#deadeye got quick now!

[senterya]

I'm so excited about all the boonsupport changes I can barely contain myself

#gw2 #pixel rambles #tldr they are removing quick/alac generation from utility skills #opening up a lot more support flexibility #also untamed got quick now! #deadeye got quick now! #scourge and bladesworn got alacrity!! #I'm so excited aaaaa

[criticalrolo]

first pass at Odysseus, abyssal tiefling cowboy

#love and light. he has a 23 passive perception and a +15 to initiative and can't be surprised #he IS the quick draw cowboy and i love him #deadeye cowboy my beloved....... #odysseus #dnd #tiefling #i will do an outfit tomorrow. 2 am me wanted to do Colors #hes not even an abyssal tiefling. hes a Human Dude who got stuck in the abyss and the soup gave him horns #and now hes a revenant #but like... short hand. tief

[musingmycelium]

Some may consider a desert a graveyard in itself but standing in a graveyard in the desert the difference is clear. Moon shines full on the plump Broc flowers and Joshua could swear they smell like death, like they know the dirt they grow in is so good to them ‘for the bodies layin’ in it.

Joshua should know too, seein’ as how’s he was one. 

He ain’t now and his momma raised him to keep movin’ on, keep towards that horizon boy, but just for a second. Just one moonlit moment. Would it be so bad to wonder how he got here?

That’s what the Doc asked him this afternoon when he woke up, fresh bullet scar not quite between his eyes and ain’t that lucky, what’s he done to wind up in a shallow grave. Well, Joshua’s mind’s never been the quickest but his mouth more than makes up for it and he spins his yarn for the Doc just right enough to not be a lie. Missin’ enough for it to not be the truth. 

When he was younger, young, he’d’ve got in trouble for that, real trouble. Never did wanna lie but he knew his way around the truth well enough to make his momma’s head spin and make his daddy's laugh ring right across the ranch. 

Not his Father though. 

No, not his Father.

His Father would smirk, secret around a cigarette, a priest with a pretty mouth and Joshua was older for a choir boy but he was damn near the only boy in town free enough to help and he was good with his hands. Repairing, sewing, fixin’ up those little things on the Church grounds, he was older for a choir boy but not old enough. Not yet. 

Cigarette smoke burns on its way down. Joshua knows his lungs are black as graveyard dirt with it, even if he ain’t smoked since. 

Smoke burns but sometimes, just sometimes, fingers don’t. 

His Father was a careful man, his burns never scar'd where anyone would find. Not unless they were tryin’ to leave the same kind. 

Lungs full of the scent of Broc flowers, thick with nectar drained from the dead. 

Just because the Church taught him to use his hands as well as his mouth don’t mean he can still keep them steady enough to smoke. Nah, Joshua stuffs a wad of tobacco under his tongue, tastes the nicotine bloom. 

But this time he spits instead of swallows. 

Leave those memories in the mud.

Good with his hands, good with his mouth, his momma raised him well enough to know the difference. Joshua grown’d into a fine young man, she told him so often enough he’d even believed her, and keeping his hands busy on a ranch is easy business. There’s always a fence to mend. 

Cattle tend to be just as easy. Driving them across the Mojave with the ranch hands his daddy hired Joshua finds the desert alive. A campfire means a full belly after careful hands have tended to it, cooked on it, put a handful of chicory and coyote chew into the beat up coffee pot and let them simmer into something warm on a cold night. After a hot day. 

It’s good work, honest work. A fine young man with a silver tongue and heart of gold could hardly do better. Even if his hands are rough to the touch, rumor has it they’re gentle too. 

Some of those ranch hands, when their hands are wrapped around a coffee mug and they’re sitting, nearly touching, next to Joshua on a spread out Brahmin hide, ask him if those rumors are true. 

If his hands are as gentle as his mouth. 

Under that bright desert moon Joshua is kind enough to tell just enough of the truth for it to not feel like a lie. 

He’s got good working hands, ranching hands, quick on the draw hands, and a mouth that knows how to be quiet when it needs to be too. 

Only the lingerin’ streaks on gun powder on a ranch hand’s skin, his kindness without regret, Joshua wishes he could pull a steady man as well as he can a trigger. 

Because Joshua he’s a crack shot, deadeye aim and quick, but he can’t sweet talk a coyote out of eating cattle and he can’t pull the trigger on a man who don’t deserve it. His momma raised him right, raised him good, and don’t you ever think you’re the one who can make those kinds of decisions, boy, only one man can decide who lives and dies. 

And standing by his open grave in the desert, Joshua has a bible in one back pocket, and a black handkerchief in the other.

Wonderin' in the moonlight how'd he got there, and where he's goin' next.

#my writing #joshua hendrickson #fnv #tw csa #implied but still there #hi anyway this is joshua he's captivated me and im rotatinghim in my head

[koravelliumavast]

yeah! drop the stormlight 5 theory

just a fair warning. its messy and not at ALL cohesive but some of it makes sense (because i stole info from the coppermind)

Ok so there’s an in universe 15 year break between stormlight 5&6 right? Well I think dalinars gonna LOSE the contest of champions and go to like braize or something (idk if that’s what will happen but I don’t feel like coppermind searching right now) anyway like 15ish years later he finds a way out like Taln did maybe with the help of one of the dead heralds (because Chana is shallans mom theory is such a good theory. Why haven’t we seen her when we’ve seen all the other heralds) but we have to emphasize that neither broke. and the prologue for the next 5 books are dalinars return in different characters perspectives because it’s a big moment.

If he got imprisoned on braize it would be bad. The Stormfather would possibly become a deadeyes? If he became deadeyes would it stop highstorms so than the everstorm is the storm? I don’t know. Im kinda spitballing all of this.

Anyways they need to release Ba-Ado-Mishram according to Kalak (the herald who wrote it in his journal that its something that needs to happen for not only Ba-Ado-Mishram but also Roshar as a whole) who was one of the unmade and was involved with the false desolation somehow and turned singers into fused but then she got imprisoned and her imprisonment like got rid of the singers connection and identity and they were the parshmen and it’s also the reason that there is deadeyed spren (thank you coppermind because this is something I didn’t know really).

Also the ghostbloods are looking for her gemstone to set her free maybe as a way to get the investure off roshar as that is kind of their main motive (or at least of their rosharian actions)

So basically maybe Ba-Ado-Mishram is somewhere on Braize and Dalinar finds a way to set her free and with that he comes back to Roshar. (i just looked at the coppermind and it said something about that if dalinar won odium would return alekthar and herdaz to them and if odium won dalinar would serve his interests in the cosmere as a fused whatever tf that means i dont know.)

things that if they happened in stormlight 5 id cry: dalinar is his champion, adolin goes no i cant let you do that and he takes over, its a fight to the death after all but adolin is the best non-magically enhanced swordsman in roshar. During the events of the fight adolin loses and dies. OR OR OR he seems to be losing and then he goes like maya i could really use some help here and then he gets the part of the radiant bond thats like fighting enhancement and also quick shardblade summoning but not the edgedancer slipperyness or healing of others. He wins the fight (yay!) but something happens, dalinar gets sent to braize or something im not sure.

All i know is this book is not going to solidly take place in the 10 days that the contest of champions allots for its statisitically impossible as there is so much stuff that has to happen that we're certain about will happen. Plus shallan and adolin are still in shadesmar.

Additional things: we don’t know who the interlude chapters person is. What if it’s Moash and his journey to become a dustbringer because dustbringer Moash is such a freaking beautiful thing and it would also make the Reddit fans so mad lmao

Another additional thing: where does kelsier fit into this? He was in the prologue blah blah blah. He finds a way to get off scadriels cognitive realm (something something in tlm) and he’s now in Shadesmar and idk maybe he’s fighting against odium in some way. Harmony may be aware of his actions. He may not idk but Marsh is and Marsh also relays stuff to Harmony so yeah. Kelsier knows that Odium is bad and he wants to punch a god. So he punches odium at some point. That’s kind of it there I don’t have anything to go with that. It just feels right.

Now with the road trip: Szeth realizes how fucked up shinovar is, its destroyed from the everstorm, theres chaos everywhere blah blah blah, he finds the honorblades, he does what he wanted to do. i dont know WHAT exactly he did want to do but it was something. him and kaladin trauma bond. its not a great time. Szeth cries. His sister is dead i dont care what anyone says his sister gave off im gonna die by szeths hands with the honorblade and thats one of the reasons he gets kicked out of shinovar. she gives me dead vibes in that chapter. We also learn why hes truthless, maybe he had a honorspren who was kind of following him idk. The death rattle of "a man stood on a cliffside and watched his homeland fall into dust. the waters surged beneath, so far beneath. and he heard a child crying. they were his own tears." is true somehow.

Brandon said more lgbt characters are canonized in this book: aroace kal canonization or bi adolin BOOK canonization perhaps maybe? i know renarin will which means he will also have more povs. and more povs=more visions=more people out of odiums sight?

#like i said im spitballing this #its messy its weird it makes no sense #asks #my weird ass kowt theory #stormlight 5 speculation #mild tlm spoilers #mistborn #long post #this is so incoherent AND INCOHESIVE AT TIMES IM SORRY #the tism really got me this time #if-one-of-us-falls

[minie-mastermind]

Earth 3 Green Arrow

First seen in Countdown #31 member of the Crime Society the dc fandom wiki calls him Deadeye, but he is never referred to by any name in the issue and does not state where this information is from.

Next was the Blue Bowman form Batman Brave And The Bold episode "Deep Cover for Batman!" in witch he is a member of the Injustice Syndicate. The identity of the Blue Bowman is a reference to Phil Cobb the Signalman.

Signalman took the identity in Batman Vol 1 139 after meeting a green arrow villain in prison and being inspired. This obviously was away for DC to have have a fight between Green Arrow and Batman with a clear winner. It is funny how this reference to Green Arrow eventually got taken up as an identity by an alternet universe Oliver Queen.

Then there is Archer from Justice League Crisis on Two Earths: Crime Syndicate Earth were he is show working under Johnny Quick as a maid man in the Crime Syndicate. The Archer identity was also from another character, this time for Superman #13 there true name being Quigley.

Next appearing in Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion #2 with a much closer colour scheme.

Then lastly there is Precedent Oviler Queen who is never referred to by any other identity but I believe judging by his is suit and ball colour that he is the return of the Blue Bowman.

He appeared in Crime Syndicate #1-2 being a now ex lover of Superwoman.

Witch is funny when think that she moved on from him to Ultraman and then another rich influential man like him Owlman.

This is the last we have seen of him to this point.

