#he goes to physical fighting first and uses magic to assist

[dangermousie]

One of the things I find so interesting is how Jing is so very much not what a FL’s endgame love interest, especially in an epic xianxia, looks like (I mean in terms of character and narrative, not physical looks. Deng Wei is a ridiculously handsome man, like the rest of XY’s choices.)

I wonder if that is where at least some of puzzlement over XY’s choice/dislike of Jing as endgame that I’ve seen come from.

Jing is NOT the male lead - that is Cang Xuan, XY’s cousin who she never has even a glimmer of romantic feeling or attraction to. But Jing is also not the biggest badass or most magically powerful or most ambitious or with most status or most grand gestures or most epic story or even most outsize interaction with FL (vampy took her on dates to freaking underwater with his magic while Jing got her a practical gadget to use to go underwater herself; Vampy gave up one of his nine lives to heal her; Jing was only able to preserve her body so it would not be beyond saving and also try to die himself. Vampy’s power is battle while Jing is a tracker. Jing’s love is all-consuming and devoted but it’s also quiet.)

Jing does not come out first in anything except possibly torture (tho honestly that’s a bit of an open season on that one) and abnegation for FL’s sake. I mean the three guys are (future) emperor, a legendary rebel general with nine lives and an insane amount of magic and a…wealthy merchant.

And in a lot of ways it goes against the accepted usual narrative. Of course the top alpha dog would get the FL - the biggest bestest dude!!!! There are not many dramas where FL ends up not with ML and the ones I can think of still have a guy with outsize power/not that quiet/unhinged charisma - think of Ji Chang Wook in Empress Ki for example. The closest I can think of is in The King Loves also based on a novel where FL did not end up with the royal ML but the SML, the quiet royal bodyguard (but even there Rin was the best fighter in the drama.)

And of course the other thing that reinforces this whole departure from the usual narrative and can drive frustration is if you look at the three arcs/obstacles to FL for the three men. Cang Xuan is freaking fighting and scheming to win an empire! And accepting the whole drama maxim “love is never fated for an emperor.” Vampy is literally a sworn enemy of XY’s brother and fights to restore the long-defunct kingdom. So we have a would be emperor and a rebel leader. And then Jing’s problem is getting out of his engagement to an awful woman to be free to marry XY and/or leaving his monster family and abandoning his name to follow XY. I can see someone going “that’s nothing!”

BUT!

I love the narrative for getting that to a person living it, it’s all-consuming but also sticking to its guns that who XY will end up with is not about the usual tropes but what makes sense for her as a character. And so there is a reason Cang Xuan is the ML but Jing is the endgame and she does not end up with Vampy either. Cang Xuan’s wishes and plans drive the plot but that is precisely both why Jing is secondary in the plot but the one XY picks - she wants someone who will not drive the plot because what she wants is someone she wants cottagecore life with and there is no plot in cottagecore. The very fact that all Jing yearns for and all he fights for is domestic bliss (a traditionally FL obsession) - even all his scheming to help CX ascend is because he wants to assist FL’s desires - is why she ends up with him.

As she pretty much point blank stated in 33, everyone in her life put her second to a great cause and she’s done with that. The girl does not want a man who will change the world, she wants someone who is content to live in it with her.

ETA: I keep saying it but what the audience would pick in her place remains irrelevant. I mean I would not pick any of the three myself - I don’t feel like eternally sharing my man with 100 women as anyone with Cang Xuan would have to, Vampy’s greatest desire is to perish in the fight and the lack of appeal of that as a dating quality is obvious, and with his fam, marrying Jing would be like marrying into the Manson Family. But I am not XY so here we are.

#cdrama #lost you forever

[cfcreative]

If Korydass was a Companion in BG3

This is just touching on Act 1…

The big Kory disapproval moments are any time you’re an outright asshole, really. Abandoning or killing potential companions is a huge no-no. Killing the tieflings OR the druids and she will turn against you outright. You get an approval bump from her for saving the Owlbear Cub and Scratch, but there’s also a big approval boost for treating the distressed Frog in the swamp with kindness.

General chatter in early game will see her very awkwardly flirting with Karlach (of course ❤️‍🔥); but also getting a little flirty with Wyll or Shadowheart.

(So much more after the break!)

When Kory gets the slightest hint that Shadowheart likes animals but is trying to suppress it, Kory goes all in on pointing out rare birds or offering to help with her fears of wolves. The wolf thing doesn’t get a great response, but there will be another ambient dialogue about it in Act 3 after the events of the House of Grief, one where Shadowheart does take Kory up on the offer.

Another ambient dialogue soon after recruiting Karlach would be Kory and Karlach both offering horn-care suggestions for Wyll after his transformation. Towards the end of the conversation there’s an exchange that goes somewhere along these lines:

Wyll: Is it polite to ask for assistance with the cleaning process?

Karlach: “Depends with tieflings.I’d pick stones outta my friends’ if we got too rough-and-tumble. Mum and Dad and I would help each other out with the annoying nooks in each others’. But you know, you gotta gauge it person to person and never handle someone else’s horns without asking first.

Korydass: “I’ve been led to understand that is always something… intimate for Dragonborn. Something that you’d only ask a lover to do.”

Wyll: “Led to understand?”

Korydass: “I haven’t spent a lot of time around other Dragonborn.”

Wyll: “Oh.”

Shortly after this Karlach would offer to point out the proper oil to buy for his horns when they next saw it and the dialogue would end.

Kory would absolutely have something to say about the exsanguinated boar, which would change depending on if Astarion was in the party at the time or not. After the Vampire reveal, she’ll note she’d suspected he was a vampire since then (if you have not found the boar or she wasn’t in party, she’ll be surprised).

An early exchange with Lae’zel would have her nearly flirting with Kory, and it all going over Kory’s head:

Lae’zel: “You fight ferociously, like the beasts you embody.”

Korydass: “Well, that’s, um, the point of undergoing the transformation.”

Lae’zel: “I appreciate your tactical approach as well. You beguile your foes with your seemingly soft nature, then you tear out their throats when they’ve let their guard down.”

Korydass (surprised, and honestly a little alarmed by the description): “I—uh… thank… you?”

Lae’zel: “However, you could do with physical training for this form. Should you wish it, I will assist you.”

Korydass: “I’ll… take that into considerstion.”

There will be chatter between her and Gale about assisting him with the cooking; Gale politely calls her cooking “rustic” and Kory takes it as a massive compliment. They do discuss foraging quite at bit, with Gale occasionally making requests of Kory for certain ingredients if she can manage it or use druidic magic to grow said ingredients.

If you’re wondering about her romance, check under the bonus on this post.

#my tav #oc: korydass #Korydass as BG3 Companion #baulders gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #bg3 #lae'zel #gale of waterdeep #karlach #astarion #shadowheart #wyll ravengard

[starleska]

I don't know about anybody else, but the way jack horner said "magic snacks" after he ate them was spoken with such a snarly voice, similar to the "what a good boy am i", and i kind of adored it! Do you have any favorite scenes of jack's?

ugh, yes 🥵🥵 honestly the little snarling moments are so delightful. first time i listened through headphones i had to get up and take a walk, it was too much 😂😂 he does the same thing when he says, 'this one is right' and bowls the crystal ball into his nanny bag!! John Mulaney out here showing off his acting chops by dropping riiiight into the sinister every now and again 👀 favourite scenes of Jack's...can i cop out and say all of them? 😂💖 okay, i am very partial to how nasty he is during the scene where the Baker's Dozen are trying to chop through the Pocket Full O' Posies. we just get a lot of personality from him there - he's momentarily discomfited by having a hatchet thrown at his face (...holy shit, is that the same hatchet he tries to use against Kitty later on?? did he just take his dead assistant's weapon?!) but then goes right back to not giving a fuck and casually hunting around for something to push his way through. i find it interesting because you could see how a character with Jack's design could have been so...stereotypical. he could've been a consistently whiny, stupid, greedy asshole who leaves the fighting to his minions and throws constant temper tantrums. but we got something so much better. instead, Jack is a competent, intelligent sadist with an extraordinary degree of agility and physical strength, and he's largely unruffled when things don't go his way. i think they bait-and-switched us by having our introduction to Jack include his anger at The Serpent Sisters...we weren't expecting the degree of amoral behaviour which we got. but oh, i'm so glad we did 😖💖

#big jack horner #jack horner #puss in boots: the last wish #starleskasks

[sanctum-stinker]

Still trying to navigate this site, so sorry for the janky formatting.  This is a post about my Re-write Defender Strange! He is much more integral to the plot, and accompanies Wong for the most part. He serves as an ally against Wanda and also as a window into the way Stephen Strange works, for us the audience as well as for Wong  

Some of these concepts are outdated because I didn’t officially start making my re-write until after I compiled a bunch of disconnected ideas and headcanons, so some of them are very old and irrelevant but I still like them so I’ve attached them anywho.  I have his backstory filled out now, but it isn’t fully fleshed out yet, so I’ll instead write about the changes to his character and involvement in the re-write in chronological order. I’ll upload his backstory later on hopefully! Here we go!

He is Sorcerer Supreme of his universe (617) because the blip never happened, and therefor the title never got passed onto anyone else. This means he’s also five years older than our MCU 616 Stephen.

He is very independent as Sorcerer Supreme, where MCU 616 Wong is very connected to Kamar-Taj, Defender is not. He operates from his Sanctum and has Defender Wong as his only real constant ally.

He has a guinea pig called Patchwork Quilt, and she is his pride and joy. 

Cyttorak (I assume is it’s name?) is not controlled by Wanda, and instead is just a creature from a different dimension that he managed to piss off. America is also with him, having taken refuge in universe 617 after she fell into it.

Defender gets very badly wounded by Cyttorak, and with no other choice he decides to sacrifice America and absorb her power in hopes that he could control it and banish the creature before it did anymore harm. This causes America to panic.

At the same time that this is occurring, Wanda (616) is trying to dream walk. As a result of the many many multiversal tamperings 616 has been up to (Endgame, Loki, NWH etc etc) mixed with Wanda’s dreamwalking and America’s uncontrollable power going haywire, the Multiversal barrier between 616 and 617 rips open, and Defender, America and Cyttorak fall through into 616.

Cyttorak has a sort of venom or corrosive quality to its tendrils which has begun to infect Defender. Due to his title of supremacy in universe 617 his body could use magic to subconsciously fight off this venom, much like he can with any other disease or illness. Unfortunately, now that he’s in 616, a place where the magic is slightly different and Wong is the Sorcerer Supreme, he doesn’t have this healing factor. If he has any hopes of surviving he needed to get back to 617.

After Stephen and America vanish into the multiverse Defender assists Wong in tracking down Wanda after Kamar-Taj falls, despite his injuries. Wong learns a lot about the way Stephen functions through Defender, and Defender learns a lot about himself through Wong’s perspective on Stephen. Defender also helps Wong with his insecurities and feelings of unworthiness as Sorcerer supreme, giving him advice and encouragement as a fellow man of supremacy.

Stephen (who is in sinister’s universe) uses Defender’s body to dreamwalk and communicate to Wong. He manages to tell him Wanda has America and that he needed to save her before the souls of the damned interfere and Defender’s body goes unconscious.

In the end Defender saves Stephen from the souls by sacrificing his soul, and thus gaining control over them. This allowed Stephen to take control over the body, and fight Wanda while Defender controlled the souls as wings/cloak/sheild.

Defender wants to right the wrong he made in trying to take America’s power and is the first to realize she’s the key to defeating Wanda. He sacrifices his life to save America. 

Defender passes away after Stephen stops dream walking, as his soul and physical body were too weak to continue functioning. He passes his supremacy to Defender Wong (who was summoned into the final battle by America) and he takes his body back to 617 to be prepared for the funeral and following ceremony.  All the parts of the plot are not concrete yet, as I’ve only written out the second draft, but this is what I have so far regarding Defender! It is still very condensed and brief, but I hope it gives y’all a bit of a glimpse into his character. I’ll be uploading concepts of all the other Variants and characters involved in the story and how they interact and add to the plot. I’ll be tagging all my re-write posts under MoMstinkycut which is also what I’ve tagged my Insta posts under.  Thank you for your time, fellas!

#doctor strange #stephen strange #wong #wongrange #wongstrange #multiverse of maddness spoilers #multiverse of madness #MoMstinkycut

[not-wholly-unheroic]

I personally loved Peter Pan and Wendy despite its imperfections. I find it interesting how quickly Peter recovered from his injury and do wish that more time was spent on it because I thought it was an important moment.

Agreed! While we often see Hook trying to kill Pan via some sneaky method like poison (Barrie, 2003 film, etc.) or a disguised gift (Disney animated), this is perhaps the first time in a major film version where at this point in the plot, Hook goes to confront Peter face to face. I was honestly shocked when Peter “died.” We’re used to seeing Tink “die” and then be revived but not Peter… And on that note, while I love the idea of belief in fairies resurrecting Tink, having Tiger Lily come to Peter’s aid and give him actual medical assistance felt more necessary than giving a totally magical reason for his survival. However, that said…he popped up WAY too quickly and shouldn’t have been in good fighting shape by the final battle. I understand the time limits of the film, but there were a few places that felt a little rushed and this was one of them. (The intro part in London felt VERY rushed to me.) I think the film would have benefitted from another 30 minutes or so of runtime to play around with some of these things in more depth.

I did find Peter’s shadow going for help interesting. And the fact that Hook and Peter’s shadows hurting each other can apparently physically affect the person. Playing around more with the idea of what exactly a shadow is in this version would have been neat, too. I half wonder if Peter’s shadow is like…his “soul” in a sense? Like he was there dying but just conscious enough that his “shade” (as some ancient literature would have called it) is capable of leaving his body, going for help, and returning to him. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but there’s a lot going on there that would have been fun to explore.

#disney peter pan and wendy #Peter pan and Wendy #disney live action peter pan #Disney live action remakes #alexander molony #alyssa wapanatâhk #Peter pan #tiger lily

[trashcankitty12]

Winifred “Winnie” Scofield

Youngest Child of Helia and Morgan Scofield

Magical Chimera

-Winne is the youngest child and only daughter of Helia and Morgan Scofield. 

-Like her brother, she inherited her mother’s ears. Or rather, she has a slight point to her ears. She also tries hard to be in touch with her elven heritage.

-She’s got dark hair like her father that she keeps in a short bob and has gray eyes like he does.

-Winne’s 12 and goes to the Callistan Preparatory Academy. (Which is just a fancy middle school. One where she’s constantly rolling her eyes because of how many of her classmates want to believe they’re better than other people because it's mostly rich kids and she’s only going there because her Great Uncle Saladin and General Grandma went there.)

-(Yes, she and her brother call their Dad’s mom General Grandma. It’s a loving term of endearment and it makes the old woman roll her eyes and laugh. So it’s perfect.)

-Her birthday is December 1st. She’s a Dragon by the Magical Dimension’s standards and a Sagittarius by Earth standards.

-Winnie’s into art, but not to the degree that her brother and father are. It’s a fun hobby and a great way for her to vent some of her frustrations, but it’s not a passion for her like it is for them.

-She really loves making little doodles and often creates mini-comics that she sends to friends to cheer them up.

-Her real passion, currently, is in nature, specifically the animals. 

-Endangered animals tend to be the heart of many of her projects; essays, protests (that her brother helps her set up), videos, photos, and drawings. Basically, anything she turns in at school that doesn’t have a specific topic, it’s probably going to be about a rare or endangered animal.

-Elliot is so proud of his little sister, and is always the first to jump into her campaigns.

-Morgan and Helia are too, often using their own expertise and their influence to assist. (Though they try to stay in the background as much as possible because they don’t want their kids to think they’re taking over their own projects.)

-Winnie has a menagerie of pets that come in and out of the home. (Usually until they are healthy enough to go, but they tend to come back for love.) 

-Helia’s not as okay with the pets as Morgan is, mostly because they tend to just ‘show up’ without warning and oftentimes he ends up getting jumpscared by various animals and insects.

-Morgan finds this all hilarious. Elliot is fairly chill about the animals, so long as leave his cameras alone. 

-Winnie’s like her cousin Etta, physical and ready to fight if she has too. (Though unlike Etta, she doesn’t look for fights, she tries to hold off unless she’s pushed or someone else is in danger.)

-She loves to sword-fight like Etta and has even joined her in the Junior Sword Fighting League. General Grandma is so proud and has even gifted her her own specialty sword. (And Grandpa Palladium is considering getting her her own armor from his family.)

-Winnie has magic, natural-based magic, but she’s not sure if she’s going to become a fairy. Her wings haven’t come in and she’s already 12… So… What’s up? Is she going to be a late winger like her Aunt Flora and Cousin Etta? Or is she just… Not a fairy?

-Her magic isn’t quite that strong yet, but she is getting there. (Typically she works best with runic magic than core magic. But it is what it is.)

-Like any good little sister, Winnie torments her older brother every time he has a romantic interest over, usually by embarrassing him. (Sometimes Elliot just plays along, sometimes he gets her back.)

-(There’s an ongoing prank war within their house; one that sometimes even involves the parents.)

-Winnie’s into comfort when it comes to her clothing options and loves oversized hoodies, soft shirts, and pajama pants. (Though will quickly swap to jeans when going for a hike. After all, safety first.)

-She and her brother can’t play board games or card games together unless they’re on the same side/playing co-op. (Fights break out.)

-(Poppa Salvador thinks it's funny, making him think of his dynamic with Griffin when they were younger. Morgan’s not impressed.)

-Winifred isn’t fond of her school, it’s been said before. But she does have her core group of friends and her clubs. (Outside the Junior Sword Fighting League of course.)

