn’s thick scales and only the tip managed to wedge into a small gap between. The beast shrieked, more angry than wounded, and swung its head toward them. 

There was a crash of breaking wood, but Alibaba didn’t have time to care about that as the ship tipped completely onto its side. All four of them were sent flying off the deck and into the icy waters below. 

That was fine for the brother-sister pair in Imuchakk colors, since they had apparently swum after the monster in the first place. And Sinbad managed to somehow flip himself over midair to land on a floating piece of ice. But Alibaba... He could swim, he’d grown up in Balbadd, where the sea or a canal was never far. 

But the water here was so very cold. It went through him like a shock the moment he went in, paralyzing his limbs and his lungs. Something that he thought might be Amon protested deep in his chest. He couldn’t fight the waves from the rampaging unicorn’s thrashing tail, which pulled him deeper under the scattered ice. 

On the surface, Sinbad glanced around, sensing that something wasn’t right. Overturned ship, furious monster, giant siblings popping up between the waves... 

“Alibaba!” he called out. “Alibaba, are you okay?” 

“I’ll get him!” the girl promised, easily guessing who he was looking for. Without waiting for a response, she ducked back under the dark, cold water. 

She just wanted to help her brother finish his hunt, not get an innocent bystander hurt. 

Originally, Sinbad had just been playing around with them. While catching the biggest fish he’d ever seen sounded very exciting, he had been willing to concede the actual catch to them — as long as they had a fun chase first. 

Now, fun was no longer his top concern. 

The girl and Alibaba still hadn’t surfaced. They might not be able to, with the rampaging unicorn still running wild. Narrowing his eyes, Sinbad raised his sword. 

“Baal!” he called out, his voice ringing out with a fierceness that surprised even him. The sword hummed in his hand, and a warmth spread down his arm as thunder cracked through the air. 

It was over in a flash. 

Water exploded up and out in a geyser, soaking what parts of Sinbad had remained dry. There was another splash as the rampaging unicorn’s body toppled into the sea, bobbing up and down on the surface. Slowly, the remaining waves began to calm. 

Waiting a moment to make sure the monster had stopped for good, Sinbad lowered his sword. It had changed shape, from a curved blade to a straight double-sided one, with serpents coiling around the hilt. Blue scales ran up his forearm, thickening into armor like a gauntlet. It didn’t fade even though the magic strike was over and felt stable in a way his previous attempts hadn’t. 

However, Sinbad didn’t waste time congratulating himself on finally mastering ‘weapon equip’. Nearby, the girl had finally resurfaced, dragging a familiar blond head up after her. 

“Alibaba! Are you okay?” Sinbad called out, jumping nimbly between floating ice toward them. 

“I think he’s okay, just get him out of the water...” the girl started to say. As she caught sight of the sea monster’s lifeless body, harpoon still sticking out of its side, her eyebrows shot up. “What happened to the rampaging unicorn? Brother, did you finally take it down?” 

Her voice finally made her brother snap out of his stupor, staring at the monster. He swallowed heavily. “I....” 

“Forget about that now,” Sinbad said sharply, reaching out impatiently to take Alibaba from her and pull him onto the ice. “Help us flip the ship back over.” His tone did not leave room for argument. 

Alibaba coughed and jerked, coming back to himself. “‘M... fine...” he insisted. He wasn’t shivering, which was probably a bad sign. 

“Can you use Amon to warm up?” Sinbad asked. 

Alibaba didn’t respond, probably not knowing the answer either. With a frown, he fumbled for his dagger’s hilt and concentrated for a moment, completely still. At this proximity, Sinbad could feel the faint hum of sorts that came from the power moving across his body. There was a wave of heat as well, along with steam as his clothing was quickly dried by Amon’s magic. 

“So you can use a djinn for things like that too, how convenient,” he noted, patting Alibaba on the back. 

“Urgh,” his friend groaned, slumping over. “Now I’m lightheaded...” 

Right. Calling a djinn’s power was supposed to take energy. It was just that Sinbad had never felt anywhere close to his limit, so he tended to forget about that. “Better than freezing, right?” he said instead. “Too bad you can’t keep yourself warm like that.” 

Alibaba’s grumbling reply was drowned out by another large splash, as the pair of giant siblings righted their small ship. 

“Hey, sorry for the trouble,” the girl said sheepishly, swimming over to their floating ice island. “We were just trying to finish my brother’s hunt, so he can finally become a true warrior. We didn’t mean to cause trouble for you.” Her brother trailed after her, silent. 