#crime syndicate #earth 3 #dc #oliver queen #green arrow #archer #superman #batman #the Roughs #Blue Bowman #batman brave and the bold #crisis on two earths #dc comics #ultraman #owlman #superwoman #johnny quick #signalman #countdown to final crisis #dc countdown #forever evil #crime Society #Injustice Syndicate

[tsaomengde]

Ran a oneshot yesterday set in the Cyberpunk universe by Mike Pondsmith, using The Sprawl PBTA role-playing system instead of the actual Cyberpunk system because The Sprawl is much more accessible and has specific in-system scaffolding for elaborate heists. Dramatis personae:

Rachel - Prophet Nine, she/her, Pusher, a former Scientologist who upon reaching a certain auditing level remembered a past life in which she was a Child of Xenu, who is actually a benevolent figure unlike what is preached in Scientology.  Founded the cult, Children of Xenu, and has a small but loyal following

Nox - James, he/him, Driver, a no-nonsense professional who has a big fucking car which he's very good at driving

Em - Transistor, she/her, Tech, a wunderkind jack-of-all-trades with a diplomat's soul and multidisciplinary expertise

Ashley - Deadeye Sarah, she/her, Killer, has a big fucking gun and enjoys using it

Trevor - Big Scoop, he/him, Reporter, late arrival to the party, is trying to break a big story and spent the first 2 hours of the session tied up in a basement (Trevor arrived an hour in and I hooked his character in at a narratively appropriate time)

The setup: it's 2075, everyone but Big Scoop has been an edgerunner in Night City for a number of years already.  They were on a job together recently that went south in a big way.  Their planner, Jimmy, who tended to lead from the front, missed a crucial detail, the job went sideways, and he took a high-velocity round in the face trying to fix it.  The end result was disastrous and public enough that Prophet Nine, James, Transistor, and Deadeye Sarah were pretty much out of the game, their reputations in tatters despite their overall competence.

The session opens with them getting a call from Rogue Amendiares, Night City's #1 Fixer.  She brings them to her club, the Afterlife, and explains that she has a job specifically for them.  Arasaka, the biggest megacorporation in the world, was running a convoy through the badlands outside Night City.  It got hit by the Aldecaldos, a nomad tribe, and the cargo taken. The hit was quick, clean, and surgical, clearly an inside job.  But the Aledecaldos, while taking the cargo - a big, nondescript, sealed crate - to the drop point inside Night City, got hit by an opportunistic group of Tyger Claw gangsters in Japantown who took the truck with the crate in it.  Now Rogue's client wants the crate taken from the Tyger Claws quickly and with a minimum of public fuss.  Rogue calls the PCs in because she knows they're competent, but no one will be watching them because their reps are in tatters, and she knows they'll take the job, because the client is paying a lot and she's their only way back into the game.

The crew accepts the job and Rogue gives them their initial payment and the drop site once they have the package, an abandoned warehouse in Watsontown.  The crew begins the Legwork Phase - determining where the crate ended up getting taken, by whom, and how they're going to extract it.  Transistor hacks the security cameras of a net cafe on the street corner of the intersection where the Tyger Claws hit the truck with the crate, finds footage of the truck being taken, and starts the process of figuring out where it went. 

Prophet Nine calls on some of her Children of Xenu followers to help.  One of them, Charlie X, runs a chopshop where the truck actually ended up being taken.  He gives her the truck's info and his own security footage of the four Tyger Claws that brought it.

James goes to Wakako Oda, the Fixer for Japantown and de facto leader of the Tyger Claws, and after a little tense negotiation, gets out of her that there are rogue elements within the Tygers who saw an opportunity to take the truck and make some money on their own.  She gives him some names, two of whom she has already "interviewed," as well as a two-block area with eight buildings in it that she suspects the rogue Claws are using for their own operations.

With this additional info, Transistor successfully tracks the truck to one of the eight buildings in the given area.  Using this info, Deadeye Sarah poses as a pizza delivery person to the building. She is unconvincing, but fortunately she has an armored coat and dermal plating that makes her basically immune to small arms fire, which is all the Claws are packing.  A shootout ensues in which she kills eight Claws by herself. She finds a foolishly-placed incriminating billboard of the area with notes on which buildings are used as fronts for which operations, takes a picture of it, and gets out.  The team successfully determines that the only place with enough storage is the building in the center of the area, a nightclub-slash-drug-den that has extensive basement storage the Claws use for storing drugs, guns, and other stolen goods.

Prophet Nine visits The Dragon, the ripperdoc in Japantown who is known to supply the Tyger Claws with their cybernetic augmentations.  Using some truly excellent fast talk and flattery, as well as a hefty bribe, she convinces him to break doctor-patient confidentiality and give her the access codes to the Claws' cybernetics.  Transistor then uses these codes to hack the cybereyes of the nightclub staff, getting a perfect map of the building as well as intel on how many Claws are in the building, the precise location of the box, and the fact that there is a reporter tied up in the basement.

The team decides to move to the Action Phase.  They decide their best approach is to show up at the club near closing time and sell the Claws a line about how they have been sold out.  They talk their way past the bouncer and meet with the leader of the rogue Claws faction, Kintaro.  James displays some excellent hardball negotiation skills when he tells Kintaro that they know what's in the basement, and if he knows, so does Arasaka.  He reminds Kintaro about the fact that Adam Smasher, one of the most terrifying men in the world, works for Arasaka, and offers $50k to make the problem go away.

Kintaro is successfully scared shitless, but his younger gang members, who don't know Smasher's reputation, are unconvinced.  An argument over their private links ensues.  Transistor gets the crew access to their private comms using the codes Prophet Nine got from The Dragon, as well as sneakily disabling all their combat cyberware like their mantis blades.  In the basement, Big Scoop realizes no one has come for the usual 15-minute patrol, breaks out of his bonds, grabs an LMG, and starts heading upstairs.

The argument among the Claws is getting heated.  Deadeye Sarah, who is getting frustrated with Kintaro's inability to command his people, starts threatening one of the more uppity members of the gang.  Things boil over and a massive shootout ensues, with Deadeye Sarah losing a (cyber)leg in the firefight.  However, Transistor comes in with a clutch move, turning off all of the Claws' eyes and rendering them blind.  The crew kills all of them but Kintaro, who they leave lying in a pool of his own shame as they go to retrieve the crate.  Big Scoop gets upstairs, sees what's going on, and drops his LMG so they won't shoot him.  They recognize that he's not part of the Claws and agree to help get him out, too.

The crew loads the crate onto a dolley they've brought, since it is large and weighs 250kg.  At this point I have Nox roll 2d6 plus his car's Power to see if the crate fits in the trunk.  A 5 says it does not, so we got an amusing scene of them trying and failing to close the trunk, then just bungie-cording it as closed as possible. Transistor takes one of the seats out of the back of the car to try to use as makeshift cushioning-slash-armor for the crate, which ultimately proves unsuccessful.  Big Scoop logs on to Future Twitter to ask his followers if there's anything trending about Japantown, at which point he sees a video taken from an apartment window of thirty-odd Tyger Claws on motorcycles heading in their direction.  James puts the pedal to the metal, following a route suggested by Big Scoop, and manages to lose most of them.

However, the six most badass bikers manage to stay on their tail, and a thrilling car chase slash gunfight ensues.  The crew and the bikers trade fire, with Deadeye Sarah killing most of them but Prophet Nine also getting a few hits in.  Transistor spends most of the car chase trying to hold onto Big Scoop's ankles, as he tries to hold onto the crate, which is starting to come loose from the trunk.  At the conclusion of the chase, James kills the final biker by putting on his e-brake and forcing him into a rear-end collision; the crate goes flying out of the trunk and crashes face-first into the asphalt.  There is now a large crack in the crate.

While the edgerunners argue over what to do, Big Scoop looks inside with his enhanced cybereyes and sees a sleeping Japanese man, one that looks suspiciously like a much younger Saburo Arasaka, CEO of Arasaka Corporation and the most powerful man in the world.  He shares this information with the crew, who are concerned, but ultimately stick to their current course of action, which is to re-load the crate into the trunk and flee to Charlie X's chop shop, where the car will get repainted. 

They go to repair the crate, but find that the crack broke a hermetic seal and that the man inside is waking up.  Reluctantly, the crew agrees that they should open it, because if nothing else, a human will be easier to transport than a huge, heavy crate.  Freed from the crate, the man inside tells them an incredible story: he *is* Saburo Arasaka - or, rather, a clone of Saburo Arasaka, one with all of his "real" counterpart's memories because of a program he calls "Soulkiller," an incredibly sophisticated piece of software written by the late Alt Cunningham which can scan and translate a human being's brainwaves into a digital personality engram.  Because he knows everything the "real" Saburo knows, he also knows that he was created for the eventual purpose of Saburo downloading himself into this new, young, cloned body, the personality merge being expedited by the shared brainwaves.

Clone!Saburo says that he suspects Old!Saburo is not aware of the Aldecaldo theft of the crate, and that an Arasaka executive associated with the program is trying to conceal their failure from the higher-ups by getting Clone!Saburo back on the sly - hence why Rogue has been hired as an intermediary and why Arasaka simply didn't take the crate back with their own security forces.  He offers the crew his word as a samurai that if they can get him to Arasaka Tower in Corpo Plaza, he will begin the process of seizing control of "his" company from Old!Saburo and will make sure the crew isn't cleaned up as loose ends, which is what he suspects will happen to them if they stick to the job as outlined and deliver him to their client in Watsontown. The crew agrees with his assessment and decides to take him on his word - Prophet Nine specifically soliciting his help taking on Scientology if he succeeds, which Clone!Saburo is happy to agree to because fuck Scientology.

The only way by car to Arasaka Tower is a road through Memorial Park in Corpo Plaza.  Knowing that their client is aware that they are being double-crossed, since the crew is now headed in the wrong direction, James guns it hard and makes it all the way to Memorial Park before their unknown client's forces manage to intercept them.  Three incredibly dangerous, full-borg Arasaka ninjas attack the car as it enters Memorial Park, one landing on the hood and cutting the engine block in half with a monomolecular katana.  Big Scoop starts live streaming, specifically using a move from his playbook called "Live and On the Air."  Trevor rolls and hits an 8, which means he needs to pick a downside to the story going live.  He picks the option that reads, "Your rushed narrative is misinterpreted by the public with unintended narrative consequences."

The fight between the crew and the ninjas is furious, but brief.  Transistor kills the one on the trunk by hotwiring the car's lithium battery to explode; the crew jump out of the car and avoid the inferno.  Prophet Nine tries to shoot one of the two remaining ninjas, but fails and gets a near-fatal bullet in her chest for her trouble, which knocks her unconscious.  Deadeye Sarah takes off that ninja's head with a monomolecular whip, while James body-checks the last one into the flaming ruin of his car. The last threat defeated, the crew and Clone!Saburo make it to the steps of Arasaka Tower, with Transistor carrying the injured and bleeding Prophet Nine on her shoulders.

