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random-ln-stuff · 8 months

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Hello! Hi! I am deep diving hard in the little nightmares lore and I think I’ve scrolled though most of your blog now (lol). There are still a few things I’m confused about and can’t seem to find…

The north wind, What is it? What powers does it have? Why is it so strong?

The lords, who are they? Do they govern this wrapped world? Do they ever convene with one another?

The eye, is it one big eye? Or is it a realm beyond the no where? Does it control all the other eyes that we see in the games?

If this is too much feel free to ignore it! Sorry to ask so much stuff (I am genuinely trying to make sense of it all) ps. I absolutely adore everything you have in this blog!!

Reading this made me realize that there’s a couple things i just haven’t explained anywhere.

The following is a mix of headcanons and actual (vague) lore.

1: The North Wind.

The North Wind is a monster found in one of the two official Little Nightmares Comics.

In the story, the North Wind is a formless entity, being the wind itself, although he is shown to be capable of making himself a humanoid shaped body deep within the storm that he is, probably forming the shape of a person using dust and debris he’s picked up.

He’s shown making a wager with the Ferryman (which I now believe is “who can pull this child fully into the Nowhere first” or something similar) and given how he calls the Ferryman a Cheat, he’s probably done a similar thing with him many times before.

He’s also one of 3 entities that acknowledges the Ferryman’s existence, the other two being The Mall from the podcast, who recognizes the Ferryman and begs him not to take Noone, and the Lady, who the Ferryman works for.

Besides his ability to literally strip things to the bone with nothing but wind and his own control over it, the mere fact that the North Wind can both casually wager with the Ferryman and the fact the the Ferryman often needs to cheat to win against him shows that the North Wind is equally as powerful or at least very close in power to the Ferryman (and also the Lady).

As for WHY the North Wind is so powerful, I think it’s because of the same reason that the Ferryman is so powerful, but I’ll get into that in a bit.

2: Lords.

First off: All inhabited areas of Nowhere have some sort of Vice or Obsession related to it. A thing that most, if not all of the inhabitants are obsessed with. The Pale City had Escapism and TVs, wherever Guests come from (and by extension the Maw, which is a restaurant that serves these people, not their original home) has food and hunger, etc.

(The Nest is an exception. It doesn’t have any sort of Vice because it’s only inhabited by three people, not counting the Lady whenever she presumably stays there, and doesn’t have the population or resources or anything to sustain any kind of obsession. Sure the Pretender has her dolls, but that’s more of a “spoil this kid rotten” thing than an addiction)

A Lord is basically just my word for “Any creature that controls a given area or vice of the Nowhere”. Meaning The Lady, The Broadcaster (not the Thin Man, but a separate being. I got a whole theory post on that), and if you take the Podcast into account, The Chained Woman, Living Mall and Ventriloquist. Along with any other rulers of the Nowhere we haven’t seen yet or even will never see.

Also included in this list are The North Wind, Ferryman and Signal Tower Flesh Walls. They don’t truly control any real areas (unless you count the North Wind tearing his way through the wilderness) but their power and influence is too great to really ignore, especially since out of the three of them, two work directly together with other Lords in ways that other minions simply can’t. The Ferryman works for the Lady alongside dragging kids into Nowhere to begin with, bringing them to either the Maw or the Nest depending on what the Lady needs. The Flesh Walls aid the Broadcaster in his control over the Pale City, helping spread the Transmission by literally being the Transmission Tower. I’d even argue that for the Ferryman and Flesh Walls, helping the Lady and Broadcaster respectively is more of a beneficial partnership than working under them, especially for the Flesh Walls.

Lords are also the entities that can pull children into the Nowhere, although some do it far more than others and as such are more experienced. For example: The Ferryman, North Wind, Living Mall and Flesh Walls.

(Also while I’m on the topic, I fully believe that Noone’s dream in Ep 3 of the Podcast is essentially an unplanned, forced detour for Noone’s Nowhere Tour, with the Living Mall being the thing that pulls her in this time instead of the Ferryman, which is why the Ferryman ends up taking her away from the Mall at the end instead of just letting her do whatever until she wakes up again. This would explain not only why the Ferryman actually helped Noone during her escape from the Mall, pointing at her necklace and gesturing for her to take it off before offering Noone his hand to escape (which brings to mind the North Wind comic, where the Ferryman does the exact same gesture to the Refugee Boy to take him away from the North Wind), an action we never him do before or after episode 3 when Noone is in danger, but also why the Mall got incredibly distressed and angry at the Ferryman when he showed up. The Mall pulled Noone in themselves this time, and the Ferryman had to show up to make sure his target didn’t get caught by different Lord before he could take her.)

Lords are the most powerful creatures found in the Nowhere, often possessing incredible power and uniquely, more humanlike intelligence and qualities. Adults in the Nowhere are more often than not mindless child killers who simply do their job or keep up with their obsession or vice (the Teacher teaching, the Hunter hunting, Viewers being addicted to the Transmission, etc) and completely LOSE IT when they see a child, gunning straight for it with the intent to kill unless something even more important (usually Obsession related) happens to stop them. It’s shown that some non-Lords can resist these child-killing urges with some practice like the Thin Man refusing to actually harm Six when he grabs her (although he did still leave Six to be corrupted in the Tower) and the Butler being able to look after the Pretender, who is a child, but this seems to be the exception. Especially since in all cases of this happening, there’s a reason for it. The Thin Man can still recognize Six, The Butler doesn’t harm the Pretender because she’s the Lady’s daughter, who the Butler works for and fears for VERY good reason, the Hunter didn’t kill Six immediately because he wanted to either cook or taxidermy her at a later date, etc

Meanwhile Lords have been seen completely ignoring any sort of child killing urge or compulsion easily. The Lady looked after anywhere from 2 to 6 children and is the one that trained the Butler to not attack her children in the first place, the Living Mall is extremely possessive, but doesn’t appear to have any real intentions of harming Noone, just wanting to keep her happy so she won’t leave them to be alone again and even begs her not to go further into the Nowhere for her own safety and even the Ferryman, despite his constant kidnapping of children in and out of Nowhere, never resorts to outright harming them or chasing them down like a wild animal like some other adults.