Now that the trouble had passed, Sinbad’s mood lifted and he smiled at the pair. “It’s alright. It’s worth it to meet such a beautiful girl,” he said, reaching out to take hold of her hand. “My name is Sinbad. I’m a traveler. And you, beautiful miss?” 

The girl looked at him blankly. “I’m Pipirika,” she said without any change in her tone — completely uncharmed! “And you?” 

“I’m, hehe, Alibaba,” Sinbad’s traitor of a companion managed between snickers. When Sinbad shot him an annoyed look, Alibaba only waggled his eyebrows in amusement at seeing him strike out so completely. 

“And this is my brother,” Pipirika went on, their byplay going over her head. “He’s Hina... but now that he’s hunted a rampaging unicorn, he’ll have an adult name as soon as we get back home!” 

He could feel the ‘flow’ around them both, coming together. 

This was an important opportunity, a way to advance toward his purpose. Sinbad had always been able to tell things like that — where to turn his ship in the sea, which storms would bring more fish into his net and where, which people would give him a warm meal and a helping hand. It had been strongest around Yunan, and it had been around that guy, Drakon, too sometimes. It had always been a reliable guide to his choices, always at the back of his mind. 

The only time he hadn’t been able to hear anything was about Alibaba, who was clearly a special person and yet felt like a strange empty spot in Sinbad’s senses sometimes. 

But this opportunity in front of him... 

“Your home, is that Imuchakk?” Sinbad asked, smiling. 

“That’s right! Our father is one of the patriarchs,” Pipirika boasted. 

Perfect. As if the will of fate itself. 

~.~

#My writing #nanowrimo #delete later

[qhostqizmo]

Hibernate

I too would like to hibernate but it’s not “socially acceptable” and that’s “lazy” so rip me I guess

- - - - - - - - - -

Her lips curled into a smile, Essätha placed her hands on her hips with a sigh. “Is this where you’ve been hiding this whole time?”

The nobleman cracked an eye to half-mast. “I’m not hiding.”

She gave a shake of her head, trying to stifle the giggle that bubbled up in her chest. She draped an arm over the sofa to dangle; leaning a hip against the back for support. Amon’s eye tracked her movement to linger on her hand for a moment, and then up to her face.

“Is the couch cozy enough for you, m’lord?” She joked.

He grunted in answer, closing his eye to let out a heavy exhale. His chest lifted, held, and then fell all in a gust as he shimmied against the cushions. The back of his hair was mused comically out like a porcupine; a mess of twisted black locks.

“I was just taking a quick rest,” he rumbled in response. “I’ll get back to addressing Her Majesty and accounting the taxes in a bit, I promise.”

Essätha’s grin widened as she rested her chin on her arm, the fur mantle upon Amon’s cloak bunching like a wreath around her neck. She loved how almost harmless he looked when he was at rest. Relaxed, his hands folded upon his chest, the steadiness of a lazy river making its way to the seas. Almost harmless though.

She refrained from embarrassing him by pointing out the obvious. His hair was always thicker and denser this year, as was his beard which he let grow a bit more for ‘extra protection from the elements’. Part of it, she knew, had to do with the fact it became more of a hassle to keep under control during the winter months. That, and instead of always trimming it and shaving it, he took more and more opportunities to nap.

“Are you cold? Would you like for me to fetch you a blanket?”

Amon shook his head. “I’m not cold.” Eyes still closed, he raised his arms, curling his hands in a grabbing motion. “Come over here.”

A twinkle in her gaze, she reached over to place her hand in her husbands. “Do you want me to work on that letter for you, or continue where you left off?”

He gave another sigh, lamenting, “I do not want to talk about work right now.”

The nobleman tugged at her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. Essie found herself having to lean well over the back of the chair to keep her hand in his as he brought it to his face, pressing the back of her hand against his cheek. He brushed his lips against her warmer skin tone; breathed in the aroma of perfume on her wrist. He kissed her pulse, and nuzzled her hand once more to her cheek.

Breath caught in her throat, she hummed fondly for her beloved. She reached for his other hand, wiggling on the tips of her feet already, and squeezed firmly.

Amon opened his eyes slowly. They appeared drowsy and unfocused for a few seconds as he searched, and blinked sleepily. A faint smile tugged at his mouth.

“That is not coming here,” he scolded softly, reaching up to brush hair out of her face, cradling her cheek.

“I’m sorry, I can’t exactly walk around the sofa at this point now if you’re going go to caress my face,” she whispered, sticking her tongue out.

