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kidstemplatte · 6 months

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the greatest (teaser)

the universe presents copia with an opportunity he’s been waiting his whole life for: fatherhood.

pairings: story focuses on dad! copia, however, reader is terzo’s wife.

warnings: mention of suicide

this was originally supposed to be a 3 part series, this post being part one, but i’ve decided to make it all one big fic! this post can serve as a little sneak peek :)

“You’d be a good Papa.”

His niece’s kind words still echoed in his mind, even after five years.

The Cardinal had wanted to become a father for quite some time now, but wasn’t sure if he was fit for the job. He himself was a bit of a child, which could be considered a pro or a con; the upside being he was fun and pure-hearted, the downside that he could be a tad chaotic.

When Copia was summoned to Sister Imperator’s office, he assumed it was because he had forgotten to turn off the stove again or left the sink running, habits from his youth he was yet to abandon even as a middle-aged man. Bracing himself for another lecture, the Cardinal took a deep breath in and out before knocking three times on the sturdy oak door.

“Come in.” A hoarse voice rang from within the room.

Copia gently pushed the door open and entered the lavish office. Sister Imperator’s office couldn’t differ any more from the Cardinal’s, sporting a classy yet minimalistic aesthetic decked in shades of brown and black. Meanwhile, Copia’s office had “Copia” written all over it in big cartoonish block letters, thanks to the dozens of figurines and comic books lining the shelves, as well as other dorky memorabilia.

Sister Imperator sat behind her meticulously organized desk, clasped hands resting on the polished wood.

“Hello Sister.” Copia greeted the woman formally, bowing his head as he took a seat in the plush chair across from hers.

“Cardinal.” She returned the greeting with a brief nod, before instantly began diving into her reason for his summoning. “Do you recall, a few years back, when a Sister of the Austrian chapter took her own life?” she inquired.

That was a rather rough introduction to a conversation. Of course he remembered, how could he not? It was a tragic day, each chapter holding their own memorial ceremony for the young woman.

“Oh. Si, I do.” Copia answered, saddened at the remembrance of the event.

“Well, she had a son additionally, who had an absent father.”

Been there.

“They have done their best to take care of the boy since he was just a newborn- he’s resided in the church his whole life- but as he’s gotten older, they’ve decided it’s simply not fit for him to grow up without a permanent system of support.” She explained.

Copia suddenly became much more alert, his eyes widening and posture straightening. “You mean… a family?”

“C, if you’re interested…” Sister Imperator noticed a longing in her son’s eyes that she had not seen in a long time- not since he was but a child brimming with curiosity, a subtle glow that surfaced only when he wanted something deeply, most of the time, an answer- but this time- it was more than curiosity, it was yearning. “Now would be the time.”

“Yes.” The Cardinal blurted out. “Yes.”

“The adoption process is not easy- yet alone raising a child. This is a massive responsibility. Are you sure you are able to handle this on top of a Cardinal’s duties?” She cautioned him.

“Yes, Mother.” He reiterated. She froze.

“I want this more than anything.” He pleaded.

“I will notify them of your consideration.” She nodded.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. Grazie. Grazie.” The Cardinal repeated like a mantra, placing his hands together as he bowed his head in gratitude.

•✧•

Gently shutting the door to your son’s room, you walked down the hall and into the living space, pleasantly surprised to see your brother-in-law sitting in a lounge chair across from the couch. “Hi, Copia! What a nice surprise.” You greeted him with a smile. “Sorry, I just put Vinnie to bed. Am I allowed to join, or is this a brother talk?”

“Please, join us.” Copia gestured. “Is Violetta here?” he asked.

“She’s in her room. She’s not feeling very well tonight.” answered Terzo.

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Let her know I said hello.” Copia responded.

“Will do. So, what is going on?” Terzo asked, reaching to the coffee table in front of him and pouring his brother a glass of wine before setting it down.

Copia took a deep breath in and began. “Sister Imperator called me into her office today and gave me some news.”

“News that..?”

You elbowed Terzo in response to his impatience. “Let the man speak!”

“Eh, do you remember when a woman of the Austrian chapter, um… She took her own life?”

“Johanna?” You asked.

“You knew her?”

“Not too personally, but yes. I met her years back when I studied briefly in Innsbruck. She was a lovely woman.” You recalled, sadness beginning to tug at your heart. “Sorry, continue.” You dismissed yourself, knowing if you continued, there would surely be a few tears.

“Oh, no, do not apologize. Please, continue, if you are comfortable.”

“Okay.” you sniffled, laughing nervously. “There’s not much else, it’s just- it was sad. My bad, go on.”

Your husband placed a loving hand over yours, a subtle way he reminded you that you were safe with him.

Copia nodded. “Well, she had a son, who has lived in the church his whole life. But, um, they are considering finding him a more traditional… family.” He explained.

“Here?” Terzo inquired.

“Si, ah… with me.”

“You are adopting him?” Terzo lit up.

“If everything goes according to plan, yes.” He replied slightly hesitantly.

“You’re gonna be a dad, Copia!” You nearly cried, your face lighting up with joy.

He laughed, a smile grazing his face at the idea. “Ah, well, we don’t know for sure yet. The process is a bit difficult. I fear it won’t work out.” He responded.

“Copia, you can’t mourn the loss of something that’s just beginning!” You encouraged him.

“Do you really think Sister Imperator would ever propose such a thing to someone she didn’t trust could do it?” pointed out Terzo.

“That is a good point.” Copia replied. “I just… even if it works out… what if I am not… good?” He rambled anxiously.

“Not good? Our kids can’t get enough of you.” Terzo reassured his brother.

The Cardinal smiled at the thought of his niece and nephew.

“So what do you know about him?” You asked eagerly.

“Well, ah, that’s actually all I know… And that he’s five years old.”

“Oh my gosh! He’s the same age as Vinnie! It was meant to be!” You gushed, excitedly waving your hands. “Copia. I think it’s gonna happen. I really, really do.”

“Thank you, Y/N.” He expressed his gratitude with a heartfelt smile.

“Mommy?” You heard a voice squeak in the distance. Turning around in your spot on the couch, a small figure stood down the hallway.

“Hi, Vinnie. What’s wrong?” You asked, a gentle tone adorning your voice. “Excuse me, I’ll be back.” You told your brother-in-law and husband as you rose to your son’s aid.

“Copia.” Terzo addressed his brother, his voice suddenly earnest.

“Yes?”

“When have I ever lied to you?” Terzo inquired.

Pondering the question and recalling no particular incident, he shrugged.

“Exactly. You can do this, Copia. And you will.”Terzo uplifted the Cardinal, his words touching the heart of his beloved half-brother.

“Thank you, Terzo.”

Terzo smiled, reaching across the table to pat the Cardinal on his shoulder.

“I mean it, fratello.”

•✧•

That night, Copia closed the door to his small abode and let out a hefty sigh. His expression softened a little as he caught sight of the large cage sitting on a table against the wall, inside containing two furry friends. Inside of the enclosure stood a dusty brown rat perched on his hind feet and clutching onto the metal bars, eagerly waiting for his Papa’s return.

“Ciao, Bean.” Copia cooed, opening the drawer below his cage and opening their bag of food. “I’m guessing your brother is…” Copia scanned his eyes around the cage, his suspicions confirmed once he noticed Pesto’s nose peeking out from a small wooden hideout. “Ah, did I wake you up, my Bestie Pestie? I apologize. Buon appetito, little ones.” He said, opening their cage and pouring their food as the little rodents scurried to their bowls.

That night, the Cardinal felt inclined to do something he hadn’t done in a long time. Overwhelmed with an immense sense of desperation, Copia prayed on his own in the solitude of his room. He knelt beside his bed, knees on the hardwood floor as he placed his hands together and shut his eyes tight, a soft sigh escaping his lips before he began his prayer.

“Tua empietà, so che è passato un po' di tempo. perdonami, ti prego, ma devo chiederti una cosa. per favore, satana, concedimi il dono della paternità, per favore. Farò qualsiasi cosa, viaggerò all'inferno e ritorno, per trasformare questo sogno in realtà. Prego che il ragazzo stia bene e al sicuro e trovi la sua nuova casa tra le mura del clero.”

He needed this. More than he had ever needed anything in his entire life.

Little did he know, the boy needed him just as much.

•✧•

hey y’all! i’m so sorry it’s been so long!! i’ve been doing college stuff and my motivation has been 📉 but i have so many ideas i want to put out there!!! i have two more parts planned for this fic:) i hope you enjoyed! i’m sorry this part is very brief but i wanted it to serve as a little introduction! tysm for reading! i love y’all!

<3, alice

#the band ghost #ghost band #ghost #papa emeritus iii #terzo #papa emeritus #papa terzo #terzo x reader #copia emeritus #copia #dad! copia #cardinal copia #papa copia #copia fanfic #copia x reader #ghost fanfiction

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riewritten · 1 month

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CHAPTER 6. COUNTERATTACK

EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE — DIRECTORY

ERWIN X FEM!READER, ERWIN X YOU, NO Y/N | hurt/comfort, angst, mystery, childhood friends, fake marriage, modern au, parallel universe, reincarnation, mentions of canon, pining commander erwin smith, trauma, manipulation, referenced child abuse, violence, psychological torture

SUMMARY: Aggressive land grabbing from the royal government ensue from one countryside to the other, all allegedly for the prophecy: a tree, vast source of power that'd bring great abundance and prosperity to mankind, is standing among their lands. As the said prophecy holds the answer to the tragic childhood you have no memories of, the guerilla's commander pulls out something he prepared for years to help. AO3 | FANFICTION

WORDS: 6k | Want to get tagged for the succeeding chapters? Sign up here.

Levi, Isabel, you, and Erwin stayed inside the conference room after everyone in the HQ called it a night. An old vintage television is open and its news flash report further echoed the already grim mood.

“Breaking news: Stohess citizens, abducted by rebels to avenge their comrade’s death.”

“What?!” Isabel grimaced.

“Reportedly thirteen soldiers were dead on arrival while five were injured. Citizen casualties remain unknown as they were seized before back-ups had arrived. The rebel being avenged, Petra Ral, was a university student branded as the ‘brainwashed Eldian.’ Ms. Ral was said to be killed after trying to shoot a Military Police officer,” the newscaster continued.

“So this is their game?” Isabel taunted at the air. “Bet they’d make these five soldiers who weren’t even there fool the media with sob stories of how merciless we were.”

Petra did not deserve such disdain at her name, but this time you remain composed instead of making a scene yet again. It’s not like you could do anything about it, not when the next person interviewed on the news was your former boss—the same man who berated Petra at the cafe, the same man who made you realize how desperate you were for normalcy to the point of letting a precious friend’s reputation undeservingly stepped on over and over. Your then-boss sputtered a lot of nonsense on live TV to make his exposure longer. He spoke of how barbaric Petra was, of how he regretted hiring a girl like her, and even went far as to mention your name—that you were one of the poor fellows fooled by Petra’s “so-called” kindness because, before you went AWOL, he caught you staring daggers at him which sent shivers down his spine. He even added in his final statement, “It wouldn’t surprise me if she joined the rebels, too. Petra was smart enough to brainwash students who seemed like a complete airhead like her workmate.”

The one who broke the grim atmosphere (or perhaps made it even worse) was Erwin. He chuckled, sardonically so, as if it was nothing but a noontime gag show and your then-boss was none but a stand comedian.

Levi had the face saying ‘the fuck are you laughing on’ but didn’t waste energy to tell him out loud because, after all, out of all people inside the room, Erwin would be the one to react most unkindly once your name was said in a bad light. It’s always been that way for you, even back in Mitras, so annoyingly protective even after you berate him for taking on fights that were yours to take in the first place.

Perhaps Isabel deemed the laugh utterly displeasing and felt compelled to turn off the TV and change the topic—you were her chosen target, “I actually don’t know what name to call you anymore. Would you rather go by your original name, A—”

“That is not my original name,” you grimaced but quickly regained composure because, if anything, Isabel meant no harm, “I’m sorry. I just—I don’t like the name. Please call me as it is.”

“I prefer your current name now, too! Erwin said you were the one who came up with it as a child. How did that happen, though?”

“Erwin’s aunt allowed me to do so after she adopted me. Now that I think of it,” you then turn to Erwin to ask, “You were the one who suggested to give me a new name. Did you do that to hide me from the royal family?”

“If I were Erwin, I would’ve done the same if not more. The last thing I’d want for you is to be used as collateral for a prophecy that can’t even be proven unless you die,” Isabel tapped Erwin’s shoulders. “Smart move, Er—ouch! Levi, be more gentle!”

Levi carefully tied Isabel’s hair up to tend the wounds on her back, after which he called your name to say, “The royal family and its cohorts are squeezing their brains out to find you. Not even your face as a child could be retrieved. It was as if someone intentionally ensured that your traces would be erased.”

“When I was young, everyone in the village made a precaution to not take pictures of me. I thought it’s because camera flashes could be a trigger as they could potentially be associated with explosions, but the reason is much clearer now.”

“Seems like Erwin’s family was hands-on with you.”

“Erwin himself, even,” Levi mused, “he’s been watching you all this time. Erwin and I had known each other even before you went to university. He was the one who urged me to let you in. The ‘room for rent’ poster at the university bulletin board was intended only for you to see—just so you’d think you found us all by yourself.”

Your eyes widened.

“That’s a bit creepy,” Isabel shuddered.

“Oh, it seems like you’re not fond of saying your acts of love out loud, yeah?” Levi quipped nonchalantly at the man in question. Erwin, although stoic, seemed to ask Levi what he was trying to do right now. But even before he got to, you glared at him and asked, “Is that true?”

“It is.”

“And you didn’t tell me anything, Levi?” the next glare was for him.

“That’s my next question to Erwin,” Levi lowered his voice, darkly so. “As I said, I’m not here to mess around with whatever prophecy the royal family is brewing behind our backs. If you still don’t give us the context regarding her identity, I’m taking Isabel home with me.”

“Hey, Levi,” Isabel grimaced.

If Erwin was threatened with that, he showed no signs of it. Instead he looked at you. His gaze was silent but asking. It didn’t take you long to construe what it was: Would you like to be the one to answer? It concerns your past, after all.

“Did you really save her from those fires?”

And thus, you tried answering in his stead, “Yes. As far as my memories are concerned, he saved me, but…”

“But what?”

Try to recall it. Try to recall it.

Years ago, you saw the giant tree and witnessed Erwin crying for the first and last time, after which he started avoiding you. He started locking the door of his room so you wouldn’t enter. You thought of ways to apologize, including searching around their house for an apology gift, leading you to a newspaper clip in his father’s room. You saw the headline news of your house being burnt to shreds. Then you remembered. You remembered what really happened in that house.

What happened? You already remembered what really happened! Why couldn’t you recall it?

You just woke up blaming Erwin all of a sudden. It came to a point that Carly brought you far away from him to ease your panic attacks. She got you checked by a psychiatrist. The professional said that your brain might be formulating memories that didn’t happen.

Then…? What happened next again…? How did your relationship with Erwin get fixed again?

Erwin eventually forced himself to your new home. He lived with you and made attempts to clear the misunderstanding. He recalled the truth to you, repeatedly so, and you finally succumbed to him when he saved you from the fires in the vacant lot—a fire instigated by random kids.

That’s what had happened, right?

Then why… Why do you have a dream about Erwin instigating that fire himself to convince you, albeit forcefully, that he saved you?

What exactly have you seen that day?

“Hey,” Isabel patted your shoulder to cut your thoughts off. “You okay?”

“I am not sure,” you muttered, “I’m not sure what I’ve seen that day,” you clasped both hands on your head, wide-eyed, utterly confused. “It’s as if my brain is making up something. It’s as if it’s intentionally painting Erwin in a bad light. The voices are speaking inside my head, full of warning, even if Erwin’s the last one to hurt me out of all the people in this world.”

REALLY? IS THAT REALLY THE CASE, LITTLE FLOWER?

“People who went through horrible situations could really have foggy recollection, you know? Your brain has a reason to be like that to protect you. Don’t beat yourself up for it. Don’t force yourself to remember.” Isabel seemed really worried this time.

REALLY? REALLY? REALLY?

Isabel’s glare tightened at Levi. Erwin’s gaze was looking on you, then to Levi not long after, “Is that what would make you stay? Forcing her past out of her—making her remember the things she had forgotten to protect her sanity—would that really help you unveil the truth of how bastard of a father Kenny was to Furlan?”

‘Don’t speak as though Furlan’s death is not connected to her identity in the first place!’ is what Levi almost said; you could see the look of disdain on his face. But his face softened as soon as he glanced at you. You wouldn’t like to hear that from him. Erwin was right. Your past is not the primary reason he and Isabel joined the guerillas. It’s to uncover Furlan’s death.

Levi sighed, exasperated, then gave you a bottle of water. “Isabel is right. Don’t force yourself too much.”

The days went by with Levi and Erwin seemingly in a rift between each other, yet they were still able to work efficiently for the next mission.

It came to Erwin that the Military Police distributed a huge intelligence fund to find Anna. This eventually resulted in rising worries of citizens, especially women, as they felt like someone was watching them. Some condemned the Military Police for it, but some defended it and said it was all for the prosperity of Eldia and that the royal family surely knew what they were doing.

You managed to build relations with the establishments where most Military Police hang out, which led you to befriend Marie, the owner of the bar nearest to the Interior Police headquarters, and she hired you immediately when you said you’ve been trying to find a job.

“Bloody hell, I feel like every woman I’ve been fuckin’ lately could potentially be Anna,” the MP soldier hiccuped as you poured him another drink, “and that I can’t let night pass without questionin’ ’em. It’s that or my promotion at risk, y’know?”