Big Scoop's live-streaming worked: the fight with the ninjas in the park has gone viral, with more than a billion views, and thousands of people in Night City have gathered at the base of Arasaka Tower - including all of Prophet Nine's Children of Xenu. Prophet Nine wakes up, rises, bloody, from Transistor's shoulders, and hails her followers, who begin chanting, "PRAISE XENU!"  The entire crowd goes feral and begins chanting it too.  The unintended narrative consequences have arrived.

We have our epilogue: Clone!Saburo is good as his word, getting the crew's names off of Arasaka hit-lists when he seizes power.  All the characters receive a fat payout, enough to let them retire.  James gets a new car.  He and Deadeye Sarah both continue edgerunning, since they're not the retiring kind.  Transistor, as the unsung hero of the crew, becomes famous within tech circles and finds a community of like-minded people in which she is a minor celebrity.  Big Scoop, as the reporter at ground zero of the Clone!Saburo story, becomes a properly Famous Journalist, a la Hunter S. Thompson.

Prophet Nine's Children of Xenu cult explodes to become the second most popular religion in the world, after Judaism.  Scientology is toppled, following the unexplained deaths of many of its top members, including Tom Cruise.  The Children of Xenu's only real religious precepts are "cyberware is good because if you have less meat there is less of you for Thetans to attach to" and "don't be a dick," so on the whole the religion does more good than harm, though cyberpsychosis cases do rise sharply because of its focus on cyborgization.

Fin

#cyberpunk #rpg #recap #story #writing #praise xenu

[ajentmm]

Arcane Weapon Theorycraft 2

Alright, I'm back for more of these Acrane Weapon Theorycrafts. Here's part 1. Here's also a quick discuss when we got Arcane Eclipes right here.

So one change we've seen since the first post is that Rearmed heroes don't have to be "bad guys". They can just be normal characters. Alfred, a main character from Engage, is a Rearmed heroes with the Arcane Qiang (and an insane perf A slot). This means he will not be in the normal 5 star summoning pool and can only be summoned when he's a focus unit. A suppose that's the ultimate sacrifice you make to wield arcane power. Will our other royals from Elyos meet this same fate? Will your best chance of getting them be through SP4-star pool in 4 or so years?

Anywho . . . Here are those ranged weapons you may have wanted. Remember that these will be compared to Arcane Eclipse.

Arcane Eclipse: Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). At the start of turn 1, grants Special cooldown count-1. At start of combat, if unit's HP ≥ 25%, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to unit, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, and neutralizes penalties to unit's Atk during combat.

So to brake this down:

Accelerate Special Trigger *. If unit’s HP≥25%, grant (Stats), (guarantee follow-up/prevent follow-up), (minor effect X), and (minor effect Y / effect Y with condition). (Weapon specific effect)

So for minor effect, that's like neutralizing penalty on one stat of the unit or bonuses on one stat on foe. I'm also including "Quicken pulse". All of this is subjective, let's just go with this.

Arcane Volley: Effective against flying foes. Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). If unit's HP > 25%, inflict Atk/Def-6 on foe's during combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, grant unit Special charge + 1 per unit's attack, and neutralizes bonuses on foe's Def.

Now, while Eclipse is all about pre-charging specials, this Arcane bow is all about charging and triggering the special on the follow-up. This is to by pass pre-charged Pavise or skills that reduce damage on foe's first attack, than trigger Luna, Bonfire, Iceberg, or Sol. Deadeye can also be use to neutralize any remaining skills that reduce damage. The Rearmed hero with this weapon could come with Desperation or Wind/Water Sweep to stop counterattacks. This bow however, isn't that good on enemy phase as the Special charge +1 is only on unit's attack. Sorry to all the armored bow units.

Arcane Carver: Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). If unit's HP > 25%, grant Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to unit during combat, grants unit guarantee follow-up attack, and inflict penalties on foe's Atk/Def equal to 50% of total penalties active on foe during combat (Max 12). [Dagger 7]

Now you're probably expecting more Special stuff so they can use Lethality. Instead, here's a weapon that's all about getting the upper hand in combat against foe's with penalties, like the Broadleaf Fan. I'm counting Atk debuffs and Def debuffs as two major effects with conditions. Since [Dagger 7] inflicts Def/Res-7 on target and surrounding foes, 50% of the total is 7. You than need -6 on the foe to get the -10 Atk/Def. This is ideal used with a close counter skill and Spd Smoke 4 (cuz dodge).

Arcane Naga: Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). If unit's HP > 25%, inflict Atk/Res-6 and Special charge -1 per attack on foe during combat, prevent foe's follow-up attack, and restores 7 HP to unit after combat.

This is a green tome that's functions as a pure defensive option. Sorry to all the green tome nukes like . . . *Looks at list of green tome units without good perf tomes* Nino? Ricken? Ced? Compare that to the high HP/Def/Res low Atk/Spd units. Winter! Artur, Fall! Henry, Gatekeeper, Va! Alfonse, Merric, Julia, Deirdre, Orochi, W! Bruno, Boey, female! Robin, or Picnic! Leo? yes, but for far save tanks, like the four I just mentioned, this is great. But at least you got AS for 1 charge special Moonbows/Ruptured Sky for damage or Noontime for heal tanking, which pairs nice with 7 HP restored after combat, which can be used to maintain the 25% HP threshold. This tome maybe better off with guaranteed follow-ups, and we do have Seiðr providing the "prevent guaranteed follow-ups" status, so I think it's possible I could be wrong on this tome.

Arcane Aura: Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1). If unit's HP > 25%, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+5 to unit, grants unit makes a guaranteed follow-up, and inflict penalties on foe's Atk/Res = X during combat. (X = number of allies within 2 tile radius x 2; Max 6)

This blue tome is much better. This gives the same benefits my Carver, just with a different conditions, a better Owl tome. The more allies nearby, the more damage and less damage receive, giving 11 total different. This tome doesn't come with healing, Guard, or any other special thing, so it will depend on the passives you give, and the allies you have nearby (and your opponent not having Embla).

Arcane Cane: Accelerates Special trigger (cooldown count-1; max cooldown count value cannot be reduced below 1). If unit HP>25%, grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 to unit and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack, and after combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Atk/Spd/Def/Res-4 on target and foes within 2 spaces of target through their next actions, and grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 to unit and allies within 2 spaces for 1 turn.

Heh Heh, Arcane Cane. So with the advent of damaging Specials for staffs to inherit, and their cooldowns likely being on the 3-4 cost, the necessity of AS has unfortunately came to the one weapon untainted. With this, I just when with a simple copy-paste of B!Veronica's staff. This does come with the benefits of in-combat stats and guaranteed follow-up, but you loose the Atk/Spd Drive and Def/Res Hold effect, meaning you have to attack or get attack to provide support. Also, the buff/debuff effect only happens when you are healthy, meaning getting Thunder Towered remove all your benefits. You may need a source of healing, like Renewal or Live to Serve. This staff, I feel, should work with any movement type, with Cav getting the jump on a foe, to a infantry baiting out mages to then boost the team next phase.

That's all I got. I doubt I would need to make another of these blogs, so it's back to the usually. Oh, and feel free to reply with your own theory craft Arcane weapons. Give me the nuking green tome you want.

#fire emblem heroes #theorycrafting #game design

[neverloseguy]

Skia is among one of the characters that I decided to ‘remove’ a couple of months ago, and only recently, have I brought her back into my uh...’NLGverse’, as @morenagrey​ likes to call it, I think? She and Cyrus will not only be returning, but also they have quite a bit of lore attached to them as you will see here.

Basically, she's now a member of a family noble who sought to protect her from danger due to her...unique abilities of deadeye's mark and such. Despite the preparedness for a possible house raid from the bandits, the nobles were unable to fend them off and her family is all but killed, leaving Skia to be alone and orphaned as the bandits failed to find her. The dark twist though is that no one wanted to adopt her due to her left eye being freaky as fuck, and as such, she grew up on her own, spending majority of time in the solitude, and cementing her anti-social tendencies. even darker still, Skia was said to be apathetic at best, witnessing the death of her parents with no remorse, and sadistic at worst, seeking to hunt down those who wronged her, not for justice, not for revenge, but for fun.

The death of her family is a direct result of her unnatural power that concerned many amongst the nobility, and while many were quick to blame Embel and her house at first, naturally due to them and Skia's family being rivals, deeper investigation actually suggested Cyrus (the red hair guy from above) was actually the one responsible. The truth is that Cyrus was among the first people to be aware of Skia's existence and her unnatural power. Fearing that Skia could be weaponized by her family (and likely anyone who later got a hold of her), Cyrus hired a bunch of bandits in an attempt to kidnap Skia and hopefully kill her off to prevent her from upsetting his family's status quo. With the failure of the raid and Skia remaining alive, she eventually grew up to become one of the deadliest assassins that now puts the security of the nobles in jeopardy.

tl;dr Skia is a monster who got into the whole affair due to her power, and despite Cyrus' attempt at putting at end to it (even if for a selfish reason), she managed to survive and is now directly at odds with him, Embel (and to an extent Knelson), Condina, and pretty much everyone else.

#gw2 #gw2 oc #Cyrus Scarletsun #Skia Chen #gw2 fan submission #gw2 humans

[dumbbitchenergy17]

She Loves Me

A simple patrol, a routine that Endeavor's work-study students took.

Words- 1.5K

Aizawa!Reader x Todoroki, Aizawa x daughter!Reader, Shinso x Sibling!Reader

Warnings: MAJOR Character death, slight violence, death, , angst, and lots of sadness, sad boi shoto

It was just supposed to be a simple patrol, a routine that Endeavors work-study students took.

“Can you stop yelling, I’m going to go deaf because of you.” You groan, twirling the knife in your hand as Bakugo keeps yelling.

You glance over at Midoriya, “Yo Deku how did you deal with chatterbox your entire life?” Midoriya is visibly pale as Bakgo yells more explosions coming from his hands.

Todoroki, ever silent just listens in on the interaction, he watches how your face crinkles into a smile when Bakugo gets more upset, or the way your lip turns into a small smirk when listening. Todoroki and you are what you say, friends, more of acquaintances. You and him are polar opposites. He is reserved and polite and you are outgoing and sarcastic.

Your personality comes fully from being around your ever sarcastic adopted father and brother. You two would talk ever so often about school or hero work but that was as far as it got. He would get a feeling in his chest that he couldn't explain but only around you. Was he sick? Todoroki admires you as a person and a hero.

As the four of you walk along the sidewalk when you feel the ground rumble before a loud explosion comes down the street. The four of you see a large bank have flames coming from it screams and yells coming from it as mayhem ensues.