He groaned, releasing her hand. She pulled back to stand up straight as he sat up. Her confusion pricked as he grabbed both of her hands, and pulled her back to lean far over the edge of the couch again

His hands slid under her arms quickly.

She shrieked, alarmed as he pulled her over halfway over in one quick swoop.

“Amon!”

Falling awkwardly on top of him, Essie let out a huff as he slid his hands against the back of her knees and flopped her the rest of the way over. She offered him a cross look, with hair spilling over her face.

He could only manage to look partly apologetic beneath tired eyes. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he murmured, pushing ringlets out of her face once more and cupping her face.

“No, but you gave me a start, m’lord. Don’t do that, I could have squished you, or hit you somewhere, or something.”

He rolled his eyes, of all things. “Because all of this,” his hands ghosted down her sides, tugging at her to pull her closer, “is going to crush me.”

“I might. I put on some weight-”

The snort the Lord-Protector made was more animal sounding then human. She unfolded her legs, and he encouraged her down, until she was stretched out flat against his chest. Her frame fell between his legs, and he wrapped his arms securely around her, and the cloak that spilled over them and fanned down the edge of the seat like a blanket.

Pressing his face into the hair at her temple, Amon breathed in heavily, whispering softly in her ear, “Feel the same to me.”

“Oh really?” Her voice faded out, trying not to shiver.

“Mmmhm. Like my wife, soft and warm and beautiful.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Never. I can never get enough of you. I will sing your praises to the heavens.”

“You’re ridiculousss,” Essätha hissed, flush. She pressed her lips to his cheek. “I love you.”

The nobleman dragged in air, like he found his very first breath. His hands moved to smother her closer, stroking down the length of her spine as she shivered.

“I love you. Never doubt that I love you, with all my heart.”

“I know you do,” she expressed confidently, almost to the point of being cocky.

He chuckled, slowing the movement of his hands to settle for holding her tightly upon his breast once more. She could hear the echo of his heartbeat as they squirmed for a better position one last time, where she rested her head to his collar and he placed his chin atop her head. It was a slow heartbeat. Slower then a human’s heartbeat should be. But it was steady, and it was true, and it was filled with beauty and love and all the things she admired about this precious man.

After a few minutes, the snoring picked up. It was more magnified then normal, and she felt the need to pull up the edges of the cloak to help cover her ears, giggling. She gave him a peck on the underside of his chin, hearing the stirring in his breathing until he went back to snoring. His heat spilled into her; warm hands, warm body, warm presence. It bite away the nippiness of the manor’s chill, and the mediocre fire nearby helped.

She knew he was bound to wake up, still tired and groggy, and a little grumpy from his nap. It wasn’t entirely his fault. It was hard to fight off the urge of the bear inside him in these seasons. He feasted a bit more then usual in the fall, ate less as the snow began to fall, and tended to curl up with her more often in the day.

She loved it. Nothing felt better then being in his embrace; be it on a couch or intertwined in bed. The warm air of his breathing billowing on her neck, or against her shoulders, and the embrace of his arms shielding her tight against the elements. Maybe she was taking a wee bit of advantage of the situation, but if he was going to rest anyway, who was to stop her from joining the siesta?

Cuddling up, Essie rubbed her face against his chest and stretched out further. Her palms gently dipped over his shoulders to cling on to him in return. The smell of pine and musk on his skin comforting her senses.

“Sleep well, m’lord Amon,” she murmured with fatigue, beginning to feel the pull towards sleep as she nodded off. They could deal with the paperwork later, together. Sometimes all you needed was a doze, and each other.

#qhost story #Essatha Meduza #Amon Illiad #OTP: Essamon #softly written

[isuzukuretsuki]

Ikemen Revolution - Sirius’s Route

aka me graduating from being a wannabe livebloggering and becoming a wannabe otome reviewer HAHA.

I have a bunch of left over screenshots from Sirius’s route that I never posted so I decided to compile them all into one post + add in my own awful commentary/review. It’s mostly going to be the latter. So yeah enjoy experiencing Sirius’s route filtered through my terribad commentary and me dragging the poor man more than he deserves.

Honestly Sirius’s route is a blur to me at this point. The one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb that I didn’t like was Alice pinning over how ~cool~ and ~mature~ Sirius is while Sirius kept beating around the bushes about his feelings smh. What was even more annoying is that for the first half of the route it’s just Alice trying to help out with the war and Sirius just giving her menial tasks all day to keep Alice busy and avoid her pestering (╬ಠ益ಠ). 