“It must be unfortunate to be a soldier,” you lamented. “Maybe I must be grateful I settled on a job like this.”

“I also am grateful, ya see,” he giggled and scooted closer, breath reeked of beer—disgustingly so, “’cause I get to have a beauty like ya pourin’ my glass after a long, long day.”

Fortunately, Marie swatted him away from you, “That’s my girl you’re touching there.”

“Oh, why so stingy! She’s the first woman ya hired since this damn business got movin’! Lemme have my share as yer best customer!”

“I sell liquor, not women—as if it’s even ethical to sell women,” Marie rolled her eyes and, as swift as ever, collected the used glasses at the counter. “Why don’t you find that wanted girl first so you’d have your long-awaited promotion? Flirting around won’t get you there.”

“Easy for ya to say because yer husband’s already a high-rankin’ dog!” he spat. “These damn women, suckin’ higher officers’ dick off—hic—but scold low-rankin’ soldiers tailin’ ’em.” This time, he sounded like sulking to himself, although Marie could still hear it.

Poor Marie. This bar was swamped by drunkard soldiers when their reputation changed from valor to perversion due to the intelligence mission, and yet this drunk man in front of you trying to mimic Kenny’s way of talking didn’t make the nuisance lighter.

“It’s already a woman’s burden to be tailed by the likes of you and yet you still have the guts to blame us.”

“‘Ya sayin’ something?!” the man shot daggers to the now enraged Marie, “Know yer place and just keep suckin’ yer husband off after his long long day of workin’ his ass off! Just for yer damned bar!” then he spitted on the counter. “Ya thought just ’cause ya got chance doin’ business, yer already superior to us, huh? I bet ya husband’s just lettin’ you ’cause of how good you are in bed! Know yer place and—”

The whole place is rattled into silence when Marie slaps the soldier, clearly offended, eyes shaking in anger. You thought how hard it must’ve been to her all this time, to have such barbaric customers in and out of her lawn. Perhaps that’s even the main reason why she wasn’t fond of hiring women until you asked her for help.

It was even more pitiful when a group of drunk soldiers came to rescue the man. They spat curses to the both of you, of how this whole operation of finding an unknown girl has been stressing their guts, of how they would still do it anyway because they’re men who merely wanted the prosperity of Eldia—the prosperity of the women who so despised them.

Just before Marie could request security, one soldier suddenly exclaimed, “Ah! You must be that person! Hah, we found her. We found Anna!”

It was as though a bucket of ice was thrown at you. But then, their inebriated selves were looking at Marie. They claimed Marie as the wanted girl just because she defended herself against blatant disrespect. No one seems to be functioning properly because of the liquor, hence none of them would cut the commotion off. “You see, one thing we know about Anna is that she’s a child born out of the Interior Police’s operation. Some soldier fucked a woman of a powerful lineage, a lineage so powerful that it could give the holy tree!”

“What are you trying to say?!” Marie shouted back, fuming.

“So the product of that operation must be affiliated to the military, one way or another! Right, right?! Don’t you think so?! We’re all stuck in this because someone in our ranks is a snitch! That’s it! We solved it!”

His remark seemed to turn on the lightbulbs of every soldier inside the bar. Their eyes start becoming more predatory—perhaps even more desperate, because their superiors are onto nothing but “Find her, find her, find her!” recently that every woman they come across salivates their desire to get this over with.

While you’re secretly communicating with the guerilla unit near the area so they’d arrive before the commotion starts, what he said bothered you to no end. No, it didn’t just bother you—it made you remember something, and it’s the first time you have remembered something you’re sure is accurate.

“Once she turns ten, she’ll be the royal family’s property. Don’t you get attached to her,” he says.

“No way you’d tell that to a mother like me,” she quips, voice laced with honey. “Worry not, she is aware of it herself. Aren’t you, my cute little girl?” then pinches your cheeks.

“Yes, I do! Once I turn ten, I will bless the royal family with prospre—prospreri—prospreritri—”

“It’s prosperity,” your father spats. He seems about to scold you but ends up shaking his head instead. “Nevermind. Not like it’d make a difference if you were born smart.”

“Give her some slack,” your mother quips then fondly looks at you, “don’t mind him. Daddy’s jealous because you’re special.”

“I am?”

“Yes, you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because our bloodline is special! We’re saviors capable of finding the tree and awakening its bearer! Awaking the bearer means giving prosperity to Eldia!”

“Yay! Prosprerity!”

Your mother’s laugh gets even louder, and although your father still looks annoyed, you can see him holding back a smile.

“Miss Marie, pray tell, pray tell,” a soldier hummed, “where do the rebels stay?”

“You son of a—” Marie cut herself off and shot you a glance instead. “Go get someone to fix this.”

You nodded and tried to walk away, but another soldier cornered you, “Why do you think we could let you go when you’re working alongside this woman?” then his face turned sour, “You’re a damn rebel too, aren’t you? Look at how young you are, as old as that orange bitch!”

You very much knew who he was talking about, so your rage did something unhelpful to the situation: you slapped him hard, tears in the corner of your eyes. It enraged the soldier just the same, and so he ordered, “Cuff the two of them!” You tried to defend yourselves, but twenty inebriated soldiers were still soldiers; even if you managed to knock down five of them, someone would be swift enough to point a knife at Marie’s neck. That was your cue to stop fighting. The soldier smiled sardonically, “I see you’re a good girl.”

You let yourself be cuffed, nothing ringing in your mind but vital information you gathered while staying here.

The previous week, a customer working as a clerk inside the Interior Police said that Commander Kenny’s son was a needed sacrifice for the prosperity of mankind. He mourns for him, but it must not be mistaken for Petra who died at the same age. Petra was a life wasted. Had the rebels heeded the warning to give Anna over, no one would have been killed. You asked her then, “So it was a massacre, wasn’t it?” She shrugged and answered, “Is it really relevant if we’re talking about the rebels? The government had always wanted to get rid of them. Who would budge if it really was a massacre?”

Then, two days ago, a young soldier who had just been promoted to be a part of the Interior Police valiantly said, “Someone as powerful as Anna must be kept by the authorities, but look where she is instead, in the hands of the rebels! The royal family means no harm. They need her power for their citizens’ prosperity. It must not be held by the Eldians who could abuse it!” And so you asked him, “Do you know what Anna’s power really is?” Instead, he glared at you, “Are you not attending the church every Sunday?” When you shook your head, he sighed, deeming you lower than him. The young soldier told you everything Isabel and Levi knew about the prophecy and the tree. After thirty minutes of him rambling, you finally cut him off out of annoyance. “Do you know what exactly Anna’s part is?” You then realize that the young boy doesn’t know at all. He doesn’t know a thing, yet he still holds their words dear because they’re his fellow believers, and believing them means being loyal to the royal family.

When you and Marie were all tied and surrounded by drunk soldiers pretending as though they were inside an interrogation room, you asked,” Why do you think rebels exist, Officer?”

“Because they’re incompetent and aching for war, ruining peace for their own gain. Why? Finally admitting you’re one of them? Oh, we gon’ reward you real good, then.”

“The royal government and its cohorts are the ones ruining peace for their own gain. The rebels just retaliated to defend themselves.”

Another soldier pushed him away in a glare, “Yeah? So what is your relation to them?”

“They saved me.”

“Oh, poor girl. She must’ve been brainwashed, too,” the other one sitting on the counter, about to faint, murmured while hugging his bottle.

“Do you know where Anna is? How about the Commander? What does he look like?”

You didn’t speak. That’s something they could never squeeze out of you. The drunk soldier, much to your and Marie’s surprise, hit your head hard with the bottle. You tried your very best to gulp down your scream, tried your very best to not let the pain know because Erwin trained you for it. You felt the blood drip to your cheeks and chin until droplets of it came down to your shirt. Marie’s screams made you dizzy.

In a span of a moment, you get the urge to sleep, but something uncanny makes you alert—the longer the blood permeates the room, the darker it gets. You thought you were merely feeling things because of the head injury, but you were sure everyone else had felt it, too. The soldier who hit you looked so utterly horrified not long after. He seemed sober again. The soldier who was about to sleep just stood up to scream. The glass bottles on the shelves started clanking against each other as the tables began shaking. The barely cleaned roof showered everyone with its long-standing dust just as if they were alive and as scared as you all were. It wasn’t long for Marie to faint, too.

Out of nowhere, everyone started kneeling at you, shouting their apologies, acting as though they just angered an otherworldly entity. You looked down at them, aghast, as the concussion in your head and the blood you were losing didn’t help you comprehend the situation at hand.

The pin of the grenade was the rats under the floor, running and running as if an onslaught was happening inside their homes. The wind reeked of corpses, of anger, of suffocating entity taking control of every molecule in the space.

“T-the voice… it’s the same feeling when the voices speak…” you murmur to yourself. You did so repeatedly as the soldiers wept harder until the door banged open.

“Why are they kneeling and crying?” Moblit exclaimed in horror.

“No! Why are they kneeling and crying while she is tied and bleeding? Oh god, Nifa! First aid kit, please!” Hange ordered.

“Oh, y-you’re here… Thank heavens.”

However, your relief was quickly replaced with horror upon seeing Erwin’s face. It’s always been like this. Back when you two were younger, your playmates have always been so scared to play pranks at you because the first time they did, young Erwin—as you quote them—had ‘made them see hell.’ Your head dripping with blood upon his arrival would obviously warrant a situation way worse than this. You might be safe now, but nobody else is—not with this sight.

“Who’s the one responsible for this?”

You refused to answer. Perhaps out of impulse, or perhaps because you finally realized how scared you are at Erwin all this time. The voices in your head may be the deeply rooted fear for Erwin the same way your former Mitras friends had feared him.

Erwin called your name and repeated the question.

“Don’t worry too much about this. More importantly, Marie, my—”

He walked towards you. The nearer his footsteps get, the more dreadful the atmosphere becomes. “Who did that to you?”

Everyone went silent. The weeping became quiet strains. You were just about to repeat your remark—that there are more things to worry about—but then Erwin’s gaze turned to the soldier kneeling right before you.

The same officer who hit your head with the bottle.

“Commander, the place is starting to shake,” Nifa reported as she brought him the first aid kit.

“Is there an earthquake?”

“God, it reeks of corpses,” Hange pinched their nose.

“W-what?” Nanaba muttered in horror from the outside. “The rats are all over the road.”

“What the fuck is happening?”

“Fourth squad, check if the bar owner has incurred wounds. Treat her if need be. Miche, seize the soldiers. Do it quickly. Something strange is happening. Let’s leave this place all at once.”

“How about her…?” Hange pointed at you only for their question to be answered immediately as soon as Erwin untied you himself and applied pressure on your concussion.

With all the strength you have left inside you, you try to bargain, “D-don’t hurt the soldiers,” but his face didn’t change; hence, you repeated, “Don’t you dare hurt the soldiers, Erwin.”

Despite the whole place shaking, more stray animals panicking, and people weeping in fear, his scowl was only due to your pleas. “I loathe this attitude the most. If you ought to be too merciful of your enemies, even to the point of not holding them accountable, you might as well sit still and never join any operation again.”

“They must pay for this. We both know they must… b-but—hah,” you stammered, clearly struggling not to let the dizziness take over your consciousness. “they have information regarding Anna. I heard most of it already so—”

“So they must talk about it before bullets strike their heads.”

“No,” you stopped him from addressing your wounds to look straight in the eye, “It’s not the guerilla’s move to get swayed by their emotions, yes? You—hah—you’re the one who told me.”

If he weren’t too livid, he’d be chuckling sardonically. You almost saw him do so. “I’m not fond of repeating myself.”

He’s primarily here to ruin anyone who dared to go after you—you didn’t forget that, but it irks you. Amidst your consciousness on the precipice of leaving, anger kept you awake. How helpless have you been all this time that he naturally thought this was something to be done? And why is he depriving you of dealing with your issues now that you can do so?

“I must be the one to do that. Don’t take it away from me.”

There, you saw a glimpse of amusement in his features.

How sweet of you, really — he might’ve thought — how pathetically kind to try and save them by taking the punishment job in his stead. It’s not like you’re entirely wrong—you have all the right to subject all the needed punishment to those who laid their hands on you. It’s just that you lack something he’s been so full of all his life: resentment. He’s not just doing this for you. It’s to satiate his anger for those who dared, and while he trusts you with all of his life, he just knew you wouldn’t be able to do it the way he wants to.

“Are you worried that they’d feel pain?”

“No. Don’t try to change this—”

“Don’t you worry, silly flower. Corpses can’t feel more pain.”

“Erwin,” you warned.

“Sleep.”

“I’d seriously leave you if you do this.”

You almost saw his features falter. Before you fainted, you heard him mutter, “I’d like to see how that goes.”

The next thing you knew, you were on the infirmary bed inside the Underground, and news of what happened at Marie’s bar terrified every single citizen of Eldia, rebels alike. Believers of the prophecy increased just as the fear of the conquest horseman did. That was also the needed confirmation for Levi and Isabel because the captured soldiers spoke in a language they only heard from you before killing themselves.

“You told me you wouldn’t kill them!” you stormed to the conference room where Erwin and the squad leaders were meeting.

“I didn’t,” Erwin said. “Go back to your room and rest. You’re still not in your best shape.”

“You killed them, didn’t you?! I told you I’ll deal with them myself!”

“He didn’t kill them. We were there. We did interrogate them, but before they could say anything, they sputtered shit and killed themselves,” Levi snapped.

After a sigh, Erwin asked, “Would you like to sit, then? That’s what we’re talking about right now.” His offer made you look at everyone who’s just as lost. Your face flushed with embarrassment. You didn’t even get to fix your hair before storming inside. You sad down beside Levi, and Erwin finally continued. “Not only did they babble in a language we’re yet to understand, they also had the same carvings written on their bodies.”

“The same carvings written on Furlan’s corpse,” Levi begrudgingly admitted.

“So, the prophecy really might be true…” Miche pondered. “Then does that mean their land grabbing in pursuit of Eldia’s prosperity could be justified?”

“Would taking lands out of their tillers be justifiable with some dark magic in our lands? How about how the royal family’s cohorts privately named the seized lands theirs? Would the power of the tree explain that?” Levi scowled.

“There are only things we confirmed in this fiasco. First, the prophecy must be investigated further, and second, the conquest horseman born out of that tree—whoever they might be—does not side with the royal family. We must also find them to know their motives, and…” Erwin looked at Levi, “…to avenge Furlan Church, the first casualty they had brought to our ranks.”

Seems like Levi and Erwin were able to fix their rift while you were unconscious but it doesn’t change the fact that the horseman slipped away from your hands—the very being that haunted you since god knows when, and it was there on that day. You also realized it as soon as the atmosphere got uncanny and the soldiers knelt before you—oh. Oh god.

“Okay, so now, before we dig deeper, does anybody know what the prophecy entails in the first place?” Hange asked. “Sorry, I’m not a churchgoer, so…”

It was Levi who answered, “The church said that the Eldian race was once called ‘Subjects of Ymir,’ and we contain a power brought by a giant tree. The people blessed upon it, however, used the power in vain and committed atrocities all over the world, and so the whole Eldian race perished. The Church believes multiple worlds stipulate the universe, and this one we have is just one of them. The Eldian race was supposed to cease existence as their divine punishment, but a bloodline who also got power from that tree saved us from it.”

“And perhaps we can deduce that your bloodline is related to it, no?" Miche faced you. "Your counterintelligence report at Marie’s bar confirmed that a soldier admitted your upbringing was an operation led by the royal family where one of their men copulated with a woman of the same lineage.”

“And, as far as her recollection is concerned, said parents have mentioned giving her up to the royal family once she turns ten,” Moblit added.

“And! It just so happened that the fires happened on your tenth birthday!” Hange beamed. “Oh, you powerful girl.”

“It would seem as though I did it all by myself, no?” you chuckle blankly. “Burning people into crisps, inducing fear and suicide, carving on their corpses, among many other cruel things no sane human could do…”

“No, sorry,” Hange backed off, expression softening. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

Awkward silence permeated the room until Erwin cleared his throat, “To continue where Levi left off, the royal family wants the tree back in their grasp. One report we got from Petra's team before they were killed was that the previous king, Uri Reiss, on his deathbed, dreamt of the person who had saved the Eldian race through the power of the tree. His last words were, ‘Find her and her lineage, give them gratitude, for they used the tree’s power beyond their own gains.’ The royal family then deduced that by finding this lineage, they could use the tree once again. That’s the end of their report. Nothing has been found about the operation once it took place.”

The rest of the meeting was about recalibrating tasks inside the unit, considering that the prophecy was real. As soon as they finished, you followed Erwin to his room. You ensured no one would be lurking around outside, for you were about to say something that could scare them.

“The conquest devil is living inside me. I’m sure of it. That’s why they’re finding me.”

Erwin was silent, tormentingly so, and thus you repeat louder. “The conquest devil is living inside me. Everyone must know that the threat is within their ranks. You, of all people, must know what should be done at this point.”

“You see,” Erwin called your name, “while I wouldn’t deny that, I doubt it. You were not around the area when Furlan got killed, and Marie told us everything you had said. None of them could be used against you. Meaning, you didn’t say anything unusual of your character.”

“So all I have to do is prove that it’s inside me, right? Okay, then. Worry not, Commander.” Exasperated, you opened the door to dismiss yourself, only for Erwin to stop you. “Let go, Erwin.”

“They know what the voices inside you have been saying. Levi and I made a report out of it.”

You faced him wide-eyed, yet he looked at you gently, “A-and? What did they say?”

“It didn’t raise their doubts. In fact, they were filled with sympathy.” Your grasp at the knob loosened and Erwin got the chance to close the door again. He let you register the statement for a few minutes.

“They didn’t doubt me,” you repeated. “Not a single doubt at all?”