“Really thought it was going to be a calm day, the last one there does paperwork. You to Wonderboy.” You yell, flipping off Bakugo and throwing up a peace sign to Todoroki. Deku sweeps you up running towards the bank leaving Bakugo and Todoroki in the dust.

“DAMN YOU BITCH!” Bakkugo yells explosions popping from his hands now flying over to the bank. Inside the destroyed building you and Deku split up, Deku immediately helping civilians out the building while you go looking for villains. Your quirk helps clear a path to get through faster. Your quirk was called Deadeye, it allows you to shoot, throw any object with perfect accuracy that sometimes defies basic laws of physics. You hear the sound of yelling as you head to what is the vault, the flames nipping at your skin as you run. Kicking the door open you see five villains stuff cash and jewels into bags.

“Quick it’s a hero!” One of them yells as you pull out a knife chucking it at the bag in the hand pinning it to the wall. Spinning out of the way from one of their quirks you rush vaulting over a table spinning your body around one of their necks flipping him over knocking him out. Two more rush towards you and you engage in combat.

“Bullseye, what's your location!” You hear Endeavor your mentor yell into the eyepiece.

“Little busy at the moment bossman!” You yell and dodge a blow to the face. Almost like a dance around them knocking them both out throwing knives into their clothing pinning them down. A kick to the chest sends you back and one of the villains holding a large bag begins to run out, you go to chase them when you’re grabbed by the collar of your costume and throw it back.

You push yourself up to see the final of the five with his chest strapped with a bomb. You put your hands up showing you’re unarmed.

“Let’s not do this okay, you’re going to hurt a lot of people if you do this.” You warn and he laughs, his hand clutching the trigger.

“You think I care, we’re leaving a message that you puny heroes can’t save anyone.”

You kick up a rebar and kick it towards his chest to stop him, “WE HAVE A BOMBER IN THE VAULT EVERYONE GE-”

A loud explosion going through the building rattling the already weak supports, The three heroes in training look in horror at the burning building all hearing you before it went dead. Todoroki without waiting runs into the building ignoring the shouts from his classmates and father. He uses his ice to stop some of the flames and glide on the floor to get faster. He hears the sounds of flames and sirens from outside as he heads into the destroyed vault.

Ash and smoke cloud his vision, he waves his hand in front of his face to clear his vision. He hears a cough and he sees a rumble covering a person. He rushes over, moving the stone off you hearing you groan in pain.

“Bullseye are you okay, we have to get moving.” He goes to pick you up when you push him away.

“It’s not that easy.” Todoroki looks over at you, his heart stilling seeing the metal rebar coming through your stomach, blood staining your costume.

“This is Shoto. I need a medic, she’s injured. Oh god, there’s so much.” Todoroki rapidly speaks into his eyepiece when your hand comes out and pulls it out of his ear.

“God, you’re loud like chatterbox.” You frown looking at his distressed face.

“You need help, you're losing too much blood.”

“I’m not leaving…” You say.

Todoroki shakes his head, “You have to, they need to look over yo-”

You grab his face, getting your blood on his face, “I can’t leave Todoroki! It pierced straight into the stomach to part of my lung.”

It is silent between the two of you the sounds of shouts and sirens outside. “You try to move this pole I will die. Well, I'm dying anyway but die faster.” You say and tears begin to fill Shoto’s eyes.

“No you can't, you still have training to do and we have class tomorrow.” He says softly.

You smile softly at his comment, “You’re something else Wonderboy.”

You wince feeling the shock you were in begin to fade. “Hey Todoroki, you go and become the best hero out there, you don't have to be number one. Become the best for me you got that.” He nods with tears sliding down his face, even crying he still is pretty.

“You know I had the biggest crush on you when I first met you. Mr. Perfect, my Wonderboy. But I never went for it. I’m probably an asshole for telling you now.” You laugh coughing in pain from your lungs.

“I like you as well, more than a friend,” He says and you are shocked by his confession, “I know we don’t talk but there’s this feeling in my chest whenever I’m around you.”

You feel your eyes start to burn tears forming looking up so they don’t fall. “Damn you for making me cry, I was supposed to be stronger.” You cry letting the tears slide down your face. Todoroki takes this brief moment to admire you for what might be the last time, even covered in soot and blood you still look as pretty as ever.

You grab his hand as the pain begins to become more painful, “I want you to know none of this is your fault, and don’t you go blaming yourself, the same thing goes with Bakugo and Midoriya I know they’ll try to blame themselves. Even your dad, he may be an asshole but he cares I can tell. My dad...tell him I love him and to keep living on and Shinso, don’t let him shut down he’s going to be an amazing hero I can tell. Tell anyone else that I love them I can’t really think anymore.” You ramble on squeezing his hand as you feel yourself get more tired.

Shoto nods his tears still pouring from his face, “Can I kiss you?” You nod your lips forming that smirk you always do. His lips press against yours and you feel your head get dizzy. The most perfect man was kissing you.

“love you shoto..”

Shoto feels your hand go loose and he pulls back seeing your eyes are closed, your face peaceful, not in pain anymore. Shoto holds you in his arms as he lets himself cry. From outside the heroes and police wait anxiously for two people still inside there. They hear the sound of footsteps heading towards the entrance of the bank. They sigh in relief seeing Todoroki coming out unscathed but their blood runs cold seeing the blood on his face and covering his costume. Silence fills the outside as they see who he’s holding. Your pale still in his arms as Todoroki walks further out.

“LET ME SEE HER!” Todoroki hears someone yell as they push past the police. He sees his teacher come into the clearing his face red and teary-eyed, Mr. Aizawa drops down to his knees, and Todoroki places you into his arms.

“Oh god, oh god!” Aizawa cries holding you into his chest, the pain of losing a child unforgettable.

Todoroki steps back his body numb as he looks back past his teacher. Midoriya is holding Shinso trying to calm him down as he sobs into his arms, though Midoriya fails at holding back his own tears. Bakugo is silent still staring at you, tears silently streaming down his face. He feels the heat from his father coming closer. Endeavor is silent as his son turns to look at him, his eyes are red and he is covered in soot and there is blood on his face. Todoroki steps forward falling into his father’s chest sobbing and Endeavor, shocked by his son’s contact, slowly rubs his hand up and down Shoto’s back as tears stain his costume.

“She said she loves me.”

#shoto todoroki x reader #todoroki x reader #shoto todoroki #shota aizawa #aizawa sensei #mha quirks #mha x y/n #mha x reader #aizawa!reader #my hero academia #boku no academia #angst #mha angst #character death #major character death

[ttuesday]

Hiiiiii hru doing? I love your blog sm u stg I check it everyday keep up the amazing (you even inspired me to start writing for rdr)

Anyways Can I request how would the VDL boys act if say the O'Driscolls or lamyone raiders kidnapped their S/O who already has some past trauma?

Arthur

Arthur thought you would’ve been back by now. Usually whenever you go into town to buy supplies, you’re back in camp within the hour. He could sense something was off but it was when Kieran mentioned seeing O’Driscoll’s in the area did he realize what had happened.

On the inside, he’s very scared. You could be dead by now and that terrifies him. Arthur wastes no time, shouting across to Dutch that you’ve been taken as he runs to his horse.

After a quick shootout, he finds you locked in a small room. Thankfully they didn’t have much time to harm you but nonetheless Arthur fussed over you, checking you over and over again for any injuries.

He pulls you in for a tight hug, burying his head in your hair as he mutters “Everything’s alright, I got you now and that’s all that matters”.

Dutch

When you didn’t return to camp, Dutch knew something was wrong. This isn’t the first time Colm has taken someone Dutch cares about, so he got a sort of hunch that they had grabbed you.

Within 5 minutes of initially getting this hunch, he gathers up some of the other fellers and they ride off to the O’Driscoll’s last known location.

Dutch doesn’t think about the worst case scenario. He forbids himself from even considering that possibility, mainly because he knows he’ll break down if he thinks of it.

After finally freeing you, Dutch tells you to ride with him. He brings you on a scenic route as the other fellers head straight back to camp. With remorse in his eyes, Dutch sighs “This shouldn’t have happened, I… I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you”.

Charles

Charles didn’t think too much about it when you weren’t back at your usual time. He knows you’re adventurous and that you like exploring so he thought that maybe you got side-tracked doing that.

But when Kieran mentioned it to him that O’Driscoll’s were nearby, Charles saw red. He was angry that he wasn’t there to protect you and that this had happened to you of all people.

He only takes a small handful of people with him on this rescue mission. John offered to go as an extra gun and Arthur wanted to go in the hopes of calming down Charles on the way there.

When Charles sees that you’re alive and thankfully not badly injured, all that anger turns to relief. “I won’t ever let this happen again,” he promises as he holds you close “I can’t let this happen again”.

Micah

Micah was subtly waiting for you to come back from the supplies run. He always acts like he doesn’t care but secretly he pays attention to stuff like this, especially when you’re involved.

When he overheard Kieran say he saw O’Driscoll’s... well shit, it’s a miracle Micah didn’t kill Kieran right there and then. He was furious that this had happened, blaming whoever he could (besides himself).

Micah didn’t care if the others followed him out to the O’Driscoll’s camp. He was in such a rage, the only thing he was focused on was killing anyone wearing green and finding you.

Micah’s still angry when he finds you. He breaths a sigh of relief but he instantly starts to berate you for not being careful enough. “You ain’t leaving my sight for a month after this, y’hear?” he scolds. Micah cares, he just doesn’t know how to show it.

Bill

It takes Bill a few seconds to comprehend what’s after happening. He hears Kieran telling him about the O’Driscoll’s being around but his brain doesn’t want to admit that you’ve been taken.

He’s scared shitless and if anything bad happens to you then Bill won’t be able to forgive himself. He yells at the others to hurry up as he quickly runs to Brown Jack.

As they shoot any O’Driscoll they see, Bill can feel his hands slightly tremble as he fears for the worst. You mean so much to him, if something happens to you, he doesn’t know how he’ll cope.

Bill doesn’t let you go when he finds you. “You ever go on another supply run, you come get me,” he says “hell, you even leave camp for a peaceful piss you best come get me”. Yep, he’s appointed himself to be your new bodyguard.

John

John was laid back when you mentioned you were doing a supply run by yourself. He knows you’re capable and good with a gun so he didn’t worry about it.

But when he realized O’Driscoll’s had taken you, he hated himself for being so relaxed about it. He hates that that might be the last conversation he ever has with you.

John wastes no time mounting his horse and galloping off. Some of the other fellers follow him but they can’t keep up with his speed.

After killing every O’Driscoll in sight and finding you, John feels his knees go weak as all of his anxiety fades away. “You really scared me for a second” he tries to smile though you can see a gleam in his eyes.