-She’s in the Environmental Club, part of a comic book club, and helps out with a volunteer project with their school. (And has plans to revamp it once she’s met with the principal.)

-Winnie is also the one who organizes minor rebellions in her school. (Dress coding issues, the sit-in to stop the destruction of the hiking trail behind the school, the refusal to do school work when it came out about the athletes getting free passes, etc.)

-(Her parents are just glad she hasn’t followed Valkyrie’s advice to burn down the science lab like she’d done once.)

-Winnie’s favorite classes are her Natural Science classes (biology, anatomy, geology, botany).

-Least favorite? Her Writing classes. And History classes.

-Don’t get her wrong, she loves history, she just doesn’t like the way they’re taught, especially since she has family directly involved with some of the major historical incidents that have happened the last few decades and knows the classes taught are full of bullshit and speculation.

-In fact she often gets into arguments with her history teachers because she corrects them. Yes, she’s that child.

-Morgan is so proud of her daughter. Helia is too, but couldn’t she find a nicer way to call out her teachers instead of flat-out calling them idiots?

-If her wings come in, she’ll be going (hopefully) to Alfea and focusing her studies on Environmentalism. However if they don’t, she’s unsure.

-Part of her thinks she could go to Cloud Tower, but she doesn’t feel like she’s a witch. After all, they use core magic more than runic magic, same as fairies. And unlike Elementals, she doesn’t draw directly from an elemental center.

-She doesn’t want to go to the same school as her brother because she’s not as into art. 

-Truthfully she’s thinking of studying more deeply into her elven roots, but that would require some research and some lengthy discussions with her Grandpa Palladium’s family.

-Fingers crossed.

-She’s not sure really what she wants to do when she’s grown, but she’s certain of one thing; animals are going to be at the forefront and she’s definitely going to be an activist of some kind.

#winx club oc #winx club next gen oc #winx club next gen #winx club helia #winx club oc and helia child #winx club #winx next gen #winx next gen oc #winnie scofield #winnie scofield oc #magical chimera #elf or witch or fairy

[h1rxx]

okay so let’s get started with this

the first two years of my life were quite normal, I was living with my sister and my parents and nothing much really happened

then when i was like about three years old things started to get a bit messy

my sister went “missing” and i was all alone with my mother most of the time

my father wasn’t really that much at home simply bc he had to work a lot, but still he was really good and i really loved him

one day my mother took me to a “doctor”, at least that’s what she told me that day

she and the said doctor told me that there was something wrong with me so, again the doctor, had to inject me with some sort of medicine

the thing that he injected was in fact not medicine and i was in a lot of pain for several days

that’s how i got some sort of strange powers, but we will talk more about that later

so yeah that was when my mother started to get very abusive towards me, both physically and mentally, and also started to push me to do a lot of training (take note that i was 3/4 at the time)

and this is when she started to call me her masterpiece and became more and more obsessed with me as time went by

in the meantime my dad couldn’t do that much about it, as he both was not home ‘cause of work and also was getting abused by my mother like me

skipping one year we get to the point where my whole world actually collapses with my whole house

this is basically me saying that when i was 5 my whole family died with our house collapsing while we were inside

well not actually my whole family but mostly

that’s how i lost my arm

they immediately sent me to the hospital where i miraculously survived

then though i had to escape just bc i did not want to get adopted by another family

that’s when a miracle happened and i found my still alive grandma, who let me move in with her

and along with my grandma in that house was my sister, she was pretty messed up too

some years pass and everything goes quite calm and well

my sis helped me make the robot prosthetic that i have now, just like how she made her hand prosthetic

we also found many friends in the mean while, two of them are still really good friends of our, and they are chiara and kireina

but as u may have already guessed, i don’t have that much of an easy life, so BOOM my grandma dies, and me and anna, my sis, are left alone

we had to get out of that house, ‘cause the authorities would have probably put us up for adoption if they found us, and we did not want that

so for like five months we had to live on the street, until, again miraculously, we found our now home, where we also found our health care assistant robot friend, our demon ferret friend, and our big ass feline friend (they are all older than us so i guess we could call them our legal guardians)

but in this house we did not only find them, we also found a book that from what we read belonged to our family, and we still don’t know how it got there

so yeah we start figuring out magic and the story of our family, but i will not talk about that ‘cause this is getting really long

we also find some other stuff out but i will skip that too and talk about when my dear mother kidnapped me

OH AND WE ALSO HAVE A BIT OF NEW ENTRIES (one of them is my platonic partner theo)

so from what i remember she kidnapped me one night and like took me to whole another dimension just bc that way she could get me to become the masterpiece she always wanted me to be

most of the things that happened there are really blurry just ‘cause like my soul was kind of out of my body, but that is also another story

i do know that when i got back to my senses it was the most painful shit ever

but that’s when my senses were back so like let’s talk about that

basically my sister and our group of friends found me in some kind of way, and they made a plan to rescue me

it was really hard to do so bc at the time i was only listening to my mother orders, so there was a lot of fighting

but eventually my sis snapped me out of it and that’s when i started to help them fight my mother, and also started to be in a LOT of pain

at the end though we imprisoned that bitch in that dimension and got home happily (even if some of us were badly injured and theo fucking LOST HIS LEG)

now i’m going to stop, there are some more things that are a bit more happy and even some fun facts but this is getting to long and i’m getting tired

#tw kidnapping #tw death #tw limb loss #tw mental and physical abuse #i hope i’m not forgetting anything #also he was writing this #and he stopped bc he was crying too #now u know everything #lore #h1rxx

[worstloki]

feel like part of the reason loki doesn't use his powers (apart from the writers ignorance) could possibly be because he was brought up being constantly told that it was too 'feminine' and he needed to focus on 'proper fighting skills', so hes learned to only use it when he desperately needs it, n to rely on hand to hand instead of his magic

which is fine, and i get that that idea carries over from the myths and comics and i know if they stopped nerfing him he'd be a bit too OP, but that doesn't mean have him use the bare minimum at all times!

so far all strong magic use has been implied and off-screen and 90% of it has been in outfit-changes while he loses fights he shouldn't want to get thrown around in!

#at this point he's used such little magic that i worry the blast he does in the trailer will actually end up being a single instance #marvel introduced him as a strong character and then promptly somewhere around ragnarok i think that changed #because he ended Thor 2 having gotten rid of the AllFather who is one of the strongest beings in the nine realms or whatever #so that was fine and cool right #plus he survived a blackhole and resurrections so you go ''ah yeah he's just doing stuff off-screen it's all good'' #just like with the gap year of torture which was off-screen #and because Loki grew up in Asgard he KNOWS how to fight hand to hand #we've seen him match up to Thor on multiple occasions and he was absolutely thrashing Steve in AVengers 1 #he goes to physical fighting first and uses magic to assist #but he DOES have the abilities to fight with magic #he has a HUGE skillset in the MCU and that's ignoring the comic counterpart's abilities #so it's a tad bit frustrating to watch him slide across the floor of a roxxcart #even if he isn't trying to hurt the opponent #then there was whatever sloppy thing the vacuum was supposed to be #he......has knives.........doesn't he #he most definitely has shielding abilities #bro bro just put up a shield oh no he cant hear us he's too busy flipping his hair 😩 #okay im done complaining #the Loki show #loki spoilers #loki show spoilers #but am also completely convinced that the MCU accidentally made Loki too overpowered #i mean he's got physical fighting AND magic covered PLUS master tactician and street smarts #what else is left????? #he weighs 525 pounds he could just put a Nani (lilo and stitch) on every human opponent he comes across

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Hestia

This is another eternally virgin goddess, so we're doing another pseudo-demigod by adoption (like we did with Athena).

Demigod MC: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena, Hades Pt. 2, Poseidon, Ares, Hestia

Hestia is the goddess of the Hearth, Home, Architecture, Domesticity, Family, and the State. She's high up there (firstborn of Rhea and Cronus), but several factors have led to her falling into the background when compared to the other (flashier) Olympians. She swore to never marry, rejecting proposals from both Poseidon and Apollo, and is something of an antithesis to Aphrodite.

Lucifer

Honestly? He thought they were exactly what they were after. A weak human with no experience in the magical world what-so-ever.

Well… He was half-right.

On the surface, this is a pretty weak human. They don't have super flashy powers or a divine birth from the gods… but they do have a very protective adoptive mother.

The brothers had just settled in for their first dinner with the new human when the goddess herself strolled into their dining room, asked who was in charge, then dragged Lucifer away by the ear!

She's not even his mother, yet he felt the intense urge to apologize and put himself in his own room… Oh, the humiliation… at least she did the same to Diavolo…

The Prince was only able to calm her down by promising absolutely NO harm would come to her child… on their heads...

By the time the goddess finally let him go, Lucifer was about ready to shackle the MC to his wrist so nothing could touch them but he settled on keeping them with him like an assistant of sorts. They were in charge of helping him with the paperwork so he could keep an eye on them. 

What he didn’t expect was for them to be so… good at it? They could keep his offices clean, they managed his daily schedule, fixed up the House, and still have time to bring him tea and sweets every night!

They could even reign in his brothers somehow… They weren't strong or intimidating, but one or two mildly unhappy words out of them and everybody would be on their best behavior.

Was everyone positive they're only human...?

As much as he hated to admit, he may have a slight deep case of falling for the housekeeper… He would make a move, but well…

He has Beel to contend with first.

Mammon

Okay so, watching Lucifer get dragged out by the ear just like Raphael used to do to him was hilarious!!! The whole room got a good laugh! 🤣

Until Hestia glared at them and suddenly they all felt like they'd disappointed someone important….

And all that fuss over some dumb human??

So what if they made amazing food?

So what if they could clean the entire mansion in a day?

So what if they were the walking equivalent to a warm cup of cocoa on a winter's day??

So what if they were just the kindest, sweetest thing in this godforsaken hellscape and he would throw himself in front of a bus to keep them safe-

-Wait, when did that happen?!?

Seriously, Mammon's attachment to the MC came out of NOWHERE to him. One day, he was threatening to eat their soul and the next he's freaking out when they stub their toe!

He swears they have to have some kind of magic about them! A charm, or a spell, or… their lovable smile and warm, loving hugs...! 😊

Damnit!! They're too cute!! He needs them to go away but also never leave, thanks. 😒

In all seriousness, though their kind nature puts Mammon's tsundere self at a bit of a disadvantage, his protective instincts shoot through the roof whenever they're involved.

Naturally, that means his day is spent running them away from hungry lesser demons or shielding them from Beel and Lucifer's tug-of-war matches… He's a busy guy these days. 😖

Leviathan 

They're so… so… MOE!!!

That was his immediate thought when Mammon brought them home. He was expecting a defenseless human, but not one that could have stepped out of one of his slice-of-life manga!

To be honest, his instant thought was try and find a place to sit them on his shelves with the rest of the adorable characters he loves… 😅

And that was before they even opened their mouth! Five words into their introduction and he was ready to get their face on a t-shirt!!

Honestly, combine their natural cuteness with their household skills and they made for perfect waifu/husbando material… 

Not helped by the fact they found one of his maid/butler outfits while doing the laundry one day. Not only did they ask if they could wear it, they actually non-ironically liked it and started wearing it around the House!!

Oh he got cornered by Beel, Lucifer, and Mammon separately that day because they thought he was using them for fetish fuel… But it was their idea, he swears!!

I mean… He didn't discourage them or anything either but still…

If Beel hadn't claimed them on Day One, Levi might have eventually thrown his hat in the ring too... Oh well… he can pine from a distance… What else is new? 😔

Satan

He has a video of Hestia dragging Lucifer out of the dining room on his phone and it's one of his most treasured possessions now. 😌

He is perhaps the only person in the House who was not at all impressed with their little human.

So they could cook? So could he. So they can clean? That's not impressive. They could manage a household? Big deal, he's more or less been in charge of the same thing for centuries!

As far as he saw it, there was nothing the MC could do that he couldn't do as proficiently or even better. There was nothing remarkable about this human at all!

… except for one thing.

That maid/butler outfit of Levi's? The one they like to wear around?

It has cat accessories…

Either they don't notice or they don't mind it but they essentially walk around the House cleaning things with little kitty ears attached to their head and a bell on their collar…

Dammit… Why did Levi even buy that?!?

Satan ended up getting in trouble for enchanting their outfit to give them REAL ears and a tail "accidentally..." Lucifer strung him up by his toes, Beel gave him a black-eye, and Mammon still calls him a "perverted cat freak" but it was worth it, he says, worth it!!

Asmodeus 

Oh Beel…

Asmo saw Beel's feelings for the MC coming from a mile away. He didn't even need to confirm it with a sniff check, he had them scented by the end of their first night!

Lucifer, on the other hand, now that was a surprise... 😏

Ask him a century ago if Lucifer would ever consider a human lover, godly mother or no, and he'd have laughed! Yet here he is, giving gifts and sneaking whiffs of their adorable new housemate!

Of course, that's causing some commotion because they're pitted against each other, but Asmo finds it kind of cute honestly. 

Beel and Lucifer aren't fighting, not for real. The whole house knows Lucifer would win in a real brawl, but neither of them actually want to hurt the other… They're far too close for that.

So Beel tosses Lucifer around with kid gloves and Lucifer holds back considerably against Beel. It's pretty much just two brothers who love each other squabbling over the same toy… 🤭

Honestly, Lucifer might have bowed out by now and just let Beel have them but now his pride's on the line… thus an endless tussle between family and the sweet MC is in the middle, clueless to it all!

Tragic, is it not? But it certainly makes things more entertaining around here! (Good thing too since Beel beat him to the punch… If it's a fight against those two, he'll have to keep any of his own affairs with the MC under the radar... 😏)

Beelzebub 

He has claimed this one. Full stop.

For a bit of perspective: when Barbatos needs cooking tips, he calls Hestia. Hestia, the Divine Master of All Things Cooking. Hestia, the goddess who raised this MC… 

Needless to say if they have any magic at all, it's in the kitchen.

If food is the way to Beel's heart, this MC has claimed his heart, soul, and probably all of his vital organs. Their food is astounding!! Always perfect every time and so good it brings him to tears!

It started the night of that first dinner, prepared by MC. He was too busy scarfing down the table to even notice a goddess showed up and then he proposed to the MC with their own pig roast by meal's end!

They said no to marriage, but an instant pact agreement suited him just fine.

Beel didn't waste a single moment before he started treating them like a potential mate, territorial aggression and all, but there was a bit of a catch… He kept the MC totally oblivious to it.

Surprisingly, Beel's can turn the "They're MINE" part of his brain on and off pretty well. He's nothing but sweet and cuddly to the MC when they're around and even with his brothers!... as long as they don't try anything.

The moment he caught whiff that Lucifer might be pursuing them too, it was on. Suddenly the two brothers who almost never fight were in competition against each other! But of course, both have an unspoken rule to never do so in front of MC.

And now poor MC believes it's common for demons to "play wrestle" like puppies and hugs are traditionally supposed to be so hard they could snap spines… 

And it doesn’t look like they'll be backing down any time soon… Oh dear...

Belphegor 

You know what? For once, everything goes exactly to plan for Belphie!

No really, this MC has no hidden powers, no magic horses, not even Demon Nip. They are a helpless, trusting little human who just wants to help their big teddy bear get his twin back!

So, you know how it goes. The charm, the lies, the treachery and all of that. He even gets to kill them!! Oh, happy days!! 😁

Come to think of it, they did smell an awful lot like Beel… But who cares, as long as Lucifer suffers right?? And this whole "living together in harmony" crap fails, right?!

Wrong. 

Beel went ballistic. Lucifer did too, but Beel was what really hurt…

Belphie can safely say that in all of his life, Beel has never physically attacked him. Not once, or at least, not with intent to kill… 

But when the sixthborn's fist went crashing through the wall right by his ear that day, he knew his brother's first instinct was to aim for his head… and his second was to miss, as he still loved him, but only by just a little.

What the hell did he just do??

Thank their father for Barbatos and all the funky time stuff he can do because bringing the MC "back" snapped his angry brothers right out of it. 

Things should have been smoothed over at that point but as everyone was finally settling down for tea, Hestia made another appearance in the House… this time carrying a butcher's knife!

Time fix or no, Diavolo had promised her no harm would come to MC and at least one continuity of them DIED… so punishment was now on Lucifer and the Demon Prince himself!

Belphie, in a rare case of guilt and an expression of brotherly love, offered to take their place since it WAS kind of all his fault. His gesture softened the Goddess of Family juuust enough to lighten his sentence from execution to hard labor.

And thus, the MC had their own housekeeping assistant for a whole year, complete with bitter reluctance and a matching maid outfit! Cat-theme and all!!