He held your shoulders against the door and gently asked, “Wanna know why?” You really are clueless as to why. Those alone are objective facts. How could they—

“Because they know you. And you’re dear to them just as they’re dear to you. When Marie explained how you defended the guerillas without fear, Nifa even started to cry. Isabel and Levi weren’t surprised, though.” His remark silenced you, your thoughts, and your horrifying claims about yourself. It was so apparent on your face that Erwin knew he won the argument yet again.

“I still wouldn’t remove the possibility that the conquest horseman lives inside me, but… yes, I understand.”

“Yup. Do as you please.”

That’s when you start getting embarrassed at the distance. Erwin is still pressing your shoulders against the door with a smile so sweet it makes you think how privileged you must’ve been to be one of his chosen people to receive a smile like that from him, knowing well not anyone could have it even if they hardly wished so.

“In the other world, what was my name? Is it Anna?”

“Strange enough, it’s not. Why do you ask?”

“Then, is my name in the other world the same as the one I go by right now?”

Erwin nodded, and so you beamed as it confirmed that your very being was not tied to poor child Anna's fate. “I like the name Carly had given me better. Glad to know I got that name in the other worlds.” You smiled at Carly’s memory. You regret not visiting her before this catastrophe happened.

“Indeed, the name you go by now fits you more, but Carly didn’t give it to you. You were the one who came up with it when she asked.”

That reminder plucked a thorn out of your heart. It made you smile wide and sweet, the very smile Erwin likes to see. “So, you told me you saw what that tree could offer. Tell me about it.”

Erwin smiled ruefully, “I told you. It’s how beautiful you look in worlds even beyond this one.”

“Seriously, I’m not kidding around.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding around?”

You rolled your eyes, hoping it could conceal the fluster instead, “Then, who am I aside from my beauty that goes beyond different worlds?” Hell, saying it out loud sounds so embarrassing.

However, Erwin’s smile faltered, “After you used the power granted by the tree to save the Eldian race, your existence was subjected to death and despair. In every other world, you always end up dying miserably. Even now I see that you’re still being chased by it.”

“I’m the one who—” you covered your mouth in surprise, “I’m the exact person who did all that?”

“Yes, perhaps the royal family knows by now that you’re the person they’ve been finding for so long; that’s why their search for you got even more unrelenting.”

“God, how cruel. Why am I dying repeatedly after doing that much, then?!”

“Breaking divine laws, I suppose?”

“If that isn’t a beauty that goes beyond worlds, huh!” you huffed. Erwin, however, is still smiling as if he meant praise literally. It flustered you further. Is this due to your stress? Are you perhaps seeking comfort?

“Who were you in those worlds?”

“I’m not sure. The worlds I’ve seen are just glimpses. The only thing clear is that you were the only one in your bloodline who used the power granted to your lineage and willingly carried the consequences tied to it.”

That’s sad to know, yet deep inside you, you’d still choose that path if that meant Erwin and all of your loved ones would not cease to exist.

“What are we in those worlds, then? Did we also know each other in childhood?"

“Uh… It's a bit more complicated than that.”

“Okay, what are we to each other based on the glimpses you’ve seen?”

He seemed to hesitate at one point, but perhaps saying it out loud made his smile return, “My lovely wife, that’s who you are back there.”

🔖@cadenza-damour @xiaotopia (hi u two it's been a YEAR [god i cant stress this ENOUGH] since ive updated this fic and i would totally understand if you'd want to get excluded from the tag list from hereon!! please gimme a heads up if this is the case, :) ty!!)

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phantom-of-the-501st · 1 year

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Character Revivals in SW

Okay, so I just reblogged one of my own posts talking about this and I wanted to touch more on it so let's go on a bit of a ramble.

I know that there are a lot of people who argue that they bring back too many characters from the dead in this franchise and I do kind of get it but I also want to touch on character deaths and what they mean for the greater stories in SW because I actually think that some characters benefit from being brought back.

A lot of the weight of a character's death is defined by the weight that that fate holds on the story as whole. The ones that stick the most are the ones that resonate and have lasting effects throughout the story, or mark a significant turning point. There are a lot of deaths in SW that do this but also some characters who grew more after their revival, so I'm going to touch on a few characters and why the fate that they have works.

Vader

We all know why Vader's death is so significant. It was the final chapter in Anakin's story and it came to a close just where it needed to. That narrative was done, it was complete. It never needed anything after that because his story already has such a strong impact on SW and Luke's story. It made perfect sense for that to be the end of the character. The stories set before solidify this end, but there's no need for anything after.

Maul

Yes, Maul dying worked perfectly fine in the Prequels. There was nothing particularly wrong with having him "die" in the first place, but I think most of us can agree that Maul's revival ended up adding so much to the story of Star Wars. The entire Siege of Mandalore arc alone is reason enough to have brought him back. But it isn't just about enjoying having that character on our screens again, it's that bringing him back added something to the franchise.

The actions of Maul had lasting consequences and some of his actions marked huge turning points for the characters. The resonating effects of what he did are why this character coming back works so well. His legacy is so much stronger now for that story added.

Waxer

While Waxer doesn't get brought up a whole lot, I actually think that his fate is a good example of why some of the less discussed character deaths mean so much. The death of Waxer marked such a deep tragedy. Yes, the loss of so many clones on Umbara was already so heartbreaking, but the loss of a clone that we recognised, and one from so early on in the show, really solidified that catastrophe in our hearts. It was brutal and unjust and perfectly encapsulated why that story was so tragic. They couldn't bring Waxer back after that because it would've undermined what that casualty meant.

Fives

Oh Fives... we miss you dearly. But the Domino Twins are actually perfect examples of demonstrating this point, which is why I'm bringing Echo up right after this!

We all wish we could bring Fives back, as implausible as it would be, but him dying is exactly why this character has had such a firm chokehold over the fandom. We love him. He brought so much to TCW and we would be overjoyed to still have him around. But let me play the Devil's advocate and explain why he should remain dead (for the sake of the show, not our sanity).

The tragedy of what happened to Fives is why that story has left as much of an effect as it has. Fives tried so hard to protect all of his brothers and to prevent Order 66 from happening, but he couldn't do it. At least, not at the time. His death works because we see the long-lasting effects of what he discovered knowing full well that he will never get to see it. He should be there. That's why he stills sticks with us, why we can never let him go. Because we know that he should be there. If anyone deserved to see what he did for the clones, it's him.

And that's why it was a fitting end for his character. It's heartbreaking, it's tragic, it hurts, but the ripples left from that death are still spreading. That death meant something to the legacy of the show and the unfairness of it is why it cuts so deeply. Fives still gets brought up because the sacrifice he made was so powerful. Honestly, him being dead will always be more impactful than him still being here. I would love to see him fighting alongside Echo and Rex, but the tragedy of it is why it was the perfect end. It was a great chapter for him to end on. It's the perfect example of how to have a character be cut down in their prime while not having it feel like it was too early in the narrative. It was too soon for the character, but the perfect time in his story if that makes any sense.

Echo

And while we're on the topic of the Domino Twins, here's why Echo coming back was the better decision!

As I just mentioned, Fives' death has a legacy. It had a huge, unforgettable impact on the overall story. No-one can deny what Five's sacrifice meant. Echo's? No so much.

Look, Echo's death was tragic and people who love him will not forget it, but it would not have had the same everlasting impact as his brother's did. It doesn't even hold the same weight as Waxer's death in the fact that while it shows the unfairness of the lives of the clones, it doesn't quite have the same level of heart wrenching unjustness. Let's be completely honest here, how much of an influence would Echo's death specifically have on the overall story? Echo would've never have held the same legacy as Fives if he had stayed dead.

But if Echo died now? Holy shit would it be the most heartbreaking thing. His death wouldn't just be felt by the Bad Batch and Rex but also by every single clone that he helped saved. Echo holds so much greater of a legacy now than he ever did back then. He has been instrumental in helping the clones during the rise of the Empire and his impact on the story is so much bigger now than it ever was. Yes, Echo's "death" was tragic, but if we lost him now then the aftereffects of that would be so much greater. Echo's story has improved exponentially from having him back (not to say it was bad beforehand).

Tech

Which brings me on to Tech. Do I think he's dead? Nope. And as much as I joke that it's out of denial, I genuinely do not think that he is for the exact reason that I've discussed here. Yes, Tech's death means a whole lot to his brothers and to us, but to the greater story of Star Wars? Ehhhhh... not so sure.

Now, if the Empire started experimenting on Tech and turned him into another Clone X? Now we have something. It would be dark and horrific but it would also have huge consequences in terms of what this means so characters in Star Wars. It would just highlight even more than now just how powerful and horrific the Empire were.

Tech sacrificing himself is brutal in the moment, but I don't think it has the long-lasting impact on the franchise that people think it does. And it doesn't feel right for him at this point in time. I said earlier that Fives' death was too early because no-one should die at that age, but it felt like a fitting conclusion to his story arc. Tech feels like he was killed off in the middle of his. Even Mayday's death has a greater impact on the overall story than I think Tech's does. Yes, we're more attached to Tech, but what does his sacrifice really mean in the grand scheme of things? It's not like they got any information because Tech died. They still have nothing.

I truly believe that Tech coming back has so much more story potential than him dying and that's why I don't think he's gone just yet.

#I'm not sure I'm happy with this #I'm trying to write it with a headache so I don't feel great #but I had to get this written down #I truly do not believe that tech is dead #because his death doesn't mean what it should here #sw may have a reputation for bringing characters back #but lot of character deaths do actually stick #and most revivals actually add something #some may be a bit of a stretch #but I think some characters benefit from being brought back #Steph rambles #the bad batch #the clone wars #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers

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yitzhak-rabin-kinnie · 1 year

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TW // GERMAN PEOPLE .

. Okay so the Lingering Echoes event is finished, I cleared all the medals, trimmed one included, so now here are my thoughts on it. For ease of comprehension i'll be using the worm rating, courtesy of my shroomfie @newenglandofficial. PLEASE MIND THE SPOILERS

STORY (6.5/7 worms ) :

The story is pretty neat, all in all. It has the benefit of being self-contained in a very digestable setting, the nomadic city of Vysenheim, in Leithanien (Arknight's bastardised mix of Austria-Hungary and Germany). While there are no grand stakes like in the Abyssal Hunter storyline (will the fish women ever remember the fourth member of their lesbian polycule ?), I was quite invested in the Witch King lorecrumbs we got, and the spooky wooky conspiration to bring him back to life. Now let's now take a look at it through its most important prism, the characters. For the sake of the three people who'll read this, I will try and keep the events as accurate as possible.

All of them are fairly likable and bounce off fairly well of each other, with Ebenholz, the caprinae (goat people) main character of this event and banner poster-boy, being a tragic figure, not because he's obviously a massive homosexual, mind you, but because he's Austrian, a condition which unfortunately carries many incurable symptoms such as playing the violin, being an aristocrat, having weak little wrists, throwing tantrums in music shops and sleeping in the same bed as your best friend who happens to be a very distant relative. As you can see, he's clearly the highlight of this event. His quest for purpose is a pleasure to follow : after being baited into leaving his aristocratic crackden by the vulpo (wolf people) local ruler who's so hot my friends brain malfunctionned when I first showed him her sprite, he meets his soulmate, Kreide, a young caprinae coming to Vysenheim to cure his grandfather, who's currently suffering from the onset of magical rock cancer.

Following their encounter, the two newfound comrades then decide to apply for the traditional austrian coming-of-age rite, which involves playing music in an orchestra, since two spots are now open after the previous musicians got fed to Das Kindershredder in typical german fashion. The Concertmaster, Czerny, pictured below, rejects them at first, but the two manage to earn his respect after a fortunate encounter between them, Czerny, and my favorite AoE sidehoe, Hibiscus. The latter almost gets mobbed by a bunch of angry people manifesting the most popular teutonic characteristic, racism, but after the incident gets defused the whole gang meets at Czerny's place so that Hibiscus can casually give found poisoning to all of them by, I shit you not, cooking them healthy food, which bursts Czerny's ulcer, whose proud european organism can only run on fat Sauerkraut.

Unfortunately, soon after this merry and jolly reunion, the infected of the Afterglow (the local ghetto for rock cancer patients) start experiencing a worsening of their medical conditions. This is in fact caused by Kreide's twink aura, which is strong enough to cause the organism of every straight person in a five kilometer radius to spontaneously collapse, and even causes an invasion of toxic slugs from the sewers.

The gang then discovers that Ebenholz's and Kreide's entire existence are in fact fabricated : both of them are direct descendants of the dead Witch-King, and got kidnapped as kids so that his Loyalists, called the Remnants, could implant a symphony inside of them, which could then be used to resurrect him (think Horcruxes in harry potter basically). The new rulers of Leithanien, the Twin-Empresses (they're ugly sorry), find them, and, having mercy on them, decide to give one a fake identity as a random noble in bumfuck-nowhere (that's Ebenholz), and give one to a secret agent meant to keep an eye on him (Kreide).

Gertrude, Czerny's bitter ex and the lady who invited Ebenholz' here in the first place, whose dad was a Witch King loyalist, plans to turn the Geneva convention into a checklist by triggering this symphony, thus attracting the attention of the Twin Empresses' on the Remnants and taking her revenge on them ? I think that was her plan roughly lol I skipped that part.

Ebenholz then has a wizard duel with her in the street, dispels her hyperborean cloning powers, and then beats. Absolutely nothing happens though because she's the local ruler and instead she's gently taken away by the local glowie, some Perro (dog people) fuck named Biegler, who sjould clearly marry me.

During the fatidic day of the concert, after learning of his blood relationship with Kreide, and unable to face the potential prospect of their future gay babies morphing into Habsburgs through the sheer power of germanic incest, Ebenholz is thus forced to put down his malewife to save the city.

Kreide dies in Ebenholz' after gently caressing his face and telling to live, breaking the soft little heart of Ebenholz, who also has part of the Witch King's consciousness and voice inside of his brain, and decides to go to Rhodes Island after ditching his noble status.

GAMEPLAY (5/7 worms) :

It was pretty okay, I experienced the event in the best way possible, aka not reading the tutorial stages and assuming everybody not inside of their weird flux jizz would fucking die. As it turns out it's not the case it just gives you an SP regen debuff and the ennemies gimmicks now hit you harder. Also Kreide's (whose Witch-King infused form is the final boss) essentially kills himself during the final stage so that was fine.

BANNER (7/7 worms) :

I tried to convinced myself that I would NOT roll Ebenholz, with Pozyomka and Gavial (forma del ungabunga) approaching, but I caved in instantly when I heard his sweet little german lines telling me that he would, in fact, do fucking nothing as my assistant. Yas king slay give us fucking nothing.

Gameplay wise, I wish his S2 did NOT have the shift effect, since it tends to pull ennemies into the rest of the mines and fucking waste all of them for one ennemy. His S3 is gimmicky as fuck but would be broken if Hypergryph decided to let him stack his auto-attacks during his S3. All in all he's my adopted son and I love him.

Stay tuned for more objectively right review of other events, it was a pleasure writing that one !

#arknights #lingering echoes #spoilers #arknights spoilers #germ*n people

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jgvfhl · 1 year

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The Number Lads Go Snooping

Here we are folks... Sevenset is tasked with keeping Fives entertained while Tup is examined after the tragic and mysterious execution of General Tiplar on Ringo Vinda. Unfortunately for them, and Echo's blood pressure, Sevenset and Fives have strange ideas of what constitutes entertainment. BEHOLD, THE ORDERS ARC BEGINS!!

Words: not quite 8K (longest chapter to date oop) Warnings: Canon typical suspense with canon atypical swearing :) Link to Master List of Chapters on Tumblr Link to the full story on Ao3 Happy reading!

CrispyDomino: hey sevenset, need a favor

RedBoiiiii: o7 reporting for orders

CrispyDomino: Fives is bringing one of our boys to Kamino for a med eval

RedBoiiiii: yikes that’s not fun

CrispyDomino: Yeah, you mind making sure he’s not worrying himself sick over the kid?

RedBoiiiii: I will do my best! When are they arriving?

CrispyDomino: Should get there in a few hours

RedBoiiiii: You got it, buddy! I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid

DEATH: That’s not particularly promising

RedBoiiiii: oh COME ON

d0nut man: lkdjafkd

Double Trouble: oh my gods XD

CrispyDomino: Don’t worry, Sevens, I have faith in you

RedBoiiiii: THANK you echo

Leafs: We really can’t go ten seconds without something huh?

RedBoiiiii: THE COMMANDER STARTED IT

CrispyDomino: Anyway, thanks Sevens, means a lot

CrispyDomino: I’m on campaign, but feel free to send updates if you want

-scene break-

Sevenset had gotten a message from Fives as soon as he’d touched down, it had appeared. He’d grumbled a little at his batchmate’s mothering, but he’d conceded it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get out of his own head while his friend was in medical. But, first Fives had to be assessed as well, so Sevenset had been left to his own devices for a bit, waiting for Fives to comm him after he was cleared.

He had chosen to use this time to be, as most people called it, a menace. He called it practicing his environmental awareness and stealth skills, although no one else seemed too keen to agree with him. After successfully pranking Colt on the Venator after their last mission, he’d doubled-down on finding some way to get at Alpha-17. A death sentence? Possibly.

But he would be legendary if he pulled it off.

It did leave him with the slight problem of finding where the grumpy captain spent most of his time. He was a very private man, and most of the time he wasn’t in his rooms anyway (which would be great news once Sevenset found them). His search had brought him almost back around to the main medical wing of Kamino. No, not the medical wing for the tubies, or the medical wing for the scientists, or the other medical wing for surgery and … whatever else they did over there. This was mainly for soldiers who came in with injuries too mysterious or serious to treat on the field, so it was undoubtedly where Fives and his friend were now.