Seth is a real bro in this route and actually gives some GOOD ASS ADVICE, TOO BAD NOBODY MAINLY SIRIUS TAKES HIM SERIOUSLY.

Gee I’m trying to romance you; how utterly elated it makes me to know that I remind you of your siblings. 

He fucking KISSES HER ON THE FOREHEAD and is all like “it’s just friendly affection!” BITCH WHAT PART OF THAT IS FRIENDLY AFFECTION?

The funniest thing is is that while this disastrous k-drama high school romance is going on as the supposed main focus, THE FLAMES OF WAR ARE RAGING ON IN THE BACKGROUND. Out of the routes I’ve played so far this route is the only route where the armies actually go in an all out war which I thought was pretty cool.

Okay this is less of a war between Red vs Black and more like Edgar vs Black because Lancelot is out of commission while Kyle is pulling his hair out like an old nanny tending to him and idk what the hell the rest of the Red Army dudes are doing. I am not exaggerating when I say that Edgar is the actual backbone of this army. It’s hard to really take this war seriously considering how no one is dying, only “injured” and these battles seem to have minuscule impacts or consequences and the fact that Sirius and Alice have time to be frolicking off with their less than smooth romance.

As usual Seth is the bro of the war too as he runs around spreading underground rumors. Tbh idk how the hell Seth managed to pose as a “reliable source” but I can just imagine him being like V and just knocking some poor Red Army sap tf out and stealing his clothes and running around spreading rumors like a character in Mean Girls spreading rumors about who the heroine is dating.

BIG YIKES AND BIG SWEAT. I think Sirius’s route is the first route to drop Seth’s connection to the Magic Tower, something I’d definitely never suspect. Maybe he’s a mole?? who knows.

But obviously who cares about that mumbo jumbo! We cut back to Sirius and Alice where Alice is drunk mumbling about how much she loves this sexy man, conveniently just while Sirius is in front of her and hears everything! But like the smooth operator he is he....................... doesn’t do anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ He just completely wipes the love confession clean from his memory and continues on his merry way as if it never happened. Great. A+ romantic development there, game.

Hell even the other boys are lowkey sick of Sirius “what is this feeling in my chest?! Definitely not love!” Oswald so they decide to all be MC’s wingmen because clearly that war you guys are fighting that is potentially killing all your men isn’t important! Sirius, OF COURSE, overhears the entire conversation where Alice admits she loves him and as usual.... HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING.

Is it a sin if I actually agreed with Seth. I MEAN NO OFFENSE TO SIRIUS BUT............ 

Seth, can I romance you instead? Promise not to sell me out to the Magic Cult in exchange for Amon’s weed stash though.

Oh jesus christ can you just confess your undying love for each other already this is starting to become infuriating. You guys have a GOD DAMN WAR being fought in the background and instead I’m forced to sit through this cat and mouse game between these two mofos. Sirius, I love you, but. god dammit.

Oh right, were we fighting a war? I think we were fighting a war hahaha oops I completely forgot about that! But thank god that King No Fun is here to ruin everyone’s day! As we know, Lancelot has been pretty much incapacitated the entire route due to using too much magic, but nothing stops the King of Hearts. The man deadass drags his delirious corpse out of his bed (cue Kyle screaming in the background) and waltz into the Black Army HQ like he pays rent to whisk our princess away like the friendly neighborhood kidnapper that he is. He knocks her tf out and frolics into the sunset on his horse with Alice’s passed out body.

Sirius being the knight in shining armor that he is catches up to Lance on his horse and demands Lance return Alice, which Lance is like “nah son”. Sirius then proceeds to BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF LANCELOT (╬⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾ Д ⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾) I THOUGHT THIS MAN DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO FIGHT! and starts screaming in Lancelot’s face about how much pain his kokoro is in ever since Lancelot started being a piece of shit. Lancelot’s reaction pretty much just amounts to  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and he gives up on the girl and saunters off. 

Sirius proceeds to spill his token tragic backstory to Alice, about how he, Harr and Lance used to be best friends but ever since Harr was exiled and Lance took the title of King of Hearts, their friendship had been strained broken to smithereens considering how Harr LITERALLY tries to kill Lance. Honestly as much as I roast the terribad romance between Alice and Sirius, I really enjoyed learning about Sirius’s history with Harr and Lance and it was by far the most enjoyable part of the route. I appreciate how much Sirius cares about Lance and Harr and it’s definitely the thing I like most about his character.