He's sending nightmares to anybody who laughs… guaranteed. 😒

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me demigods

[voidmadisonrecs]

chris evans recs

these are more for me then anyone else but here are my fav chris evans (and co.) fics, blurbs, headcanons, etc.

feel free to message or comment with suggestions that i should read and make sure to check out these writers other works because they are all amazing <3

Chris Evans

butterflies - @chanelfaerie

chris has got butterflies for you—do you feel the same?

pop the questions - @angelkurenai

you are costars and in a relationship with Chris and while on the set of ‘Gifted’, you are very clingy. when Chris sees you interact with your youngest costar, he realizes you would make a great mother

white - @agentofbarnes

chris can’t seem to function while seeing you in a white dress

ask me properly - @twittytelly

while spending time with his family, chris realizes that it's the perfect time to put his 'plan' into action

red carpet w/ chris - @avenging-fandoms

your chris’s costar with Chris and you’re both tipsy in a red carpet interview and giggling together, making no sense but just being all happy and sparking dating rumours

happy goddamn new year - @fluffymisha97

the morning after your new year with the evans’ which doesn’t go all that smooth

sweet creature - @buckyhoney

domestic shit

ass man headcanon - @agentofbarnes

chris evans sure does love ass

and then he came along - @teebarnes

you haven't had the best record when it comes to relationships, you thought you couldn't be loved. until one day as you sat on the beach shivering, everything changed when chris came along

granola bar and lots of love - @planetofawe

with the kids away, you and chris have more than enough time to practice some aftercare (smut)

claim - @cloudystevie

your husband puts a baby in you (smut)

beer gut - @violetlilysunshine

chris gets self conscious after gaining a little bit of weight and not working out as hard as he used to during his Marvel days (smut)

dumb - @agentofbarnes

chris evans makes you dumb and you are a little touchstarved (smut)

red, white, blue’s in the sky, summer’s in the air, baby heaven’s in your eyes - @cloudystevie

sunday’s are for football games and attention (smut)

the big 4-0 - @rocketrhap3000

chris being insecure for his 40th bday but reader makes sure he knows just how much she loves him (smut)

my girl - @punani

chris loves calling you his girl (smut)

the fluffer (masterlist) - @punani

it’s the 70′s and the erotic videos industry is experiencing another boom after the risen popularity in the previous decade. the studio’s are hot, gemini flanagan is a brand, and you’re a newly hired assistant at shaggin’ studios. chris takes a liking to you, altering your job description so that you get to work more closely with him. is this all just physical, or is there something more? (smut)

wedding shenanigans - @flowerbouquet

in which you and chris have a sneaky fuck in the bathroom during your best friends wedding (smut)

grocery run - @bucksfucks

innocently wearing chris’ shirt leads to you finding out just how much he can’t resist you (smut)

chain - @bucksfucks

chris tells you to bite down on his chain (smut)

home late (part 2) - @violetlilysunshine

smuttttttt

severance - @punani

the divorce process with chris is messy, seemingly never ending, and ultimately: heartbreaking. you had to be strong for your son, yourself, and eventually you wanted someone else to be strong for you, so, it seemed only natural that you would venture into the arms of another. however, sometimes the line between something officially ending or simply taking a break blurs when you’ve known someone for longer than you can remember (smut/baby fever/ex!reader)

so beautiful to me - @uprootbasic

despite being broken up and coparenting, chris still want to show you how much he loves you (smut/baby fever)

sundress season - @jurassicbarnes

in which all it takes is a pretty little dress to break his resolve (ex!reader/smut/baby fever)

mwah - @iguessweallcrazyithinktho

ur little bubba is obsessed with kissys and keeps leaning in to kiss you (baby fever)

long hair lover - @iguessweallcrazyithinktho

chris comes back from filming red sea diving resort and his baby daughter is crazy in love with his long hair (baby fever)

slobbery kisses - @iguessweallcrazyithinktho 

chris wakes up to sloppy kisses by his baby (baby fever)

baby rose - @fluffymisha97

reader and chris had a little baby girl. but not everything is going that well, you're both trying to navigate life as new parents (baby fever)

eve - @kiwisomething

you drop your son off with his father and he invites you in (baby fever/ex!chris)

parenting is hard blurb - @lokiscu

chris and the reader have just had a baby and the lack of sleep mixed with lack of physical affection and time they have with one another gets to both of them and they end up fighting because of the stress (baby fever)

isla - @uprootbasic

the reader is a famous singer and always sings to her little girl. one night, chris and the reader decides to have this little jamming session with their baby. chris plays the piano while the reader sings I wanna hold your hand by the Beatles (baby fever)

the neighbours lights - @lokiscu

it’s your first Christmas with a baby (baby fever)

paparazzi - @ozarkthedog

chris evans and reader are both famous and one day they are out with their daughter when paparazzi start to follow them (baby fever)

thunder - @worksby-d

your daughter is scared of the thunder (baby fever)

she’s the one - @worksby-d

chris x singlemom!reader masterlist (baby fever)

protective stepdad chris x single!reader - @worksby-d

masterlist (baby fever)

truth be told - @kthynes

chris finds out he has a 6 month old baby because his partner didn’t have the chance to tell him that she is pregnant because they broke up (angsty??/baby fever)

not her - @agentofbarnes

chris wants a family and you just aren’t ready yet, but that doesn’t mean he wants you any less (angsty?)

the love we have - @kthynes

the reader is chris's ex wife and she's about to be married again to a guy she doesn't really love. so in the night of her bachelorette party she's really drunk and she ended up going to his apartment and tell him that she still loves him and that she wants to hate him because he was the one who file for divorce but she can't, then she leaves. on the day of the ceremony their 10 year old kid tells Chris that he should go after her before is too late (angsty??)

Frank Adler

i ruined our sweet tune - @rodrikstark

the last person you’d expect to see in florida is the hot professor from your undergrad philosophy class 

buttons - @rodrikstark

buttoning franks shirt headcanon 

waffles - @amylillian22

the morning after their usual saturday date night, y/n runs into mary unexpectedly. frank wakes up to find them making waffles

remember - @sweater-daddiesdumbdork

frank wakes you up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am and will not even tell you why

breeding kink - @stargazingfangirl18

as the hot single dad everyone wants to get with, frank turns a few heads at back to school night, and well, you may get a little possessive (smut) 

magic demeanor - @bloodiedskirtts

after moving back to Florida in the middle of a heat wave, things seem to be getting worse and worse. the only thing to make her days any better is her neighbour, Frank. with neither of them willing to admit that they can’t get enough of each other, a pesky shower malfunction may be the only way for them to tell each other how they feel (smut)  

Ransom Drysdale

2:27 am - @cloudystevie

it’s 2:27 in the morning when ransom shows up at your doorstep, and he wishes he could tell you why 

cold (third part of his return) - @kiwisomething

hugh is cold sleeping on the couch by himself 

new man - @worksby-d

ransom loves to pretend he’s not whipped for you, but here he is letting you do your skin care routine on him

morning dew - @agentofbarnes

it was only supposed to be one night, but ransom can’t seem to get you out of his head (smut) 

Andy Barber

the proposal - @fairyevans

andy takes the reader on a gorgeous vacation but everything goes wrong except the proposal 

consequences - @stargazingfangirl18

life after your breakup with ransom (smut)

yes, mrs barber - @jurassicbarnes

in which you’re down on your knees, about to suck his dick within an inch of his life because it was the only way to shut him up (smut) 

#chris evans imagine #chris evans x reader #chris evans #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fic #chris evans fluff #chris evans smut #chris evans fic recs #chris evans reader insert #ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale imagine #frank adler x reader #frank adler imagine #frank adler fic #frank adler fanfiction #andy barber imagine #andy barber x reader #andy barber fic #andy barber fanfiction

[avonne-writes]

Experimental Science

Pairing: Loki/Mobius

Rating, word count: Explicit, 2.5k

Summary:  According to some Old Norse beliefs, the ground shakes whenever Loki writhes in pain under torture. Mobius has a vastly different explanation though and he's determined to test it. Debunking myths one at a time.

Link to the AO3 post

It's crucial that Loki doesn't know what they're actually doing here. Mobius is conducting a single-blind experiment after all, and it would compromise his results if Loki figured out its aims. He wants to induce an earthquake by making him lose control of his magic. He knows for a fact that the Old Norse lore is unreliable. Unfortunately, he saw what Thanos did to Loki before New York, and physical pain turns Loki's seidr inwards, to hold him up - it doesn't become explosive like the myths suggest. There are a number of more viable ways to achieve that though, and Mobius opted for the most pleasant one on his list. Out of pure scientific curiosity, of course.

His hypothesis: Loki's powers build up if he's continuously kept on the cusp of emotional release. Be that happiness, anger, sadness or, well… pleasure. If he can't let it go in increments, the magic will accumulate under his glamour and burst out in one of those infamous fits that led him to fight Thor time and again.

Mobius can't wait to see it in person.

It's freezing cold around their little cabin deep in Norway's empty forests, but the flames crackling in the fireplace fill the air with warmth. Dusk has already plunged into utter darkness, only broken by the silver moonlight that shines through the gaps between the trees. It's quiet. The flannel shirt feels unfamiliar on Mobius' torso, but Loki insisted, and this night is, after all, about Loki's comfort first and foremost. Mobius wants to drive him to the edge and hold him there. Patient control is key.

Sitting in the middle of the loveseat in front of the fireplace, he lets his legs fall apart wider, toes curling in the thick rug Loki's kneeling on. They've been making out for a while now, listening to the pouring rain and each other's breathing. If only their quarters at the TVA were this cozy. A part of him wishes they had storms there.

Loki squirmed out of his clothes minutes ago and slipped to the hardwood floor, his legs folded under him, almost as pale as the rug cushioning him. He runs his palms up Mobius' calves to his inner thighs, stroking the golden hair covering them. Goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch.

"Cold?" Loki asks. His hands snake further up, and he thumbs at Mobius' hip bones through his boxer briefs.

Mobius shudders, but it has nothing to do with the temperature. "I'm not the naked one here."

"You'll be soon." Loki grins and goes for the buttons on that flannel shirt, going down from the top. Any other night, Mobius would meet him halfway, up from the bottom, but he waits it out this time.

"Besides -" Loki goes on, leaving damp kisses on Mobius' skin after each new revealed inch. "- I don't feel the cold."

Mobius frowns. "But I've seen you shiver before."

The shirt undone, Loki crawls ever closer and nuzzles Mobius' smooth chest, licks a nipple. "Haven't you ever trembled in fear before? Or excitement?"

He looks up, then bites his lip. Mobius' eyes drop to it, he lets himself be played. Casts a bait. "I don't think I have."

Loki sits back, chin raised. "Your experience of life is abysmal. I offer my selfless assistance to remedy that."

Hook, line, sinker. Mobius is not the only one who's aiming for an intense night now, and Loki still doesn't suspect anything.

"How could I refuse?"

Loki grins.

He likes to use his mouth, and does so tonight as well, with an enthusiasm that almost makes Mobius ditch his entire plan. Once he gets rid of Mobius' underwear, his lips wrap around Mobius' cock and envelop him in a myriad of hot, wet sensations. It's only the thought of the seismograph he set up nearby that keeps Mobius in check. He puts a hand on Loki's shoulder and tries to hold him back from sliding down all the way again.

"Easy, easy." He mumbles soothingly.

Loki pulls off and rests his head on Mobius' right thigh, abandoning Mobius' cock to the suddenly cool air. "If you're talking to me -"

"Who else?"

"- I'll let you know that this is far from my first. By a few centuries."

Mobius clenches his fists to contain the surge in his irrational jealousy. It always shimmers in the background. "Thanks for the reminder."

Loki smirks. He leans forward and nips the soft curve of Mobius' belly, just beside the line of Mobius' leaking cock. He doesn't have any kind of stubble whatsoever, his chin is smooth against Mobius' skin. "It can still become my best though."

His tongue flickers against the head once, to tease, but he keeps his cheek pressed to Mobius' stomach, a warm weight that rises and falls with every breath.

Mobius tucks his black hair behind his ear. "Are you trying to rile me up?"

"Is it working?"

"No." He lies. "Keep going."

Loki runs his fingers over Mobius' heated skin, then lifts his cock and licks the sticky head. He looks up at Mobius with half-lidded eyes and does it again. Sucks, just once.

Mobius gasps. "Shameless."

"Hm." Loki hums, stroking Mobius lazily. "Let me ride you."

"No."

"Why not?"

Mobius bites his lip. This is just as much a game of patience for Loki as it is for him, and he needs to find the right words to win. "I want to enjoy you longer."

Loki groans, a sound resonating with desire, and he gives Mobius his lips again, hands dropping to Mobius' waist to trace lines under his ribcage. Mobius slips his fingers into Loki's hair and holds him in place, fucking into his mouth slowly, in short thrusts that won't get him off but will push Loki to that headspace where he accepts dominance blissfully. Sure enough, Loki closes his eyes and relaxes into it, and Mobius can't help the soft moans that escape him at the sight. He can't believe that Loki wants him to have this.

At the slightest hint of resistance, he lets go, heart pounding in fear that this was too much, as always, but Loki just sighs. His blue eyes sparkle. "Faster."

Mobius swallows his relief. He adjusts his grip on Loki's head to compose himself. "Not yet."

Now there is some annoyance in Loki's gaze. "Stand up at least then."

Mobius isn't a saint by any means, there are some things he can't resist either, even though he knows this is Loki's way to manipulate him into giving him what he wants. He figures that denying him only at the end will work better than not indulging him at all. He rises to his feet, looking down at Loki's beautiful kneeling posture, and guides his cock back to Loki's mouth, presses the head to his lips. Loki stares up at him with feigned innocence. His hands caress Mobius' ankles in idle circles. Waiting. Yearning.

The energy contained in his perfectly still body vibrates in the air. On the right track. Mobius smiles and pushes in.

For a few minutes, he uses Loki's mouth the way Loki craves it, roughly, without hesitation, but it's too good, and he wouldn't last if he kept it up. He pulls away just as Loki's starting to seek more of it, leaving him frustrated again.

"Pray tell, why did you stop now?" Loki whines. "I assure you I was perfectly content with -"

Mobius doesn't let him finish, lest he release some of the built-up power in a tirade. He drops to his knees and kisses Loki's sticky, red lips, running his hands over his bare torso until Loki tries to draw him closer.

"Lie down." He says with the firm authority he mastered at the TVA. "On your back."

Loki stretches out on the soft rug, spreading his arms. His long fingers run through the material, petting it, tugging at it, burrowing under the threads. Mobius frowns at the gesture.

"Hands on me." He gathers Loki's wrists to lay them on his shoulders.

"If you wanted me passive, you should have restrained me." Loki purrs, rubbing Mobius' muscles. He smiles when Mobius grabs his cock.

"I don't want you to be passive." Mobius turns his head to kiss a bony wrist. "Just obedient."

Loki arches an eyebrow. The golden-orange light of the fire flickers on his face and neck, warming him on one side while leaving the other in shadows. It exposes the flush of arousal on his skin and the way his eyelashes flutter when the slick sounds of Mobius' stroking change rhythm. He tries to sit up for a kiss, but Mobius pushes him down with a palm on Loki's chest. Loki's heart drums frantically under his sternum.

"Wait. Are you trying to rile me up?" Loki huffs. He raises his hips, presses them back down, squirms, goes still again, getting closer to the peak. Mobius loosens his hold and stops. Loki's hot flesh throbs and twitches in the circle of his fingers.

"It's working." His smile might be a bit too giddy for the nasty scowl he receives.

Loki drops his arms. His fingertips wander to Mobius' wrist, and he digs his nails into the skin there.

"Oh, you cruel mortal." He hisses, then sucks a sharp breath in when Mobius resumes his strokes and speeds up again. It's so slick now that he has to tighten his grip around Loki's cock. "Don't you know that I could crush you with a flick of my wrist here? You're at my mercy. Defenseless."

There it is, Mobius notes with excitement. Rippling under the surface, all that electrifying magic. "Big words, kitten."

Loki's lips drop open. "Ah, just -"

Taken by surprise, Mobius has to squeeze the base of Loki's cock to cut off his pleasure in time. He's almost sorry for the pained sounds Loki makes and the way his chest heaves as he comes down from yet another wave he couldn’t crest. He pushes at Mobius' fist to move it, but Mobius keeps it stubbornly still.

"That blasted nickname." Loki snarls, blinking deliriously at the logs that make up the ceiling. "Never use it again."

Oh, of course. Catching on, Mobius leans down and kisses Loki's hot skin, where exertion and the fire drew pearly sweat to his temple, and pours lube on his fingers.

"Alright, sweetheart." He whispers against Loki's cheek as he stretches him open. "My darling."

Loki bites his neck. It hurts, but Mobius' traitorous cock jumps at the sensation.

"I forbid you to say any of these in my presence." Loki growls. "You may call me by name or title, nothing else."

"Ouch." Mobius chuckles. He moves between Loki's legs, pulling them up on his shoulders. "Too sweet for you?"

"Cloying like -" Loki grunts at the first thrust. Licks his lips. "- the smell of linden blossom."

"Aren't they your favorite Midgardian plants?"

"Oh, how I detest you." Loki mumbles, then, looking hungry and desperate, reaches for Mobius' face. "Kiss me."

Mobius drops Loki's legs to the crook of his elbows and folds over him, taking the needy kiss Loki offers him and giving him steady, deep thrusts in return, toeing that sweet edge now. Loki's tight as a vice, and his grip around Mobius' torso is firm, but his lips open to Mobius' exploration pliantly, as if he wants nothing but to pull Mobius closer, as close as two men can ever be to each other.

"More." He demands quietly, rubbing the tip of his nose to Mobius' cheek. A gesture almost too tender to bear.

Mobius smiles. "Some things are beyond your control."

"Like my own release?"

"Tonight, yes."

Loki wipes at his face, obviously aroused by the thought. "Norns." He exhales. "What evil trick are you playing on me?"

"I just want you to ask for it."

Loki's legs fall further open. His eyes gleam an otherworldly blue, the normal colors shaking apart into iridescence. "I'm asking."

"Denied." Mobius grits through his teeth, willing himself to hold on just a little bit longer.

"I'm a god." Comes the feeble retort.

Mobius shakes his head, thrusts harder. Sweat trickles down his chest, and the sound of his hips smacking against Loki's ass seems to echo through the cabin. They slide forward on the rug. "You're my lover."