His plan so far was based solely on lying, and hoping someone was fooled into giving him Alpha’s room number, or at least which wing he lived in. So far, however, he’d only encountered clone officers who knew better than to talk to him outside of necessity, Kaminoans who really didn’t know what to do with him half the time he approached them, and some of the nattie trainers. He didn’t feel like talking to many of them. They were fine, for the most part, but… eh. Not his thing.

An alarm went off, harsh against his ears without his bucket. He flinched, looking around and waiting for an announcement.

“Security breach. All nonessential personnel report to a safe room for lockdown.”

The round door at the end of the hallway slid open suddenly, making him pivot in that direction. The hall flooded with red emergency lighting. A pantoran woman strode out, followed by the sounds of hustle and bustle a bit too bustling for normal medical procedure.

“This place is about to be locked down,” she told him. “Better get a move on, ARC.”

He fell into step beside her as she walked, seeing no point in sticking around if that was indeed the case. He glanced over her person, trying to remember if he’d seen her around for long. He definitely recognized parts of her armor. She was one of the few Mandos left on Kamino, her armor mostly a deep blue, with pink and yellow clouds rolling along the bottom of her chestplate. Her pink hair was cropped close to her head on the sides and flopped over loosely on top. She was only about as tall as his shoulder, probably approaching forty years old, but this woman had two gold jaig eyes tattooed on her forehead.

There was no messing with her.

“Why?” he asked.

“Undisclosed. Someone’s up to no good in the medical wing.”

The alarm continued to blare.

Sevenset glanced behind him at the closed door. Fives hadn’t contacted him yet… did that mean he was in lockdown without his armor? They had to remove their kit for med evals, so maybe with the security, he hadn’t been able to get his comm back yet. That had to be it. Fives was ARC. He hadn’t survived this long by doing rash things like… whatever this trooper was doing.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked, choosing to collect whatever information he could about this Mando.

She glanced over at him. “Maral Tumun.”

He nodded. “I’m Sevenset. I’ve seen you around once or twice.”

“I would hope so. I’ve been training you lot for ages. I trained some of the command batches up from tykes.”

Oh, had she now? That was worth poking into a little bit. “Which batches?”

Before she had an opportunity to answer, his comm went off. He glanced at the frequency and frowned. He didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t anyone in his squadron, or any of the Numbers. Weird.

“Sorry, I gotta take this,” he mumbled, answering the voice transmission. “This is ARC seven seven seven seven.”

“Hey, Sevens, it’s Fives. Listen–I uh… I might’ve done something.”

Oh no.

He hastily muted the comm, but didn't disconnect it, staring at Trainer Tumun, whose gold eyes had locked on him as soon as she'd heard Fives' name. "Wrong number?" he tried.

Her brow rose. "You often get wrong numbers who know your name?"

"Uh, yeah, all the time. Pretty common name among the newer batches, actually," he rambled on.

"Let me hear him," she said.

"Why? No. Ma'am."

“If you don’t, I am still under obligation to report any incidents related to what that trooper has done in medical to my superiors,” she said. “And I believe you would prefer this knowledge remain out of the Kaminoans’ hands for as long as possible, yes?”

He blinked at her. She was… helping? Was she helping? Obviously, whatever Fives had done, he wanted to know as much as he could before making decisions on how to help. She did have reasonable authority to march him down to one of the commanders or one of the doctors and make him sing, and he did not want to do that.

“You won’t get him in trouble?”

She crossed her arms, her beskar clinking. “Any more trouble, you mean?”

“Yeah…”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I know well enough to hear him out.”

Okay. It was as good as he was gonna get. He unmuted the comm.

“Heyyy…. Fives, sorry about that–”

“What the hell was that?” his friend demanded. “What happened?”

“I ran into a trainer, okay?” he shot back, trying to keep his voice down. “I–she heard you, I had to explain some things–”

“Who? What? I thought you were gonna help, Sevens!”

That hurt. He put a hand on his hip even though Fives couldn’t see him. “I’m trying, okay? This is the first time someone’s commed me after putting a whole wing of medical into lockdown, Fives! That was you, right?”

Trainer Tumun stepped closer. “What happened, trooper?”

“It’s–-there’s—something’s wrong with Tup. Yeah, Nala se was gonna cover up all the data, she switched the cases and everything.”

Sevenset exchanged a quizzical glance with the trainer. “This is the guy you were escorting here?”

“Yeah, yeah, he—kark, I dunno, mate, he got all kinds of messed up on Ringo Vinda.” Fives didn’t sound like himself. Far too agitated to be the collected, quick-witted soldier Sevenset knew. “He… he killed a Jedi, Sevens. And the Kaminoans aren’t doing enough to figure out why. All they want to do is kill him and take him apart afterwards.”

Sevenset sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively glancing up and around for witnesses. Without warning, Trainer Tumun grabbed his arm and pulled them both into a storage room toward the end of the corridor. It was dark, except for the white light from his comm, giving both their faces an eerie glow.

“Explain,” she ordered once they were both inside. At least the alarm was quieter here.

“He lost it! He was—he was—agitated, he was violent, he wasn’t responding to his name at all. He tried takin’ a swipe at General Skywalker too! Tied down to a gurney.”

“So what are you doing, Fives?” Sevenset wanted to know. “Why don’t you have your armor?”

“Armor? Armor—no, no, no, no, armor was too recognizable. Grabbed a plain set. He’ll be fine, barely a concussion—”

“You stole armor?”

“Well, no one’s giving it away, are they?” Fives replied sharply. “I may have… I kind of convinced a droid to perform a medical procedure on Tup, and when Nala Se found out, she freaked out. Said they had to do more extensive testing, still says it might be a virus, or a–a parasite—”

“Extensive testing?” Sevenset asked, his brows furrowing. Initial testing was usually pretty thorough. Why the need to go extensive? “Not the hyper testing, I hope. That will kill him.”

“But I found something!” Fives said. “I found something in his brain with the scan I did, right? But Nala Se said it was nothing, said the machine was calibrated wrong.”

Trainer Tumun tilted her head. “Those machines are never calibrated wrong.”

“Exactly! There was something in his head—maybe not just him, maybe there’s more—”

Sevenset held up a hand. “Okay, hold up, where are you?”

There was a heavy pause. Then, quietly, “Storage room, near the genetics wing.”

Another pause landed. “How? Why?” Sevenset demanded.

“I’m in disguise, aren’t I? They were gonna kriffin’ wipe me, Sevens! Now are you gonna help make sure Tup’s okay, or not?”

Sevenset sucked in a sharp breath almost without thinking. Reconditioning was more of a rumor than anything concrete on Kamino. Hearing his friend say it out loud like that…. Kark. This was worse than he’d thought.

“Yeah, and how am I supposed to keep Tup safe and you out of harm’s way at the same time, huh?”

“I’ll look after Tup,” Trainer Tumun said, cutting into their conversation suddenly.

“What?”

“I am Trainer Maral Tumun,” she said for Fives’ sake. “I don’t trust these Kaminoans when they’re this excited to dispose of a soldier. If they are so keen to find you, then they are keen to cover up what’s happening to Tup. I will find out, and I will make sure he gets to a doctor who knows the value of sentient life.”

There was another long pause as they both took in the information. Finally, Fives said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Sevenset asked. So he was a little skeptical. He had reason to be.

She smiled. “I am of Clan Ves. We do not disappoint.”

“Yeah, that’s great, I was talking more logistics?” he said. “Where are there doctors to treat him? How is he getting off Kamino? How are you even getting him off the medical table?”

Trainer Tumun sniffed, lifting her chin. “I know a guy.”

“It’s not Commander Nero, is it?” Fives asked with much sarcasm.

She looked down at the comm, shifting her stance slightly. “I do not have to answer that.”

“Nero?” Sevenset repeated. “Wait, he’s Commander Sixes’ batcher, right?” He recalled her remark about training command batches. “Holy kark, you trained those grumpy bastards, didn’t you?”

Once again, she lifted her chin and shuffled her feet slightly. “They were my best.”

“They’re kriffing sociopaths, ma’am,” Fives blurted.

“No, they are not, I had them tested.”

Comforting. But not important right now. “Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “You’ll find Tup and use Commander Nero’s infinite source of strings to pull to get him off-world. Fives, I’m gonna find you and make sure you don’t do anything stupid by yourself.”

Trainer Tumun gave him a look. “Not the usual phrasing of that expression.”

“Story of my life, ma’am,” he told her.

“Sounds good. My locator should still be on, Sevenset should be able to track me with that. I’m heading to the Genetic Records Hall.”

He sighed, rubbing his head. “Copy that, I’ll find you.”

“Stay outside until I come out. And thanks… again…”

The comm disconnected, leaving them in almost total darkness. Almost, because of the tiny dots of light on their vambrace controls.

“Okay.”

She nodded. Probably. “Let’s go.”

He followed her out into the hall, selecting the frequency Fives had used to comm him and tracking the corresponding locator signal. He turned this way and that a couple times, never the best at directionality.

“Okay, Genetic Records Hall,” he said. “No clue where that is.”

“I know it,” Tumun nodded. “I’ll need access to a different part of the medical wing, so I’ll send you the coordinates while we walk.” Without leaving room for debate, she turned and began walking, leaving him to catch up at a slight jog.

This was a bad situation, obviously. Sevenset wasn’t that tone-deaf not to realize that. But he also knew the value in taking the opportunities presented to him, and right now, he had direct access to a woman who had known Commander Sixes since he had been able to walk. There was no way in any of the nine hells he was letting this chance pass by without using it to find out something.

“So… Chaos Batch, huh?” he said by way of introduction. “You uh… you made ‘em like that?”

“I trained them,” she replied. “They were already like that.”

He gave a low whistle. “Okay, so Commander Nero has always been two degrees away from being a serial killer?”

“Well, he did try to kill a Kaminoan when he was five standard.”

He gaped at her. “He did what? And he’s alive?”

“That’s when he was transferred to the Chaos Batch,” she answered easily. “And also when he was tested for sociopathy. He just has a very rigid view of right and wrong, and a penchant for finding the simplest solution to his problems. But his emotional depth is perfectly normal.”

Sevenset could only nod. So the weird vibes he’d gotten from Commander Nero were well deserved. Granted, he’d never felt actively threatened by the man. He just had understood that if Nero had wanted it, Sevenset would have been dead faster than he could say his own name.

“Uh…huh,” he answered. “And Commander Sixes… has he always been that prickly? Grumpy, as some would say.”

She shook her head. “No, Bacara’s the one they call Grumpy. Sixes was… well. Geonosis One changed a lot of your older brothers. He’s a sweetheart to his core.”

A what? A sweetheart? The guy in all-black armor whose callsign was Death was a sweetheart? Sevenset’s mind reeled.

“Not that he’d ever admit it,” Tumun continued as they turned the corner to the neighboring corridor. “They’re all stubborn as hell, but they had determination and ingenuity like I’d never seen in a squad of cadets before. Bacara once stayed up all night putting together what he called a ‘flawless battle strategy’ for the four of them, and it was. He took into account each of their strengths and weaknesses, and they absolutely demolished the squad they were facing the next day.”

“No kidding,” he said. Small wonder the Marines were some of the most efficient soldiers in the GAR. With a commander like that… well.

“But they also invented Knife Monopoly while drunk for the first time,” she mused, a fond smile on her face. “And Sixes and Nero once shot each other during a concocted ‘duel,’ and they both have scars from it.” She shook her head. “Even genetic manipulation can’t stop teenagers from being teenagers.”

Sevenset was honestly approaching speechlessness. All that came out in reply to those world-shattering revelations was, “Oh.” His mind felt like a speeder without altitude stabilizers.

“We’re here,” Tumun said, stopping near an arched door back into the medical wing. She raised her vambrace, tapping a message. “These are the coordinates to the Genetics Hall. It’s near the incubation wings. I’ll go find Tup.”

“Got it,” he nodded, his brain struggling a little to recover from the previous conversation.

“What is Tup’s designation?” she asked.

“Uh…” He commed Fives.

“Are you here?”

“Starting there now. What’s Tup’s designation?”

“CT fifty-three eighty-five.”

Tumun nodded. “I’ll go find him. I promise,” she added, pressing a closed fist across her chest. A Mandalorian salute.

He nodded back, then took off at a jog toward where he knew the incubators were. He didn’t know what kind of time frame Fives was on, but he had to assume it wasn’t a long one. He offered passing excuses and thank yous as he dodged around doctors and troopers in the hallways, but honestly, Colt had made him run enough laps through the city that even if someone asked him what he was doing, he’d just say tell them that. No one would even blink.

Ten minutes. It took him almost ten minutes to get there. Something closer to seven, probably, but still. It felt too long. When the door was in sight, he opened his comm again.

“Fives, I’m near the main doors, what’s your status?”

“This shit just gets worse and worse, I’m telling you–” he replied angrily.

The door opened, making Sevenset look up hopefully. But no. Kaminoans were filing out of the room. Quietly, seemingly unbothered, but… no. Too quickly. Too orderly.

“Buddy, they know you’re in there,” he said, keeping his voice down.

“Yeah, I see it.”

Well. Sevenset was nothing if not recklessly impulsive at his core. “I’m coming with you,” he said, disconnecting the comm before Fives could argue, then darting towards the door.

The Kaminoans didn’t stop him. They moved out of his way, if anything. As he passed the threshold, he heard more hurried footsteps approaching from the opposite corridor from which he’d come.

“Time go, pal!” he called, now out-right sprinting to Fives. Force, he looked weird in shiny armor.

“You’re a kriffing moron, Sevens!” he shouted, following an AZ medical droid towards… oh, an emergency hatch in the ceiling. Smart.

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” he shot back.

“There!” someone shouted behind them. Then stun rings began blazing past them as they ran.

Maker’s sake, they really wanted this guy! Sevenset would have been impressed, if he weren’t running away from them too. He practically flung himself up the yellow rungs of the ladder behind Fives, pulling himself into the emergency hatch after him and stepping back so the AZ could weld it shut.

Then he turned to Fives.

“Okay, so you’re in a stupendous amount of shit.”

“You didn’t have to follow me!” he shot back.

“Too bad! You’re my friend, and I have reckless tendencies,” he replied, tossing his hands in the air.

“I do not meant to interrupt,” said the droid, holding up one of its metal fingers, “but we have research to finish.”

“Finish?” Fives repeated, looking at it. “You didn’t get everything you needed?”

“Hey, I’ve an idea,” Sevenset cut in. “How about we walk and talk, yeah? Where the hell are you going?”

“What information do you still need, AZ?” Fives asked the droid.

“Well,” the droid began, sounding, as many droids did, way too calm for the amount of pressure riding on the current situation, “we know it is an organic chip, created and implanted into clone Tup’s brain.”

Sevenset put his hands on his hips and looked at Fives.

“We found a thing in Tup’s brain, it’s not from the original genetic material from Prime, so someone had to put it there,” he supplied.

“What I am not sure of,” AZ went on, turning his body around and rummaging in his storage compartment, “is at what stage of development the chip is implanted, and its purpose.”

“And we don’t know if it’s in my brain too,” Fives added, which made Sevenset’s gaze snap back to him.

“Excuse me?” Fives had reason to believe that whatever made Tup execute a Jedi General was also in his head?

The droid spoke up, now holding a glass slide containing something suspiciously flesh-colored. “Your scans did not indicate—”

“Neither did Tup’s, until we looked deeper,” Fives insisted. “If they missed it in Tup, they can miss it in me. We have to check.”

A horrible thought came unbidden to Sevenset’s mind. If this thing was in Fives and Tup… then it could be in his head too, right?

“And if it is?” he heard himself ask.

His friend looked at him.

“If it is in your head too?”

“Then he takes it out,” Fives said firmly, tilting his bucket towards AZ.

The droid rose in the air slightly, his visual receptors shining a bit brighter in shock. “That is a dangerous surgery. When I removed clone Tup’s chip, his overall health greatly worsened.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“Hey–wait, what?” Sevenset held up his hands. “‘Greatly worsened?’ What does that mean?”

“He’s still alive,” Fives said, then turned back to AZ. “Are you gonna help, or not?”

“We will need to return to a medical facility,” the droid said, drifting slightly towards Sevenset, intending to pass him.

“Fives, mate,” he said, stepping in front of the droid. “This is a lot. Are you sure you’re—”

Fives stepped over the round hole in the floor where the hatch was. “Tup is one of my best friends. He’s hurting because someone put this thing in his head. Maybe they put this thing into all of our heads. Now, the Kaminoans know something they’re not willing to let me find out.”

“And that might be a good thing,” Sevenset argued. “Listen, I’m not one to trust the long-necks, but we’re not scientists, Fives.”

“This thing made Tup kill a Jedi!” his friend exclaimed. “You want that? You wanna wake up one day a prisoner in your own head, watching your body hunt down General Ti and shoot her?”

“Don’t do that,” he told him, his voice dropping to a dark pitch.

“It’s the truth,” Fives told him. “I need to know how far this goes. You should too.”

Truthfully, Sevenset was curious. Inherently so, some would say. But he wasn’t an idiot, like the others would also say. What Fives was doing was dangerous. A medical procedure like brain surgery wasn’t without risk, even when performed by a droid designed like AZ. But something nagged at the back of his mind, like a child very softly tugging at a parent’s clothing for attention. He couldn’t ignore it forever.

The truth was, Fives wasn’t an idiot either. Hell, he was one of the most caring brothers he’d met, and that included himself.

He sighed, rubbing his face roughly. “Gods, Echo’s gonna kill me for helping you.”

“Yeah.” His friend’s voice sounded hollow at the mention of his batchmate. Probably not the kindest thing Sevenset could have brought up. “AZ, lead the way,” he said.