The Ferryman especially is a good example of this. Instead of chasing and snatching up any child he sees or mindlessly chasing one no matter the cost or killing them immediately upon capture, the Ferryman usually manipulates kids into giving themselves up nonviolently and is extremely persistent in doing so, stalking targets for YEARS if he has to in order to manipulate them or to wait for them to get into a position to be manipulated. He does tie up Six when bringing her to the Maw, but even prior to that he doesn’t chase Six down or harm her in order to capture her. He simply finds Six and points at her, causing every adult nearby to also point and make noises at her (possibly showing that the Ferryman has some sort of control or commanding power over Adults, just like some other lords we see), which overwhelms Six to the extent that she just curls up and tries to block out the noise, and after that the Ferryman presumably just walked over and took her without resistance, avoiding any sort of chase or fight entirely.

This isn’t to say that Lords won’t attack children or will treat them with any sort of kindness, the Lady will kill any intruders she can find and the North Wind seems to seriously enjoy killing things, making a whole game out of it with the Ferryman, but what I’m saying is that they’re able to resist those natural child-killing instincts if they ever want or need to. If a Lord kills a child, it’s because they want to, not because they need to. And boy do they often want to.

They’re also noticeably more aware and intelligent than typical adults. For the best example of this, compare the Maw and Signal Tower to any other adult in complexity.

Every year at the same time, but never in the same place, the Maw shows up, brings guests aboard and lets them eat endless amounts of delicious food and meat, only to later kill all of the guests aboard to feed the Lady with their souls.

The Signal Tower keeps producing the Signal by using a time loop. The loop is initially set up when the Broadcaster finds Mono, a child with signal powers, and attacks the Pale City Orphanage that he’s living in. The two meet, something we don’t get to see happens and Mono ends up in the forest outside the city, most likely coming out of one of the TVs there. Then Mono meets Six and the two journey through the Pale City. The actual loop begins when Mono releases the Thin Man, who kidnaps Six (and removes her soul by doing so). Mono then kills the Thin Man, and enters the Tower, only for a soulless Six to leave him there. Mono is then used as a living battery to create the transmission until he’s too old to be useful, at which point Mono (now The Thin Man) is released from the tower by his past self and is then eventually killed by his past self, who goes on to become trapped in the tower and so on infinitely.

All of these things are not only complicated (Especially the Loop), but when compared to other adults, even adults with Jobs like the Teacher and Doctor, have something that other adults don’t: A Purpose and Ultimate Goal.

The Teacher endlessly teaches fake students that can’t grow, change, learn or ever leave the school. She will do that forever simply because she is a Teacher and Teachers teach. The Doctor endlessly preforms surgeries on patients that never leave, simply waiting in the hospital to go through it all again, once again, simply because the Doctor is a Doctor and that’s what doctors do. The Hunter hunts and taxidermies because he’s a hunter, end of story. These adults CAN do things other than their jobs if they want to, like the Teacher playing the Piano in her free time and even writing and editing her own piece, but in the end they’re stuck endlessly doing their jobs for no real reason, with no end goal, simply because that is what they do.

But the Lady and Broadcaster are different. For example: The Maw’s whole thing isn’t something the Lady does just because she’s The Owner or The Host of the Maw and that’s what she does, she does it to keep herself alive, maintaining the whole thing as a way to guarantee a steady supply of souls to keep herself going year after year. In fact: The Lady didn’t originally run the Maw. She forcibly took it over from the previous owner (The Granny). In other words: The Lady planned out everything with the Maw. She took over because she wanted to use it as a guest trap and continues to use it as so. There’s also the Lady’s connections to the Nest, showing that the Lady can just straight up stop the Maw stuff in its entirety for a while and do whatever the hell she wants at the Nest, not to mention her own collection of books and spells deeper in her personal quarters, further abandoning any semblance of “I run the Maw because I am it’s owner and therefore it is my purpose”. The Lady runs the Maw and keeps track of all her employees because she wants to (use it to become immortal), not because it’s her only true purpose in life.

Her name actually somewhat reflects this. Instead of a job title or something similar, her name is simply “The Lady”. “The Lady of the Maw” for long. It’s just a description of her. Not a job title. Because the Lady does what she wants and doesn’t have a preset job-related purpose. The Broadcaster can also technically be used here as well, because The Broadcaster isn’t actually his name. We don’t know his name. He’s simply a second Thin Man that you can find if you search through the Lore enough. I just call him the Broadcaster because that was the Thin Man’s original name when LN2 had just recently been announced.

(The Thin Man also has a non-job-related name and isn’t a lord, but that’s because he doesn’t actually have a job to define him with. He’s a living battery for the signal tower, nothing more and nothing less.)