Anyhoo they return to find the Black Army Headquarters ABSOLUTELY DECIMATED. The magic cult goons completely smashed their headquarters but considering how all the boys have plot armor, no one is hurt so it’s all okay! （‐＾▽＾‐）

Alice realizes that Lancelot kidnapped her to protect her from the attack and that he is most likely being manipulated by someone in the shadows. She convinces Sirius to take her onto the battle field to confront Lancelot once and for all for answers. FINALLY THE PLOT IS GOING SOMEWHERE, and this is like what, part 20 at least?!

The moment they confront Lancelot on the battle field, the real King No Fun aka Amon crashes the party and he’s not a happy camper. He’s sick of Lancelot buying time so decides to just whisk Alice away himself!

aaaaand finally Lancelot’s “I’m the Worst” facade drops as he loses his shit. I find it interesting how it’s the first time he refers to the MC by her name and not Alice. He dives into Amon’s teleportation spell and gets whisked away with them.

Alice awakens to find herself in Amon’s creepy sex dungeon and Amon is like... your stereotypical evil cackling maniac cartoon villain that you’d expect.

He’s even a misogynistic twat as the icing on the cake.

Unfortunately Amon only wanted Alice but he accidentally brought Sirius and Lancelot too as carry on luggage. He leaves Lancelot be since he needs him but Sirius is just a fly in his plan so LIKE THE EVIL CACKLING TOTALLY NOT RIKA VILLAIN THAT HE IS HE PULLS OUT A FUCKING GUN 

and shoots Lancelot.

Amon shits bricks over Lancelot protecting Sirius but is ultimately Monokuma level “lmao idgaf” and proceeds to try and kill Sirius but they’re rescued by Harr and Loki who whisks them away back to Red Army Headquarters.

Kyle REALLY FUCKING SHITS BRICKS THIS TIME POOR BOY CAN’T GET A BREAK after seeing Lancelot’s condition and somehow miraculously brings Lance back from the brink of death. Sirius and Alice talk with Lancelot and he finally comes clean with the truth about how Amon’s threatening to destroy Cradle with his weed stash unless Lancelot cooperates. Sirius is all like “aight then let’s go destroy his weed stash” and both armies begin working together to defeat Amon. Great, the climax of the plot is finally here, I’m so excited!

THAT IS UNTIL Alice realizes that the full moon is finally here and thus she must go home! She highkey wants to stay but Sirius is like “nah son you going home”. and proceeds to SHOVE HER ASS DOWN THE GATES OF HELL. But not before making out with her like his life depended on it. What the fuck, he doesn’t even confess his love for her! He just makes out with her and is all like “lul bye” and shoves her down the garden portal. 

Welp great, the final battle with Amon is finally starting and I’M NOT EVEN THERE TO SEE IT LMAO! It’s like the writers got too lazy at the end and pulled this bs to avoid showing the climax of the story. Wtf let me kick ass with my man, what is this weak ass underwhelming development. 

Alice waits around in Reason for about 3 months before going like “yeah you know what fuck it” and decides to go back to Cradle because a hoe got better things to do then just sitting on her ass waiting for her man who may never come for her!

She goes to the park just in time to see Sirius, who, surprise surprise, actually did come to get her! He tells her how they finally defeated Amon and that Cradle is finally safe! Amazing, it took you three months to find that weed stash; it took Alice and Jonah one evening in Jonah’s route.

She goes back to Cradle with Sirius but it’s already night so they decided to pitch a tent at a nearby inn with only one bed!

just go to sleep...................... just go to fucking sleep.

The next day they return to the Black Army Headquarters, which is now peaceful since Amon is defeated and the war is over. I got Sirius’s dramatic end; Alice and Sirius decide to go over to Sirius’s flower shop, where they run into Lancelot whose finally chilled out with his “I’m the Worst” act now that Amon isn’t breathing down his neck every second like a creepy evil Santa Clause.  Lancelot buys an iris flower and proceeds to give it to Alice.

I’M FUCKING CRY HE’S SO SOFT.......... HE SO SOFT...... PLEASE PROTECT HIM AND HIS PRECIOUS SMILE.

The route ends with Alice planting the flower Lancelot gave her in the garden of the Black Army HQ, promising to live her life with Sirius and protect the little things that are important to them (´へωへ`*). and finally, FUCKING FINALLY, SIRIUS FINALLY TELLS HER HE LOVES HER. THAT TOOK YOU LIKE WHAT, THE ENTIRE ROUTE?

but no seriously imagine how awkward it’d be for Alice, after making out and sleeping with him only to be like “oh wait does he even actually love me, he never said he did” derp.