The droid whirred as he rose higher up the ladder, and Sevenset let Fives follow him before bringing up the rear. They climbed about three levels before the droid cut left. They followed doggedly, turning a few times before dropping back down two more levels. Finally, AZ paused, hovering over a hatch.

“Is this it?” Fives asked, squatting down.

The droid appeared to nod. “Yes. This is a hatch to the D-wing of the medical building. As of now, I can detect no noise on the other side of this hatch.”

Fives hesitated briefly, then took a breath, handing off his stolen blaster to Sevenset so he could hop down to open the hatch. He twisted the yellow wheel slowly, trying to minimize the noise. When it was finally open, he let it down as slowly as he could, and Sevenset reached out to grab the back of his utility belt to steady him as he leaned down.

“All clear,” he reported. He sat back up, then lowered himself down.

AZ followed him, and Sevenset tossed down the blaster so he could have his hands free to follow them. AZ let them into one of the medical examination rooms. It all went so smoothly, Sevenset found himself momentarily baffled. Wouldn’t the Kamino Guard have troopers posted at every emergency tunnel entrance in the whole medical wing? Weird.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Fives said, removing his helmet and setting both it and his blaster on a tray beside the bed. Bed was a generous term. Table was better. He lifted himself onto it.

“And you’re sure this is the thing to do?” he asked again. He already knew the answer, he just couldn’t help it.

“It��s just gonna be a scan and maybe some surgery.”

“Yeah, it’s the maybe I’m worried about, Fives,” he said, watching AZ pull up the scanning machine and begin to program it.

“Knowing what I know now about these chips,” the droid said, poking buttons on the touchscreen, “I do not need to scan at the atomic level. Due to the inorganic compounds present in these chips, a molecular examination should suffice.”

“Is that good?” Sevenset asked as Fives lay down.

“A molecular scan does not put as much strain on the subject.”

He nodded vaguely. So it was good.

AZ brought the ring-shaped scanner around to position it around Fives’ head. “Please remain still and do not speak during the examination,” he said, sounding routine. “Close your eyes and keep them closed until told to open them.”

Fives did as instructed, and Sevenset stood at the foot of the table to watch. AZ tapped a button to begin the examination, and the ring-shaped machine whirred into action, a slow green-ish blue light beginning to travel around the inner circumference.

The exam was probably pretty short, considering the number of actions AZ completed during the time, but the seconds felt like they were moving like drying mud to Sevenset. The droid hovered next to a screen on the side of the room, where a diagram or image of Fives’ brain was slowly developing. After what was probably a minute or so, a red dot appeared on the screen.

AZ hummed a short note of… what, surprise? Acknowledgement? Droids… so hard to parse. Then he flew back over to the scanning device and tapped a few buttons to power it down. When the interior light had fully faded out, he moved the device away.

“You may open your eyes,” he said cheerfully.

Fives blinked his eyes open slowly, looking groggy all of a sudden. Sevenset moved to his side.

“You alright, mate?” he asked, holding out a hand.

“Bit of a headache,” Fives admitted. “But it’s fading.” He took his hand and hauled himself up into a sitting position. Sevenset eyed him carefully. “What’s the word, AZ?”

“By ‘the word,’ I assume you mean the results of the scan?”

“Yes.”

“They are identical to clone Tup,” the droid chirped, moving to the side so Fives and Sevenset could see the screen. “The same tumor appears in the same location in your brain.”

“Sithspit,” Fives hissed, rubbing his head. “Can you take it out?”

“Of course.”

“Then do it,” he said, resuming his previous position on the table.

As AZ began preparing, Sevenset’s comm went off, so he stepped away to answer it. It was Trainer Tumun.

“I have Tup secure,” she reported. “Someone is in transit to collect him and get him to safety.”

He looked up to Fives, who had turned his head to listen. “Hear that?”

Fives nodded, a brief wave of relief washing over his features before he settled back to let AZ begin.

Sevenset turned away. He was fine with blood, but he had no desire to see the inside of Fives’ skull. “Thank you, ma’am. We know the one-eighteenth can be trusted with this.”

There was a pause, since Tumun hadn’t known of their affiliations with Nero’s battalion. But, time was waning, and she must have thought better than to waste any by starting down that winding path. “If I can, I’ll let you know when they have him secure.”

“Much appreciated, ma’am.”

“Hopefully, the ruckus I caused can help you and Fives get the information you need.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. We’re working on it.”

“I wish you the best. Good hunting, ARCs.”

The comm disconnected. He could still hear AZ working, so he kept his attention firmly on the set of window controls below the oval window separating this room from the next. Currently, it was opaque, but the buttons underneath could turn it transparent or translucent if so desired. He was impressed by his own ability to not mess with them.

Mainly because his mind was too busy reeling over the information he’d learned in such a short time.

Somehow, both Fives and Tup had little semi-organic chips in their brains that had been implanted by… someone, who knew whom that had been, and that was uncomfortable enough. But Tup’s had looked… sick. He’d lost his mind, almost as literally as a sentient being could, and that alone sent chills down his spine. If more clones had these chips… then way more of them than just Tup were capable of outright murdering Jedi.

Or anyone.

“The operation is complete.”

He jolted. How much time had passed? He hadn’t checked the time before. Shit. How long had they stayed in one place? That was dangerous. Fives was waking up. AZ held a second glass compartment, examining the contents.

“Well?” he asked, walking over to put hands on Fives to remind himself he was okay.

“This is new,” AZ said. “The chip removed from clone trooper Tup was severely degraded in function and structure, but this one is entirely healthy.”

Fives groaned quietly, his hand rising to his head, only to bump into the metal device still implanted there. His hair had been shorn around it, making for a rather unsightly haircut. Maybe he could pass it off as a fade if he shaved the other side to match?

“Okay, so… Tup was an accident?” he said. “He didn’t mean it. He was sick.”

“That is the most likely scenario,” AZ replied, his body rotating around so he could place Fives’ chip in his storage compartment with Tup’s.

“What are the chances this thing’s in my head too?” Sevenset dared to ask.

“Given you are from the same generation of clones,” the droid said, tapping his fingers together with something resembling nervousness, “the chances are not exactly… low.”

He’d already suspected as much. Judging by the look on Fives’ face, he felt the same. Nice of him to not share it until Sevenset was ready. Alright, well, if he was ever going to have brain surgery, having it on his own terms seemed like a great time for it.

Holding out a hand to Fives again, he helped him off the table, giving a look that asked if he was alright, and receiving a nod in return. “Might as well mark brain surgery off my bucket list,” he said, hoisting himself onto the table.

“You haven’t been scanned,” Fives said, gesturing to the machine. “You don’t know if you even have this thing.”

Sevenset rolled his eyes, desperate to cover up the anxiety rising in his system. “Yeah, I think we all kinda know it’s gonna be there. Better to just save myself the headache, right? We’ve been here too long as it is.”

Fives couldn’t argue with the last point. The longer they stayed in one place, the more likely it was someone would find them. They needed to move, and if this got it done faster, then so be it. His friend looked a little helpless for a split second before nodding and stepping back.

“Are you sure?” AZ asked. “Without a scan, I will have to estimate where the cells are located—”

“And you’re a smart droid,” Sevenset cut in, lying back on the table. “You’ll do fine. It’s probably exactly where Fives’ was. We are clones, after all, right?”

After a second or two of processing, the droid nodded. “Very well.” He flew over to a barely visible cabinet underneath the display screens at the back wall, and retrieved what supplies he would need. Normally, they would have been laid out, but he’d used them on Fives already. He held up a large syringe which Sevenset was not thrilled about. “This will not hurt—”

“Yes, it will,” Fives cut him off.

“It will only hurt a bit,” the droid corrected, and Sevenset braced himself.

It did hurt. Quite a bit, actually, like injecting fire under the skin of his neck. But, after only a few seconds, the pain had faded, and the rest of the world faded out as well.

-scene break-

He woke up to his comm blinking at him, telling him a new message had arrived. As he had suspected, AZ held a sample identical to the one that had come out of Fives' head. Holy Force. Once AZ gave him the all-clear, he opened his comm, scanning it quickly as he and Fives readied themselves for whatever came next. There wasn't time to process what had just happened.

“Where are we going next?” he asked,his eyes fixed on the thing AZ had taken out of his head. Gross. It made his skin crawl like an itchy sweater he couldn’t take off.

“The incubation rooms,” AZ answered, flying over to the door. “We must find out how many clones have these implanted chips, and when they are implanted into your cell structure.”

Sevenset nodded. “Alright. Let’s visit some tubies.” He paused to open his comm. “Uh… I take it we’re keeping our activities unknown to your batcher?” he asked.

“Please,” Fives said, looking terribly guilty.

He started typing a reply as they hurried out of the room.

CrispyDomino: Rex says he’s on his way back, how’s Fives?

RedBoiiiii: peachy!

CrispyDomino: oh good

CrispyDomino: do you know how Tup’s doing?

RedBoiiiii: uhh more tests?

d0nut man: aw that’s too bad :(

d0nut man: might it have anything to do with the 118th’s unplanned visit to Kamino right now?

CrispyDomino: What.

RedBoiiii: I’m sure it’s nothing Zero

Double Trouble: guys he just used capitalization correctly…

RedBoiiii: dosido i do no t need this right now

DEATH: And where is Fives in this conversation?

RedBoiiiii: he doesnt have his comm

RedBoiiiii: they had to clear him had to get his kit off

CrispyDomino: Do you know he’s okay?

RedBoiiiii: like i said, peachy

d0nut man: uh yeah, i wasn’t joking about an unplanned stop in the Kamino system.

d0nut man: what are we doing here

DEATH: I have a terrible feeling about this

DressedtotheNines: Please don’t say that, every time Kenobi says that, bad stuff happens

Leafs: Wait, Echo left Sevenset in charge of Fives?

CrispyDomino: Yes

Loopy: wait why

CrispyDomino: Bc I assume he got to ARC trooper SOMEHOW

RedBoiiiii: look hes’ fine!!! I’m still with him!!

DEATH: Nero’s hiding something. The 118th is definitely going to Kamino for crimes.

CrispyDomino: CRIMES???

d0nut man: oooohh yay I hope it’s kidnapping :)

d0nut man: that’s my favorite crime

d0nut man: been in a high crimes and misdemeanors kinda mood lately

Leafs: I have so many questions I do not want answers for.

CrispyDomino: Okay okay, since I’m about to go into another firefight

CrispyDomino: I am choosing to believe the crimes and my batcher are unrelated.

RedBoiiiii: good choice

Double Trouble: they are so related

Loopy: yeah, definitely

Submarine: Hey… probably a bad time to ask, but is anyone else going on leave soon?

d0nut man: well we were suPPOSED TO

Loopy: not official leave, just stopping by 000 for a restock n stuff, but yeah

Leafs: I do have leave soon, yes

DressedtotheNines: Yeah, we’re here already, set for a couple weeks

DEATH: Get some noodles. I’m sure Mira and Saleha will be overjoyed to see you.

RedBoiiiii: aw that’s actually sweet!

DEATH: They haven’t met you yet, don’t get your hopes up.

RedBoiiiii: :/

RedBoiiiii: Hey sir

RedBoiiiii: Is it true you and cmdr bacara invented Knife Monopoly when drunk the first time?

Double Trouble: THEY DID WHAT NOW???

Submarine: Oh is that why so many Novas play that game?

Leafs: Wait it’s an actual game?? With knives??

Loopy: it better have knives, i’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t

CrispyDomino: Sevenset you are supposed to be watching my brother

CrispyDomino: not tempting Death himself

DressedtotheNines: I … I’m not sure what to think

d0nut man: I think Seven’s about to vanish under mysterious circumstances

Submarine: Yes, it does involve knives. I’ve never played though.

DEATH: Echo, I have it on good authority that the kid you sent to Kamino is in good hands

CrispyDomino: WHOSE AUTHORITY

DEATH: My old trainer

RedBoiiiii: she didn’t mention anything else…?

DEATH: She told me everything.

DEATH: But for now, all these laser brains need to know is it is being handled.

CrispyDomino: There’s an EVERYTHING???

RedBoiiiii: an Everything that is fine, yes!

-scene break-

All of them.

Every single clone.

Sevenset looked from the glowing green lights on the display screen to the tower of growth tubes before them.

All of them had these things in their heads, waiting for activation. Activation for what? AZ hadn’t been able to figure out what these bioengineered things could be used for. The only data point they had was Tup, and he had been whisked off somewhere by Trainer Tumun. Hopefully.

“So that means…” Fives said, pulling off his helmet, “we’re all part of this. Whatever reason these things exist, it… it affects all of us.”

“It would appear so, yes.” Even AZ looked as surprised as he could.

The sudden sound of a door hissing as it slid open made them all spin around, Fives automatically raising his blaster.

Kark.

It was Nala Se, one of the head doctors on Kamino, and a distinctly unpleasant person. She approached with raised hands.

“Stay where you are,” Fives told her sharply. Sevenset wanted to edge closer to him, just in case he did something really stupid, but he didn’t move.

“Why are you doing this?” the doctor asked.

“Take a guess,” he shot back before Fives could. “You thought you could cover up putting bioengineered hardware into our brains, and no one would notice? No one would get curious?”

The doctor ignored or otherwise dismissed the blatant threat Fives posed, and continued to approach them with her hands visible. “Curious about what?” she asked peaceably.

Sevenset moved to the side, revealing the display screen and gesturing at it. “This?” he demanded. Fives flanked the doctor and corralled her towards the screen. “What is it?”

“That is a structural inhibitor chip,” she explained, her voice never changing. It always freaked him out that Kaminoans had little to no inflection. Like somehow, their scientific findings had placed them above emotions. “It is supposed to prevent you from being aggressive,” she went on, looking over her shoulder at Fives, who still had a blaster on her. “Like your source, Jango Fett.”

Sevenset laughed. Dry and cynical. “Less aggressive?” he said. “I’m sorry, have you met some of the Alphas? And who thinks of putting an inhibitor on aggression in soldiers, eh?”

“Jedi Master Sypho Dias instructed us to introduce these structures during the growth cycle,” Nala Se replied evenly.

Fives blinked, casting a glance at Sevenset. “The Jedi did this?”

“No way.” Sevenset shook his head. “If the Jedi wanted this done—if they were the ones to blueprint this thing—then why did General Ti have no idea about it? She’s been here for ages.”

Nala Se’s enormous eyes narrowed. “I do not pretend to know the workings of the Jedi.”

“The Jedi wouldn’t do this,” he repeated, pointing to the tower of tubies next to them.

“It is not uncommon to put inhibitors in clones.”

AZ had spun his body around and dug out Tup’s chip. “I have analyzed clone Tup’s inhibitor chip. Apparently, it has failed.”

“Until this point,” Nala Se said, glaring at Fives, “there has never been a problem.”

“Well, I specialize in making my own problems,” Sevenset told her, taking a step toward her.

“And you’ve got a big one right now,” Fives growled, nudging the nose of his blaster into the small of the doctor’s back for emphasis.

Sevenset saw the door open this time, allowing General Ti and a few Kamino Guards into the room. Fives darted around Nala Se, keeping her between them and the new threats.

“Don’t move!” one of the guards ordered as they ran.

They came to a stop upon realizing the doctor was between them and their targets. General Ti ignited her lightsaber. “Drop your weapon,” she demanded.

“Did you know about this?” Fives replied, jerking his head to indicate the display screen. “The inhibitor chips the Jedi ordered them to put in our brains?”

She surveyed them, calculating. “I have no recollection of any one of my Order informing me of such things. Do you have evidence?”

AZ whirred forward, still holding Tup’s chip. “Right here,” he said. “This is the chip taken from clone trooper Tup. As you can see, it appears blackened and rotten. This sickness caused the malfunction.”

“But what caused the sickness?” the Jedi wanted to know.

“We don’t know,” Sevenset admitted.

“It doesn’t matter!” Fives argued. “What matters is it happened. And it could happen again. More clones could turn against their Jedi, or their brothers. The entire Republic Army could be compromised if someone figured out a way to activate these chips on purpose!”

That was something Sevenset had not considered yet. It hadn’t occurred to him that these chips might have a purpose outside of… well, they didn’t know yet. What if there was a manual activation? Or a secret code?

“There is no proof of any of this!” Nala Se interjected, finally showing some of the frustration she must have been feeling for a while. “This is an isolated incident. Besides, when you removed Tup’s chip, his health deteriorated immensely.”

Rude.

“We’re fine, aren’t we?” Fives said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“What does that matter?”

“We removed our chips as well,” Sevenset said, pointing to the bandage over the incision on his skull.

AZ held up the chips. “Here they are, very healthy.”

“Then you are both threats and should be considered dangerous,” Nala Se said sharply. “Master Jedi, they should be terminated immediately.”

“I am not a piece of kriffing hardware!” Fives exclaimed, and Sevenset had to agree with him on his anger.

“We’re ARC troopers,” he added. “We’ve laid our lives on the line for the Republic countless times, and you want to terminate us because we found out about your chips?”

“Because you have removed your chips,” Nala Se hissed at him. “And technically, you are both property of the Kaminoan government.”

Sevenset blinked, honestly shocked. He knew the Kaminoans weren’t to be trusted, nor did they place any real value in a trooper’s life, but to hear it like that? To actually be labeled property? He’d have gotten no better on Nal Hutta. Or Zyggeria! Were these chips… they couldn’t be slave chips, could they?

“Correction.” General Ti’s strong voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. She extinguished her blade and lowered the hilt to her side. “Technically, they are ‘property’ of the Republic.”

“They are a danger to themselves and to others,” Nala Se argued, her small head swaying on her long neck as she struggled to remain civilized. “They must be terminated.”