Point is, Lords are way more intelligent than the typical adult, and are able to think in ways that regular adults simply can’t.

Also (and this one is a pure headcanon with little canon evidence): Lords have the unique ability to speak in a language that both Children and Adults understand, when normally Children and Adults simply can’t understand each other. The only other creatures that can do this are The Butler, a Non-Lord Adult who can speak Child thanks to the Lady, The Pretender, a child that can speak Adult also thanks to the Lady, and Children that are still in the process of being dragged into the Nowhere, like Noone being able to hear and understand an adult shopkeeper.

Lords can be aware of each other, interact and even work together, as seen with both the Lady and The Ferryman working together either with the Ferryman working underneath the Lady or both on an equal partnership (it’s hard to say given how powerful the Ferryman is and how we don’t know what he’s getting out of this partnership) and the Broadcaster and Flesh Walls working together to create the Transmission, the Loop and everything else that keeps the Pale City the way it is. It really just depends on how close their respective domains are.

In fact: we know two Lords who are either rivals or outright enemies: The Lady and The Broadcaster (once again, a separate entity from the Thin Man, although they look nearly identical).

In Little Nightmares 2, you can find an apartment that used to belong to the Lady, implying that she used to live in the Pale City.

It even has a picture of her (Masked, implying that she had her powers long before coming to the Maw, throwing a massive wrench into the Cycle Of Ladies theory) and one of her ceramic statues. The Glitching Remain found near it might even be the shadow-lifeforce-soul-stuff that the Lady stores inside those things, having leaked out and gotten ensnared by the Transmission.

Given the state of the Pale City and how the Lady now views the mainland as “Chaos”, it’s pretty clear that the Lady lived in the Pale City before the Broadcaster and Signal Tower showed up, and the Lady left once the Transmission started up.

Then in the Nest, we have the Lady locking up a TV in a heavy duty room while suspending it in the air (presumably so nothing can come through and if something does, the TV will fall and break, preventing them from escaping).

Combine that with the Broadcaster’s failed attempt to enter the Maw through a TV in the Post-Credits of Secrets Of The Maw and one of the Pretender’s drawings depicting the Broadcaster, and it’s very possible that the Lady did this in response to the Broadcaster trying to enter the Nest through that specific TV. To prevent him from taking her daughter. It would certainly explain why that TV was rigged to be one way. If the Broadcaster were to come through, the TV would fall, preventing the Broadcaster from escaping with a kidnapped Pretender.

It’s not the only TV in the Nest, as the Pretender does have one of her own, but there’s also a possibility that this specific TV is special somehow. Maybe it’s the only one in the Nest that can access live TV and signals, with the Pretender’s TV only being able to play pre-recorded stuff.

Final point is, both the Lady and the Broadcaster seem to despise each other, with the Lady leaving the Pale City once he showed up and the Broadcaster making multiple attempts to enter the Maw and Nest, most likely with the intention of harming the Lady and/or the Pretender.

As for how Lords are made, I headcanon that there’s two ways. A Deal with The Eye or being Made By It.

For the second opinion you have The Ferryman, North Wind, Signal Tower and Living Mall. They were just straight up created by the Eye. They aren’t the only ones either, as other Lords like them still have the capability to exist out there in the Nowhere. These are just the Lords we’ve seen.

As for why I believe these guys were created by the Lord, just look at them and what they’re capable of.

The Ferryman is described as a otherworldly figure with a face resembling melting wax (fun fact: that exact description is used in the podcast and is a reference to the Cut Character The Wax Bellman, who was confirmed out of universe to be an older beta version of what would later become the Ferryman.), who can shapeshift, teleport, speaks entirely in riddles and is shown to have direct connections to EXTREMELY powerful creatures, not to mention that Otto identifies him as “The guardian at the threshold. A mythic entity who’s appeared in the stories of innumerable cultures.”

The North Wind is a formless entity that is the Wind, is on par with the Ferryman in power and out of universe, The North Wind is often a character in legends and stories of various cultures, just like how Otto describes the Ferryman.

The Signal Tower and Living Mall are so similar that I first they were the same character. They’re giant masses of flesh covered in eyes that can mimic entire buildings. The eyes alone should give these things off.

Coincidentally (or not), these four specific lords are the ones who are better at invading people’s dreams and accessing Our World, with the Ferryman in particular being so adept at it that Otto initially believes him to be The “guardian at the threshold” of the Nowhere. In reality, all Lords we see can access our world through dreams, and it turns out that Eye-Created Lords are just naturally better at it. The Ferryman isn’t THE guardian at the threshold that Otto is looking for, but A guardian at the threshold. A Lord. One of many.

For the others like The Lady, Broadcaster and most of the Podcast Lords, they started out as regular adults.

Now it’s important to note that Regular Adults, despite being bound to that singular purpose or job, can do things outside of it and have unrelated things on the side, like the Teacher playing and composing on the piano in her free time.

For many, this is where it starts, with an adult using that Free Time and stuff on the side in very specific ways. They start researching the world they inhabit and how it works, the Nowhere, Magic, The Eye, and it all eventually culminates in them somehow getting the attention of the Eye itself, and making a deal with it. Either that or the Adult comes into close contact with another Lord, who ends up bringing the Eye’s attention to the adult for them.