Javier

Javier is so goddamn determined to get you. Kieran hadn’t even finished his sentence about seeing the O’Driscoll’s and Javier was already sprinting towards the horses.

He doesn’t care how far he has to go to get you back, he’s willing to do it. It doesn’t matter how many O’Driscoll’s he has to fight or how many miles he has to gallop, Javier is determined..

Javier doesn’t wait around for the others to come with him. He prefers to do this alone and it’s easier for him to take a stealth approach this way too.

You didn’t even realize all the O’Driscoll’s were dead. Javier simply pushed the door open and told you that you’re safe now. “How about we spend the night away from camp, hm?” he asks, subtly looking you over to make sure you weren’t hurt “I don’t want you to get overwhelmed back at camp”.

Hosea

Hosea’s been through a lot in his life and at a certain point, he starts to pick up when something isn’t right.

He wasn’t sure about you going on a supplies run alone in the first place so when he heard about O’Driscoll’s being seen, it didn’t take long for him to put two and two together.

He gathers up some of the fellers and head off. Hosea knows what he’s doing and he knows the best plan possible so if Dutch tries to take control of the situation, Hosea immediately cuts him off.

After a brief shootout, Hosea finds you and quickly runs over to you. He asks if you’re alright before asking Arthur to go get you some water. “Are you ok? You’re very strong for getting through this, you know that? So strong”.

Sean

Sean has a lot of emotions. He’s angry that this has happened, scared, nervous and he’s pumped full of adrenaline.

You know Sean’s come to rescue you from the amount of shouting outside. He makes sure every O’Driscoll knows he’s there for you and continuous tells them they shouldn’t have messed with you or ‘Deadeye MacGuire’.

When Sean finally gets to you, he flings his arms around you and doesn’t let go. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should’ve been there, I should’ve…” yeah Sean goes on for a while, listing off all the things he should have done differently.

Even when y’all are heading back to camp, Sean makes sure you ride with him so he can keep his arms around you. He doesn’t want to let you go for a long, long time.

#yo I fucking love that my blog has helped inspire you to write for rdr ;-; #that’s one of the best things I’ve heard in a long time omg #I wanna give y’all hugs #<333 #writings #headcanons #arthur morgan #dutch van der linde #charles smith #micah bell #javier escuella #bill williamson #hosea matthews #john marston #sean MacGuire

[its-deputy-caleb]

Booboo, I know you got a lot on and they're ain't no rush, but if you could do some Soft!Mikey trying his best (and probably failing) to make reader feel better after they lost a family member?

(maybe I'm being a little selfish cos of recent events, but I could really do with my support rat right now 💖)

Thank you in advance, and I'm working on yours! 😘

Kitty you know i'm always here to help where i can and i won't hesitate to write this for you at the least. I love you sm and i will do everything i can to make you feel better <33 i hope this is okay (i will get to editing tomorrow) but for now please enjoy some soft supportive mikey.

————————————————————

Its a warm morning down in Clemens Point, much too warm for your liking. The heat was sweltering already and it was giving everyone a headache.

You were hunched over a crate, sharing a coffee with your sweetheart Micah as he pointed at maps and went over the information he’d gathered from the night before.

“Some drunk feller— wouldn’t stop boasting about the amount of cash he had stashed in a homestead just North of Saint Denis. Reckon it’s worth a look.”

Micah stopped talking when a very loud Irishman came skipping into camp, delivering out supplies from his latest trip in town with Arthur.

“Why’s everyone lookin’ so sad? Cheer up now! Deadeye Macguire is back!”

The two of you watched with soft smiles as Sean dropped a crate of ammunition off before helping out with the vegetables all the while boasting to Susan about pulling his weight. Eventually, when camp seemed to return to its usual busy pace, Arthur walked over to you and brought out a letter from his saddlebag.

“This was left for ya at the Station, ma’am.”

You gave Arthur a short and affirmative nod, one that he easily returned as you waited for him to depart before opening it.

There’s the faint sound of Micah asking who the letter is from but its a muffled blur as you read over the words. Nothing could’ve prepared you for what you read.

You instantly recognise your mother’s cursive handwriting and a lump forms in your throat and your stomach drops. Your mother hasn’t written in years. She writes that in your hometown there had been a fight between the Sheriff and a group of bandits resisting being brought in, the argument having quickly escalated into a shootout.

Your dearest sister had been in town that day,

While both her and her husband had been injured in the crossfire,

She died that afternoon surrounded by her family…

Your legs give out as you discover the death of your sister, the shock hitting you as tears brim in your eyes and you choke back a sob. Micah is quick to put an arm under you, taking a knee so you can sit on his thigh as he grounds you.

Gently, as if not to startle you, Micah takes the letter from your shaky hands and skims over it to understand your reaction.

“Oh sweetheart… c’mere.”

A sob breaks through you and you wrap your arms around his neck. By now some of the members had stopped with doings to watch the two of you but Micah gently tucked your head into his neck. Your cries are uncontrollable as a mixture of grief, shock and fear ripple through you.

Micah’s jacket is crinkled from how tightly you’re holding onto him but he merely holds you while you cry, keeping a protective arm around you.

“I should have been there— should have done something. I could’ve saved her—could have tried to—“

Your lip trembles and you break out into another fit of sobs. Micah shakes his head, rocking you slowly as he holds you close. Arthur tries to walk over to the two of you to inquire but Micah shakes his head and gestures for him to piss off before pulling back to look at you with a softness you haven’t seen before.

“Hey now… I don’t want yer thinking like that. If you were there it would’ve meant you’d be killed too. Not that I don’t doubt yer shootin’ skills but—“

You give Micah a look that screams not now and he quickly shuts up when he realises now is not the time of the place. His hand cups your face, brushing your tear away with his thumb.

“What I’m trying to say is that you can’t blame yerself.”

When you open your mouth to argue he simply brings you in for a hug, letting you cry into his shoulder for however long you needed. Micah realised that words may not be the best thing for you so he simply shut his damn mouth and held you, only opening it to gently shushes and coos to help your breathing evens out.

—

Eventually, Micah brought you away from the eyes of the camp, carrying you to sit by the water. He stayed with you for hours, leaving only to bring you water and some food which you barely touched. He was the only one who you’d allow to be close to you at this moment.

There were periods of time, hours even where you’d just sit in silence with Micah’s arms wrapped protectively around you. Sometimes you’d start to cry again and his hold around your waist would get tighter and other times you’d tell him how close you were with your sister.

And Micah was a good listener for once. He took his own advice and stopped talking, stopped trying to think of things to say and just let you grieve. Micah knew you understood what he was trying to do and you loved him even more for the fact that he was trying.

You couldn’t stop the sad smile that arrived when he kissed your forehead and you tucked your head under his chin. The sound of the water along the shore was slowly starting to help your breathing even, your sobs had stopped and there was no more tears left to try until tomorrow.

The moon made the water glow and on any other night you’d think it was beautiful, romantic even but all you could think about was losing your sibling. The two of you were close when you were little and apart of you regrets running off to join a gang of bandits and thieves when you could’ve protected her.

Your lip trembles again and you feel Micah move slightly as he prepares to hug you tighter. But this time you can’t help but speak up, its whispered and your voice is dry and cracking yet you proceed.

“‘She died that afternoon surrounded by her family.’ I wasn’t there Micah, I should have been— I should have been there with her.”

Micah takes your trembling hands in his, intertwining your fingers as he squeezes your hand reassuringly. He’s silent for a moment, thinking over what he wants to say as he looks at your hands.

“Darlin’… this might not be what yer wanna hear right now but you will always have a family here with me, I know it ain’t the same but you have people here that love you— I love you okay?”

He kisses your temple gently and squeezes your hands again.

“If you want I’ll ride with yer and you can go and visit your folks and be with em.”

You look at him with wide, surprised eyes.

“You’d do that for me?”

Micah nods slowly, brining your foreheads together as he bumped your noses softly. Leaning into his touch you take your first deep breath of fresh air since hearing the news as exhaustion begins to wash over you in waves like the ripples of the lake.

“Course I would sweetheart, anything yer need okay? You ask me. We’ll go first thing tomorrow but first let’s get you to sleep.”

He scoops you up in his arms, carrying you with a hand around your waist and one under your knee as he walks you back to your shared tent. By now your eyes are closed and you’re leaning with your head onto his chest. He sets you on the bedroll, climbing in behind you as he wraps his arms protectively around you, a feeling you’re now dependent on.

His nose rubs the back of your neck and he rubs slow circles on your arms, slowly lulling you to sleep.

Micah stays true to his word and accompanies you to meet your family so you can grieve properly. He is always there to give you hugs and forehead kisses even long after you’d returned to the gang and he’s never failed to make you feel better after the death of a loved one.

#micah bell #micah bell x reader #tw death #rdr2 #rdr2 writing #rdr2 headcanons #red dead redemption 2

[wyldblunt]

hi im ira and this is my gw2 sideblog!

adult | it/she/he | 🔞 18+ only please 🔞

likes/follows/replies will come from @baph0meat , more art at @iraprince which is essentially my main

i mention my wife a lot bc we love making ocs together and most of our lore is intertwined. she’s not on tumblr, but just fyi, her name’s marina and she uses she/they/he pronouns!

NAVIGATION:

⭐ my art - what it says on the tin

⭐ others ocs - also what it says on the tin. browse some beautiful blorbos

⭐ my ocs and marina ocs are mostly just little organizational heads-up tags, since i post about his ocs just as often as mine; i usually only bother throwing this on art, not text posts

⭐ oc notebook - non-art posts abt my + my wife’s ocs, general rambles

⭐ oc aes - aesthetic/shitpost reblogs assigned to characters. posts for canon characters may sometimes be carelessly hit w this tag

⭐ answers - responses to ask games/questions; ones with art will additionally be tagged drawn answers

characters are tagged by name; [character]/[character] or a combined ship name is for ship dynamics, [character] + [character] is for platonic/friendship dynamics. spoilers will be tagged with abbreviations (i.e. “EoD spoilers,” “LWS4 spoilers,” etc)

⭐ character list below cut: ⭐

UNDER CONSTRUCTION, eventually i’ll have a cut with a proper illustrated oc directory here but for now here’s a bunch of direct links to characters i talk about a lot for quick access. 💛 means my oc, 💙 means marina’s oc!