“Oh, for Maker’s sake,” Sevenset spat. “Just say killed. It’s what you mean, right? You wanna kill us? Don’t hide behind words as long as your neck.”

“I believe,” said General Ti, cutting off the doctor’s reply, “their fates are for me to decide.” She lifted her chin. “Fives, you are coming with me to Coruscant. Sevenset will accompany him. You will tell your story to the Chancellor.”

The Chancellor? He was going to see the Chancellor himself? Not an aide, not Mas Amedda, but the actual, real-live Chancellor, who got his robe unravelled by Commander Thire that one time?

Nala Se finally moved, harshly pushing away the blaster Fives had been holding half-heartedly at her chest. “Master Jedi—”

“Sounds great, when do we leave?” Sevenset interrupted, hurrying to get ahead of her.

He could feel Nala Se’s enormous grey eyes boring into the back of his head.

“The chancellor wanted all the data on Tup, correct?” General Ti continued, a confident light in her eyes as she typed something into her comm unit. “We’re sending the data, Tup’s tumor, and the two other samples, and Fives and Sevenset will go with them.”

The Kaminoan doctor drew herself up to her full, impressive height. “Then I am going with them.”

Oh, please no. Sevenset had exactly zero desire to spend several hours in hyperspace with her anywhere near him. He saw Fives felt similarly, and he turned his gaze to the general, hoping to communicate just how much he didn’t want this to happen.

But her hands must have been tied. She narrowed her eyes slightly, but agreed. “As you wish, Doctor.”

The door opened yet again, admitting a small team of Kamino Guards bearing two stretchers between them. Sevenset watched Fives sit down on one before doing the same on the other.

“Thank you, General,” Fives said as the Jedi began to turn away. “For believing us.”

“It’s not a matter of belief, Fives,” she told him, her face impassible. “It is simply the right thing to do.”

…Jedi.

In watching her leave, Sevenset was caught off guard by one of the guards approaching him with a syringe in his hand. He instantly shied away from it, holding a hand up. “Whoa, hold on. What is that?” He looked over to Fives, seeing him rub his neck as another guard walked away from him.

“A weak sedative.”

“I don’t want a sedative,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s weaker than a day-old porg.”

“It’s preventative.”

“Against?” he asked, a little flummoxed. “What, you think I’m gonna jump up and escape? Escape where?”

“It’s not my call,” the guard replied, sounding a little apologetic.

He glanced up at Nala Se, whose back was to him as she followed the general out of the room. Probably standard procedure. Probably. He still didn’t want it.

“Don’t give it to me, or I will jump up and do something about it,” he said, then lay back on the stretcher. “Now get going.”

The guard looked confused, standing there without purpose. But eventually, the guard manning the stretcher just shook his head and turned him toward the doors. Good. His method of wasting people’s time until they gave him what he wanted was still effective. Now… on to Coruscant.

What will happen on Coruscant?? What will the chancellor do?? Will Nala Se finally hit her head on a doorframe?? All that and MORE next month ;) Unless I can't help myself and I post it for the Number Lads 1 year anniversary this month In addition: Maral Tumun is another OC by my friend 23-bears and me. I drew her during OC-tober last year, here.

@23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @persimminwrites @beskarmermaid @darth-void @rndmpeep

#i write things sometimes #star wars fanfic #the clone wars #tcw fanfic #clone trooper ocs #star wars ocs #pantoran oc #mandalorian oc #arc trooper sevenset #arc trooper fives #clone trooper tup #nala se #shaak ti #kaminoans #number lads #numbers gang

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hana-akari · 7 months

Text

Starter for @hatredcurse

For as long as Sakura could remember, she was able to see things. See things that no one else could. It was unknown to her, that it was a trait all female members of her family had. There was more to that diamond on her forehead than just a birthmark.

She did remember her mother had the same mark before she died.

Sakura was only five years old when a vengeful demon set fire to her family home. She was the only one that was able to be saved from the burning house. Her parents perished that night. They weren’t even able to recover the bodies. While the villagers all said it was just a tragic accident, Sakura argued and stated it was a demon that did it. The only one to believe her was the Father of the local church. Everyone else waved off her claims, assuming the young girl was making up stories to cope with what happened.

It was The Father that ended up adopting young Sakura. Bringing her into the church. Teaching her the faith and how to follow it. He used her strong spiritual power to rid the small village of demons. Sakura was able to perform exorcisms at a young age successfully. The Father was always at her side overseeing it all.

Some of the Sisters that lived on the church grounds with Sakura and The Father grew a bit jealous of Sakura’s special treatment. While Sakura was also a Sister, she was also the daughter of the head of the church. Putting her a bit in a position of power. And with that power, it alienated her from the other women. Even when Sakura tried to be friendly with the other Sister’s they turned a cold shoulder to her. She didn’t mind all that much. Growing used to doing things alone. The Father was in and out of the church often, so she didn’t even have him sometimes.

All she had was her faith.

And now her faith was being tested.

Her spiritual energy could be a curse at times. Drawing demons too her, wishing to pull her from her faith. Break her. But she had always been able to banish them. Until now. Now she was being faced with a demon that her powers didn’t affect at all. One night he just appeared on the church grounds and upon noticing that Sakura could see him, he started targeting her.

She didn’t understand why he didn’t outright attack her. Given the fact that he could stand on holy grounds unharmed, and deflect her attempts at banishing him. He could very easily just kill her, and everyone in the church. Instead, he made himself a thorn in her side. Causing messes. Scaring the other Sisters. It seemed to annoy him a bit that he couldn’t scare her. The most annoying part about the whole thing was she was often blamed for the messes he caused, and ended up having to clean up after him.

The demon didn’t scare her per say but the fact that he could pop in anywhere at any time made sleeping uncomfortable. Sakura kept expecting him to show up in her room. Plenty of books would be thrown at him if he did. Demon or not, he was still a man! Men don’t belong in a nun’s room!

Sakura’s heels echoed the empty halls of the church. She held up a lantern to light her way as she walked. No one liked to be out at night anymore, so it was up to her to go through and make sure the gates were locked and the church was secured for the night. Her ears perked to what sounded like shredding paper. It was coming from the worship hall. Right where she was going. Sakura could feel a sigh bubbling up in her throat.

Preparing herself for what mess lay ahead, Sakura took a deep breath, before pushing open the old oak doors.

And what a mess it was… Torn paper scattered the floor like snow. Not just any paper, but torn pages of the new bibles they had just gotten. All of them had been reduced to shreds, and she was no doubt going to be blamed for it. The demon had seated himself right on the altar in the center of the room. Making a mockery of everything.

The moonlight shone through the stained glass windows, bathing the demon in color. Truly, he was a beautiful man. Even his wings and horns held beauty. Sakura would never admit to any of that. In fact, it felt like a sin even thinking such things. He was a monster. Enemy of the church. Anger bubbled in the small nun as she boldly stormed up to him, snatching the remains of the bible out of his hands,

“You… Just what do you want from me, demon?! You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side the moment you showed up!” Sakura angrily shouted at him. A cold gust of wind blew past her, blowing her clothes, and causing her lantern to go out. Leaving her in darkness with the demon. All save for the moonlight coming in from the windows. She dropped the lantern, her hand reaching for and wrapping around the cross on her neck,

“I’m not afraid of you. My faith will protect me.”

#blooming lights: ic #I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife: (v. Nun)#This accidentally turned long af #you dont have to match

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themoomoorn · 2 years

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26, 27, and 28? :o

Hoo boy

26. Who is your overall favorite character?

Probably Ignatz. On top of being one of the stronger Deer in terms of characterization, he's kind of a comfort character too - a wealthy artist and knight who glows up, geeks out on history and mythology, and is generally well-liked by most of his peers, plus he's a very fun unit to tweak with in gameplay. There's something also touching in how he's very loyal to Claude and willing to fight against the Empire if not poached and he doesn't go about it in a weird lackadaisical fashion like Hilda.

Remaining top 5 includes Balthus, Rhea, Claude, Flayn, and Dimitri.

27. Which character do you feel “meh” about?

Shamir. She's boring. She's also one of the biggest fanservice pulls and I honestly get it...because she's uncomplicated and fits certain slots that get minimal expansion (hot foreigner who isn't dark-skinned/Stoic archer who softens with certain love interests especially Male Byleth/Has pronounced sexual tension with female characters that Hopes takes advantage of/Giant booba). Tellingly, she's Toshiyuki Kusakihara's (director of Houses/Producer of Hopes) favorite character.

28. What character do you not like at all / hate?

I know it's cheating, but the most visceral reactions I've had are to five characters in particular (healthy, I know). So without further ado, the Bottom 5:

5. Monica. We all know Holst and nu-Judith and nu-Nader were GTA-style Wasted(tm), but none were Wasted(tm) as badly as Monica. This alleged "epitome" of wlw is little more than a paper-thin version of Faye from Echoes, or worse yet, a flanderization on Soleil from Fates. Monica's presence combined with the execution of Hopes' story is the final nail in the coffin for Fodlan having any shot of having a fair and balanced story. To add insult to injury, she's yet another mage on the Eagles when there are already many, and she's not even a good gameplay unit, what with a terrible personal skill and an erratic spell list.

Also, why does it look like she has permanently bugged-out eyes by default? Well, it certainly fits, doesn't it.

4. Jeritza. Double standards ahoy - when one character's tragedy and implied mental illness is portrayed fairly realistically and his arc is presented to make the player feel uncomfortable, this guy gets a melodramatic rendition of a split personality (with the DLC add-on for Houses wiping away any indication that he's just plain cruel) and is woobified and cutesy...fied, with the writing telling the player that no, you're supposed to find him tragic and cute and a kicked puppy, never mind that he's otherwise as intriguing as the sugar he eats. What could've been a nice deconstruction of the Black Knight (as in, no tragedy to be found, only a bloodthirsty, one-sided "rivalry" from an empty-hearted sociopath) is instead used to fuel the game's bizarre need for gap moe (completely failing to realize just how the idea even works) and sympathies for a decidedly unsympathetic imperialistic force.

3. Linhardt. Why Linhardt? Whereas many find his (likely neurodivergent-stemmed) sleepiness and behavior relatable, I've found him to be morally repugnant. Hopes, naturally, made it worse. He's privileged, gives no thought to his status or the ramifications of how he's able to keep up his lifestyle because of it, finds the whole tragedy of the war to be a chore that should be swept under the rug, finds discomfort in violence more in how it repulses him, and most of his apologies for his overly-analytic curiosity towards people like Lysithea and Flayn are half-assed at most, with some endings like Flayn stewing with unfortunate implications. Honestly, he's probably someone who would go along with Edelgard's conquest because of convenience (she does offer him a cushy office job that he probably doesn't deserve in their A-Support, after all), and he'd need more buttering up or state secrets to swap sides.

2. Edelgard. For anyone who's read posts and reblogs, this goes without saying. Seriously though, one goes out of their way to make an amazing idea of a setting with some great characters and then they hack it up and throw it in the dumpster the way poor Denji is at the start of Chainsaw Man for the sake of promoting this poster girl? It'd be one thing if she were just another character like Bernadetta, but she's one of the three leads and she's on the imperialistic side. We now have a spinoff where she gets away with everything and everyone else's "arcs" are varying degrees of "be nice to the Emperor and any resistance is a counter-invasion, she was hurt once and that overrides any pain you feel."

The dissonance between dev intention and the result (and certain fan reactions) is...buck wild.

Three Hopes' version of Claude. This one probably requires its own post, but somehow they mutilated him so much that I've actually become disenchanted with aspects of the canon character from Houses. But in reality, going back to dev notes from 2020, Claude was probably screwed from Day 1.

#ask #ask anon #ask meme #fe3h #few3h #ramblings #there is a rant on characters below the cut so avoid if you'd rather not read

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reiverreturns · 1 year

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top five ac characters who aren't (and here's the catch) eivor, vili, or hemming >:)

oh ky that is CRUEL but okay steamroll my recency bias why don't you

Kassandra - kass is flat out one of the best characters ac has ever made. she's compelling, believable, witty, has actual character progression, and i want her to step on me. there's something about a character that's so bitterly tragic but makes good choices regardless that just GETS me. AND THE IMMORTALITY? WALKING THE EARTH ALONE? SEEING ECHOES OF PEOPLE YOU LOVED THROUGH HISTORY AND ALSO OTHERS BE FORGOTTEN TO THE ANNALS OF TIME? i need to lie down if i think about her too long honestly.

Jacob Frye - yeah yeah still on my 'ac syndicate is the most underrated game in the franchise' bullshit. meathead man who doesn't think things through, got some daddy issues, likes to make jokes, chaotic bisexual. tick tick tick tick you've made a character i will adore A+ ubisoft.

Ratonhnhaké:ton/Connor Kenway - ac3 was the the first assassin's creed game i ever played so i have a very special place in my heart for this boy. from a gameplay perspective, his moveset and animations are EASY my favourite of the whole series - man is brutal af. story-wise, i love his relationship with achilles and how he literally builds a home/community around himself. you can very much read connor's arc as a simple revenge quest but i go feral over how that evolves into a need for a sense of place/identity/home and trying to map the shift across his story. he is also very deadpan which is my sense of humour.

Shaun Hastings - i'm one of those nerds who reads literally every entry and scrap of information in the databases so i have a special affinity for shaun and his lil snidey comments. i really miss his snark in the later entries.

Yusuf Tazim - i haven't played revelations in forever but yusuf has my heart always and forever for constantly making jokes with ezio in his slightly grumpy old man era. it's been 12 years and i'm still wilfully ignoring what happened to him <3

Ask me my Top 5 of anything

#look at me no picking birna rollo et all like a normal person #i need to replay some more ac games because i feel im missing some side characters that i'll kick myself for not mentioning asjksjks #ask games

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monako-jinn-stories · 2 years

Text

Echo X GN!Reader Fanfic

Moonlight Trails ~ Part 2

The part two that I forgot about because I got caught up in other stories. Thank you @hootydoot for letting me use their art again!

I tried to write this to match the flow of the first chapter and it ended up mixing my new style of writing with my old style. I think it’s kinda funky but I hope it’s okay

Master List

Part One

As you walk along the trail, you can’t help but be amazed that after everything, Echo seems to remember it perfectly. And you’re glad, because you’ve only been on it once, and that was when Fives gave you your ring. The ring that now stood for your engagement to Echo, and not just your loss of him.

But as you walk along, there’s a new emptiness in your heart. Fives is gone now, and though Echo is back at your side, you can’t help but deeply miss his crafty twin. You would give anything to see them together again, hear their laughs as they joke, but you know that this time, there’s no revival. Fives is truly gone, and Echo never got to say goodbye.

The night is cold like the first time you were here, and the breeze flows the same. You almost think that the force, or whatever higher being that may be out there, is purposely doing this. Making you relive one of the most tragic and heartbreaking nights of your life.

When Echo had shown up at your door, you couldn’t believe your eyes. You took in his state, significantly less healthy than how he’d left you, but he was Echo. He was still the same man in your heart, and you’d nearly collapsed in his arms when you flung yourself at him.

You walk silently behind him now, not sure of what to say. Was there really anything you could say? He turns back every few minutes to make sure you’re keeping pace, and each time you smile softly at him. You see the flicker of happiness each time before it’s drowned out by the sorrow and grief you both feel. The only thing he’s said to you since you arrived on the planet was “are you sure you want to go? It’ll be quite cold and snowy. You can just wait here while I-.” You’d cut him off and told him yes, that you wanted to be there. He’d smiled at you and nodded, taking your hand as you walked down the ship ramp.

~~~

The knock on your door startles you, as no one has been to visit since Fives died. You aren’t close to any other members of the 501st, and so you don’t know who would be there. You can’t help but wonder if maybe you’ve accidentally gotten in trouble, or maybe mixed up with someone. But when you open the door and your eyes land on the man standing there, your world comes crashing down for a third time.

When you finally manage to speak, you don’t even know if he hears you, but there’s tears streaming down his face. His eyes hold pain and joy, heartbreak and hope, and when he steps forward to wrap you in his arms, you pull him in tighter.

When you both calm, you lead him to your couch. Neither of you knows what to say or where to start. Eventually you get the courage to ask the question hanging over you, and Echo explains. You feel your heart breaking all over when he tells you what he went through, and you fight the rage that wants to boil over. You want to assure him that he’d never be hurt like that again, but you know you can’t. It breaks you more to know that, no matter how much you want, you’ll never be able to protect him.

And then the next hard part comes. You don’t want to be the one to have to tell him, or remind him if he already knows, but you know you have to say something. You take a breath, and Echo notices your struggle. He reaches over and grabs your hand, rubbing his thumb over it gently. And then he freezes. His eyes stay glued to your ring finger, and it takes you a second to figure out why.

You smile softly as he touches the ring, something flashing in his eyes. But it fades, a realization washing over him. He hadn’t been the one to give it to you, like he’d wanted, and the only person who knew about it, other than him, was Fives. Fives had wanted you to have that last gift from Echo, he’d wanted you to know how much he truly loved you.

“I need to take you somewhere.” The sentence hit you like a punch to the gut. The way Echo handed you your boots before waiting by the door was all too similar to how Fives had done the same once before. You quickly slipped your boots on, and let Echo lead you out of your home.

Unsurprisingly, he took you to the GAR hangar. Once there, he boarded a ship that you’d never seen before. It wasn’t like the regular gunships you knew, it was unique. He led the way up the boarding ramp and through the ship until you reached the cockpit. He sent a brief comm to someone named Tech, telling him he was taking the ship, and he’d be back by night.

“Echo, where are we going?” you asked, and he briefly looked away from the viewport to acknowledge your question. Another hint of sadness lingered in his eyes, but he smiled as he spoke to you.

“There’s a special place I want you to see. Fives used to love going there with me.” You nodded silently, a small feeling tingling in you, telling you that you’d already been to this place. And it was likely that you had, because Fives had told you that the place he took you was somewhere Echo had loved, the two of them finding it together.

Echo was silent as you flew, and he kept fidgeting with something you couldn’t see in his hand. What you did see, however, was him fighting back the tears that threatened to spill. You could see his heart aching, and you reached out to comfort him. He smiled at you when you placed your hand on his arm before refocusing out the viewport.

You looked out as well, and just like the first and only other time you’d been in hyperspace, your breath was taken away. The stars flying past were beautiful beyond words, and the promise Echo had made before came back to your mind. The promise that he’d be the first to take you out here.

He turned to look at you, taking in your expression. You knew he could see that this wasn’t the first time you’d experienced this, but he didn’t say anything. He just watched as your eyes glowed in the light from outside the ship.

“He took you out here didn’t he?” Echo asked quietly.

“Yes…but he’d said that he wished it could have been you first.”

“Well, I’m glad he was able to take you on my behalf. Couldn’t have asked for a better vod to do so.” You turned to look at him, a sad smile coming to your face to match his. He slipped his hand in his pocket, storing away whatever he was fidgeting with, before he reached out and held your face in his hand. You turned to kiss his palm, relishing in the feeling of his warmth on your skin once more after so long apart.

“Fives was a constant reminder that, even with you gone, you still loved me,” you whispered, and tears slipped out of Echo’s eyes. His lips quivered as he tried to keep his smile, but you stood and closed the distance between the two of you. You wrapped your arms around him and pulled him to lean against your chest, letting him sob against you. You didn’t need to be force sensitive to feel the weight of his grief, and it broke your heart even more.

Once he calmed, he pulled back and looked up at you with a small laugh. You quirked a brow at him, wondering what he could possibly be finding funny right now.

“I forgot how grounding you are,” he mumbled, and you smiled down at him.

“Fives thought the same when he brought me out here,” you replied. After a few seconds, you both turned to watch as the ship came out of hyperspace. The planet you’d been to once before looked like the most familiar place to you. Its beauty was still unmatched, and you only tore your eyes away when Echo spoke to you.

“Are you sure you want to go? It’ll be quite cold and snowy, You can just wait here while I-”

“Yes, I’m sure, Echo. Whatever you’re doing, I want to be there.” He smiled and nodded at you, taking your hand in his as he led you down the ramp.