The deal is all the benefits that lords have over regular adults (plus whatever is unique to them, like the Lady’s shadow magic and the Broadcaster’s signal powers) in exchange for… something. We don’t know exactly what, but this something is generally assumed to be souls. Many souls. For example, the Viewers of the Pale City are eventually consumed by the Televisions they watch, leaving behind only their clothes. It’s assumed that their souls are claimed by the Eye through this, the Eye getting any and all souls that the transmission ensnares and drags into itself.

Speaking of which….

The All Seeing Eye:

To my understanding and theorizing, the Little Nightmares Universe looks like this:

You have Reality as we know it, The Threshold between Reality and Nowhere, Nowhere itself, an unknown space that most likely just contains another threshold, this time between the Nowhere and the Nightmare World and the Nightmare World itself, which I also call the Eye’s Domain.

The Eye is a cosmic horror-esque eldritch monstrosity. Simple as that. It is the ruler and sole inhabitant of its domain, the Nightmare World. The Eye’s Domain essentially stands opposite to ours in a cosmic sense, and the Nowhere is created where both of these very different worlds overlap ever so slightly.

Also in a very disturbing twist, the Nowhere is actually essentially the universe’s DEFAULT STATE, or at least is as close as to you can get to it, and at some point in the incomprehensibly distant past (most likely during or even before the literal Big Bang), it separated into the stable, orderly “reality” where we live and exist and the horrifying chaotic eldritch nightmare world where the Eye exists.

We know this thanks to the Ferryman’s words: “Two flows from one, and here, is whole again”. In other words, there used to be one world, but then they separated into two, and in the Nowhere, both worlds meet again.

This also means that the Eye most likely predates the entire universe as we know it. In fact, I’d compare it to this bit of Adventure Time Lore:

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The Eye’s Realm is literally just Eldritch madness the mortal mind can’t comprehend. Pure chaos with the Eye being omnipresent, all seeing and in full control of everything that happens in there. But the Nowhere is different. It’s not created by the Eye, at least not on purpose. The Nowhere is a space between spaces, where our reality meets the Eye’s nightmarish hellscape, and the end result is the Nowhere, where things make JUST enough sense to be comprehensible while also being filled with the Eye’s nightmares and corruption.

The Eye can see into the Nowhere and is almost always watching almost everywhere at once, but can’t truly interact with anything outside its domain like the Nowhere or Our World (thank god), but it can use other methods to influence things, like it’s various Lords. The massive amount of Eyes seen all over the franchise are less a thing the Eye looks through and more just a sign of Its Presence. It can’t show up physically, but the Eye symbols are a sign that it’s here and watching regardless.

However, despite the Eye being unable to physically appear in the Nowhere, we’ve seen it. In Episode 6 of the Podcast.

In episode 6, Noone is brought to the Threshold, the final barrier between the Real World and Nowhere, where crossing it will trap you forever. The Threshold (or at least Our side of it) is described as Extremely Dark, filled with black mist that makes it extremely hard to see, and contains a single wooden door simply described as “Ancient” with a symbol of the Eye on it. But after Noone crosses through the door and sees the Nowhere side of the Threshold, it’s different.

The Mist vanishes, and Noone sees countless stars that fill the sky with a red moon, but quickly realizes that those aren’t stars, they’re Eyes. Even the Red Moon is just a Massive, Red Eye. That is our description of the Eye itself.

The Eye can’t enter the Nowhere or Our World, but seems to be fully capable of existing within that border space between the realms, although it’s power is somewhat limited here compared to in its own domain.

Or maybe you can just see into the other realms from the Threshold. The Nowhere is compared to a one-way mirror at some point. Earth is on the mirrored side, and can’t look into the Nowhere, while the Nowhere can look at us. Presumably, the Nightmare Realm follows the same idea. From inside the Nightmare Realm, you can’t see the Nowhere either. You are on the mirrored side of a one way mirror. But from the Threshold, and more specifically the part of the Threshold that’s closer to the Nowhere? You are on the side of the mirror that lets you look straight through it, and with Noone being in-between Reality, The Nowhere AND the Nightmare World, she might have be able to look straight at the Eye in its domain, looking at it through the one-way mirror that is reality.

Anyways, That description of Countless Glowing Eyes matching the amount of stars in the sky with a single massive Red Eye surrounded by rings in the centre is the closest we can come to understanding what the Eye looks like. It’s the most complicated form it can take that we as human beings can still comprehend without going insane.

But there’s more. In episode 5, Otto attempts to use a machine to see into Noone’s dreams, but is stopped at the dark mist of the Threshold. He watches as a single eye appears from the darkness, and then it opens, staring at Otto with such intensity that he’s physically in pain from it, barely able to choke out words as he rambles that “it’s watching me” until the machine he’s using completely breaks down.

In other words, Otto tried to stare into the abyss that is Nowhere, but the Eye cut him off and stared right back.

Also also: Otto’s reaction to the Eye staring at him plus the sound it makes as it does so reminds me exactly of the Sentry Eyes used in the Maw and Nest that turn people caught in its gaze to stone. There’s also the unused TV Eyes from LN2 that do the same thing and it looks like the Mechanical Monster Baby in LN3 can do the same thing with it’s own eyes. This leads me to believe that many Lords directly draw upon the Eye for magical power, and Sentry Eyes (and the Eye Cameras in the Maw) use raw power taken straight from the Eye to power themselves.

Also as pure headcanon: In my headcanon post about some children being native to the Nowhere and some being from Earth, I mentioned two things:

Children that are visiting Nowhere as they sleep (like Noone) but haven’t been fully pulled in yet will disappear from Nowhere and go back to Earth if they die in the Nowhere, Fall Asleep in the Nowhere, or “go unobserved for too long”.