Loki melts. Boundlessly lustful now, he pulls Mobius into another kiss, pouring affection and trust into every press of their lips, something Mobius only wishes to experience outside of sex. One of his hands slips down to Mobius' ass to feel the muscles move, and when Mobius takes his cock into his hand, he trembles. Just like those shivers they were talking about earlier.

"Can I?" He pleads. "Moby, can I now?"

"Not yet." Mobius struggles, his whole body battling his iron control to just chase the pleasure until the details of the universe cease to matter. He buries his face in Loki's neck, high on the smell of their scents mixing, realms of want rippling through their embrace. He sees green sparkles out of the corner of his eye, and when he puts his mouth on Loki's throat, the power stings. Tingling.

"I can't hold back." Loki sobs.

"You can."

"No…"

Mobius squeezes his eyes shut and lets himself go, moving out of pure instinct now and babbling into Loki's ear. "Fight it, come on, come on, you can -"

His breath hitches as white-hot desire splits through him from head to toe. "Now."

Loki comes with such violent rapture that his magic explodes. The lamp falls off the small bedside table a few feet away, the windows rattle, the cabinet creaks. A flash of green is swallowed by the ground. His cock jerks between their bellies and his mouth goes slack. He rides his bliss without a single sound, gone far beyond that, coherence lost. Mobius pushes him through it with his last erratic thrusts, then spills, can't help it, fills Loki over and over again until it hurts. His messy satisfaction makes the slide that much smoother in the aftershocks. When he's done, he collapses.

Loki makes the tiniest of whimpers and goes boneless under him.

Experiment: complete. Results: significant. Further exploration of the subject: required. Absolutely necessary. For the sake of science.

"How much weight can you carry?" Loki's splayed legs move. He hums when Mobius' hips twitch forward involuntarily at the adjustment, making a filthy wet sound. "I'm afraid I won't be of much help if you want to move from this lovely fur." He pats the rug.

Mobius pulls out, kissing Loki's grimace away. He didn't expect the force to be this strong. He hopes they didn't create a nexus event. Their current position would be a little awkward to explain to a bunch of Minutemen. "A frost giant might be above my limit."

Loki grunts. "I'm not a frost giant."

Heart aching, Mobius cradles Loki's cheeks. "Aren't you?"

Loki's eyes flutter open. He watches Mobius for a moment, then breaks into an indolent smirk. "I'm your lover."

A chuckle bursts out of Mobius before he can even think of holding it back. "And you can't be both?"

Loki lowers his gaze. His hands come to rest on the small of Mobius' back. "It's a question of preference."

"Alright." Mobius lets it go. They're not there yet. Time for the post-experiment debriefing. "You shook the earth. Did you realize?"

"Did I?" Loki gives him a carefree smile. "Happens sometimes. I don't know why."

Mobius touches the bite mark on his neck. "I have a hypothesis."

#lokius #loki #mobius m mobius #lokius fanfic #my writing #pwp

[maxwell-grant]

Ok, but how would the Shadow get along with Superman?

I'm gonna try something a little different with this ask, because I couldn't really find the right words to answer it the way I usually do. So instead I took the more complicated route and ended up writing a fanfic of sorts, about potential interactions between these two I could think of.

I don't think I'll make a habit out of answering replies through fanfic but, I don't know, something about this question kinda demanded from me a different type of answer. I never wrote Superman before but I do need to get back to writing.

So here you go, the Shadow - Superman fanfic I wrote to answer this. Hope you enjoy.

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They were not friends. They were not enemies. They had their separate worlds to watch over, and rarely did they cross each other. Rarely did they meet under desirable circumstances. 

 The Shadow, as Superman knew him, was not a part of Superman's world. In more ways than one.

Clark knew that he was a man who was mainly active during the 1930s and 40s, that he had been a crimefighter active in the United States during that time, that he has some connection to Bruce and other heroes he knew, and that he has an associate related to Lois named Margo, but somehow, Clark could never find him on his own accord.

Even when he time traveled to said period, he could never find him. Lois and Margo share a bloodline, but Lois does not recall what exactly of what sort, not even under Clark's machines. When he asked some of The Shadow's associates, they could not recall him, and Clark knew for a fact they could not have been lying. Some of them existed in this world but with "ordinary" lives, and others didn't.

Although he seemed to come from an alternate world,there were times when The Shadow appeared to have history in this world as well. Real, tangible history, that seems to be willed out of thin air and to dissappear when Clark goes looking for it. Even Bruce seems to not remember him, and Bruce's the one who seemed to have spent the most time in his presence.

He couldn't quite say he looked fondly on his meetings with The Shadow, if he could be honest with himself. He was cold, remote, harsh and manipulative. He murdered criminals without remorse, something that even he admitted had soured his relationship with Bruce, and terrorized those he fought to a much greater extent than even Batman, who Clark already thought was going too far at times.

Clark knew he was not an evil man, he was certain of the compassion within him that thundered to protect the innocent, but Clark could hardly be certain of how much he knew about him in the first place. Clark, who could see through crowds and make a shopping list out of what each person had eaten for breakfest that morning, could not identify The Shadow's face through his mask, could not see what was behind his eyes.

Clark is extremely aware of the standards he must adhere to in order to operate as Superman, the ways in which he must be held accountable as someone operating above and within society. He understands the importance of his friends and allies that can stop and defeat him, the family he must look after, the reputation he must uphold, the control over his powers and a lifetime of experience in holding himself back. At times he was even grateful for the existence of Kryptonite as a desperate measure. He knows that Bruce goes through a lot of measures to keep himself in check as well.

But he knows little about The Shadow, who works for him, why they do so, who can hold him accountable, who is going to help him when he can't help himself. He worries about what his world must look like, to create a man like him, brainwashing people and gunning down criminals in the streets while laughing. How much good can such a man do if this is what his approach to justice looks like? What is the toil that such a grim approach to life has taken on this man's life?

He knows that overthinking is one of his worse flaws, but Superman can't help but dwell sometimes on the worlds he cannot save, on those that must take on such realities. He only wishes he knew how to find The Shadow of his own accord and try to bring peace to the man, even if he knows better than to assume peace is what he's looking for.

It is the nature of Superman to never stop trying to bring everyone to a world beyond death, darkness and sorrow, and to blame himself for those he cannot save even from themselves.

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It was a well-known fact that The Shadow always worked alone. And like most known facts about him, it was not entirely accurate.

The Shadow strives to cultivate the image that he's alone, untouchable, that all who work for him do so because he forces them to. That he always tells those he saves that their lives belong to him, that they are trembling slaves to a monster sniffing blood in gutters.

Distractions, lies, smokescreens he must create, to allow his agents to operate as spies, and spare them from the wrath of the police and the criminal underworld alike, too busy hunting a legend to notice the flesh and blood people working under their noses, people they would otherwise be all too happy to neglect or stomp on.

Misdirection, the secret of any magic trick. The true secret of The Shadow's invisibility.

There are days where the only positive thought in his mind is that his agents cannot join him wherever he goes.

The success of The Shadow depended heavily on the vast networks of agents and allies he'd gathered over the years, people from all walks of life who trusted him and had chosen to join him. Every courageous move, sacrifice and pivotal role they played was carefully recorded in his files, and never forgotten. They had skills and capabilities The Shadow did not, and The Shadow was proud to see the ways in which they would cultivate those into the betterment of the world around him.

And though the bridge between them was unassailable, though his ways and actions were secret and mysterious to them and they could never know more than he allowed, they received constant signs of The Shadow’s appreciation of their reliable cooperation, and at many points The Shadow had made said bridge less unassailable for their sake.

But they were not his friends. His allies were distant and occupied with fights The Shadow could assist, but not fight for them. His agents were subordinates rather than equals, expected to play the necessary parts and leave the scene for their own safety just as quickly. His friends were few, and often dead. And when it was the moment of danger, The Shadow fought alone. The protection of others came above all else, and on field, although they were expected to think and strategize for themselves and work together, The Shadow's word was final.

There could be no distractions, no hesitations. Those had cost him more than enough on the battlefields of the Great War, mistakes he would never repeat again. The sacrifice of companionship, his own personhood and self-preservation is an acceptable loss for the sake of those he must protect.

There are occasions when The Shadow is forced into circumstances beyond what logic and physics should allow, and in some of those occasions, Superman had been involved in them. There are occasions also where he has to work side by side with other vigilantes, and sometimes, they also include Superman.

He couldn't quite say he looked forward to working with Superman. His arrival almost inevitably carried chaos into the inner workings of reality. The existence of an omnipotent being able to crack planets with a footstep and liquefy crowds with a gaze, held back only by his human personality, was a danger that thankfully did not exist in The Shadow's own world, but was a worrying prospect regardless.

Few of his experiences with aliens and superpowered warriors could be said to be positive ones, and a lifetime of knowing the evil in the hearts of men had taught The Shadow how easily even the best of intentions and the most solid of morals could be corroded and destroyed. It didn't help matters that this being was also a public crusader and celebrity passing judgement on criminals, even while secretly holding a private dimensional prison to throw them into should they be sufficiently dangerous. Someone completely unstoppable and unaccountable, even to death itself.

The Shadow understood Superman to be a good man, a moral man who had been raised well to be the best he could. The Shadow respected and treasured the existence of those like him, men and women and everything in between that could breathe in the sun and uphold mankind, while he dwelled in the underworld to make sure those more like him would not rise to attack them.

But whatever the rewards of these partnerships, he was glad when they were over. His work requires full control. He cannot tolerate the loss of it.

Others can dream of better tomorrows and work to make them happen, his is the task of clearing the darkest paths so others need not tread them.

Hope, light and comfort are noble gifts, but they are not his to give.

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The first time they met had been the result of Vandal Savage's Hypertime Collider, a trap designed to keep Superman running circles through the timestreams, cycling through alternate versions of himself. He had landed in the 1930s, somewhat depowered, in a world where some allies of his existed, but superheroes were nowhere to be found (although some people reacted in terror at him, shouting "IT'S DANNER! HE'S COME BACK TO KILL US!", the significance of which was lost on Clark).

He had met a woman named Margo Lane when looking for this world's Lois, telling her he was a farmboy from Kansas lost in the big city looking for a friend with the same last name. Margo didn't recognize anyone named Lois, and Clark could tell she was only pretending to believe his story (even though it was true, in a sense), but through her, he met a tall, gaunt and hawk-like millionaire by the name of Lamont Cranston, a name Clark recognized from an old radio show Jonathan used to listen.

He had an idea of who The Shadow was. An old detective from a radio show or pulp magazines, sure, Superman's been to worlds he used to think were fictional before, some people still think he's as real as Santa Claus (who was going to join him and the Easter Bunny for checkers next Sunday).

Their conversation of platitudes was cut short, as it wasn't long before the Hypertime Collider was soon transporting him to a different time period, but before he was ejected, he remembered the moment their conversation ended.

Shortly before he could feel the Collider breaking and warping time and space in a chokehold around him, he remembered an eerie silence fall on the room. Though his hearing senses in this world were diminished, he could still pick up minute sounds from miles away, and it was a strange sensation to hear the sound of nothing. A sound that did not exist but silenced everything around it with deafening precision, a sound that Clark had not heard even in the deepest recesses of space, when he could still hear his body's metabolism at work. For a moment, though he did not need it to survive, Clark worried his heart had stopped working, for he could not hear it.

It surely was the Collider's effect at work, he reasoned.

But in that brief moment, whatever surprise he expected to find on Cranston's expression was nowhere to be found. Instead, scattered shadows slashed across his face as the air around him changed and he closed his eyes. He was still wearing Cranston's face when he opened them, and once again, they did not match his face.

The last thing he remembered before his ejection was a voice that cut through the air and the meters separating them, that sounded like a python hissing in Clark's ear, from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"This is not your world."

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The second time was in another dimensional sojourn, this time of his volition.

Having borrowed a portal from Cyberwear Enterprises, Clark was rehearsing a speech intended for the Reginellian people of the Bohren System, one he was expected to give through blinking in reverse morse code, and in order to ensure the atmosphere of their planet would allow them to hear him, Clark intended to pay them a visit. But instead, he was transported somewhere else.

Before he could properly register the time period and location he had landed, he had encountered The Shadow in the middle of rescuing a steamship on fire from sinking.

He was clinging to the side of it unseen from the panicking passangers, drilling bullet holes to the bottom of the ship so it would fall to the side and steer clear from a passing fireworks yacht. He was holding a rope attached to a nearby tugboat with one hand, and with the other he was clinging to the boat's window. The tugboat was moving outside of the steamship's range, and as it moved, it would drag The Shadow and tilt the steamship as he gripped it, just enough to prevent the steamship from colliding head-on with the coming barge.

The tugboat had three men within it, one piloting it and two holding on to the rope that The Shadow had attached, working along with The Shadow to try and pull the steamship. One of these men had a missing eye and was dressed in aviator gear, presumably the pilot of the autogyro atop the tugboat. The other was a tall, muscular black man in suspenders, who dwarfed the pilot in both size and strength.

The strain of their pull could dislocate The Shadow's arms at the very minimum, if not outright kill him, his plunge would carry him 20 feet into the water and potentially under the sinking steamship. Still, they pulled with grim determination, although the boat driver had his eyes closed, and Clark recognized the Yiddish mutterings coming from his mouth as a desperate prayer.

Though they did not see him, these men were extremely thankful when Superman had blown out the inferno with a single breath, and pushed the boat all the way necessary for it's passangers to land on the barge safely, and rescued The Shadow.

Of course they knew the Chief was gonna pull through, he always does.

If The Shadow was thankful for Superman's interference, he didn't show it. In the second he had regained enough strength to talk, he rattled off dozens of names, of passangers in the steamship that had been bruised, by either the flames, the panicking crowd, or the criminals that The Shadow had stopped. People that needed to be taken to medical assistance faster than the ambulances could carry them, of family members that had to be contacted.

He did so without looking at his rescuer, for he remembered Superman, who expected his presence in this timeline to have been erased after he'd destroyed the Hypertime Collider.

Nothing indicated it hadn't been.

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Their most recent encounter was the outcome of an accident where Vandal Savage had trapped Superman in the Arctic and rebuilt his Hypertime Collider, in the hopes of contacting alternate versions of himself so they could all gain Superman's powers and conquer their worlds.

One of said versions was hunted by The Shadow through the portals. The adventure ended rather quickly as the Savages all turned on each other in their tried-and-true method of solving problems with large rocks, but amidst the chaos, a final burst of energy had granted The Shadow a temporary access to Superman's powers.

Thoughts passed through Clark's head of the last time Bruce had accidentally gained access to Superman's abilities, and how despite his best intentions, Bruce couldn't help but overestimate his own ability to wield said powers responsibly. Of how many times he's come across iterations of Bruce who've gained superpowers and used them poorly or tyranically.

He thought of how often he needed to reign himself back, and of the man in black who stood before him, with eyes like thunderstorms ready to break.

The ways in which he is like Bruce, and the ways in which he is decidedly not.

But before Superman could take any sort of action or even ask how he was feeling, The Shadow turned around silently and started walking, straight in the direction of the Fortress of Solitude.

Upon reaching it, he took the million-ton key from beneath the rug that spelled Welcome in a million languages, opened the door, and walked straight into a high security anti-Superman cell within it, designed specifically as a desperate measure against rogue Kryptonians, only stating Superman was going to have to watch him so he couldn't escape.

Clark had never even told him about the Fortress.

He stayed there for the next 12 hours, as Superman ran tests on him to ensure his body wouldn't be negatively affected by the transformation. Clark chose not to remark that some of the bone-deep injuries he had spotted on The Shadow's body previously had healed, as he knew it wouldn't take long for him to acquire new ones after this was over.

They talked briefly at points, and for much of it, The Shadow assumed the façade of Cranston. Sometimes he remembered to breathe and blink, things he forgot to do with startling ease once he no longer needed them.

Clark understood it to be a diplomatic gesture, a façade over the untameable and fearsome Shadow who was frankly unnerving to be around. Even a kind gesture, an effort to address Superman as a man asking for help. Not different than how Superman would prefer to be Clark Kent in order to approach people and ask questions and say things that Superman could never say.

There was a discomfort, of course. There would always be one between the two.

Still, Superman took it as a victory when, after the 12 hours were over, he heard that familiar hiss, with equal intensity but no aggression or even contempt, spell out a "Thank you", as he turned around and was unsurprised to find The Shadow no longer there.

They were not friends, they were not enemies, they belonged to different worlds. They were opposites in their battles for truth and justice.

But truths are often opposite. It is a truth that not all opposites are opposed.

Truth is often as chilling as it can be comforting.

#replies tag #superman #the shadow #clark kent #lamont cranston #my writing #i gotta start putting more of my writing out there and idk i just felt like i had to answer this question this way #i don't question what my brain tells me to do anymore

[fandom-scatteredthoughtsonpaper]

Dark Obey Me AU Outline, Breakdown, Game Mechanic + Specifics, + Some Other Stuff

{Previous post}

Kickoff and Quick Summarization:

Leviathan won a new preliminary horror game with VR aspects from a contest to test the game out before its actual release and invited Mammon and Yuki (MC) to play. This experimental immersion becomes too realistic when Yuki's latent powers takes the experience of the game to new levels when the entire House of Lamentation is sucked into the virtualization. Yuki, now alone and confused to the rules of this blended world of reality and simulation, has to venture through the house and recover the brothers from the game's influence. The game seems a little rigged the more Yuki advanced, so is someone actually pulling strings off screen or is paranoia seeping in?