THE BIG RELATIONSHIP CHART

(moooostly up to date, missing a few new courtiers/our charr and current art)

MAIN PLOT:

💛 glyndwr (my commander) - bitchy edgy ex-nightmare deadeye (previously the knight of deceit). insists he doesn’t want to be doing any of this save-the-world shit but also refuses to step down. merrit’s mentor/adoptive father. gender=mean old homosexual, he/him

💙 alan (marina’s commander) - radiant vigil posterboy (who is getting tired of being the posterboy). guardian, champion of aurene, hero of tyria, steadily splintering under the pressure. lorelei’s mentor. gender=battle angel, he/they

💛 lorelei - lieutenant commander. ambitious but naive vigil druid, formerly a tournament jockey from the grove. dragonslayer on a lacrosse scholarship. cute and kind, but often tactless; always dreamed of a life of adventure and has now kind of bitten off more than they can chew. gender=lesbian, they/he (+occasional she)

💙 merrit - lieutenant commander. miserable wet neurotic ex-courtier. once a spy for nightmare, fled and ended up under glyn’s wing. has shaken off a lot of the Evil, but not the aesthetics. midwest emo dyke transplanted into high fantasy. virtuoso. gender=lesbian, any pronouns

💛 viper squad - consists of daimhin (chronomancer, they/she/occasional he), damage (harbinger, she/her), and donner (daredevil, he/him) in addition to merrit. glyndwr’s personal task force (the guys who show up when he pops the ‘thieves guild’ elite skill). each is extremely annoying in their own special way.

💛The Dog - glyn’s dog. he refuses to name it because it doesn’t need a name to respond to commands. canach has named her pepper. alan has named her soot. merrit calls her ‘buddy’ but is too nervous to actually impose a name on her. donner has named her gamble. damage has named her Vice-Commander Big Fuck

COURTIERS

💛 callas - count of malice, spymaster, tempest. previously had authority over glyndwr, and later merrit; has gone absolutely apeshit with vindictive rage now that they’ve both escaped. building a new faction of the court in the power vacuum post-HoT. she/he, occasional they

💙 lisk - captain of the vanguard, berserker. once served under leurent, count of blood, but got bored of him and obsessed with callas, and helped her overthrow his former master. has some extremely Out There opinions (such as believing the dragons are inherent allies of nightmare). tirelessly helping her mistress hunt down court deserters. gender=lesbian, any pronouns, leans she/he

💛 fidelma - callas’ personal squire + bodyguard. extremely strange. seemingly chipper, but with a yawning emptiness behind it all. it is deeply loyal to callas, but even more loyal to nightmare, and will choose chaos (even if it inconveniences its liege) over anything else 9 times out of 10. believes nightmare is already the natural order of things and that the court shouldn’t have to put this much effort to spread it. it/she

💛 sorcha - vanguard hound, warrior. dipshit mean girl jock who just wants attention, but will settle for bullying everyone around her instead. desperately in love with lisk, and was perfectly content to share her with everyone until callas began entirely monopolizing her attention. she/he/they

💙 sigvas - scout/archer, under rhys until post-HoT, then afloat in the schism. a poisoner/alchemist (cough cough party drug synthesiser) who WANTS to be the game-of-thrones master manipulator of the court but is too busy freaking the fuck out, both /pos and /neg, over their own reflection. desperately in love with lisk. they/them

💙 tarahnis - scout/beastmaster, under rhys until post-HoT, then afloat in the schism. a ranger/thorn hound trainer who does his nightmare duties with an unusual amount of relaxed optimism. just here for a good time. desperately in love with lisk, but also wants to surpass her. he/they

💛 rue - squire/provisioner, in service of rhys’ scouting squads until HoT, then afloat in the schism. a weird little himejoshi who is just happy to be creeping around admiring all the nightmare knights that surround them. does not dream of advancing in the court at all, just of kind of skittering around and polishing everyone’s armor and sniffing their clothes. desperately in love with sorcha, sigvas, and tarahnis. they/he/she

(sorcha, sigvas, tara, + rue are all gender=sapphic and are collectively referred to as The Problemcule.)

FLOATERS/NON-PLOT-ADJACENT

💛 clooney - secondborn pirate, with the jackdaws. mechanically a ranger but in lore has no specific profession. believes that the only way to counteract the pain and horror that filters into the dream through life’s experiences is to devote oneself to having as much fun as possible before you die; takes this extremely seriously. has a side gig smuggling people to safety from tight situations (ex-courtiers, pact deserters, etc). eventually becomes alan’s lover. he/him, but he’ll use any pronouns for fun

💙 rhys - (technically could go up with the nightmare courtiers, but he’s not part of the same group as all the above ones.) a nightmare count disgusted with what the court has become, frustrated with the way it’s been entirely derailed by vanity and internal politics and mindless violence. after fighting mordremoth, decides to form a splinter faction of the court on his own. gender=lesbian, he/they.

💛 bowyn - part-time actor, full-time con artist, professional babe. mesmer. though they insist they’re “strictly non-political,” they become involved with rhys and end up traveling with him and his new court. secretly feels deeply guilty about the fact that they had absolutely no involvement with the fight against mordremoth. they/he/she

💙 gann - a courtier in name only; you probably could not name the last time he actually did anything useful for nightmare. mostly entrenched in the court just as a criminal career choice. an expert at slacking off. he/him, but it’s not like he cares

💛 naoise - completely empty-headed pit fighter. a gladitorial prodigy who can barely count; they are so dumb that they don’t even realize that they’re a revenant, because the legends they’re channeling can’t even get enough foothold in their raisin-sized brain to speak to them. their gorgeous face and hollow skull have bewitched gann body and soul, and the two of them travel aimlessly around tyria, making shitloads of money and contributing nothing useful to anyone else ever. bliss. they/them

💙 cadair - a valiant of the wild hunt, whose dream is entwined with maelduin’s. woke two years later than maelduin did, meaning their dream has given them much more information about their fated partner, while maelduin knows almost nothing about them. enormous, gentle-hearted, but self-conscious about the fact that the dream has equipped them with everything they need to be a knight/hero but very little else. revenant. any pronouns, leans he/they

💛 maelduin - a valiant of the wild hunt, whose dream is entwined with cadair’s. woke two years before cadair, knowing only that they would one day need to protect him. while they waited for him, they became a mentor, while also becoming deeply preoccupied with death and medicine. specter. any pronouns, leans they/them

💛 benji daywaste - formerly an iron legion engineer, but hazed so badly over her infamous sire that she was transferred to ash legion. hangs out with the goths now. grumpy about all of it, even though he’s enthusiastic about his work. gender=lesbian, she/he/they

💙 roddar wastesteel - ash legion thief who lacks the temperament to match his position. easygoing, keeping his chin up despite the loss of his warband -- benji is the first addition in rebuilding. (’wastesteel’ was a joke name suggested by benji due to how often he fucks up the equipment she makes for him, but it stuck, and now they’re the waste warband.) gender=lesbian, he/him

SHIPS:

glynach (glyndwr/canach)

merrilei

alanglyn

callisk

alan/clooney

bowyn/rhys

gann/naoise

problemcule

cadair/maelduin

benji/roddar

(i do not generally follow the “top/bottom” ship tagging convention; to keep things consistent/easy to remember i mostly just tag in alphabetical order. sometimes i might forget or tag things inconsistenly and stray posts will get lost out of these tags lol)

#UPDATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #added art/caps for anyone i have 'em for #still to do: organize + link toyhouse. that is going to take forever

[kerra-and-company]

I'd love to hear about a boss fight for Cioffi!

(@the-tired-commander)

Cio boss fight! :D Okay okay!!

You're not likely to ever run into her in the form of a boss fight in-game, I don't think, so I have no idea what the context for this would be, but:

Phase 1

You're going to be facing a scrapper who's got a whole bunch of gyros whizzing around. Said gyros are a nuisance during the first part of the fight, but they're also (originally) immune to damage, so ignore them and target Cio. She'll be working in tandem with them, using her hammer to deal DPS and stun you.

Phase 2

Cio pulls back at this point (50% health), and you're left to handle her gyros. They drop lightning and poison fields for you to avoid and shield her. Cio's class isn't deadeye, but she is a crack shot with a rifle, so watch for those shots too because they add up quick if you're not careful.

Phase 3

Once all the gyros are destroyed, the shield drops, and Cio's back in the fight. She's going after you with her flamethrower this time, so be cognizant of that when you fight. The ground where she walks will now leave lines of fire that'll damage you if you cross them (though they fade after a few seconds), and her hair will be glowing brighter. (Depleting her breakbar will make her drop the flamethrower in addition to instilling weakness. You can pick it up, but if you do and try to use it on her, you'll figure out flames do no damage. Also, she'll become the flamethrower after that, basically, by shooting fire from her hands instead. It's more a flavor mechanic than one that gives you as the player an advantage.)

At 0% health, she struggles to her feet and throws a wall of fire between you and her. When it fades, she’s gone, along with her damaged gyros.

#gw2 #cioffi #the-tired-commander #thanks a bunch for the ask! :D #i have ZERO clue when you'd fight cio like this honestly but it was very fun to consider!!

[af1899]

THE REAL BEST NEWS OF THE UPDATE

The whole banner is boring, these are the real best news tonight.

POGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Yes, after a long wait of over 4 years, Sophia is finally getting her first alt and as a free unit, which is very nice.

Part of the artwork, as well as the event information, should be out in less than 2 hours since this post's date/time.

Anyway, I'll now comment on a few things about the new units now formally revealed with skills and artwork.

Trailer

Thoughts

The seasonal units come to no surprise as they were all previously leaked (thanks again Intern-kun!) but there are some interesting things in this reveal and the associated notice.

First of all, you're perhaps wondering how well I did with my guesses on the attires Male Grima and Kurtnaga would be doning plus the free unit potentially being Nasir, well... completely wrong with the last two, Kurthnaga isn't dressing like a Jiangshi, actually looking more like an... emperor? But if you know his role in the Tellius games, then it makes sense, either way he looks nice, I was right with Male Grima, more dressed up than his Female counterpart and the like, but Okuma Yugo takes on drawing Male Grima again and he looks so cool.

However, I'm still shook one of my biggest favs in Elibe got an alt like, out of nowhere, I was totally expecting some Tellius unit that'd go along with the theory I had in mind, nevethless, I'm excited to build her and comment on her gameplay elements (that'll be done once I have her properly built, but I need to prepare some resources in advance), I'll also talk about the event stuff later on, I hope today but something came up recently, so we'll see.

The banner itself remains the same: an easy skip with nothing I do feel like I need right away.

Male Grima is fodder galore for me, fortunately, he's easy to fodder for two full passive skills if one of them is [Sturdy Stance 3]. He's quite fearsome to face if you initiate on an ally of his near him, and he'll be pretty durable, replacing his special with [Moonbow] is also a good call, then add a movement assist, a [Atk/Def Bond] as [Sacred Seal] and he's set. It's also worth noting he's a colorless breath armor unit, giving him less likelihood to get WTD.