~~~

The trail is familiar to you as you follow behind Echo. Soon enough, you both can tell you’re close, and Echo picks up the pace. He’s eager and dreading this at the same time, and you just hope that, whatever he’s doing, he can find peace.

When you reach the clearing, Echo slows, and you grip slightly tighter onto his hand. He looks at you as you give him a reassuring smile, reminding him that he’s not alone. He smiles back, taking a breath before stepping forwards.

You both gasp as you look up at the sky, the colors dancing together like they had before. Even though it wasn’t a new sight, it was still captivating. The array of colors glow on Echo’s skin, and you watch as tears come to his eyes again. He was staring up at the stars, watching them glow from above.

“It’s just like the times me and him came here,” he whispers, and you step closer, resting your head on his shoulder. He doesn’t move his eyes from the stars, instead he searches for something. What that is, you don’t quite know, but you feel you can make a good guess.

“He’s with us here now,” you reply, and a single tear falls down his cheek. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what he’d been fidgeting with. When you look down, you notice it’s a clump of hair.

“He’d wanted us to each keep a clump of each other’s hair when we’d given each other our first haircuts after graduation,” Echo explains. “He said it was a symbol that we’d grown and were men now. Before he…before everything, I always thought it was weird and gross, but now this is all I have left of him to…put to rest.”

“Is that why you’re here?” you ask, “to lay the last piece of him you have to rest in a place you know he’d want to be?”

“Yes,” he says, but it’s barely audible. The only way you know that he’d actually spoken was the fog that came when he let out his breath in the chilly air. You slowly release your grip on him and watch as he takes a few steps forwards. He then kneels, brushing the snow away under a tree.

“We sat here the first time,” he mumbles, starting to dig a small hole in the exposed ground. “So, I think this is where he should rest eternally.”

“I agree,” you say, and stand behind him as he places the clump of hair in the small hole. He then covers it, reburying it under snow. When he stands, more tears are streaming down his face. He doesn’t turn to you yet, not until he says his final goodbye.

“I miss you, vod. Don’t march too far without me.” Echo breaks again, and you’re instantly there to hold him. He holds you tight, and drags you down with him as he falls to his knees. You feel your own tears spilling, your grief rising again for the brother of your love. He’d been the one to set the two of you up, and you owe him everything for that. But you can’t repay him, it’s too late for that.

“You know, when he brought me here, Fives had said the brightest star was your soul,” you say. “But then it dimmed, and I now know that’s because your soul wasn’t really in it. But now, I know the brightest star is his soul, because it’s glowing brighter and stronger than all the others.”

“He was always the brightest one of us all,” Echo responds. “The happiest, funniest, most cheerful. Always looking for a way to brighten up the room. And now he gets to brighten up the night sky.” You nod against him, and neither of you notice as the snow starts to fall around you. You stay there for what could have been hours, or seconds. You’re not sure, but when you move, a fine layer of snow falls from you both.

And when you reach the ship, you both look back up, and that bright star is still shining, twinkling at you. It reminds you of Fives’s cheeky wink, and the goofy smirk that always accompanied it.

If you enjoyed this, comments, reblogs, and messages are greatly appreciated!

Tag list! Use this Tag List Form if you would like to be added or removed! @lonely-day3636 @echo-is-worth-more-than-2000 @imabeautifulbutterfly @m-o-o-n-s-g-o-o-n-s @tacticalsparkles @namesmox @crosshairxs @milppa @techssexythighs @paige6768 @rintheemolion @leosdrumset @lightning-wolffe @ilikemymendarkandfictional @megafrost4 @darkangel4121 @hedahobbit98 @shuttlelauncher81 @sleepy-tog @littlemisscare-all @nahoney22 @ladykatakuri @that-one-weeb-but-starwars @rain-on-kamino @shadowwing1324 @salaminus @southernbaguette @wolfpack-arts-industries99 @remuslupinsfatass @oo-hazel-oo @pshhbam @howlerwolfmax @bloodmoon-bites @misogirl828 @i-donot-want-it

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tricoloured-cat · 2 years

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For @thatdazaikin: here is a lengthy post about a small list of works of Kunikida-sensei's that I've read. I'm not sure how to describe his writing except for "it's very Meiji-era" HAHA

Here is a VERY short bio for those who are interested:

Kunikida Doppo (1871-1908) published poetry and short stories which were, depending on who you ask, romantic and/or naturalistic in nature. Regardless of what one might decide his works to be, it can be said that his significance as a Meiji-era author is due to his influence in the birth of Japanese naturalism (considered to be started by Tayama Katai. Yes the BSD refs are real). Throughout his life Kunikida had struggled in many areas of his life - finances, romances, and other personal successes - which shaped his personal views and inevitably his writing.

Sources for everything here: River Mist and Other Stories (tr. David Chibbett) and Five Stories by Kunikida Doppo (Jay Rubin)

(some of) Kunikida-sensei's works casually reviewed by a casual reader

DISCLAIMER: I do not have any formal education in literature, moreover Japanese literature. These personal opinions are from someone who just likes reading and the BSD franchise.

Let me start with my general opinion of Kunikida-sensei: I wouldn't say he's my favorite author of the era (it's Natsume-sensei for the Meiji period for me ehe), but he's quite interesting to say the least.

His writing style is a mix of personal angst and lots of nature descriptions. I can see it being a hindrance for some to enjoy his stories (because it certainly was for me, at least in the beginning) but I do believe it adds a peculiar charm. Hopefully you'll still give his works a shot!

Old Gen tagging: @requiem626k for this story, jic you might be interested!

This is what Kunikida-sensei himself considers as his true first "work of fiction." It's mostly a tragic story with no reason for being tragic than because it is. The imagery of water and winter here is quite beautiful, I think, but I do feel that although the emotional punch is strong in the end the overall structure of the story could have been more concise. But this is still my favorite work of his (so far, at least).

Unforgettable People

It's half-story, half-essay. Similar to Old Gen the impressionistic descriptions of certain events in the story is quite beautiful, but I think that the strength of this piece lies in its message. My concern with this story is also similar to Old Gen.

Letter from Yugahara

It's one of those "if I could tag Nobuko I would" type of stories. Honestly just a young man being a little dramatic HAHA it's sort of cute yet 100% relatable.

An Honest Man

Honestly, I didn't know what I expected from the title. Certainly not the type of protagonist I expected from Kunikida-sensei, but the central idea is interesting nonetheless. The themes (especially with the woman) I've noticed are quite common in Japanese literature in general (but especially later, up to around Dazai-sensei's time).

River Mist

This is the closest to autobiographical, I think. While most of his works were based on real people, this one echoes his own feelings and frustrations quite well. It's considered to be one of, if not the best of work Kunikida-sensei's. It has a lot of water imagery (again - he really likes water) and children (he really likes children - in the good sense, mind you) that portray the inner torment of the protagonist.

Currently reading: Meat and Potatoes (will edit this post once I'm done I just can't get to reading it without getting hungry HAHA)

Well, that's it for now! Maybe you can recommend some of these to your professor? Five Stories (which includes Old Gen, Unforgettable People, and An Honest Man) are free to read on JSTOR so yes. HAHA

#kunikida doppo #japanese literature #should i tag this as bsd lol #i'm going to just post my jlit stuff here lol

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palpipeen · 2 years

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Future Fics Planner...thing

Okay y'all so I'm going to unleash this into the wild, y'all get to decide which one I do next. (Besides the first one, I'm gonna be writing that one on the side adjacent to the rest.) This is by no means a finished list, I'll be updating this when I get more ideas (or when I get suggestions, WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE) so keep an eye on it!

Mentions of NSFW themes but nothing overt but MINORS DNI, stuff is under the cut

Hardcase - Between a Rock and a Hardcase Timeline: Beginning of the Galactic War-Post War This one's a Canon x OC fic that I've been picking away at for a month or two now and it is my ABSOLUTE BABY!!!!! It'll be a multi-chapter fic with an adjacent story that does all the smutty bits. Hardcase and Syd meet in a very ridiculous and humorous way - par for the course with Hardcase. Despite their best efforts not to get involved with anyone years after the tragic end of a bad relationship, Syd finds themself really into Hardcase, and vice versa. This takes place in the 'And Nothing Bad Ever Happened AU' it's a fix-it fic, GONNA HAVE MY CAKE AND EAT IT TOO. Themes: Fake Dating, Strangers to Friends to Besties to Lovers, Hardcase and Syd smoke a lot of dank and they bond over it, Porn with Feelings, Healthy Polyamory, Idiots in Love

Kix - Make You Melt Timeline: Post-Thaw You’re a smuggler that the pirate crew Kix is running with caught - and Kix doesn’t like you one bit. A one-shot of you meeting Kix as their long-term prisoner, because you’re good at what you do even for a solo-career criminal. Eventually, the tension reaches a head, and angry sex happens after you get wounded. Themes: Enemies to Fuck Buddies, Banter, Morally Gray Characters, Porn with Feeling but the feeling is mutual distrust that borders on outright hostility, Hint at feelings

Fives - Ride it Out Timeline: Height of the Galactic War You and Fives have been best friends since the two of you met. You didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, not that you regret it. And you’re fine with it never being anything else - no really, you are. But then Echo calls you on your bullshit. On your birthday of all days, in the middle of Fives throwing you the best party a clone trooper can afford. Fives has to comfort you when his twin makes you cry, and comforting turns into…well, it’s something. Themes: Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Oblivious Reader, Porn with A LOT of Feelings, Echo is the best wingman

Rex - The Stranger Timeline: Post O66 You’ve worked in this bar for most of your adult life, on a planet where nothing except the odd sandstorm or shoot out between local gangs happens. You’ve kept your head down and yourself out of trouble - until trouble comes walking in. Multi-part series of the hooded stranger who saves your life when you get a dangerous customer, and how you begin to fall for him. Themes: Strangers to Lovers, They’re fuck buddies to just vent out sexual frustrations and then they’re lovers, It’s a space western but with Rex

Echo - By the Book Timeline: Height of the Galactic War You’ve watched Echo help his twin get the relationship he wanted with the person Fives loved the most - but what about Echo? He says it’s fine if his brother bends the rules behind closed doors, but he has to uphold the standards ARCs are held to. You manage to convince him otherwise in part 1. Part 2 details how the two of you find each other again during the events of TBB - and how those flings became something else. Themes: Fuck Buddies to Maybe Lovers???, It’s complicated, Echo is a Service Top, Reader is a Bratty Verse, Shenanigans Ensue

Commander Cody - Read Between the Lines Timeline: Height of the Galactic War One-off of you being the transcriber for all of Cody’s meetings. One of which happens on the battlefield - you try to save one of the soldiers and nearly get yourself killed. A lot of angst and Cody sort of calling you an idiot that leads to you two spilling your guts and having quick, needy sex. Themes: Oblivious Reader, Hints that more will happen but fuck if I’m gonna write it (I know next to nothing about Cody)

Captain Howzer - Rebel With a Cause Timeline: Post-O66 Multi-part series of you being in the inner circle of Ryloth’s govt as an advisor/transcriber, meaning you work in close contact with Howzer frequently. The two of you were not well acquainted despite your desire to be - you’ve had a huge crush on him since day one. As the Empire demilitarized Ryloth and began making orders to harm innocent civilians, you decide that you have to do something about it, and make plans to try and help. When Howzer is detained for turning against the Empire, you manage to turn in a few favors to create a distraction and save him and his fellow defectors. Overlaps with The Stranger when you, Howzer and his men all agree to rendezvous there after finding coded messages from Rex. Howzer stays with you, and over the course of your journeys, the two of you pine over each other until a close call makes Howzer confess just how big of a crush he’s always had on you. Themes: Oblivious Reader strikes again, strangers to friends to lovers, reader is the hero (but is really clumsy and awkward about it)

Din Djarin - The Regular Timeline: Sometime after Season 2 idk Multi-part series about a bartender that has been one of Mando's informants for years. It's not the greatest setup, but you've managed to keep yourself from getting killed for the most part. Getting shot at is another matter altogether, but that's neither here nor there. But the amount of times you get shot at increases exponentially when Mando shows up with a weird green wizard baby, needing shelter until the heat is off his back. The heat being the guard of the town your bar is in. Somehow no one suspects that Mando is holed up in the abandoned factory you've converted into your home, until you manage to sneak him out. Then the whole town turns against you, and Mando has no choice but to help you out. Themes: Idiots to Lovers, Reader has a big ol' crush on Mando but doesn't know it until it's almost too late, Reader is a snarky asshole

Caf Delivery Service: Help Wanted/Running with the Wolves Another OC x Canon story bc I can't help myself. If the title of the second part isn't a dead giveaway, this one's about Commander Wolffe, and my OC I still need to introduce June. June is sick of life on the only planet they've lived on and the toxic relationship with their family, so they flee to Coruscant to attend university there. But not before making a stop in a space station not far from home shortly after the Clone Wars begin. It's there that they meet someone and have a one-night stand, but both lose contact with each other shortly before June is fully settled in on Coruscant. Once money gets tight they get a job at The Senator's Coaster after meeting one of the shift managers (Syd) who lives in their apartment complex. After agreeing to take on delivery services to the Coruscant Guard, June meets someone they never thought they'd see again: Commander Wolffe. Themes: Sort-of Enemies to Lovers, More like antagonistic Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, HUUUUGE Character Growth Arcs

Roach - Unnamed OC x OC Story This one features @jango-fettish's boy Roach and my creechur Koryn. Koryn's an auxiliary civilian mechanic who meets Roach through their mutual best friend, Riggs. These two are a couple of stubborn assholes and this story will just chronicle the change from pseudo-rivals over their status of who's the better mechanic to fucking their frustrations out with each other. Themes: Rivals to Fuck Buddies, Healthy polyamory, Disabled characters, Character Growth through Unconventional Relationships

#Hardcase x OC #Kix x Reader #Fives x Reader #Captain Rex x Reader #Echo x Reader #Cody x Reader #Captain Howzer x Reader #writer.txt #Mandalorian x Reader #Commander Wolffe x Reader #OC: Koryn Dunn #Koryn x Roach

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kbirbpods · 4 months

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Look below the cut for kbirb's @purimgifts 2024 letter (a little late, I'm sorry, it's been so hectic these past few days)

For reference, check out my "dear podficcer" letter from ITPE, which goes into more detail, as I know we want to keep these short and sweet! (It doesn't look short because bullet points but trust me... I tend to be wordier)

Hi! I'm kbirb on ao3 or Kaje to the wider internet/many of my IRL friends. I'm a nonbinary creator - typically podfics & graphics, though I do occasionally spill words onto a page and call it writing. I started podding in August 2022.

I think it's easiest to put it this way:

Triggers/Squicks/No-Thank-Yous:

Rape/non-con/dub con - with the caveat of rape recovery and abuse recovery being something I do enjoy in stories

Incest - I understand that to some portions of the fandom, clone shipping is called clonecest, but I do ship clones (with some caveats)

Underage/power dynamics - as a teacher, it's a major no from me

On-screen suicide/suicidal ideation - aka, if a character is recovering from suicidal ideation? That's fine. A character commits the act or seriously considers it? No thank you. It's easier to just say a blanket no to it

Cockroaches - idk I just hate them so much

Yes Please Times 1,000:

Slice of life

Modern AUs

Fluff in general

Hurt/comfort

Soulmate AUs (my faves)

Period piece AUs (especially regency era, oh my)

No Order 66

Crackfic

My favorite ships (applicable to this exchange, so focused on Jewish characters/women/Jewish women):

I tried to pick from all the fandoms I listed but I like a lot of gen fic in some of them. Especially ones like OFMD where there's not that many women in the first place, so I like fics that focus on women being power houses.