Type of AU:

Mirror Universe, Interactive AU (you can help build up the world of this event)

Potential tags:

Horror, Psychological, Bloody, Dark, Angsty, Possible Sexual Assault, Death Is Allowed, Bodily Harm

Brief (and Liable to Change) Explanation of How the Game Will Work:

-After the House of Lamentation is shifted and adapted into the game's world, the seven demon brothers are also adapted to the elements of the psychological horror genre and placed as progressively harder bosses that MC has to get through to advance the game and undo the effects of what happened.

-The brothers that MC has converted back to normal will stay on their side and aid them in rescuing the other mentally manipulated boys, some even serving as necessary requirements to further progress. They can roam around the house and their rooms can serve as a temporary safety spots, but MC has to be with them to ward off the game's influence from trying to appeal to their cardinal desires based on their sin they govern and controlling them again.

-MC can try to appeal to any brother at any time, but if they don't meet requirements the struggle will be a lot harder and the emotional toll will be more effective on the chosen brother. If MC fails to convert the brother, not only does the next attempt become tougher, but MC takes damage deemed appropriate by the game based on the sin of the brother.

-The only exception to this rule is Mammon. Mammon is basically the tutorial. He's a mandatory scripted event to teach MC how the gameplay will be, and how they'll make it further in the game.

-Each brother is equivalent as a boss. The only way to progress to the next milestone is to release the grip the game has on the brothers' minds, but it's not as simple as breaking a curse like MC can canonically do with their powers. MC has to make a connection to the altered version of the demons, and to reach that connection they have to tackle each brother's insecurities and issues. Not like resolve them entirely with a heartfelt speech, and voila, they're okay again, but really reach into their hearts and remind them that they're not what the game has turned them into, that they're more than their sins and valued individually by MC.

-Thus having the proper brother on MC's side makes that connection a lot easier when it comes to certain brothers. Once that connection has been made and the game has less control, then MC can use the pact they made in the real world as the final move to disconnect the hold the game has in the virtual world.

-Again, however, it's not as simple as a few deeply passionate words and the veils are lifted from the brothers' eyes. Certain items can be found in each bedroom that helps strengthen the pact to mean something aside from a vow between a human and a demon. Requirements are necessary for progress.

-The pacts MC has with the brothers is a key relevancy to progressing the game. Without trying to appeal positively to their insecurities/fears the game has a strong hold on their minds and the use of their pacts aren't as effective

Rundown of What I Mean:

Mammon is the first demon MC bonded with and that applies itself strongly to their connection and relationship, especially in this event. I might be biased here, and not to mention I'm trial and erroring the story with my MC, Yuki, but I believe Mammon has the strongest connection with MC because of how he feels for them, how empathetic he is, and how emotionally aware he can be.

Mammon governs greed and already easily succumbs to his wants in the real world, but as of now in the canon story, he's grown a bit away from his sin, because of his relationship with MC, like most of the boys have. He can put MC above his own desires, and that influence deals a lot with how MC saves him after he attacks them in their room.

Mammon wants to sell MC's body, bit by bit, blood, teeth, hair, organs, nails, etc., as a means to pull in some serious money in the black market. Greed completely takes over Mammon, and he has very little regard for MC's life. When MC tries to use their pact's powers on Mammon the first time not much is really done, because the connection wasn't made. However, being the tutorial, Mammon becomes less influenced quicker than the rest of his brothers. MC has to remind him he's not a total scumbag that loves only money while Mammon is choking them out. So time is of the essence, because MC is physically harmed in this reality and can die as well.

I'll have a rough draft of this scene up later to better explain the process.

So Basically:

MC has to find items or something meaningful to assist them in helping the brothers become aware while under the game's manipulation, and then making a connection to their actual selves that helps absolve the mind control before using the pacts MC has made to finalize the severance, although it's not totally gone.

How I Plan to Progress the Event (Susceptible to Change) and Suggestions That Have Been Implemented by Other People So Far:

-MC starts the event off at the Lord Demon's castle with Diavolo and Barbatos before returning to the HoL to play with Levi. Before MC leaves Barbatos gives them two coins and a cautionary warning [credit to @jinxed-rose ]

-The unstable powers of MC conflicts with the game and locks the HoL and its residents inside the virtual reality.

-The game treats the brothers as bosses and turns their worst qualities up to 11. The small glimpses of how we saw the brothers in the beginning of the game before warming up to the MC is how they're portrayed in the game. They're meaner, deadlier, and heavily warpped from their original selves.

-MC can physically be hurt and/or killed, so the more of the brothers they can rescue the easier the game will be to traverse.

-The brothers are ranked by the order of when they got a pact with MC. So the optional progression between the brothers would be Mammon, Levi, Beel, Asmo, Satan, Lucifer, and Belphie. The longer MC has been in a pact with the boys the easier it is to sway them out of their brainwashing, but it doesn't have to be in this order [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Another option of progress with the brothers can be psychological fortitude. What I mean by that is the boys' durability to withstand breaking down from their insecurities being provoked. So Mammon's biggest fear is MC getting hurt so he's automatically the first boss and Lucifer would be among the last to confront because he's mentally strongest and that's where the issues would lie. [credit to 13ineedpills13 on AO3]

-Levi is an optional boss that can be done early or late in the game, it doesn't really matter. If MC goes for Levi first, he'll be relatively easy to return to normal, but if MC doesn't get to him until later then he'll be a lot harder to help. If MC attempts to rescue the others before Levi and succeeds the game will make him aware of this. Levi will get more and more enveloped by envy and jealousy and his insecurities will worsen, making it harder to appeal to him. [credit to @sunshine-apprentice ]

-The reason Levi is an optional boss to go after at any time is because he has a mystery that reveals itself later as the event starts ramping up and big reveal towards the end. It's not really a secret if you read the notes on prior posts, but shhh. [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Lucifer is the assumed main person to look out for, because he is the elder, head of the house, and most powerful and sadistic. He watches from the shadows and sets up elaborate snares and ambushes to sike out and slowly breakdown MC. Beel is more frequent around Lucifer's bedroom.

Somewhat Established "Rules" of the Game:

-Each encounter with the brothers during the actual moments of fighting and struggling will be violent and dangerous. Injuries will be painful and won't magically heal after the fight is done. [credit to syvintri on AO3]

-Death is very much possible, but it's tough for the brothers to die. It's not that hard for MC though. So, perma-death is plausible, but it's evened out with the two coins MC gets from Barbatos.

-The end goal is in Levi's bedroom, but it won't be accessible until after the brothers have all been released from the grip of the video game.

-MC's room is the only actual safe room in the house, so it's basically the headquarters

-Beel is the guard that routinely patrols the hallways, but he can be lured away with food from an area for a bit of time

-Each brother's room has a way to help figure out how to un-brainwash the boys, but they are dangerous to go into

-Overcoming the boys' insecurities and sins are a key relevance in progressing the game

-Line up of the boys in order as bosses (potentially): Mammon, Asmodeus, Belphie, Beelzbub, Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan

Concerns and Questions:

There's still a lot of gaps and unfilled holes that I'm not entirely sure how to connect properly. Trying to figure out how to write the encounters between the brothers that are being manipulated and MC/the brothers rescued is going to be tricky. Making sure the boys' characterizations stay close to how they would be will be a challenge.

So my questions for you will help me figure out what people would like to see and also help me connect dots in the story and plot.

A matter to discuss, for instance, is what a comment said on AO3:

"I think them interacting in a proper manner storywise when they are brainwashed is impossible, and such a drag to read. They should only interact during battles, and after battles, as they go on and save the others."

How should I go about writing the progress of the story?

Should I write it like an actual fanfiction, all detailed and specific and going at a constant pace, or should I skip moments instead of writing every scene that could occur to stay fresh and steady-paced, or should I try to base the chapters like actual event lessons in-game where stuff happens briefly and isn't very long?

Or another comment:

"So maybe this is just me, but I think it'd actually be more horrifying if the 'game' wasn't perma-death. Especially if everyone remembered despite any sort of revives or resets and with in-game injuries actually being painful. There's a high potential for angst is all I'm saying. But I guess that lends itself better for a normal fic rather than a choose your own adventure thing"

How should I write the "fight" scenes?

Should they be brief yet detailed or meaty with the conflict as MC tries to resolve the situation before anyone gets too hurt oor would this be good moments for turmoil between the brothers to arise and brawls break out ooor... I don't know what else.

How would the angst and heavy trauma best be applied according to y'all?

What kind of angst would each brother go through as MC tries to rescue them?

Some other questions:

Is the line up of the brothers as bosses okay, or should they be reconfigured to make more sense? Should it be linked how psychologically weak to strong they are or how their sins correspond to the next?

What would they be like at their absolute worst? How far do you think they could dive into their sins if they didn't have morals?

How dangerous would the brothers be?

How would the game use each character's insecurities and fears as their driving point?

How would you like to see brothers interact with MC during the confrontation? Or with each other before/during/after?

If MC were to die what would be the best way to take them out that would really fuck up the boys and devastate the psyche? Any brother is liable to maim or hurt the MC, but which one(s) could actually kill them? Or if a brother took a hit meant for MC, who would be more inclined to step into the line of fire?

These aren't all the questions that I have knocking around in my head and stumping me, but they're the biggest ones. I would like to hear inputs from others, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't feel inclined to answer everything that I've listed. Those are just questions that I thought of and put on this post as examples of what I'm trying to figure out.

Finishing Off:

So yeah. That's the progress I've made so far, both on my own and from suggestions and opinions from other people.

I'd love to hear what y'all have in mind or would like to suggest or a take on a matter for any scenes, interactions, or whatever. Even if it's ideas of your own that relate to something that hasn't been brought up or mentioned, feel free to comment it or send me an ask.

Something this extensive will require a lot of thought and work to be done right, so that's why I had the notion of making this an interactive AU

So, if you're interested or wanna talk about the concept, hit me up! I'm dying just to ramble about potential stuff or read viewpoints about the brothers that you want to see happen or stances for whatever.

#obey me #obey me au #obey me dark au #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me levi #obey me beel #obey me lucifer #obey me leviathan #obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #jess writes

[finiteuniverse13]

home is people, not a place 2/?

Part 1

Summary: Clay gets attacked on base. DEVGRU finds an issue in that.

TW: Blood mention, physical assault, canon typical violence

Tag: @rebelwrites @chibsytelford @bravo-four-seal-team @velvetcardiganbucky @supervalcsi @abby-splace @itsonautopilot @thegirlwhoisalwayswriting @pinkrockstar19 @softi92 @mrsmarvelous1995 @jayhalsteadfan-2417

Lisa is pissed. She has every right to be. Clay had been attacked in the Bravo cages.

She’d watched the kid go from a strap who couldn’t stay in his own lane to an operator who could lead Bravo – and Tier One, for that matter – into the future. And then he’d been attacked in his team’s cages, in his own cage. Blackburn was still at the hospital – he’d found the kid in a pool of his own blood; Lisa wouldn’t blame him if it took an apocalypse to separate him from the kid – making sure that the kid got appropriate care.

She pushed open the door to Bravo’s briefing room, not that it actually had any members of Bravo in it. Alpha, Charlie and Delta were all there, waiting on her brief on the situation. Echo would have been there, if not for them being halfway through their first deployment as a team. There had been hesitation about deploying Echo – the loss of the last Echo line-up still sat heavily in the Tier’s mind.

The three team’s Master Chiefs and 2ICs had sat in Bravo’s usual chairs. Full Metal and Derek sat in Jason and Ray’s chairs, respectively. Beau and his second in command had taken Sonny and Trent’s, while TJ was sat in Brock’s. Delta Two had distinctively chosen not to sit in Clay’s seat, instead sitting in a chair usually used for either Cerberus or a support staff member, depending on the op.

(It was very funny to watch Brock and Clay push a wheely chair with Cerberus on it between the two of them, and they’d pretty much mastered the art of doing it in the last few months. Cerb had found that if he allowed it to happen, he’d get belly rubs and treats, so he was unbothered about it)

The other seats had a random assignment, seemingly first-come-first-serve. The ones unlucky enough to have not found seats stood tensely, arms crossed and grumbling under their breath to each other.

Nobody sat in Clay’s seat.

All 18 operators looked up when she walked in, attention snapping to the person with the most information. As she walked in, her gaze caught on the table space in front of Clay’s chair. Clay had left his book on the table. It’s about as thick as a brick, and Sonny would probably take a glance at it and tell Clay it was as dry as one. The embossed cover didn’t read English, and Lisa had a feeling that there would be very few, if any, people in the room able to read any part of the book.

She stood at the front and pushed her emotions down. These operators were here for information, not emotion.

“At 0145 this morning, 4 Green Team members entered Bravo’s Cage room. At 0157, they left, and returned to the Green Team barracks. 0204, Lieutenant Commander Blackburn entered the Bravo cages. He dialled 911 and was assisted by Alpha Four-”

She cuts herself off for a few seconds, as various operators slapped Jordan on the back, mumbled thanks spreading through the room as they reassured themselves that one of their own had helped their kid.

“Assisted by Alpha Four at 0207. Ambulance arrived at 0215. The Green Team members were apprehended by Alpha and Delta at 0248.”

She pauses again as a ripple of thanks goes through to room, Alpha and Delta thanking their Master Chiefs and each other and Charlie thanking both teams.

“Petty Officer Spenser was admitted to hospital at 0224, and was assessed as having a concussion, a broken nose and 5 bruised ribs.”

Alpha, Charlie and Delta’s medics all take note of this. They’re probably going to be on Clay’s ass for the next few months about this, right behind Trent.

“Bravo arrived at the Hospital at 0243. They are all with him. Hayes has asked that he is included in any appropriate punishments.”

Full Metal snorts. “Bet he didn’t word it like that”

A series of chuckles and grins echoes around the room. He did not word it like that. There was much more swearing, and much, much less formal language. He’d implied murder no less than 5 times.

Lisa allowed a smile to pass through the stony calm façade she had up.

“Command has delegated these appropriate punishments to be carried out within DEVGRU and have stressed the importance of leaving an impression on future graduates. This cannot be a recuring event.”

TJ pipes up first, almost before she’d finished talking. “I say we let Metal work his magic, make sure nobody finds them.”

This gets mixed responses, but Lisa isn’t surprised when none are wholly negative. They all had a younger brother in the form of Clay, and they had all trained for years in the art of killing their enemies as swiftly and efficiently as possible, and these candidates fell wholly and completely under the title of ‘Enemy’.

Metal gives a faux hopeful look to Lisa, and Lisa can tell that he’s not entirely dismissed the possibility, even as he does a terrible job at pretending to still consider it an option that Lisa could authorize. Lisa plays into the joke – god knows that Tier One needs some light in this disastrous day – and gives him the look mostly used for when Bravo (usually Sonny) suggests a stupid idea that shouldn’t had even crossed their minds. Blackburn jokingly referred to it as her “bad dog” look, and it worked for its purpose, making the operators put their tails between their legs. A few faces form smiles, and a few look to be wavering on the edge of smiling.

“No murder, and no death.”

This gets her grumbles, and not all of them are joking. Clay had gotten all of them out of sticky situations. Every operator in Tier One had a handful story where Clay had needed to be briefed on their op, and all of them had at least one where he’d taking calls at 2am to translate over a connection that he could barely hear English through. He’d never berated them for waking him up, and had often taken time to teach various operators key phrases, if he knew they were deploying somewhere where he knew the language.

Beau goes next, possibly the most level-headed of the Master Chiefs – both in the room and not. “Advanced SERE?”

Now this, Lisa can work with. Something about her posture must change, a twitch in her face, because the room suddenly erupts in sound. Charlie Two, Delta Five and Alpha Three all are in close enough range to clap Beau on the back, and they do so in quick succession.

“Gentlemen.” She raises her voice to be heard by the room. There’s nothing gentle about the looks on their faces.

“I’ll leave you to figure something out. Report to me with a plan of action.” And with that, she gives them a single nod and begins to leave. Her turned back does not block out the whispers of violence, but it does hide the vicious smile that’s stretched itself out along her face.

Nobody would even think about hurting their kid. Ever again.

+

As Clay blearily opened his eyes, he realised that he’d succumbed to pain-med-induced sleep. A few hours had probably passed since then, based on the fact that sunlight was now filling the room. Sonny was sat on his right side, gaze focused on the room’s TV screen, which was showing a play-by-play of a football game. The volume was cranked down, and even as Clay becomes more aware; he can only hear every other word.

“Son?” The word passes his lips without him meaning it to. Sonny’s head snaps over to Clay, so fast that Clay fears he may have given himself whiplash.

“Hey Bam Bam, how ya doin?” The toothpick moves hypnotically. Stop looking at the toothpick. Stop it. Stop it. Sonny’s casual expression is betrayed by the slight waver in his voice, a sliver of raw emotion that Sonny couldn’t fully supress. Clay gives him a strained smile in lieu of answering and reaches his hand out. Sonny catches the hand before it moves very far, holding it in a tight grip.

Sonny’s thumb absently runs across Clay’s unblemished because he hadn’t even been able to fight back knuckles, and his spare hand turns off the TV, leaving them in silence.

“Kid.” Clay’s eyes widen slightly, and he almost pulls his hand out of Sonny’s grip at the softly spoken word. He tries to get in the apology, the explanation, before Sonny can tell him that Jason is punishing him for being unaware.

“I should have being paying attention. I know I should have been paying attention, I was just so tired.” I’m sorry I’m so sorry don’t kick me out please

Sonny freezes. What?

“Clay. Stop. Stop-” he has to cut himself off before he says something that includes those really touchy-feely-emotions he’s feeling. Thankfully, Clay doesn’t take the pause as an opportunity to continue. “Stop trying to defend yourself. None of us blame you, Blondie. You were on base. You should have been protected. We won’t fail you again.” Sonny gives him facts, because he knows that if he tries to do anything else he’ll make it worse.