Children will naturally appear in the Nowhere (basically spawn in like Minecraft Mobs) in any area that is completely unobserved.

For both of these things, I’m not just talking about going unobserved by others, but also by the Eye.

The Eye, despite being present almost everywhere in the Nowhere and having a reputation as being all-seeing, is not perfect. Occasionally, a tiny gap will appear in its all-seeing sight, and when it can’t see a spot, Children, one of the only things immune to its corrupting, nightmarish presence, have a chance to appear in that unobserved spot.

#little nightmares #headcanons #theory #lore #asks #the eye #the North wind

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moviemunchies · 8 months

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Ah, yes, the del Toro Hellboy movie; it’s much better than that other attempt at making a Hellboy movie that came out in 2019. It’s a very del Toro movie, which means it’s not that faithful an adaptation of the original comics. Still, it’s close enough, and it’s a pretty good movie in its own right.

In World War II, Professor Broom leads an American military in thwarting Rasputin’s Nazi experiment to open a portal to the Ogrdu Jahad, the seven gods of chaos (just roll with it). They defeat Rasputin and his forces, but something does come through the portal: an infant Hellboy. He’s adopted by the Professor and the newly-formed Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (the BPRD). Aging much slower than an ordinary person, he of course becomes an agent of the BPRD and something of a cryptid to the general public. As he doesn’t really get along with his coworkers/handlers, Professor Broom hires FBI agent John Myers to work with him, and help introduce the audience to the world of the BPRD.

Except! Ohes noes! The Professor is dying! And Rasputin and his minions are back, raising up unkillable monsters and hoping to force Hellboy realize his destiny as Anung Un Rama, the Beast of Apocalypse.

There are several noticeable differences between Mike Mignola’s comic characters and del Toro’s versions of them. Hellboy being a grumpy young adult, rather than a serious investigator at this point comes to mind, as well as him being romantically interested in Liz. Abe is psychic now (a change which I actually kind of prefer?). Most of all though, the biggest change is that the BPRD is a secret organization, and Hellboy must hide from the public’s view, causing a lot of angst and conflict.

These are the hallmarks of a Guillermo del Toro picture: a monster who wants to be accepted by humanity, and can’t because humanity sucks sometimes. That’s not A Thing in the Hellboy comics, and it makes me understand why some comics fans don’t like these movies as much. That being said, apparently Mignola went into the the adaptation giving del Toro his blessing to do his own take on the world and characters. Also, this was my introduction to Hellboy (and I suspect that for many that’s the case as well), so I can’t really hold it against the movie too much.

Supposedly, according to TV Tropes at least, there is a Director’s Cut out there, and it develops the characters better than the theatrical cut. I have never seen anything about that, and I don’t know where I’d track that down, but let me know if you see that floating around!

There are some changes in the worldbuilding as well, like how the Ogdru Jahad are slightly different from how they appear in the comics. This is kind of excusable–the backstory and full explanation of their nature were things that Mignola knew, but hadn’t shared yet when the movie was in production. He actually decided to explain all of those in a comic story (“The Island”) when on set for this movie. So I can’t fault the movie for changing some of that.

Then again, there’s also the 2019 film, which tried to include a lot of the comics story and ended up being an overcrowded mess.

The special effects are… well, it’s a mixed bag. The practical effects, of which there are a lot, generally aged pretty well. You know you’re looking at something real when you’re looking at practical effects. The other effects are a little more hit-or-miss. It looks like del Toro realizes that the CGI wasn’t always as strong, as some of those weaker CGI images are in quick action shots, or in dark places, so that you don’t see it on screen for too long, or can’t make it out on screen, so it still works. Other things, like Liz’s flames, or when Hellboy electrocutes Samael–those are weaker effects and don’t hold up as well today.

Still, it’s overall a darn good movie. Even if it’s only a loose adaptation of the comics, it’s a solid, memorable story, with really good visuals and great scenes. Every action sequence is memorable and well-done. The characters are likable, the Plot is easy to follow, and the movie is loads of fun to watch.

Also it’s about a half-demon that’s been raised Catholic, which is a darn interesting premise by itself.

And Hellboy punches a robot ninja Nazi in the face. That’s pretty great.

So I suppose you should watch the movie.

#Hellboy #Movie Munchies #Guillermo del Toro #Ron Perlman

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eisforeidolon · 1 year

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With my own eyes I read an anon ask to a Jensen hater that started "I want to throw up thinking of Jared sharing a stage with JA".

Of course the hater 100% agreed.

Not to sound like a minion but Jared wouldn't like anyone who spoke about Jensen like that.

Yes, he made some questionable decisions and hopefully the prequel is done BUT nobody is perfect (especially his haters) and if Jared can move on then why can't the haters?

I cringe some days when I go through my dash and see all the Jensen hate, but your posts are the sun peeking through the clouds. ♥️

Aww, thanks!

And yeah, that's the hilarious irony underlining it all - J2 have always been very clear they don't see each other as competition and actively root for each other to succeed. Jared, particularly, is an effusive guy who has been plenty free with praise for Jensen - at least as much as ever post-prequelgate. Jensen is more reserved, but has still said plenty of admiring things about Jared.

Yet there are these stans convinced they understand what happened and the relative value of J2's friendship versus this one incident better than the Js do. It's ridiculous. Even before you get to the level of claiming you're just soooo ~*upset*~ about the choices of these famous actor guys that you don't actually know it makes you want to throw up. At that point how do you not realize you're the joke?