-----

Anyway that was a rundown of my own thoughts of his route + awful commentary. I definitely think his route was one of the weaker ones and it just didn’t feel like Sirius or Alice had any chemistry (｡-人-｡). I hate to admit being disappointed, especially because I was really looking forward to Sirius’s route but alas it is what it is. There were some nice scenes and I liked the friendship dynamic between him, Lance, and Harr but overall it definitely paled in comparison to Jonah’s or even Lancelot’s route. Ohwell, sorry Sirius lmao.

#ellie plays ikerev terribly #ellie plays #ikemen revolution #sirius oswald

[blizzweirdo]

Alarak for the head cannon ask please! :)

Ah, Alarak. He is many people’s favorite, so I’ll try to answer in a way that won’t get me in trouble >:) (He’s one of my favorites as well, but if you haven’t noticed, I tend to treat my favorite characters badly).

Anyway, as the Pythons say, “GET ON WITH IT.”

Headcanon A, realistic:

While Alarak was bloodthirsty and originally wanted to be the Highlord for his own selfish reasons, the weight of supporting a warrior culture after their greatest war has ended lays heavily upon him. He sees two routes: manufacture causes for them ad nauseum and continue their bloody culture unchanged (and risk his own death when someone stronger comes along), or modify the culture and find a way to live without constant fighting with presumably a new planet of their own under their feet. The latter will take a maturity that Alarak certainly has but an empathy that he is certainly lacking. His attempts will be ham-fisted at first, but there is some potential growth for him there if he listens to those less warlike than himself. The former he would probably be happier with, but it would be uncomfortably like what Ma’lash and Amon did to his people and that bothers him. The constant conflict would get his blood pumping but would make it more likely to be spilled…

Headcanon B, while it may not be realistic it is hilarious:

Alarak calls up Artanis and/ or Vorazun when he has a problem that he can’t finesse with cunning or brute force. 

Alarak: “I told Ji’nara she couldn’t find competency if she had an observer, a terran science vessel, and an overlord to help her, and she hasn’t spoken to me in three days. Was that really that bad?”

Vorazun: *sigh* “Why did you say that?”

Alarak: “I was angry? It’s also true…”

Vorazun: “You know it was not. Were you yelling also?”

Alarak: “…Perhaps.”

Vorazun: “Apologize.”

Alarak: “Ugh. No. Why?”

Vorazun: “It does not matter. Apologize profusely. And buy flowers. Lots of them.”

Alarak: *sigh* “FINE!”

The whole being diplomatic without holding something over someone’s head would be totally new to him, and he’d need the help.

Headcanon C, heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends:

The Tal’darim are probably going to go extinct and Alarak knows this. Amon was breeding them for strength and brutality. It remains to be seen if they can keep from killing each other–especially all cooped up in their nomadic fleet. Alarak is special because he at least has self-control, which is something that a lot of Tal’darim lack. Terrazine is also a factor. Many of them are going through horrifying withdrawal (Alarak was able to avoid this by feigning intake, I think). On top of that, the Tal’darim probably don’t have the facilities to breed and haven’t done so naturally for a long, long time. The Tal’darim’s relationship with Amon seems to suggest that they don’t breed naturally (like the Daelaam and unlike the Nerazim) and they probably left their breeding facilities behind on Slayn. So they’re going to have a population problem soon. There is a lot of potential angst for Alarak with this headcanon, and a lot of potential character growth as he tries to rise to the occasion of leading his people.

Headcanon D, unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own:

Everyone will hate me for this, but I think Ji’nara and Alarak would make a hilarious couple. In response to C, I could see Alarak encouraging his people to take mates and then being like “Like Ji’nara and I” and grabbing her hand and her being like “Um. What?” and Alarak being like “JUST PLAY ALONG YOU DOLT.” It would be a strategic thing; he would both make himself an example but also mollify the next person in line by upping her status to his as an equal to maybe keep her from trying to kill him later. In my head, they already squabble like an old married couple because of having to deal with each other on a daily basis in peacetime, and I think eventually they would maybe come to like each other?

Alarak: >.>

Ji’nara:

Alarak: “No. Not even if the Void itself froze over.”

Ji’nara: “Not even if PROBES could FLY.”

Alarak: “Ji’nara, they already hover…”

Ji’nara: “SHUT UP. I KNOW THEY HOVER BUT THEY DO NOT FLY!”

Alarak: “Semantics.”

Ji’nara: “This is what I deal with every day.”

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this answer :D

#my asks #no omen no country's cause