“Son?” Clay recalls a voice calling through the dark, through the black water he was floating in, a voice he’d recognised; “Did Blackburn find me? He- he had blood on his hands”

For a moment, Sonny curses Clay’s blessings as a sniper. He’d always been able to notice the little things, the things none of them would notice. “Yeah, he was checking that none of us were sleeping in the cages.”

Clay nods, and then his brows furrow. He breaks eye contact with Sonny and frowns in the genal direction of his feet. His face makes what Sonny calls his ‘Brainiac’ Face, and Sonny can only assume that he’s thinking about what happened with Blackburn, not rationalizing with himself that the beating was somehow his fault.

“Son, can I talk to him?” Sonny doesn’t want to think about whatever that conversation is going to be, so he nods and begins to gather his stuff. His cap is hanging precariously from one on the bed’s corners, his phone on the bedside table. He stands and ruffles Clay’s head, laughing despite the stink-eye he gets for it. Clay doesn’t mind it, and he has the feeling the next few weeks, if not months, are going to be filled with various forms of physical contact to reassure his teammates that he was still with them.

And now he’d asked Sonny to get Blackburn. God what do you even say to the guy who had found you beaten? ‘Hey Boss, I’m sure that what you saw was horrifying, but I’m alright now?’ God help him. Sonny hadn’t given him a weird look, so he’d probably been expecting Clay to ask at some point.

Clay’s train of thought is interrupted when a soft knock sounds on the door. There’s a second of pause before the door opens. Clay can’t think of a time when Blackburn’s looked worse. There are dark circles under his eyes, and a vaguely haunted look in his eyes. His eyes have a red tinge, and Clay can’t tell if that’s from sleep deprivation, or something else. His hands are rubbed red and raw, and Clay can tell that Blackburn had taken extra care to get every fleck of blood off his hands. He’s in a jacket that looks too big for him, and Clay suspects that Trent had a hand in that. Since the injured person – Clay – wasn’t someone he could immediately care for, Trent had gone for the next best thing, a shaken Blackburn. Under the jacket, he’s still in his fatigues, and by the time he’s finished the assessment of Blackburn’s top half, he’d moved close and sat down, hiding everything below his waist from Clay’s view.

Blackburn reaches out, putting a palm on Clay’s forearm, Clay’s hand mirrors it on Blackburn’s arm, and tension bleeds from Blackburn’s figure. His shoulders slump slightly, and he leans forward.

“How are you feeling?”

Clay considers lying, considers saying that he’s not in any pain, considers easing Blackburn’s mind. He decides against it. Blackburn had found him in a pool of blood, it’s the least he can do to tell him the truth. “My ribs hurt. But I’m, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you were there.”

Clay is the sometimes literally bleeding heart of Bravo, levelling out Sonny’s emotional constipation, and the admission is the balm of some of the burns on Eric’s soul. Eric leaned forwards, shuffling closer to the bed, trying to hide the blood on his knees. He hadn’t been home to change, a call to his wife at 8am had told her that he wasn’t going to be home for a while. She, like the amazing wife she was, had been understanding, and then grumbled at him to let her sleep. They’d both laughed and exchanged ‘I love you’s before his wife ended the call. Clay didn’t need the stress of knowing that Eric had knelt in his blood. Nobody needs that.

“Gave me quite a scare, gave all of us quite a scare.” Eric doesn’t tell him that he’d spent the last half hour scrubbing his hands raw, that Jason had needed to strong-arm him into the waiting room, that Trent had given him one look and offered up his jacket, that he’d had his head in his hands until Sonny had come into the room and told him that Clay wanted to talk to him. Doesn’t tell him that he’d stood outside for nearly a minute before he’d knocked, that he’d needed to barrel in before he lost the nerve to speak to his operator. He usually prides himself on staying calm, on being collected, but Clay had been attacked in one of the few places on earth that he could honestly and without reservation call home. That scared Eric. If he couldn’t keep his operators safe on base, where would they be safe?

“Davis is talking to command about adding locks to the cage room doors, make sure this doesn’t happen again.” If she wasn’t already talking to command about it, she would be soon.

Clay nods. He shifts and grimaces in pain.

“Do you want me to get a nurse?” It’s a safe question, one that doesn’t involve the emotions in the room.

Clay ignores the lifeline. “I’m alright as I am. Did you get the guys?”

Eric nods. Breaking the news to Bravo had been the highlight of his morning. “Command is letting DEVGRU work out how to punish them.”

Clay grins. “I bet Metal is having fun with that.”

It’s Eric’s turn to smile, and a soft chuckle makes its way out. “Davis is under strict orders to not accept a plan that involves murder. I’m sure Alpha’s disagreeing with that.”

Alpha was most likely to deploy with Bravo, and all were in line with their Master Chief’s ‘Bury-first-questions-second’ policy when it came to Clay. Eric had a feeling it wouldn’t take much convincing to get Delta and Echo behind the plan, and that Charlie would only argue on principle.

Tier One was a brotherhood that didn’t take kindly to injury, as the world would learn.

+

Echo One – Zack Greer – a newly promoted Delta Two, wasn’t a very outgoing man. One and Twos were meant to both complement and contrast each other, a precarious balancing act honed over years of living out of each other’s pockets. TJ had needed a level head, so his Two was calm in the face of crisis.

Echo Two, on the other hand. A Floridian man, Elliot Howe, promoted from Charlie Three, who was under strict orders to never drink unsupervised with Sonny Quinn, lest they empty a bar and then burn said bar to the ground. He’d chaffed under Beau’s tight ship, so when the opportunity to move to form Echo had arisen, he was hard pushed to say no.

Together with Echo Three (Alpha Three), Echo Four (Delta Six) and two Green Team graduates as their Five and Six, they’d created a tight brotherhood.

Echo Five, Dan Wilder, a multilingual K9 handler, had initially been lost at DEVGRU, not quite fitting in. He’d reached out to the youngest operator – Bravo Six – in order to get some advice. What he didn’t know at the time is that their languages had overlap. Together with Clay and Ares – his K9 – he’d been able to find someone to practice with.

Echo had long since lost count of how many times Clay had come into their cage room, with a well-loved book, offering it to Dan with a brief explanation of how it would interest him. The book was never in English, and neither was the explanation. For all they knew, Clay could have spent the last few months giving Dan anything from Harry Potter to The Anarchist’s Cookbook (he’d actually only given Dan one of those, and Dan was under strict instructions not to tell them which, and Dan had been recommending others back).

Sonny, on the days when they were hanging out after work, sometimes tagged along to these exchanges. He’d joked about a book club, and Echo Two had picked up on the joke immediately, and since then the pair had resigned themselves to the nickname.

Between Clay’s frequent interactions with Dan and the fact that all of DEVGRU was deadly protective of Clay, it was no surprise that when Echo had heard the news, they hadn’t been happy. Command had fought a battle with Echo to keep them deployed, and Echo had nearly won. Dan had been on many rants, talking to empty space in Pashto – Four only caught a few words, and those were all along the lines of murder and death. Ares was giving out a low, constant growl. Both of the DEVGRU K9s were as protective as their owners, it seemed.

The door to their dorms slammed open and Zack marched in. Echo looks up in sync, and if it weren’t so serious, Zack would be amused by how much his men look like Meerkats. “Got word from Virginia.” This sets his men on edge, Howe half-steps forward, and his shoulders visibly tense up. “They found the green team rookies. We’ve been asked to approve the plan of their punishment before it gets sent to be approved by command.” Malicious smiles break out among the barracks.

They may be 7000 miles away, but they wouldn’t let anybody off the hook because of it.

#seal team #scott carter #clay spenser #trent sawyer #ray perry #brock reynolds #full metal #jason hayes #sonny quinn #fanfiction #ao3 #writing #my writing #crossposting #ocs #protective brothers #whump #comfort #seal team imagine #seal team fanfic #dog #theres another dog #cerberus #Elliot Howe #he's fun #eric blackburn #how did i forget him #hes a focal point of this chapter #lisa davis #beau fuller

[richincolor]

New Releases for the Week of April 5th

We have six titles on our release calendar for this week. There is quite a variety with fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary romance, and even nonfiction represented. Are any of them on your TBR?

The Cost of Knowing by Brittany Morris Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers

Sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus is trying his best. He tries to be the best employee he can be at the local ice cream shop; the best boyfriend he can be to his amazing girlfriend, Talia; the best protector he can be over his little brother, Isaiah. But as much as Alex tries, he often comes up short.

It’s hard to for him to be present when every time he touches an object or person, Alex sees into its future. When he touches a scoop, he has a vision of him using it to scoop ice cream. When he touches his car, he sees it years from now, totaled and underwater. When he touches Talia, he sees them at the precipice of breaking up, and that terrifies him. Alex feels these visions are a curse, distracting him, making him anxious and unable to live an ordinary life.

And when Alex touches a photo that gives him a vision of his brother’s imminent death, everything changes.

With Alex now in a race against time, death, and circumstances, he and Isaiah must grapple with their past, their future, and what it means to be a young Black man in America in the present. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet Laekan Zea Kemp Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

As an aspiring pastry chef, Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pastelería next to her father’s restaurant, Nacho’s Tacos. But her mom and dad have different plans — leaving Pen to choose between disappointing her traditional Mexican-American parents or following her own path. When she confesses a secret she’s been keeping, her world is sent into a tailspin. But then she meets a cute new hire at Nacho’s who sees through her hard exterior and asks the questions she’s been too afraid to ask herself.

Xander Amaro has been searching for home since he was a little boy. For him, a job at Nacho’s is an opportunity for just that — a chance at a normal life, to settle in at his abuelo’s, and to find the father who left him behind. But when both the restaurant and Xander’s immigrant status are threatened, he will do whatever it takes to protect his new found family and himself.

Together, Pen and Xander must navigate first love and discovering where they belong — both within their families and their fiercely loyal Chicanx community — in order to save the place they all call home. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

The Infinity Courts (The Infinity Courts #1) by Akemi Dawn Bowman Simon Pulse

Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years.

The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.

As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human. From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes an incisive, action-packed tale that explores big questions about technology, grief, love, and humanity.  — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Zara Hossain is Here by Sabina Khan Scholastic Press

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family’s dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years.

But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far, leaving a threatening note in her locker, and gets suspended. As an act of revenge against her for speaking out, Tyler and his friends vandalize Zara’s house with racist graffiti, leading to a violent crime that puts Zara’s entire future at risk. Now she must pay the ultimate price and choose between fighting to stay in the only place she’s ever called home or losing the life she loves and everyone in it.

From the author of the “heart-wrenching yet hopeful” (Samira Ahmed) novel, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali, comes a timely, intimate look at what it means to be an immigrant in America today, and the endurance of hope and faith in the face of hate. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Oculta (A Forgery of Magic #2) by Maya Motayne Balzer + Bray

After joining forces to save Castallan from an ancient magical evil, Alfie and Finn haven’t seen each other in months. Alfie is finally stepping up to his role as heir and preparing for an International Peace Summit, while Finn is travelling and revelling in her newfound freedom from Ignacio.

That is, until she’s unexpectedly installed as the new leader of one of Castallan’s powerful crime families. Now one of the four Thief Lords of Castallan, she’s forced to preside over the illegal underground Oculta competition, which coincides with the summit and boasts a legendary prize.

Just when Finn finds herself back in San Cristobal, Alfie’s plans are also derailed. Los Toros, the mysterious syndicate responsible for his brother’s murder, has resurfaced—and their newest target is the summit. And when these events all unexpectedly converge, Finn and Alfie are once again forced to work together to follow the assassins’ trail and preserve Castallan’s hopes for peace with Englass.

But will they be able to stop these sinister foes before a new war threatens their kingdom? — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Young Readers Edition by Anton Treuer Levine Querido

From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike. Ranging from “Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?” to “Why is it called a ‘traditional Indian fry bread taco’?” to “What’s it like for natives who don’t look native?” to “Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?”, and beyond, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (Young Readers Edition) does exactly what its title says for young readers, in a style consistently thoughtful, personal, and engaging.

Updated and expanded to include:

• Dozens of New Questions and New Sections—including a social activism section that explores the Dakota Access Pipeline, racism, identity, politics, and more! • Over 50 new Photos • Adapted text for broad appeal — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

#new releases #sci-fi #fantasy #contemporary #romance #YALit

[runeterrankhaleesi]

Hey, Khaleesi! Remember that alternate Ruination link? So here, for @theruinednymph and all who don't understand Polish, I give a translation of the script to English :)

Here's the (more or less accurately) translated version of Marvecc's Ruination. I'm giving you the closest thing to what he said but in English. Sorry for inevitable inconsistencies, typos and misspellings 😅

It is commonly known that for quite some time I've been complaining about the Ruination, I shamelessly admit. But I think nothing I said was unjustified. When the Ruination came to an end, I had sort of a bad hangover. I noticed wasted potential. "So make a better event. If you're so smart!" So uh… let's try!

I may not have plentiful resources as Riot Games do, I am no graphic designer or animator but I know a bit of game lore so I've decided to take it one step further. I've decided to fix the Ruination. It will be a huge test for me, because some day, in five, ten, fifteen or twenty years I'd like to create my own world. My own universe. That's why today you yourselves will judge if in any way, knowing the lore of some world, I am fit for this task.

Welcome dear viewers, I am Marvecc, and today I will be telling you how, in my opinion, the plot of the Ruination should've looked like, or how I would create it.

Let's assume some basics in the making of the plot. Let's leave the cinematic from the season's beginning because it was fantastic, let's be real, and let's leave the regional structure. It's clear that a very important changing element was the characters' journey in a way that everyone could find themselves in their favorite region. Well, maybe not everyone because not all regions had been presented, but the majority of them. So without further ado, let's move onto my machinations.

As we know, the cinematic ended on a ship with the sight of Senna and Lucian, and in my opinion the champions should've immediately headed for Bilgewater it was there Lucian had allies in the fight against Harrowing and it is there the plot of the game "Ruined King" begins. We reach the harbor, Lucian and Senna meet with Miss Fortune, shed light on the situation and she decides it's time to head to the Temple of Nagakabuross on the hill, asking the high priestess of the Kraken - Illaoi - for help. The four of them meet at an inn, discussing the end of the world and the apocalypse of the undead. Everyone is wondering how to stop Viego. What to do to save the world from destruction. It turns out that our conversation was unintentionally being listened to by Yummi - yes, exactly. Yummi - who quietly has been sitting in a corner in the shadow and eavesdropping on what our champions were talking about. Lucian and Mf obviously laugh the cat off, but she had taken notice of the unease of humans and all creatures while travelling, caused by the sudden attack of the Mist. When those attacks had taken place, she was in Freljord with her friend Braum and they'd witnessed the Mist and its abominations slaughter the inhabitants of one of the Freljordian villages. Braum jumped into the frey, trying to protect the people but he was anguished when he realised that he's, sadly, powerless.

Caring deeply for his homeland, he asked his friend Yummi to try and gather some information. And she did. After a while of sitting on a table, she leaped onto the Book, vanished and jumped out of a portal moments later with Braum in tow. You know, it makes sense, they're both friends and Braum understands that now the biggest threat for the Freljord is Viego. Our characters debate on how to stop him. It turns out however, that they don't really have any plan. They don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. How are they supposed to face the might of the undead, having so little force at their disposal? Now, if the power of Nagakabuross and Illaoi, who despise the dead, is some sort of a natural counterpart to the undead, our group heads to the Temple of the Bearded Lady. Illaoi decides it is there they would find the solution.

And curiously enough, Buhru Sentinel awaits them there with Gwen who met him while searching for Senna whom she'd sensed because Viego didn't take the whole fragment of Isolde's soul, which we know from "the Ruination", as she herself also possesses a fragment. Buhru Sentinel has a similar role. He's, somewhat, an introduction, tells us he'd fixed the connection between the base in Bilgewater and the one in Ixtal - of course I'm talking about the Sentinels' bases. His role is of a man who travels with us, a sage of sorts, who stays behind and repairs the links in bases.

Well then. We've been to Bilgewater and we have the means to travel to Ixtal. You may be thinking "Marvecc, okay, but the event started in Demacia". Mind you. I'm making up my own version. Also, Demacia lies, you know, on the opposite side of the known Runeterra and honestly the Mist comes from Shadow Isles, so we constantly, not paying mind to the danger of it, travel to those regions. In the original Ruination, the role of the Mist had been terribly diminished to a substance which just searches for Isolde. I would make it so that we fear the Mist. We fear Viego's army and we flee from east to west, not go to random locations. And obviously we don't go to Shadow Isles just like that in the end where a huge army if undead resides which for some reason can't see us and doesn't murder us on sight.. Of course, just so you know. The Mist can materialise in various places thanks to Vex, as it was shown in the cinematic but a path from Shadow Isles - escape from the Mist - seems more logical to me than braving overtaken regions.

Anyway, Buhru Sentinel also tells us that he knew about our arrival and had sent Rookie to greet us or welcome us to Bilgewater. He wasn't supposed to reveal anything to Senna and Lucian, because Buhru found out about a Sentinel who abandoned his post and didn't really respect Sentinel's rules - you surely know I mean Akshan - and wanted to check what are the intentions of Senna and Lucian.

At the same time in the scriptures of the first Sentinels, Buhru has found information about an ancient prophecy, foretelling the great return of the King of the Dead and his defeat. Now, just a head's up, because I wrote a prophecy:

Darkness of his heart will swallow the world

Nations and countries will not bend the knee

It is not his goal

It is her goal

Obsession of feeling, love is all that matters

No matter how, it only matters when

The dreary King of the Dead beside his Queen

They shall change the future world

Darkness only darkness can defeat

Love can be beaten by vengeance

And Heavens can fell Death itself.