#askboxery #anti actor stans

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sharonisthebettercarter · 10 months

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So much suffering could've been easily avoided, had Billy's musty ass learn to calm the fuck down and instead of moping around, he should've took anger management classes before s3 ep 3. I understand it's very common for younger kids to look up to adults because Ryan probably admired Billy and now he let Ryan down.

If Ryan shuts Billy (and Shitlander) down next season, I'd say he deserved it. I know Billy's life have been hard too and I had compassion for him as well, but that's never an excuse to treat others like Billy did to Ryan in ep 3, s3. (I'd be) Glad Ryan (might be) mature enough to realize it was Billy's own fault that he decided to gaslight him.

Ryan has every right to cut billy off because at this point Billy is going to deflect and turn his back on everybody (like he did in the comics). Billy (like 🍇lander) will just brainwash Ryan with his own issues and turn him into a minion and i will never trust him around kids after using that infant and threatening to unalive children too. Yeah he didn’t kill a child (yet) but Ryan (nor any child) should get mixed up in his toxic bullshit. I wouldn't be surprised if he successfully unalives Neuman's daughter, like the unsentimental douchebag he is.

holy fuck anon! putting all your asks together in this but i'll try to respond as best i can between them (gonna put your shizz in italics), lmao there is a shit ton of ranting and i may do a little myself, don't mind me~<3

first off, that grapelander killed me because i have a sick sense of morbid humor but also wkuk the grapist

but i feel you, i get what you mean and for sure, billy is an enraging character that somehow manages to be less well adjusted and more fucking damaged than homie while having genuinely less garbage to show for on his 'shit has happened to me' roster. not even saying that as a dig at the guy but it becomes very very clear (and infuriating) when you actually read the comic or even just watch back the show. specifically, he doesn't have a single soft moment where he's being genuine with someone that isn't becca and it dives hard into that disturbing element.

the difference being that homelander has the power to do far far worse with much greater ease, but the craziest thing about that is that he generally doesn't and even in some cases (obviously not always, but james stillwell even mentions this in the comics, that homelander has incredible control over his temper) shows a remarkable sense of self control. and i think it shows for more that there's so much homelander chooses not to do at any given moment while billy is spending 1000% of his time and effort working towards these things, including chipping away at homelander's control (which as everyone keeps warning him is gonna fuck EVERYONE over!)

but billy is pretty much the next stage of what would happen to homelander if he actually did earn someone's love/learned to actually love them back. he latches on hard and it's borderline parasitic with how bad he can be and how he makes them his lifeline without actually addressing or working on any of his issues. his whole damn schtick is to drag homelander down to his level so they can duke it out. losing becca was a catalyst, but the reality is that it stopped being about her a long time ago. the real issue is his pride

that should be clear enough in his willingness to alienate ryan AND potentially and actually destroy whole buildings full of thousands of innocent bystanders just to get to ONE guy.

and the thing is, alienating ryan was completely unnecessary. it was billy being a preemptive cunt of 'i'm eventually going to hurt/disappoint this kid, so let me just make it easier on myself by doing it on purpose now instead of actually trying because trying is too hard.'

WELP. y'know billy, maybe if you hadn't done that, the kid would have kicked his grape daddy in the balls and left with you at the end of the season instead~!

but it should say enough that he actually said the words (more/less) "nah, it'll be years before ryan can take him(homelander) on" in regards to using him like a weapon against said grape daddy...

I hope fans turn against trashlander when seasons 4-5 rolls, after its revealed homelander is a shitty, unsupportive parent who's ruining his kid. I also hope they realize Creeplander was given a choice to go to the light side, leave vought, and call them out on their shit, numerous times, yet he refused and then killed or tried to kill the people who offered him such. This man has made his choice MANY TIMES, AFTER choosing to fall to the dark side in the first place. Why should he be offered yet another chance? And why would he expected to make a different choice? And even if he did, why should he be considered eligible for redemption? He can’t un-murder all those innocent people, he can’t un-torture his victims. He does not want to be redeemed.

But if they wanna keep having the flying creep in a wholesome light, then go do that, mother teresa. Imma see this dude get folded by kryptonian dogs

listen... i gotta level with ya...

as much as trashlander is accurate, and as much as i look forward to the coming chaos and destruction and blood and death~<3<3<3 excuse me~

that is an unlikely hope when we got fucking rape apologists in fandom. just. i gotta be real.

and homie's not gonna be the shitty unsupportive type parent. don't get me wrong, he will absolutely be shitty. but less 'you're a fucking disgrace and i'm going to abuse the shit out of you' so much as... 'my kid is perfect and can do no wrong ever' entitled parent nightmare. he's going to be supportive... in all the worst and most horrible ways, enabling the shit out of ryan to be terrible (you remember that little smirk ryan got at the very end of s3? think more of that type of shit, tho i do think it may become too much for ryan to handle, right now, homie is the only person telling him what he would want to hear and providing him with **dangerously unconditional 'love' while he's in a very vulnerable place)

that being said, there haven't been instances where homelander's been presented with any real chances to leave vought. and i'm going to say this because it comes from a place of first hand experience with abuse.

homelander is trauma bonded to vought. yes, they abused and did so much terrible shit to him, but they were still his 'parent', his 'mother' or 'creator'. and when someone is trauma bonded to family? especially in a place where *family* and love is the ONLY thing you long for and the ONLY thing that you have? it is NOT that simple to be presented with an 'out' and just take it.