Star Wars [most of my SW ships are M/M so this is a little limited]: Ahsoka / any woman ever (well not ever but you get it), Kanin/Hera, Jyn/Cassian, Bail/Breha/Fox, Bly/Ayla

Ted Lasso: Keeley/Roy, Keeley/Roy/Jamie, Rebecca & Keeley, Rebecca & Ted

Batfam/DCU/Young Justice: Harley/Ivy, Kate Kane/any woman ever (again, not ever, but you get it), Jason/Kori/Roy, Artemis/Wally, Barbara/Dinah, Barbara/Kara, Barbara/Dick, Selina/Bruce, Selina/Harley/Ivy

The Locked Tomb: Gideon/Harrow, the fucked up polycule that created Gideon

The Adventure Zone: Lup/Lucretia, Lup/Lucretia/Barry, Aubrey/Dani

The Old Guard: Quynh/Andy

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow/Tara, Buffy/Spike, Buffy & Willow, Buffy & Tara

Six of Crows: Inej/Kaz, Inej/Nina, Nina/Mattias

The Good Place: Eleanor/Chidi, Eleanor/Tahani

My favorite canonically Jewish characters from my listed fandoms (tragically there is only a few due to the fantasy world element of many of my fandoms):

Harley Quinn (DC)

Kate Kane (DC)

[some versions of] Bruce Wayne (DC)

[some versions of] Barry Allen (DC)

Agnus McDonald (TAZ)

Willow Rosenburg (BtVS)

Also Roy Kent, my favorite character in all of media, is played by a Jewish actor.

I really like fics that portray Bruce as Jewish, due to Kate (his cousin) being Jewish, and especially ones that branch into exploring Judaism for the entirety of the Batfam. For example, I recently did a podfic of one for ITPE that was different Hanukkah stories!

Further, I love love love any fics surrounding trans women or really any fics that bring a new focus to a character that we haven't seen before!

Trans Clones!! My favorite thing ever in the SW universe. I have several of my own nonbinary/trans woman clone OCs. If you wish to make any characters trans, the only clone/clone ship I do not ship is Cody/Rex because they feel like siblings to me. My favorite clone/clone ships that could be made trans are: Rex/Bacara, Wooley/Longshot, Waxer/Boil, Hevy/Fives/Echo, Fox/Fives/Echo. My favorite clone/jedi ships that can be made trans are: trans!Bly/Ayla, Cody/Obi-Wan, Fox/Quinlan, Hevy/Jon Antilles, Fox/Jon Antilles, Fox/Quinlan/Jon Antilles

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me in an anonymous ask... or reach out to my best friend, FLOWERPARRISH, on discord if you know zir/on here and ze won't tell me who you are. Ze knows me very very well & might even be better to ask if you don't want to spoil a podfic or anything!!

#purimgifts #dear creator #dear podficcer #dear author #dear writer #purim #purim gifts #purim exchange #kbirb #okay wordier than i wanted but i am incapable of talking only a little #it's my fatal flaw #sorry not sorry???????

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spiderdreamer-blog · 2 years

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GARGOYLES: THE TOP TEN EPISODES (WITH FIVE HONORABLE MENTIONS)

It is not an exaggeration to say that Batman: The Animated Series is as influential as The Simpsons in changing the face of American TV animation in the 1990s. Its dark, noirish aesthetic, complex writing, and stellar voice cast paved the way for action cartoons to evolve and grow. Even Disney felt the need to branch out at the time, calling on Batman episodic director Frank Paur and a development executive/former DC comics writer named Greg Weisman to create Gargoyles, which ironically started life as something far more akin to their typical comedy-adventure Disney Afternoon lineup. But Gargoyles was no mere Batman copy, quickly developing its own identity with a focus on a then-unique serialized consequences-driven narrative, an ever-growing fantasy/sci-fi kitchen sink, and medieval history. It has its flaws; namely, I am much less interested in secretive world-shaping societies than Greg Weisman continues to be even now, and it inevitably runs up against production realities of the time now and then. But it holds up remarkably well on the whole in its ambitions and complex characters. With that, today I'll be looking at what I think are the top 10 episodes of the series. Though given its nature, multi-part stories will be treated as one episode.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

"GRIEF":

The Avalon World Tour arc has always been the most...divisive section of the series since it aired. And I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, it was a much-needed expansion of lore and worldbuilding, serving a useful purpose in showing that there were many other heroes and gargoyle clans around the world. Goliath and his clan felt less tragically alone. And many of the episodes by themselves are genuinely excellent (two are on the list proper, for example). But on the other hand, it arguably didn't need to be as long as it was (though some of this can be blamed on the initial airings getting clogged up with reruns because of the production schedule), and many of them sideline our main characters for clear backdoor pilot spinoff leads, not all of whom are terribly interesting. "Grief" avoids most of these problems by offering a unique setting in Egypt (you knew they had to go to the Sphinx eventually), progressing the story of the Pack, and the guest characters are compelling because of how well they fit into the series' larger themes. A Wings-era/pre-Monk Tony Shalhoub is wonderful as the Emir, a sad, angry man who only wants to see his son again, while Tony Jay is marvelously imposing as Anubis, who basically functions as a more morose version of Terry Pratchett's Death with lines like "Death is always pointless. That is the point." A great little tale, showing off the strengths of the World Tour rather than its weaknesses.

"HUNTER'S MOON":

It might seem odd that I'm putting the televised series finale here rather than on the list proper. And being fair, it IS great, thrilling and tragic in equal measure; one cannot help but wince audibly when one character echoes another's weakest moral moment. But it's here primarily because while it's a good finale, it clearly sets up so much MORE story that got fucked up so badly in The Goliath Chronicles that Weisman had to basically toss out the whole thing when he did the comics, and I'm admittedly not as hot on the whole X-Men racial metaphor "what if we had a gargoyle KKK" stuff as I used to be. Plus, it's a little harder to take the Hunters seriously when they look so Liefeldian in retrospect. Still, this keeps things personal, and has a lot of great character beats, such as Goliath sliding dangerously close to a Demona-like mentality only to back away at the last moment, Xanatos coming in clutch, and a love triangle that feels refreshingly adult in how it's handled. Credit is also due for the voice performances by Diedrich Bader, Scott Cleverdon, and Sheena Easton as the Canmores. They have to cover a lot of emotional ground, accents, AND feel like siblings; Cleverdon in particular does a great job of suggesting one possible journey and then swerving wildly in the other direction while keeping it consistent.

"A LIGHTHOUSE IN THE SEA OF TIME":

This is admittedly not necessarily the best episode on a technical level. The Sunwoo animation is functional but not spectacular, and the action scenes lack a personalized touch. But the message of the show (READING GOOD) is as pertinent as ever, and handled with remarkable insight rather than feeling preachy. By keeping it character-based in Broadway's initial disinterest, then awe at what he comes to see as "precious magic", and Hudson's shame, it avoids sounding like an after-school special. Jeffrey Robbins in particular is a great character who could have felt cloying thanks largely to a warm, naturally wistful performance by Paul Winfield. We also get our first real hints to the tragedy of MacBeth's past as he speaks eloquently of the dream of King Arthur and Camelot, and magic that was stronger than anything "except the human heart".

"LEADER OF THE PACK":

David Xanatos is one of the best cartoon villains in history, and part of the reason why is he barely feels like A villain at times, even before character development starts to kick in. He does some pretty bad things, make no mistake, but Jonathan Frakes' performance and the writing always keeps him on the side of compelling and likable. As well as dangerously smart and capable. At the time, he stood out among the crowd because he so rarely delved into petty sniping or needless aggression towards his enemies or minions...and that only made him more dangerous. This episode shows that plainly, with him playing both the Pack and the clan like fiddles in terms of getting them to fight just so he can get his girlfriend Fox out of jail early. There's other good stuff here too, like Lexington having to learn a lesson about prioritizing his family over vengeance, but the meat is that wonderfully diabolical feint. It's clever, it's stylish...it's Xanatos.

"AVALON"

Your mileage may vary on this one, admittedly. As a big bad, the Archmage lacks the complexity and depth that most of the other antagonists have; he's ultimately a pretty standard evil world-conquering wizard. But they have quite a bit of fun with those conventions (he has to be prodded by his future self TO conquer the world instead of merely Scotland), and when you hire the legendary David Warner to BE your cliched evil wizard, you bet your ass he's going to chew all the scenery and have a blast while doing it. There's also another great Scottish history flashback, and important character development for characters like Katherine, Tom, and the Magus, who becomes one of the most heroically sad figures in the entire series. Add in a newly important character in Goliath and Demona's daughter, Angela, some fun action scenes, and the entrance of THE King Arthur into the fray, and it's a strong story all around.

(Though one thing that gives me pause now that didn't then is that Tom and Katherine eventually get into a romance after they met when the latter looked like he was MAYBE 10 and she was already getting handed off for marriage as an older teenager. I get that when you spend 1,000 years on an age-slowing magical island, that sort of thing becomes academic after a while, but even so...)

And now, for the full list.

10. "THE SILVER FALCON"

This is mainly on here because of my personal tastes. I LOVE detective fiction and noir movies, that shit is like candy to me. And kid's shows taking on these never-out-of-style genres tends to lead to fascinating results, such as in my all-time favorite movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It helps that this IS genuinely really excellent in its construction: snappy animation, clever writing, and sharp on-the-move pacing. It's ironically the most Batman-esque episode they ever did, with a mystery involving old-time crooks, but Broadway and Elisa as a team help it feel distinct. They were always one of the most underrated pairings, and the story gets good comic dividends out of Elisa's frustration at what she sees as childlike antics while Broadway is trying to earnestly prove himself as a detective. Naturally, he does, and this is a good showing for Elisa too, brave and stalwart in the face of gangsters like Tony Dracon, sleazy as ever.

9. "FUTURE TENSE"

I don't think even people who despise the World Tour arc can slam this. It's a genuinely unsettling story that's like a magician's trick in keeping you looking at one hand while he's actually up to something completely different. This is probably one of the most harrowing apocalyptic future stories ever told in Western animation. Bombshell after bombshell drops, keeping us and Goliath emotionally off-balance as the urgency ratchets up to a fever pitch. And even considering how far we've come in depicting this kind of content with more graphically violent stylings since, it's still chilling to watch cyber-Xanatos coldly murder his own son and gut-wrenching to watch a blinded Broadway die as he thinks he sees the sun.

Even the final revelation, which it plays fair with (a lot of little things increasingly don't add up), feels less like a relief and more another sadistic twist of the knife. Was it a dream? Or a prophecy...

8. "SHADOWS OF THE PAST"

Even if this hadn't kicked off the World Tour in earnest, they would have had to do a Goliath Actually Deals With His Trauma story at SOME point. And this is a damn good showcase for it, with atmospheric, moody animation as we return to Scotland and the literal ghosts of the past. As Goliath gets gaslit, the eerie horror ramps up, as does the suspense about what he might do under these influences towards his fellows, and it's honestly a pretty brave position to put your protagonist in: vulnerable, but still very dangerous to those around him. Bonus points for a posthumous redemption of the Captain, one of the most sympathetic supporting characters, and a darkly ironic final shot.

7. "THE EDGE"

The big mission statement on Xanatos as a character. Far from looking towards vengeance on the gargoyles or punishing subordinates for beating him in sparring (one of my favorite Frakes deliveries is easily his dead-serious response of "I'd fire you if you did" when Owen queries if he should pretend to lose), he wants to know if he still has the mental and physical edge to keep doing his thing. Which puts him in rather marvelous parallel with Goliath, still brooding over having to move to the clock tower and leave Castle Wyvern behind. Both seemingly prevail here...and both are also lying to themselves JUST a smidge. It's wonderfully subtle characterization, and another key factor in Xanatos differing from other villains at the time. Rather than hating and envying Goliath, you kind of get the sense he wants to BE him (or, if you're a fanfic writer, other possibilities open up) when he speaks glowingly of him being "the greatest warrior alive". Has some damn good action too, especially the Statue of Liberty climax.

6. "THE MIRROR"

A fan favorite, and it kind of killed me not to put it in the top five. This is perhaps the greatest show of Gargoyles' range, a merry, unabashedly romantic reality-bending farce that tweaks the characters' typical self-seriousness. Even Demona, usually so fearsome and angry, becomes a figure of comedy here as she's endlessly frustrated by Puck twisting her words and obeying the letter but not the spirit of her desires. Puck himself is a star attraction, with free-flowing animation accompanying his every move and a killer voice performance courtesy of Brent Spiner, an entire dimension away from Data: hilarious, but with just the right undercurrent of plummy menace that hints at the REAL chaos he could unleash if properly motivated.

5. "EYE OF THE BEHOLDER"

The first real cracks in Xanatos' armor, both figuratively and literally, come about in this awesome Halloween episode. It's shadowier than usual, with a great monster in Were-Fox just absolutely tearing up the town as Xanatos tries to stay in control but finally has to cede it...and admit to himself that he truly cares about at least one thing other than money and power. It's a good showcase for Goliath too; he may not be a mastermind type, but he's cleverly adapting to Xanatos' tactics while still ultimately showing that he's an uncommonly decent guy at his core in working to save people he has no reason to. Also features the most iconic shipper moment in the whole shebang with Elisa and Goliath as Beauty and the Beast.

4. "DEADLY FORCE"

AKA "The Gun Episode", and even now, it's some incredibly harrowing shit to watch a main character accidentally shoot another to the point where she very well could have died. Even beyond the message and imagery (which is refreshingly nuanced rather than being simplistically "anti-gun"), this is an incredibly important character episode: Elisa's family is introduced in a way that shows she is not merely the gargoyles' sidekicks, but a person with her own life. And Broadway evolves from a seemingly typical fat-character-who-eats-a-lot into a figure of regret and anger; if you never thought Patrick Star could be frightening, Bill Fagerbakke's powerful performance here will disabuse you of that notion. Also features some prime material for Owen Burnett, Xanatos' ever-stalwart right hand man, calmly fighting and maneuvering through situations, and Goliath beginning to recognize just how important Elisa is to him.

3. "THE PRICE"

I love when shows do unusual character pairings, and this has possibly the series' best as Xanatos and Hudson square off: the cocky immortality-seeking businessman versus the patient, tired old soldier. It's handily the late Ed Asner's best showing as Hudson, with his gravelly tones never straining too much for effort as he considers Xanatos' arguments and offers his own matter-of-fact perspective. Xanatos, for his part, is genuinely needled for once, unable to offer convincing counters to Hudson cutting through his bullshit, and quietly impressed by his fortitude. The B-side is great too, with the snowy atmosphere adding a lot to the NYC settings, and Robo-MacBeth offering some genuinely formidable fight scenes. Not to mention Elisa's CMOA when she saves a mid-air stoned Broadway from doom with some well-placed shots and a carpet truck. Badass.

2. "CITY OF STONE"

The only reason this isn't number 1 is because while the present-day story is good, it feels more "typical" outside of landmarks like Xanatos and Goliath uneasily teaming up for the first time and Demona's iconic, quiet breakdown. Not bad, not at all, but the true meat is in the flashbacks to her and MacBeth's backstory, fully laid out across time for a true Shakespearean tragedy. Far from the murderous tyrant of the Bard, MacBeth is a good man himself beset by paranoid kings and allies, with no one truly convinced that he could be as loyal and honest as he says he is. And the scope of Demona's hatred and its consequences is laid bare here, with a certain set of scars becoming iconic in their repetition. John Rhys-Davies and Marina Sirtis pull out all the stops here, with the occasional glimmers of happiness and light underscored by the doom we all know is coming, especially if you know Scottish history. We believe MacBeth wholeheartedly when he says that he's just so tired in the present. So much pain and grief could have been avoided...but the tragedy, of course, is that the grinding wheel of fate for these two is inevitable.

"The access code is...alone."

1. "AWAKENING"

Multi-part pilot episodes were generally Disney's stock-in-trade for their initial run of shows, and I can't say most didn't JUSTIFY their length (though if you're wondering, outside of this, the best ones are Gummi Bears' single-episode "A New Beginning", the two-part "Darkly Dawns the Duck" for Darkwing Duck, and DuckTales' five-part "Treasure of the Golden Suns"). But Gargoyles had easily the strongest one out of the gate in how it used the length to carefully, step-by-step set up this world, these characters, and the conflicts that will play out across the tapestry. While some figures like the Trio are clearly held back a bit for later, they still make an incredibly strong impression, and Goliath gets an arc here that is so elegantly constructed in taking him from tempered optimism through despairing cynicism and back around again. Elisa Maza proves a "strong female character" with Salli Richardson's naturally smooth performance giving her empathy and toughness in equal measure. Xanatos puts a strong foot forward with his initially mysterious motives that can still seem genuine, already regretting that he has to potentially waste resources that he can't control. And the supporting cast is already rich, with figures like Princess Katherine, haughty, then regretful and seeking redemption, the Captain, whose road to Hell was paved with good intentions, and the Magus, arrogance brought low by grief. Even a seemingly one-note brute like Hakon is well-drawn in his simplistic mindset. And the visuals are insanely memorable too, with fluid fight scenes, meticulous character behavior, and a unique take on NYC nightlife that sets it apart from the brooding, haunted Gotham.

Gargoyles may have aged, but in most ways, it's like a fine wine, and something I've grown to appreciate more even with my criticisms over time. I hope this list is proof enough of that.

#gargoyles #disney afternoon #90s disney #media analysis #reviews

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