I don't know what it's like, this was my first prophecy, I hope it's not abysmal, but it will be important later on.

Anyway, our whole group debates on how to defeat Viego and it turns out that they don't have a better chance than to rely on the prophecy. The Sentinels don't know how to trap Viego, how to stop him. So far, they only know that he can be slowed down, with relic weapons for instance but not just with them. But eventually, the old Buhru Sentinel interprets that it won't change a thing. For this reason, our group decides to follow the prophecy and travel to Targon, where, as it is stated, Heavens can fell Death itself.

And that's how our adventure begins, where without chances or resources, Sentinels aren't trying to stop Viego from finding the fetters of his wife, but attempt to follow an ancient prophecy of the Sentinels of Light. Let's add something extra from me. A lore accurate expansion to the cinematic about the Ruination. In the cinematic, the locations of Noxus, Demacia and Ionia weren't an accident, in my version that is. Let's add Freljord as well, because we know that something like this has happened there too but it didn't make it to the cinematic. All those places in my opinion were important to Viego. Why he's so powerful also wasn't really explained by Riot Games. I have a good idea for this. Sure, partially thanks to Vex he could cause a global Ruination, but to me a magical aid of a teenage Yordle is a bit too little.

In Demacia, Viego discovered a piece of his wife, the same in Freljord. When it comes to Ionia, he knows that the land is too magically powerful to allow him to freely take over Runeterra and search for Isolde, when Ionia with its primordial magic can challenge him. This is why, in the cinematic, the Ruined King first wanted to weaken Karma, the land itself and its Spirit, while in Noxus he wanted to check something out. He wanted to discover the dark secrets of the Immortal Bastion. Here, let's remember that Yummi is still with us, and let's assume she knew that Vex fled from Bandle City, met Viego and Yummi figured it out when she encountered the Mist, as she sensed Yordle magic within it. She explained to the group that the combination of the King of the Dead and Yordle magic is.. very powerful. That's why our characters decide on a plan consisting of three elements. First is strictly about the game "Ruined King". Illaoi, Braum and Miss Fortune want to head to Shadow Isles as a distraction, to focus Viego's attention on themselves and buy more time. Yummi goes to the Bandle City to mobilize and convince Yordles to help the creatures of the Physical Realm. And this was the second part. For the third part, Senna, Gwen and Lucian set out to Targon. And here our party splits up.

As we prepare for the journey in "Ruined King" we're attacked by Pyke, which makes sense. MF, as a captain, is on his list. Due to the preparations for the sail, nobody notices anything, nobody notices Pyke. But! MF is saved at the last moment only by a strong tornado which knocks the assassin back. It turns out it's Ahri and Yasuo. The tornado gives Illaoi a chance to subdue Pyke with the power of the Goddess. He's a bit brainwashed and decides to assist in the quest. You know, it would explain his odd behavior. The group thanks for the help and asks who the unknown newcomers are - which are Ahri and Yasuo. Ahri explains that she's looking for a craftsman by the name of Melo, which is accurate with her lore, and Yasuo is her bodyguard, which is accurate as well. During the game "Ruined King" we gather resources for the journey, prepare our crew and collect information as Ahri and Yasuo, to find out that the aforementioned craftsman had headed - for reasons unknown - to Shadow Isles. Because of that. Ahri decides to join the expedition but she and Yasuo don't know - Illaoi, MF or Braum (who's very upset about it) haven't told them - the true goal of the quest, a mission with no return. A mission to delay the march of Viego or at least busy him.

I didn't make up what the craftsman's fate could've been because I didn't write that much about it, I just created the basics. We set to Shadow Isles and - not to make an entire plot to "Ruined King", because it's not the goal of this video - our task is to activate the pillars with the defense mechanism of the Blessed Isles, which could lead to the imprisonment of Viego and the Black Mist. You know, like in the cinematic with Thresh. The overall plot of the game would be about it. But this we would find out from the old Keeper on Shadow Isles. From that moment, our party struggles against the abominations of the Mist, Ahri and Yasuo find out about the true goal of the expedition, Ahri gets to know the truth behind her origins and the craftsman, she develops mutual feelings for Yasuo, only for their mission to fail in the end.

The finale is this: Hecarim stands in the way of Braum when he attempts to activate a pillar, Illaoi - using the Goddess' power - begins winning the fight with Viego (initially she was only supposed to stop him). However, she has used so much of her strength that her influence on Pyke weakened enough for him to snap out of it and take her with him to the depths. Viego - having no better opponent - takes control of MF, Pyke, and on the battlefield remain only Braum duelling Hecarim in the distance, and Viego, MF, Pyke - and of course a lot of creatures of the Mist, nothing new - versus Yasuo and Ahri. Suddenly, on Shadow Isles appears Yummi who hastily exclaims that she will save her friends. Unfortunately, Yasuo realises that the cat won't make it on time. He tells her to save Ahri and Braum, while he alone faces Viego, saying - imagine Yasuo's voice - "Time for me to atone for my sins". With a tornado, Yasuo repels the Mistwraiths as Ahri strikes Viego with all her force, which doesn't do him much harm but disorients him enough for Yummi to take wounded Braum, return for Ahri and the last thing we see in the game is Viego running Yasuo through with his blade. And may I remind you, at that time we didn't know yet that being impaled by Viego causes Ruination. That's why the game ends with a scene in which we are certain that Yasuo dies - because "Ruined King" was supposed to come out before the event. Additionally our characters leave to god-knows-where and Illaoi, from what we know, is also dead. A whole lot of cliffhangers.

That's it for the first part regarding "Ruined King". And considering that the game by Riot Forge was going to come out before the event, instead of the cinematic in Demacia, I would release a cinematic which shows Yasuo's ultimate sacrifice, Ahri and Braum on some neutral background, being approached by a stranger. A tiny stranger with a hammer. And the last look at Shadow Isles, Ruined MF, Pyke and Hecarim. And Hecarim asks Viego: "My liege, what now?" And he replies: "Everything is going according to plan."

Let's leave Yummi's plot for now. Let's now move onto the story from the client. Senna, Lucian, Gwen and Buhru Sentinel, who will be our Wayfinder, a person who repairs the links between quarters, head to the base in Ixtal, which happened to be hidden but lies close to an Ixtalian outpost. Of course, Buhru Sentinel - who, for short, we will be just calling Buhru - stays to fix the portal but characters are taken hostage during a scouting mission. Everyone here thinks they are spies from Piltover, which, lorewise, would be correct. In secrecy to talk with us, comes Qiyana intrigued by our presence, to check what the Sentinels do as she isn't so quick to wrongfully judge them. Senna explains that the Black Mist is approaching and they need to take all measures to fight it. Qiyana goes to Yuntal to give them the story of captured Sentinels. No one approves that she talked to them at all and she is about to be punished but the news of the Black Mist and the undead come from the east borders of Ixtal. Yuntal decides it's not the time to dwell on what Qiyana did, protecting the country from the Mist is their priority now. Ixtal's authorities order for as many citizens as possible to be moved to their archology, to have all masters of the elements stand against the Black Mist. Of course, nobody bothered with releasing Sentinels, because why would they? Qiyana, knowing that this fight is pointless, frees Sentinels, committing treason in the eyes of Ixtal's people and flees with them to Sentinel quarters where Hecarim catches up but is ultimately fended off. Buhru managed to make the connection with the base in Piltover. Before heading out, Sentinels find armor and relic stone in Ixtal quarters and allow Qyiana to upgrade her blade with relic stones, put the armor on and join the ranks of Sentinels of Light. Though, her devotion isn't entirely sincere. She knows that if she's the one to defeat Viego, she will have the right argument to seize the rule over Ixtal. Region's finale goes like this: Viego arrives, talks to Hecarim who tells him the news that the Sentinels have a plan to stop him. The last look is at the capital of Ixtal - Ixaocan - and its siege. As we know, Yuntal - the masters of the elements - are very powerful but have thousands upon thousands of foes to go against.

Let's move on to Piltover. The Mist has also reached it but something stopped it from breaching the city. Senna and Gwen, alone in the quarters, discover the closeness between one another, through the fragments of Viego's wife. Senna suspects everything before Gwen does and tells her that Viego did say that Isolde is his world, and this will be his main plan, which Senna knew earlier already but I won't spoil the ending.

In the base in Piltover we encounter Dess and Adda, of course. Those characters I would 100% leave because they have been very nicely done. Senna tells them of Viego's true plan. Dess and Adda mention a long-nonfunctioning device called Zindel's Incognium, which is able to find every person on Runeterra. Making use of the lack of the Mist in the city, the Sentinels go to Heimerdinger who is the only person capable of uncovering the secrets of the device's function. Heimer initially complains about not having time, about having enough of his own things to do but the professor is ultimately convinced by Gwen's positive attitude and pleas. He repairs the device, and it is revealed that Isolde's fetters are still in Demacia, Freljord and Shurima. The party thanks Heimerdinger for assistance and returns to the quarters. Meanwhile, it turns out Viego also knew about the device from one of the souls from Piltover and headed for the city. And, of course, here initially, during the first wave of the Black Mist, Viego was doing reconnaissance. A scouting of the terrain. But he didn't know, didn't find the locations of all fragments of Isolde. Because, honestly, from what I remember it wasn't specified why Viego and the Mist follow Isolde. Okay, we know that it does and that it's linked to Viego's despair but the despair in itself knows where all the pieces of Viego's wife's soul are? I think if it was made in the way that Viego doesn't have full knowledge about Isolde and the location of her soul's fragments it would've been more interesting. Either way, Viego goes to Piltover. And there at the entrance he meets Janna, and discovers it was her using her powers to defend Piltover and Zaun from the Mist at all costs. You know, Mist, and Janna is the Goddess of the Wind. For 20 days she's been keeping the Mist at bay but exhausted, she was no match for Viego who quickly defeated her. However, because Janna is after all a Goddess and not some poorly dressed lady who is just standing and calling tornadoes, with the last bits of her strength she makes an escape. Although Viego is strong, it's not like other champions are trembling in their boots before him at all times. Viego steps into Piltover, finds the device and bumps into Ziggs who left Zaun to see what's happening. And he notices that Heimerdinger repaired the machine and, being his former student - after being Ruined by Viego - betrays the secrets of the location of the fetters. Ziggs, naturally, gets "Ruined" skin. On the other hand, Heimerdinger brings along Vi and Caitlyn to the base to assure safe return and aid. Both Caitlyn and Vi decide to stay in Piltover to try and stop Viego alongside Adda and Dess but once he discovered the placement of his wife, he'd long made his escape and began his search. The Mistwraiths however, remained. At the end we see Thresh who goes around - like in the normal event - gathers power and collects souls from the Mist. Here, Buhru exclaims that the portal is too weak to take everyone to the same place. But it can take us to two places. Either to the base in Noxus, to find out what Viego wanted to discover there, or ti Shurima. The party breaks apart. Senna, Qiyana and Rookie go to Noxus, while Lucian, Gwen and Buhru - to Shurima. We witness a touching farewell between Lucian and Senna, and canonically the Noxus is unlocked because that's where we head first.

We know that there aren't any fragments of Isolde's soul in Noxus but Senna decides to discover Viego's plans. We come across Darius, Draven and Samira who lead the investigation on this case. Why has the Mist suddenly appeared in Noxus? Draven immediately wants to fight the Sentinels but Darius holds him back, seeing that Sentinels mean no harm to Noxus, quite the opposite. They want to discover what the King's deal is. Turns out that Viego, desiring to become unbeatable, already empowered by Vex, seeks a way to make it impossible for anyone to face him in a duel. And to make sure no one and nothing stands in his way as he searches for his Queen. For this reason, the Ruined King descends into the depths of the Immortal Bastion. He finds the demon summoned by the Black Rose. Viego right away kills all members of the organisation and stands face to face with the demon.

Turns out the Black Rose and LeBlanc beckoned it to fight another monster, another demon. She even has a line in the card game: "One monster to end another".

But the demon is unable to leave the chamber it was summoned in. And so, Viego proposes a deal, to join forces with one another and together become invincible. Why is this particular demon so important for Viego? We know that it is as powerful as big is the sum of its allies and Viego has plenty of allies. Plenty of souls in the Mist. Plenty of the dead. Atakhan realised Viego's potential and agreed to his terms. The demon and the King of the Dead merge into one being. Viego's fingers elongate, his armor appears more ethereal and he's wearing the demon's helmet. Viego gets a skin "Demonic King Viego" or something like that. He leaves the Immortal Bastion and comes across the Sentinels. Seeing him, Draven jumps him, after a second ending up Ruined. Viego naturally laughs at this pathetic attempt and flees. The Ruined King becomes pretty much indestructible.

Darius exclaims that he needs to consult the Grand General, while Samira follows the Sentinels. In Noxus quarters she is given a relic pistol as well as upgrades to her blade. Unfortunately, our team has no clue how to get to Demacia, because as I said Buhru is in Shurima with Lucian. Here, Darius proposes a solution in the form of magically modified Drake Hounds, tame towards those who were assigned to them. The Hounds are made for incredibly fast travels and were supposed to be a special tool for spies and messengers. They only nees a. Couple hours of sleep, thanks to which the Sentinels in around a week would reach Demacia.

Here, we completely cut off from the plot of the Sentinels and Rookie. Instead, we impersonate one of Camavor's soldiers who accompanies Viego alongside many others in a journey to Ionia. There are no fetters there but considering this is the magically primordial land, it poses a threat to Viego's plans. The magic of Vastaysheirei - ancestors of the Vastaya - as well as the Vastaya themselves, and all forces and all champions can use the power of the Spirit Realm and challenge him but this won't be possible once Viego conquers and Ruins Ionia. He goes to the Everlasting Altar right away and duels Karma, for her to ultimately fall. The Spirit of the land was corrupted but the duel didn't last five minutes but rather long hours. Karma realised that the King of the Dead is coming for her much earlier too. Shen, Kennen and Akali answer her summons along with Kinkou Order. Irelia stands with them. The champions try to get through to the Everlasting Altar barred by the wraiths but once Viego seized control over Karma, the fight was turned around. Viego descends along with Karma who throws all fighters back with a flick of her hand. Irelia stands up first and to extinguish the Spirit of the land once and for all, Viego impales her, causing her Ruination. Here, we're avoiding an inconsistency - why Sentinel (Ruined in this story) Irelia could fight with her blades.

Viego, Karma and Irelia vanish into the Mist but the wraiths remain to kill the rest. As they're about to die, Yone arrives, who has sensed the presence of a powerful demon, one he'd never sensed before. He felt the bond with the King of the Dead and came to fight him. Yone rescues the group because his demonic blade of Azakana can cut through the wraiths, and the last to fall is our Camavorian soldier, ran through with a spiritual blade by Shen. Before passing, he heard Kennen say that he has a plan to save Ionia and the whole Runeterra.

Next, we move to Shurima. As I said, we have Lucian, Gwen and Buhru here. And just so you know, because Rookie - the person we associate with - is not here, we remain nobody. A passive spectator of the events. Like we have on Shadow Isles, because Rookie, the person we steer, is bot always necessary. Of course we meey Akshan in Shurima Sentinel outpost, he doesn't give a damn and his story is very similar to the one in the client. I wouldn't change it that much because the construction in my opinion was fine but I would split it into two separate segments.

First - similar to the one in the client. And second - in which Viego heading to Shurima, before he claims the fetter, meets Azir and his devoted soldiers along with Nasus who knew about the approaching calamity from Ixtal - honoring the old alliance of countries. Viego decided he doesn't have time for this, knocked everyone aside and moved onward to reach the fetter which he takes. He kills Lucian and takes Buhru but Akshan revives Lucian, while Gwen - by Lucian's orders - hid herself away in the Hallowed Mist. The group meets up with Azir and Nasus, introduce them into the subject, and the emperor sends his most powerful warrior to join the Sentinels and assist with fighting the dead. Azir stays and defends his land from the wraiths. Nasus is given a special weapon in the quarters and Azir gifts him with the golden armor of the elite. Nasus joins the Sentinels and because Targon is nearby, this part of the team heads there.

Let's come back to the first part of the group. Senna, Qyiana, Samira and Rookie reached Demacia. The Mist has already taken the majority of the known lands and reached the capital of the Kingdom as well. The team meets the Dauntless Vanguard by the entrance who don't want to let them in at first but after Senna explains - that this is the matter of life and death and everything going on around - the warriors call for their leader, Garen who quickly takes the Sentinels to the palace where Jarvan and Tianna Crownguard debate what to do next. How to stop the Mist and Hecarim who - according to a published story - was already in Demacia. As a reasonable ruler, Jarvan simply asks what the Sentinels need. Senna switches off for a moment, hearing a small voice of Isolde whispering, telling Senna to find her in the city. She says she wants to stop Viego, which would add up since she'd already warned Senna in one of the stories. After a while Jarvan asks again and Senna replies "We only need time to stop the advance of the Mist". Jarvan promises to give them as much time as  possible and sends Shyvana with them.