especially when you have nowhere to go.

abused is a precarious place to be put in (never say that people choose this, they don't). because it is not always obvious, it is not always painful, but it is unbearably blinding. it is a vicious cycle that continually hurts you. but it also offers you comfort, and love, and everything you could possibly want... without ever actually following through or instead giving you the bare minimum to keep you addicted. and most people don't realize they are STUCK in the cycle until it's dug its claws in and won't let go, or until it's gone too far.

but it is NEVER a choice. it is a specific psychological response and preconditioning that is extremely difficult or even impossible to break through and break free from.

abuse victims never want the abuse. what they do want is to *fix* the situation and not abandon the people they love, even if they shouldn't love them. but it is not an easy place to be in, and it is not a choice either.

homelander doesn't want to abandon vought because they are all he's ever known, he doesn't want to be abused either. he wants to fix it, and even if that's a lost cause, he doesn't see that because vought robbed him of the ability to see that. by making him BELIEVE in them and having control of his life since before he was even born.

he never had a choice and he still doesn't have one because no one has shown him that he does.

sorry for the lecture, but for me that subject hits way too close to home and any time i can correct misinformation or prevent victim blaming, i am who i am.

anywho. agreed that 'redemption' may still not be the best choice for homelander's situation. not to say it's impossible, but he also DID become an abuser and has hurt countless people. and you're right, none of those people will get a second or their lives back. but i think there is also something to be said about what homie could do to make up for it/how many more he could save if he did make different choices (even if unlikely, lmao)

comics homie is actually a different (even more fucked up and tragic story) who honestly might have chosen to go back to being 'good' post epiphany/reveal if he'd had the choice, but i digress.

i am looking forward to him flying off the deep end tho~<3

Ryan needs to ditch Homelander (and Billy) to secure his future and live his own life because at the end of the day, it's all about control (especially when it comes to the flying cunt). Ryan will not only lose his childhood, but lose his adulthood as well, the past and future being stolen from him, unless he manages to escape the flying cunt (and Billy too because fuck him and Ryan has every right to not forgive a poor excuse of a human being too) to make his future secured and his life not ruined any further than it is. Also, tell vought to fuck off too.

I also hope he find some strangers who will genuinely help him and treat him right than those scumbags (and Mallory too because she sus).

Get orchiectomy when he's of age because if I came from a fucked up bloodline and surrounded by fucked up people on a daily basis, I'd do the same too (I mean I wouldn't blame him at all if he did that)

Change his identity legally and move to a different ass Country because start anew.

agreed that ryan is pretty much better off without any of those mofos lmao. like honestly, he's too good for half of fandom advocating for his fucking death as they dick ride soldier boi. i don't care how handsome any of them are, ryan is a fucking child, becca's child, not a goddamn hot potato to be tossed around or cooked.

castration is a little extreme even with his powers i'm gonna say. i mean i kinda get what you mean but at the end of the day, we are not our bloodlines. ryan isn't his father and you def recognize that so i think he could move on with his life without necessarily going that far.

mallory is def sus but i still love her and i actually think the likeliest option is that ryan ends up saved after the whole scorched earf debacle (for real this time) and then adopted by annie and hughie in the end.

Despite the fact that Ryan really has been given the shit end of the stick in the reality he calls life. I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually becomes something without forgiveness, and he certainly becomes a part of some unforgivable acts, but really haven't been given the chance to thrive and succeed. It's gonna be sad, because I think Ryan would have been entirely different had he been given a chance. But chances can possibly be too late for him, or something will happen that emphasizes that.

However, depending on how seasons 4-5 goes, he should grow a backbone ditch both homelander and Billy because he can do better w/o them because all that poor boy wanted is to find a place where he is loved, safe, and appreciated. Yet, every time he finds that, it gets ripped away from him. I can't imagine what outcome he will have to suffer next. I fear what comes.

...

i almost don't want to do this to you but the irony is just too fucking poetically palpable.

LIKE FATHER. LIKE SON. and so the cycle fucking continues... jesus fucking christ fuck me.

'growing a backbone' is easier said than done. one of the pain points of the general hero genre is to teach us to protect those who cannot protect themselves. and what the boys does is take that ideal and put it through the meatgrinder of reality. we often don't do this in real life.

that's supposed to sorta be the lesson taught with lenny. he didn't 'choose' to 'sink', no one does. you could argue that the world is tough and people need to be stronger (like billy's toxic piece of shit sperm donor), but i would argue the world needs to be softer for those that won't be able to keep up or who are vulnerable.

one suicide is too many. what are we really doing if we let so many people fall that far?

EVERYONE deserves to feel loved, safe, and appreciated... and it's the lack of those things that CREATES monsters of men.

I've seen kids manage to leave their fucked up situations, despite difficulty. It's going to be simple though. Besides, not all strangers are bad, right? In fact Ryan had better luck with those he doesn't know very well- like kimiko- than he has with his own family. Buuuut, who knows how long can that 'luck' last.

Sure he has his maternal aunt and grandmother, but welcome him w/ open arms?? If a child comes to your doorstep, saying they're you're nibling (the child of your sibling) and grandchild, along w/ your sister and daughter dead because they accidentally killed her?

Because his entire life has been out of his control from being raised in a hermit place because of satan dad and vought, to the death of his mother, to his mom's so called 'husband' gaslighting him, and now satan dad most likely forcing Ryan to distance himself from others, and then said father involving Ryan in murderous plots and promising him family in return which he will never provide. Yeah, Ryan had zero control.