Rhea... Idk if that weapon type and animation would give away some important spoilers, but even though I know something regarding her identity, I'd rather continue avoiding spoilers, I have no way to play her home game. She's also another fodder galore unit in my eyes; but onto what's she like as a unit, not as great as Male Grima, and she relies on both keeping herself healthy to reduce incoming damage and deny follow-ups, plus healthy foes to deal follow-up attacks, not the most reliable thing but not too shabby either, keeping her health on check shouldn't be as difficult.

Kurthnaga has a rather interesting weapon over there, it makes its user beefier in enemy phase and you can inherit it to any dragon unit of your liking, the rest isn't exactly too interesting except for maybe [Even Pulse Tie 3] being on a seasonal semi-demote, it's a decent skill that can (in part) counter some teams or units but most of the time, you'll find it useless. He's also added like Spring Narcian, introducing a new {Experience} skill and an inheritable weapon, plus on demote too. 🤨

Lastly, Sothis is with Male Byleth, it seems to be the better fit for her out of the two despite his not-so-recent Legendary alt, since his Female counterpart leads a Duo with Rhea. Fodder galore as well but this one has some things to point out:

Welp, that's Múspell's C-skill but without {Joint}-esque effect all right, and you can give it to dragons, it'll likely stack with Múspell's C-skill, resulting in a slightly bigger boost in damage dealt and reduction on damage taken, most likely at least.

As a unit, this Duo is also best used on enemy phase, with a Lv.3 {Stance} of any kind being their best A-skill, they should be able to handle themselves just fine, but they're still vulnerable to arrows, green bow users like Rath or Python (for accessable choices) or Shamir with [Deadeye] should be able to quickly dispatch the Duo, they'll also most likely be used in offense than defense I think, they still don't seem super threatening, but their selling point would be the Duo Skill, which can help some units deal with Fallen Edelgard and some other dangers that tend to deny follow-up attacks:

...And it can be re-used on the same map.

Anyway, it seems everyone here has some sort of focus on being tankier and enemy phase oriented, yet there's a clear ounce of difference in how to use them, but nothing I'd exactly find super broken or must-have, the Duo might come in handy though.

I'll just free pick blue if available, otherwise I guess I'll go for colorless, green or red, I'm moreso looking forward to Sophia... speaking of her, it's possible she'll also play similarly to the units in here and her OG form (being slow and tanky, best used on enemy phase), if that's how she plays out, then [Close Counter], [Atk/Res Rein 3] (though I need a Brady first to properly fodder Plumeria) and [Pact Blooms+] are ready for her, but I'm short on B-skills and other expensive stuff, maybe [Flier Formation 3] since I have one last Díthorba to spare, I could pick [Quick Riposte 3] but my OCD wouldn't let me live with her just inheriting it up to Lv.2, and my only source without promoting anyone is Nah, so I'd have to do with alternatives, we'll see...

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you get who you want soon in the banner, hopefully Sophia will do great for you if you plan to build her also.

#feh #fe heroes #fire emblem heroes #fe sophia

[existentialspacecowboy]

Deadeye

A Royai Cowboy/Western AU inspired by @5hio and written as a part of @wastelandwolff’s Cowboytober 2020.

She’s the sharpest shooter across the whole frontier, and he starts bar fights for fun. 

Roy Mustang props up the bar like he’s a permanent staple. At this point, he might as well be. He’s spending money he cannot afford to all in the pursuit of futile pleasure and, well, being blind drunk is about all the fun a disgraced ex-sheriff can have.

He’s been in this town for a little while now, he’s not sure just how long but his position at the bar is a well-worn groove, the knot in the mahogany bar-top his familiar propping post.

He frowns when a sudden, un-characteristic silence befalls the saloon. Blinking a few times to regain some semblance of concentration, he throws a scant glance in the direction of the woman who has caused such a stir.

Nearby, Roy can’t help but overhear the muttered musings of two fellow drunkards; “Hawk in name and hawk by nature, she’s the deadliest sharpshooter there is. A real deadeye.”

Looking at her, Roy never would have guessed. He supposes there is a severeness about her, an intensity in her amber eyes, but there’s a softness in her face too and a gentleness in the curve of her jaw.

He realises he’s staring.

Turning back to the neck of his bottle, he swallows a hefty mouthful. The moonshine always hits his stomach like a freight-train, but that’s just how he likes it. It helps him to forget who he is and feel something besides the shame he shoulders each day.

Roy hasn’t shaven in days and hasn’t washed in even longer. There’s no way someone like her would ever pay him a second glance. He smells of booze, and reeks of disappointment; he’s not even sure that his aunt would look him in the eyes at this point. And even if she did, he’s not sure that she’d like what she’d see in them.

As the woman moves through the saloon, settling on a bar stool just a few feet away from him, Roy notes the way the room once again fills with the sound of casual conversations and the dulcet tones of a poorly tuned piano. 

Stroking a hand down his face, the four-day stubble scratches at his palm whilst he shakes the bottle in his free hand.

Almost empty.

Sighing, he takes his final mouthful, eyes once again on her. So engrossed, the man hardly notices when his bottle runs dry.  

But it does run dry.

In what is a familiar motion, Roy reaches into his pocket fumbling around for the necessary coin to fuel his next round, but he stops when his fingers don’t brush anything cool.

His eyes grow wide.

“Shit.”

Roy is faced with two choices; accept defeat and embrace sobriety, and its associated hangover, or find some way to keep drinking. He knows which choice he should choose, but he also knows which choice he wants to follow. 

And the barman’s back is turned.

Craning his neck over the bar, Roy slots his mouth beneath one of the pumps, his hand clumsily reaching for the tap and tugging on it. He sighs, relieved, as ale gushes into his mouth, and it’s the closest thing to ecstasy he’s experienced in a very long time.

But like all other joys in Roy’s life as of late, it’s short-lived.

Roy’s stupor is rudely interrupted by a pair of large hands that grab him roughly by his collar. He swallows, looking up at the barkeep with doe-eyes. He’s reminded of all the times his aunt had scorned him for swiping dessert prematurely, and how he’d used these same innocent eyes to wrangle himself out of trouble every time.

Except, on this occasion, it doesn’t seem to work.

Roy swallows more thickly this time, forced bravado on his face, “Hey, I’ve spent days keeping this place in business, and I don’t even get one free drink? Talk about poor hospitality.”

Big mistake.

The barkeep’s face flushes a furious red, his jaw clenched and his hold on Roy’s collar intensifying.

“All you’ve done is stink up my damn bar for the past week, and now you’re stealing from me?”

Roy relents, immediately on the backfoot, “Look, I’m just a little low on funds right now. I’ll get the cash and –”

Ouch.

Roy’s hands dart upwards towards his face, cradling his nose that has just been fiercely sucker-punched.

There’s blood on his hands.

Quickly, the same blood that flows through Roy’s veins beings to boil, his quick temper sparking instantaneously into a raging inferno. He surges upwards, crashing the upper side of his forehead against the underside of the barman’s jaw.

The man’s hold on him releases, and Roy wipes his nose with the cuff of his jacket, something like a real smile on his face.

“Damn, that feels good!” He declares brazenly, arms open and ready for his next attack, “Show me what you’ve really got you hulking oaf.”

But it isn’t just the barkeep this time.

There’s three men, all significantly taller than him, all with rage written across their features and they’re all skulking towards him.

Roy responds confidently, raising his hands and a wry smile plays at his bloodied lips, “Alright, gents, I’m sure we can talk about this.”

Cockily, he swings for the shortest of the men, but his fist is caught midway through its trajectory before it can make any bone-shattering contact. Colour draining from his face, Roy finds himself backed against a corner with the eyes of the whole saloon on him.

Caught by his throat, and hoisted with his back against the wall, he lashes out with his feet, desperately trying to make contact with one of the men and send them reeling, hopefully with their hands clutching the space between their legs. 

He’d stand a chance of landing a blow sober, but the cards are stacked against him whilst drunk.

A wheeze is forced from his lungs as one of the lackeys lays into his stomach, knocking the wind from him.

The grip on his throat tightens.

He can’t breathe.

All bravado gone, he scrambles desperately to try and pull the hands from around his throat, but his vision is closing in, and there’s an eerie screaming in his ears. It’s a ringing so loud that he doesn’t register the shot for a few seconds but when he does, it’s a shot that snaps him quickly into sobriety.

Spluttering, Roy drags in a deep breath, coughing on the exhale as he sinks to the floor, slumping against the wall as he cradles his throat. He lifts his eyes, noting that one of the oafs has a bullet hole-shaped chunk missing from one ear, and they’re wailing about it like a child.

It brings a sly smile to Roy’s face.

Glancing around, he seeks out the figure of his saviour. Eyes travelling up the lines of their legs, the curve of their waist and, up past their chest, he meets those honey-brown eyes; the ones that had first caught his attention when she’d stepped into the bar.

It’s her. The Deadeye.

And she’s offering him her hand.

He takes it without a second thought, and she hauls him to his feet in one smooth motion.

He smiles at her, but she’s already turned to the barkeep, her pistol once again holstered in the belt at her hip, “I’d say his tab is settled, wouldn’t you agree?”

The man simply nods, cradling his still-bleeding ear.

Roy watches as she turns to leave, unsure if the instruction is to follow her or simply make himself very scarce very quickly.

Either way, he isn’t about to hang around for half a second longer.

He follows close behind on her heels, trousers all but brushing the spikes of her spurs as she walks.

“Thank you,” Roy says, the words spilling awkwardly out of his mouth. He’s unsure how someone like her will react. She’s dangerous but she’s also the first person to show him kindness in months. And, for that reason, Roy isn’t willing to lose sight of her so easily.

She replies with a cursory glance over her shoulder and a simple shrug, “Couldn’t exactly just sit there and watch them beat you to a bloody pulp. Would’ve really put a dampener on my own drink.”

Roy chuckles.

“Even so,” he begins, “I’m just not sure why you’d step in to help someone like me.”

She says nothing.

And Roy decides it’s best to not press her about it any further.

They walk the rest of the way to the hitching post in silence. By her steed’s side sits a black and white mutt with a pink tongue which wags loosely out of the side of its mouth upon first sight of its mistress returning. The dog starts leaping up at her.

“Sit, Hayate,” the woman instructs coolly, before stooping to reward the dog with a scratch behind its ear.

Roy can’t help but smile at the scene.

“Nice dog,” he says conversationally with an easy smile.

The woman smiles at that and does something that Roy doesn’t quite expect.

She offers him her hand again.

“They call me a deadeye with a gun,” she explains. “But I prefer Riza. Riza Hawkeye.”

He takes her hand and shakes it.

“Pleasure. My name’s Roy. Roy Mustang.”