When the group leaves the palace, the Ruination is raging across the city. Unexpectedly, from a rooftop jumps down Vayne who says she'd been watching them and has parted with Poppy, and that she's ready to help the Sentinels. Senna - knowing where the base is - heads to the quarters and gives Vayne a weapon, accepting her among the Sentinels. As they leave, everyone spots a flock of wraiths and Camavorian dragons as well as Ruined Cadregrin mounted by Viego. Shyvana decides to battle him but becomes Ruined. The Sentinels flee, prompted by Jarvan and the rest saying that soldiers of Demacia will stop Viego but he grew.. bored after a short fight with Shyvana and followed the Sentinels tracking down his Mist leading them to Isolde's fragment. Taking it, Senna once again hears the voice of Viego's wife and the fragment merges with the one inside of her. Viego arrives and says it's impossible. Isolde doesn't want to return to him? What do you mean? What's that about?? While he's shocked by his wife's behavior, the animated colossus Galio grabs him, which gives the Sentinels some time.

Simultaneously, Poppy appears, telling Vayne that she's found what they'd been looking for. You know. The thing from the cinematic. The Sentinels ask about it, Poppy explains there's no time for that. The champions quickly escape, enter some tenement, dead down into the basement where lies the tile engraved with the symbol of the Sentinels of Light. Poppy says it has taken a lot of time to discover all this and put all the clues together. Senna steps onto the stone, activating a passage in a wall where a secret portal to one of the bases was hidden. The entire group goes out into the unknown. Exactly! Into the unknown. We have no idea what's happening to them. I love such cliffhangers. I think it would be an interesting turn of events.

Once again, we're not Rookie and our plot guy is another Ruined soldier of Camavor. Viego heads to Freljord with Vex where they seek the last inanimate fetter. Not much is happening in the Freljord and Viego passes through one, two, three villages. The Ruined King doesn't fight anyone, he doesn't mean to Ruin anyone, he doesn't particularly care about taking the Freljord. He does nothing but search for the fetter. Vex absolutely dislikes it, asks Viego why he's becoming such a lamer, to which the King orders her to be silent. Vex asks again, again and again what's this about until he loses patience. He strikes her and she lands a good couple of meters further away. Viego floats up - with the demon's aid he can naturally - to the young Yordle and tells her she was just a pawn in his game. She was to empower him so that he could spread the Mist all across Runeterra in search of his wife. Vex is surprised that Viego is so prosaic and he strikes her again, once more causing her to fly quite a distance. The Shadow of course stands up to Viego but it has no chance - it is thrown back as well. Viego leans over Vex, calling her naive and says that after all, she can't undo the spell given to him, that he fulfilled his goal and has no regard for her.

Vex runs away in tears with Shadow's aid, saying "This isn't over yet". Viego finds the last fragment but suddenly he bumps into Thresh. The King asks if he tracked down the rest of the living fetters. He doesn't realise that Thresh is changing, because the Chain Warden tries - thanks to the newfound strength - to manipulate his looks as he did before. Exactly how it was in the novel. Thresh says he'd found Gwen in Targon and that's where the undead are heading but sadly.. he is unable to locate Senna.

We move onto the final region that is Targon. Here, Lucian, Gwen, Nasus, Akshan - you know, the entire party from Shurima - reach the base at the foot of Mount Targon. The group locks themselves inside to reconsider their next move. What happened to Senna, is she going to send them some information as to what they'd found in Noxus, what was Viego looking for? To Lucian all that mattered was that his wife had not returned. Nevertheless, the Sentinels decide to stop for the night at the base to rest up and regain strength. In the morning everyone is woken up by the arrival of Senna, Samira and the rest of the party. Lucian hugs his wife, asking what was happening, how she's back. And she is about to reveal to Lucian and others what happened when suddenly they hear someone calling from outside. "Sentinels of Light! You are surrounded! Come out with dignity and without tricks as our goal is one and the same!"

It turns out that before the base wait armies of Solari and Lunari with Diana, Leona and Atreus on the lead. Everyone is shocked by this sight. Leona comes up to the Sentinels, saying that the Heavens told them of a great threat looming. That the time of the world's union has come. This is why - by Leona's orders - the Solari stand side by side with the Lunari in the face of oncoming doom. While in Ionia, Diana heard the will of the Aspect to the Moon to make haste and return. In Targon she met Aphelios who is now in the army of the Lunari - naturally much smaller in comparison to the Solari - and he'd found Diana's weapon, kept it hidden, knowing that the First Light of the Moon would one day return. This is why Diana would have her blade here. Diana returned to Targon and there duelled Leona as the card game implies but both the Aspect of the Moon and the Sun ordered them to cease, unite against the approaching danger. Senna tells Leona of the ancient prophecy, it turns out that Leona knows it and tells the group to climb Mount Targon as soon as possible, as in the face of such a threat truly only Heavens can lend their aid. Solari and Lunari stay to delay the march of Viego.

At the beginning of the path we meet Taric who becomes our guide. Thanks to his powers and help the journey to the top is incredibly short. In the span of one day the Sentinels - thanks to the help of the Aspect of the Protector, which would be accurate with the lore - summit Mount Targon. Taric helps them bypass the Arbiter but at the top there's.. nothing. Gates to Astral Targon, the place where the Aspects reside remain closed. Sentinels go into a panic, what's happening, why is nothing here? And then.. the Mist reaches the peak. The last place of Runeterra not claimed by Viego. Sentinels lose hope but regardless, they are ready to fight. All Ruined champions step out of the Mist. MF, Pyke, Karma, Shyvana, Ziggs and even the old servants such as Hecarim. Yasuo, if you still remember him, and all others. Additionally, Ruined Atreus comes forth - not Pantheon, let's not be pretentious with resurrecting the Aspect of War. Viego exclaims that the vicious fight at the bottom still continues, that hehe underestimated Targon's strength but he managed to win a duel with Atreus, corrupt him and head with a part of his army to the peak. In desperation, Lucian steps forward and proposes Viego a deal. He can have his soul, he can have whatever he wants, as long as he lets Senna and the Sentinels live.

Viego simply laughs, with one swift motion killing Rookie. Lucian goes into a rage and attacks Viego, but barely in a second Viego laughs again and floats up, runs him through and to Senna's dismay Lucian is Ruined. Very pleased with himself, Viego orders his servants to kill the Sentinels. All Ruined champions charge at them. No hope, none. Here, I imagined a scene, like from the endgame. A portal appears out of which jumps Yummi. A positive little aspect, Gwen is happy to see her favorite cat. Yummi brushes dust off of her fur and nose with her paws and says: "You didn't think we forgot about you, did you?" And THEN. From the portal comes Yone wielding his red blade but the other that of a Sentinel and wearing Sentinel armor. Out comes Sentinel Kennen, Sentinel Tristana with her Gunners and Sentinel Teemo. Yes, Sentinel Teemo ·-·

In addition, Sentinel Poppy, Braum, Ahri and Lulu. It turns out that the second group travelled to Bandle City where Poppy and Kennen were secretly members of the Sentinels from the Spirit Realm, from the city of Yordles. That's why Kennen knew to take Yone to Bandle City and knew what to do next. Poppy too knew what to do in the case of Ruination. It's just a little Yordle twist, not to make the entire event too dark. I was also thinking about Corki because he's cinematically the best Yordle and the cinematics with Yordles in general are probably the best but I was afraid I'd overdo it.

Of course, Viego hasn't been expecting the enormous comeback, he orders to destroy the Sentinels. Some champions generally fight with the armies of wraiths but certain duels break out, like Yasuo/Yone where the elder brother strives to save the younger, Taric, as the Aspect's host and the mightiest warrior, stands against Atreus. In front of Senna stands Lucian who is defeated by her. But during this fight Senna sees Viego tearing out a fragment of Isolde from Gwen who soon collapses to the ground. Then, Senna hears a faint voice saying: "Now".

She drops her cannon, runs up to Viego and musters up her whole strength to draw in fragments of Isolde's soul. Viego, to put it shortly, looked at Senna, intending to end her life but in the same moment Taric - having already won with Ruined Atreus - jumps at Viego. Only he stood some chance. However, after a short struggle Viego manages to, not defeat per se, but knock Taric back. Meanwhile we see Teemo who addresses lieutenant Lulu "It is time". And Lulu, as a powerful sorceress - certainly more so than a teenage Yordle - reverses the spell which Vex bestowed upon Viego. In turn, Viego weakens, he senses it, but says that it changes nothing. Because, really, it does change nothing. The alliance of the demon and the King of the Dead is still much more powerful.

Even still, meanwhile, Senna connects all fragments of Isolde's soul in herself. Senna becomes Isolde. After a moment of transformation, Senna's appearance drastically changes. At first, she looks like a spectre. The fighting stops, everyone is astonished. Viego gazes at his beloved and says "My love, you have returned to me at last". Isolde comes up to Viego, embraces him and strokes his cheek. After a while though, out of the Mist she summons Thresh who approaches asking: "Yes, my lady?" Viego is disoriented and asks Isolde how she knows Thresh, and the Warden replies in his charismatic mannerism: "Well, your highness… I have always been loyal. But not to you." Then Thresh holds up a mask which he secretly obtained in Ixtal and hid from the eyes of all. How? If it was a soul fragment, he could easily lock it in his lantern and make it undetectable to Zindel's Incognium. Now, Thresh pulls the jade mask out from his lantern and tosses it to Isolde who absorbs the last fragment. And from a spectre she turns into a horrid monstrosity. Albeit.. with curves and features of a woman. We know Riot doesn't like to exaggerate. Isolde - or Senna - after the change says to Viego that the Ruler of the Dead can be only one.

In despair, Viego stands before his love, not really knowing what's going on but - not to make him a total noob easy to beat up - he decides "So be it". They cannot defeat him because he's too strong. To which, Thresh lifts his lantern and in the blink of an eye begins to absorb the power from the Mist. Remember the demon I mentioned? The more allies it has, the more powerful it is. I think it would be an interesting way to weaken Viego. You know, Thresh drains the Mist, the souls within it, simultaneously taking power of Viego and the demon. He takes pretty much everything. Even the demon. You still might think I made Viego a bit of a noob anyway because in the end he's still defeated but throughout the whole adventure I was trying to paint him as a guy you really should be afraid of. Who really does something to the Sentinels. Here however, he loses. In the end, Isolde using Senna's power drains the remnants of the Mist from Viego like in the cinematic. His servants stand stunned as he kneels in disbelief. Senna comes up to him and he asks her why she's done that.

Here we have a bit of a retrospection. Isolde tells him that despite his great love, the King treated her as his property, he was sickly jealous and Isolde thinks it was because of him she passed in agony. Because of the pain and misery, the gentle woman changed beyond recognition and wished only for vengeance as her shattered soul also suffered unspeakably. Isolde looks at Akshan and tells him to shoot Viego. He hesitates but she says it's the only way to reverse what Viego had done after his return. To reverse the Ruination of the entire Runeterra. To reverse his deeds. He almost shoots but looks at Isolde, asking how she knows this. And suddenly, she changes to resemble Senna more and with her voice she says she's always here. That she's an ally of Isoldeof. It's only to convince the Sentinels and gain their trust. Akshan takes a shot at Viego. He cannot die but the effects of the Ruination recede from champions as well as the Mist releases Runeterra. Additionally, Gwen creates a prison from Hallowed Mist for Viego. Why Gwen, you ask? Let me explain. Powerful magic of every fantasy world is love. In youth, Isolde pouring her feelings into the doll accidentally - she was no mage but certainly a strongly magical character - creates certain magical abilities which made sort of a sentient construct that afterwards, I mean now, without the soul fragment could exist on its own.

Lucian comes back to himself as well, we have a touching scene but this isn't the end. Terrified, Lucian runs up to Senna. He asks how all this could have happened, what they're going to do now that Senna has two souls. Senna looks at Lucian, a tear runs down her cheek and Thresh says: "It is time, my dear". Lucian turns to the wraith and is about to shoot from his pistol. But Senna stands before him. She turns to Thresh "He at least deserves an explanation". Thresh replies, alright but make it short. Senna reveals a great secret to everyone..

In Bilgewater, after learning of the prophecy she encountered Thresh while she went out to get some air. He already had absorbed some of the Mist and could assume human form. He approached Senna and asked her for the way but she didn't know and had no time to react as Thresh caught her with his chains, saying that if she starts screaming, he's going to kill everyone.. in Bilgewater. Senna promised to be calm, Thresh released her and told her how he hates Viego and if they work together, they can stop him. He explained that Sentinels without aid from the dead stand no chance against Viego. He reveals to Senna Viego's plans regarding Vex, the facts about the demon and Isolde. He adds that this is the only way for Lucian to survive. And here, in spite of herself, Senna decides to trust Thresh. She shares the prophecy, the plans of the Sentinels but together they come up with a secret plan of their own.

Thresh convinced that Sentinels's prophecies are worthless and the only way to defeat Viego is to use his weakness against him. Isolde, who - Thresh knows - wants revenge against Viego. And he promises to spare Lucian if Senna absorbs all fragments of Isolde who was unspeakably powerful due to the Ruination, which will cause Senna to have two souls, giving her enough strength to beat Viego. In the end though, the deal was simple. For Thresh's aid Senna promised him the soul of Isolde

Despite his hatred towards Thresh, Lucian understands, Senna explains she did this all to save their love but Thresh grows impatient. Senna takes a couple of steps away, once again changes to Isolde and Thresh begins to drain her soul. It takes a while, everyone is blinded by blue light which fades after a moment. And once it does, we see only Thresh. Without Senna. Thresh becomes even more powerful through the absorption of Isolde's soul. Everyone thought that Senna would remain with them. Disoriented Lucian furiously says that it was supposed to be just Isolde. To which Thresh replies: "Don't tell me that after all the trouble you have caused me I would stop tormenting her.. and you."

Laughing, Thresh knocks back everyone with his chain. With the might of thousands of souls, demon and corrupted by Ruination's paradox Isolde, no one present could be a match for him. Most of the Sentinels fall from the summit of Targon bit Yummi - thanks to her Book - saves all one by one and takes them to the bottom where Diana and Leona wait for them. At the peak there is only Taric. Here I will tell you how I pictured it in my head. Immense power of Thresh thrums in the air and his great plan was truly a masterpiece. Taric attempts to attack Thresh but the host of the Aspect of the Protector is also thrown off the peak. But here we have another twist.

Remember the prophecy? It would be nice if it was fulfilled. Grand, golden Astral Gate. Thresh stares stunned as from the sky descends a creature with blazing wings, donning armor of cosmic stone and wielding twin blades burning with astral fire. Kayle returns to Runeterra. She doesn't have her helmet and her eyes are filled with white energy revealing that she.. is an Aspect. Not just a host. But she herself became the Aspect of Justice. The mightiest champion currently residing on Runeterra. In a split of a second she flies up to Thresh and starts a duel. Still, with all the power he possesses, Thresh is certainly a worthy opponent. The fight between the Aspect and the new King of the Dead is murderous. Sentinels, Solari and Lunari gaze up at the skies, at the peak of Targon in awe, watching the shifting colors as Kale and Thresh battle one another. In any case, Thresh - unwilling to lose so soon and endanger his newfound power - says "This isn't over, Aspect", dissolves like mist in the air and retreats. Unmoved by this Kayle flies down to Lunari, Solari and the Sentinels, announcing that an end must be put to Thresh and his likes. 

And here we have a bittersweet ending. Yummi returns everyone to respective regions and Viego is moved to Shadow Isles where he's guarded by previously allied with the old Keeper Yorick, and yes, I know the Maiden wasn't here as a fetter but instead of changing the concept, in my Ruination I'd rather not turn it around by 180°. And Yorick, in truce with Kalista and Maokai, guards the King of the Dead and attempts restoration of the isles. The Shadow Isles are still dangerous and betrayed by Thresh Hecarim, Karthus and the likes want to free Viego and give Thresh a payback. We also find out that thanks to the power of her Goddess Illaoi survived and she stays to watch over Viego as well. Thresh on the other hand, no longer bound to Shadow Isles, travels across Runeterra and quietly, without drawing too much attention enlarges his collection of souls and tries to find a way to win with Kayle. All regions try to stand up after the Ruination. Qyiana tries to become the head of Ixtal, Nasus returns to Azir, Leona and Diana decide to bring peace to Targon together. Braum returns to Freljord, Yordles to Bandle City. Meanwhile, Lucian becomes a shadow of himself. Revenge consumes him in full. Vayne and Yone join him to find Thresh and defeat him. Samira and Draven go to Noxus, Irelia goes back with Karma but here I would expand Karma's plot. That she steps out and chooses solitude, unable to forgive herself. You know, all champions go more or less back to normal. I realise there are a bunch of inconsistencies here, more detail is required, dialogues etc. But making this scenario took me about 3 hours. And those unexplained parts should be clarified and if I was working at Riot Gamespolice, I would say before the event that things left unclear will be resolved in future stories. The event itself I would end with such a cinematic:

Vex, attacked and used by Viego, wandered around Ruined Noxus. Unsure what to do with herself she even considered returning toto Bandle City but she came across a man named Yanuk (Januk? Sorry, for the misspellings, I was writing it without a script xD). The very same who told Ezreal to retrieve the Uloa elixir. A special elixir which could revive a certain person. Ezreal however, tricked him. Vex didn't care what Yanuk had to say but he shouted that she looked like she wished for darkness. And he knows how to give it. Along with Shadow, Vex hearing the plan came back toto Yanuk with the Uloa elixir. Yanuk performs the right ritual which leads to a certain dark event. An ethereal gateway opens. And through it steps out none other than Mordekeiser who ends the cinematic with one sentence. Imagine I am saying this with Mordekeiser's voice. "I will show you… Ruination."

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

submitted by: @sophi-s

Holy shit, that was super long.

I haven't actually read it because I wanted to share this to everyone as soon as possible, but I WILL read it.

How long did this take you, darling? Three days?

But thank you for this incredible translation and thank you very much for your hardwork. I really appreciate you doing all this for us, thank you sophi-s.

#submission #ruination #lol