#cowboytober #cowboytober2020 #roy mustang #riza hawkeye #royai #fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma #fmab #@5hio's royai cowboy au #cowboy au #cowboy #cowboys #western #wild west #personal #fic #fanfic #me #mine #fave #favourite

[navigatrixnarrations]

Sometimes Always, Part 2: Thick As Thieves

The second chapter of a canon divergent kind-of fix-it set after Season 3. In which the past does not stay buried.

Warnings: Profanity, mentions of hanging and violent injuries

Word Count: 2187

Catch up here: Part 1

Vane wakes at dawn to find Margaret already up and about, though he’s not sure she’s slept at all. Her face looks drawn, and in the grey light the dark circles beneath her eyes nearly look as though she’s sporting a pair of shiners. She’s built up the fire and is sitting in front of it, her long fingers wrapped around a mug of tea. She glances over and pours him a mug, which he gulps down. It’s brewed strong and sweet.

He takes the chair across from her and rests his elbow on the table, leaning in to peer at her. “What the fuck are you doing here, Magpie?”

“Charles, are you turning into a philosopher?”

There's a wall there, where there never was before. Not that he can blame her. “You said you fucking hate it here. You could go anywhere. Why do you stay?”

She relents with a heavy sigh. “I’m keeping a promise to my father.” Her voice is curt. He waits for her to elaborate. She doesn’t.

“You could have rejoined him, or gone back to Nassau.”

She stares at him as though she can’t believe how stupid he is, but there’s a wound behind her eyes. “No. I couldn’t.” She stands and paces to the window, which she stares out blankly.

“But why here?”

“Because this is where the ship he put you on was headed.”

Vane remembers very little of what happened after he stepped off the cart. The jolt at the end of the rope. Gunshots and commotion. Falling and being caught. The wound in his leg had started to fester while he was gaoled, and he spent days drifting in and out of consciousness, feverish, his throat too sore from the noose to talk. At the edges of his vision, a dark figure whose face he couldn’t make out — he assumes he hallucinated that. At some point he learned he was on a schooner bound for New York City, and that it was part of Blackbeard’s fleet, one he sometimes used to move cargo without attracting attention.

“Why the fuck didn’t you let me know you were here?”

“Didn’t know what to say to you.” She shrugs. “I wasn’t sure whether the first thing I’d do would be hug you or knee you in the balls.”

“Yet you did neither.”

She narrows her eyes in a way he’s learned means don’t press your luck. “Get your shit from the rooming house. You can stay here while we figure out what the fuck to do next.” She said we.

He returns from the rooming house, his few worldly possessions in an old sea bag slung over his shoulder, to find her gone. The shot of nerves is a gut-punch until he sees the note on the table: “Back in a bit -- M”

And indeed, a short time later, he hears three quick raps on the window pane, an old signal of theirs, and a gust of chill air blows through the garret as it opens. Her voice: “I’m coming in.” She swings herself inside, landing with a loose-limbed ease that’s familiar from so many raids together. Her eyes are the only visible part of her. Everything else is swathed in dark clothing, from the knit cap and scarf hiding her hair and face to the well-worn canvas jacket and trousers hiding her figure.

He raises his eyebrows. “Has the door offended you in some way?” The woman has always known how to make an entrance.

She finishes unwrapping the scarf and pulls off her cap, releasing a weather system of dark hair. Margaret is in the clothes of a working pirate, hair wild and a spark of that old feral joy in her eyes, and the world begins to make sense again. He’s sure she’s got half a dozen knives concealed about her person, even if she’s carrying neither pistols nor cutlass.

She gives him a sly grin. “The Puritan couple downstairs is entirely too interested in saving my unworthy soul. I prefer to avoid them.”

“Mmhmm. You can’t have been rooftopping because you were someplace you shouldn’t have been and you didn’t want to be followed.”

She feigns indignation. “Who, me? An honest widow woman, pure in word, thought, and deed?”

He finds himself grinning back at her. “I appreciate the warning before you came through the window.”

“Well, I recall what happens when you’re startled.” He’d been dozing lightly and he grabbed her arm and threw her, pinning her to the deck with a knife to her throat before he realized who she was. The surprise on her face, the clean strips of linen scattered everywhere. He felt like an utter shit; he’d taken a nasty cutlass slash and she’d only been coming to change his bandages. He couldn’t look her in the eye for days after that. Yet even at her most furious, she never threw it back at him…

”I recall what happens when you’re startled too,” he smirks and quirks his scarred eyebrow melodramatically. He shouldn’t have snuck up on her when she had a marlinspike in her hand.

She smiles ruefully. “I apologized for that.”

“And I said not to worry; it came from a formidable opponent.”

The smile fades from her face. “I’m not your opponent, Charles.” Her voice is quiet, serious, thick with some emotion he can’t quite name. “I never was.”

“No,” he replies, equally quiet, equally serious, “But you are formidable.” How different life would be, if only he’d found the words.

Blocks away, the church bell on Broadway peals out the time. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved that he has to head to work. The evening passes uneventfully. On his return, she’s already gone to bed.

He is pushing the earth from his body, but it keeps piling on top of him. He can’t dig fast enough, and the manacles rip at his wrists, and a crowd is jeering and he can’t breathe…

Vane hits the rough wooden planks of the floor with a ragged shout. And then she’s at his side, her arms lifting him into a sitting position. They’re a sailor’s arms, sinewy and strong from years of hauling on lines and climbing aloft. Her hand, callused but gentle, pushing his hair from his eyes. Then she simply sits on the floor beside him and threads her fingers through his.

Despite being the Captain’s daughter, Margaret received no special treatment; Charles’s hammock was strung next to hers in the fo'c'sle. He’d flipped himself right out of it, hitting the floor with enough of a thud to wake her. She crouched beside him, an arm around his shoulders, reminding him where he was. “Next time, reach out for my hand,” she ordered. And so the next time a nightmare jolted him awake, he did. Many a night she held his hand in the dark as the ship creaked and swayed around them. None of the crew ever said a word to him about his nightmares, and that, he learned from Sully, was because she used what small influence she had to see to it that they wouldn’t.

“Was it the giant?” She remembers what he said the only time he told her -- told anyone -- what he saw in his nightmares. Of course she does.

“I killed him. I went back to that,” his voice breaks slightly, “place, and I killed him.”

In the dark, her hair brushes his shoulder as she turns her head to look at him. “Does it help, knowing he can never hurt you again?”

“Sometimes. But the fear never fully goes away.” He’s never told anyone else any of this. He’s not sure why he’s telling her, except that she held his hand in the dark. “I fought him first, and he knocked me unconscious. Buried me alive. Had to dig myself out.” Her hand tightens around his, a reminder that he is still alive, still free. He coughs out a broken approximation of a laugh. “Should’ve made sure I was dead before he put me in the fucking ground.”

“And so now you sometimes dream of that.” She pauses and gives him a measuring look. “And the jolt at the end of a rope?”

He nods. He should have expected that she’d guess right.

She frowns for a moment and stares into the middle distance. Then her face softens. ”Giant slayer.”

He leans his shoulder against hers. When he told her about his nightmares, she couldn’t believe he didn’t know the story of Jack the Giant-Slayer. He remembers another night, windy like this one, huddled together on another floor as she told him that tale by the light of a lantern. He can pinpoint it now, the moment when he started believing it was possible to slay a giant himself. Started believing it until a different girl convinced him that he could never.

He shifts so that their linked hands cover his racing heart. “Magpie.”

Her chest rises and falls inside the men’s shirt she’s wearing and she starts to lean closer. Then she stands abruptly, releasing his hand. “I’ll boil the kettle.”

They sip their drinks in silence. It’s not uncomfortable, not exactly, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been so bold. He shouldn’t have expected her to return any of his feelings, not after such a betrayal and so many years apart. He realizes his fingers have gone to the rope scar on the side of his neck, and that she’s watching.

“Does it give you pain?” There’s genuine concern on her face. Perhaps she still cares for him after all. From the moment he woke up on the Revenge, he and Margaret had been thick as thieves, which after all, as Margaret had sensibly pointed out, they were.

“Not usually.” He takes a long pull on his coffee. “Can’t say it improved my voice any.”

She catches his attempt at lightening the mood. “Regardless, you’ve turned into quite the orator.” She stands to open the shutters; by now the sky is lightening in the pre-dawn hush.

“I wasn’t aware I gave any speeches these past two days.”

“I meant your speech at the gallows. It was a bit of a distraction while I was trying to calculate windage and bullet drop.”

Vane snaps his head up to stare at her in shock. “You shot the rope?” She always was a good shot. Deadeye Magpie, picking off foes from the fighting tops.

She deadpans “I’ll admit that I fully understand the urge to kill you, but that doesn’t mean I would allow anyone else the satisfaction.”

He snorts, but feels something long buried within him melt. She’d gone back to Nassau, rescued him once more, at no small risk to herself. Why?

The momentary playfulness leaves her face at the question on his. “Is it truly so hard for you to believe? I took a musket ball for you once.”

That musket ball nearly killed her. Those weeks while Margaret was ashore recovering, she bloomed the way that young women sometimes do. Nearly overnight, it seemed, she’d gone from being a gawky, coltish little thing with the face of a cranky hawk to an aquiline beauty, graceful and utterly poised. His breath caught when he spied her on the jetty, her dark hair blowing loose in the wind and her eyes shining as she watched the Revenge crew come ashore with their latest prize. That hair has threads of silver in it now, but her body is every bit as lithe as he remembers, her face every bit as lovely. And if her eyes are sadder now, harder than they were all those years ago, they’re no less captivating.

He rises and closes the distance between them in three strides and takes her hands in his. “I can’t make it right,” he says quietly to her guarded, upturned face. “This I know. You gave me my freedom and your friendship, many times over, and in return I hurt you.”

She doesn’t pull away. “Did you know that Eleanor tried it on with Sully first? He saw right through her. Told her to fuck off.”

It stings, but he can’t say he’s surprised. They both tried to warn him and he lashed out at them, refused to listen. Told Margaret that she was spoiled and selfish, that she just wanted him at her beck and call...oh, the absolute fucking irony of that. “I’d take it back if I could. What I said. What I did.” Vane is not a man used to apologizing, but for for her, he’s willing.

She slips one hand out of his and places it lightly on the cheekbone that Eleanor had battered with her fists. “Sully never bore you any ill will. None of us did. He didn’t understand why you threw away everyone and everything for her. I didn’t then either, but I think perhaps I do now.” She drops her hand back to her side and starts to turn away. “I’ve got to go see some people about a boat.” Reluctantly, he releases her other hand. Watches her put on her coat and boots. Watches her walk away, again. This time, at least, they don’t part in anger.

#sometimes always fic #charles vane x ofc #charles vane x oc #black sails fic