If it ever happens, a group of people (or supes such as super-duper), could be the point where he actually has a say, his freedom, and a support network and hopefully he embraces it but... It might not be a happy ending, depending on how things go in his future. And that is depressing.

Better to leave the hell he's in now than staying. Also, he can defend himself (for obvious reasons), until he finds some strangers who genuinely want to help him, rather than hinder him and the best way to survive in a new environment is to learn from the locals. He should fight tooth and nail to cut ties w/ shit from his past and no longer associate with it as he starts to get better because if I was him, I wouldn't even go back.

Unless something in him clicks in, which he feels he has to go back, as if there's (a) haunting shadow(s) constantly following him. People underestimate the power abuse can have over a victim. You even got oppressed nations or people glorifying their own oppressors/abusers in the real world. he might not be raging and trying to kill anyone right now, but he might clearly mistrustful.

i'm gonna take a moment to get a bit more serious and mention survivor's bias. (i'm also assuming you mean '*not* that simple' hopefully??)

but keep in mind and this more a guesstimate outta my ass so don't quote me on it. but while it's great that those kids get out of those shitty situations, keep in mind that for every 10 kids that do, you might have a 100 more that don't. (just look at the foster system or pedo church rings, sorry, yuck, i know... but there are a lot more child victims that suffer in silence than we could ever know)

and for ryan, yeah, i for sure hope that he is able to get out of it all and get into a better situation, at the same time you have to remember that he is a just a child. he is not going to manage that on his own and things are likely to get worse before they get better.

i don't think becca's family would reject him tho because shocker, i REALLY don't think they'd be like BILLY~! especially with ryan being the last piece of becca left. i do think they might have some fears or be wary, but i do think grams and sister would just be happy to have him and the closure

LMAO AT 'SATAN DAD', can vouch for that. tho to be fair... satan is a GREAT daddy~ but an AWFUL dad... ;)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) (i cannot resist and i am not sorry.)

but yeah, i think the ideal here would be for ryan to NOT become either of his 'father' figures

and what is all this shit at the last part??? see you DO get it! just try not to forget that billy and homie are also products of their upbringing. but they WERE ryan at one point too. innocent kids that didn't deserve what the world gave and *didn't* give to them...

billy got out of it but carries every fucking scar with him and it still has an ironclad hold on him. homelander still hasn't gotten out. ryan is a snowball waiting to happen.

ugh, this shit gets depressing but you ranted, i ranted, we all had good fun and great discussion of these shitheads and i am looking forward to the new season~!

fuck me this is long, and thanks for comin' to my ted talk.

#billy butcher #homelander #ryan butcher #becca butcher #the boys #ask #long post #abuse #trauma #soldier boy #multiple asks #hughie campbell #annie january #bad parenting #vought

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halothenthehorns · 5 months

Text

Chapter 16: WE STEAL SOME SLIGHTLY USED WINGS

"Like chicken wings?" Magnus asked in concern when he read the new title. He couldn't be that judgy though, he'd gotten hungry enough to eat plenty of...used food.

"What an odd souvenir for this quest," Jason murmured. He couldn't imagine how the object to get a kid killed would come in handy.

"I always hated the use of the phrase new and improved. If it's new then it can't be improved on already. If it's improved then it can't be that new! This, might actually qualify as both though..." Nico finished with a mutter to himself.

Somewhere in the back of all of their minds, they had to know what this was really referring to. It was to much of a coincidence Percy had dreamed of the very wings Daedalus had invented that had failed his boy.

"This way!" Rachel yelled.

"Why should we follow you?" Annabeth demanded. "You led us straight into that death trap!"

"As opposed to the other two death trap options you had?" Will said blankly.

"Percy almost died again not twenty-four hours after he came back to life," Thalia sighed defensively. "Cut her some slack."

"It was the way you needed to go," Rachel said. "And so is this. Come on!"

Annabeth didn't look happy about it, but she ran along with the rest of us.

Rachel seemed to know exactly where she was going. She whipped around corners and didn't even hesitate at crossroads. Once she said, "Duck!" and we all crouched as a huge axe swung over our heads. Then we kept going as if nothing had happened.

"Therapy, every one of us," Magnus sighed, as even he hadn't blinked this time. Talk about being desensitized to horrors.

I lost track of how many turns we made. We didn't stop to rest until we came to a room the size of a gymnasium with old marble columns holding up the roof. I stood at the doorway, listening for sounds of pursuit, but I heard nothing. Apparently we'd lost Luke and his minions in the maze.

"Look at this place actually coming in handy," Percy grumbled.

Then I realized something else: Mrs. O'Leary was gone. I didn't know when she'd disappeared. I didn't know of she'd gotten lost or been overrun by monsters or what. My heart turned to lead. She'd saved our lives, and I hadn't even waited to make sure she was following us.

"She can shadow travel," Nico said quickly, watching Percy's face crumble like that had to be worse than giving him the slightest bit of hope she was okay. "It's how she got there so fast. I'm sure she just teleported away to wherever she wanted to when she was done using those monsters as chew toys."

"Yeah?" Percy asked with that bit of hope. He didn't care the headache he got for hearing this, he smiled all the same for the certainty it gave him he would see her again.

Ethan collapsed on the floor. "You people are crazy."

"As opposed to the none crazy plan that would have gotten him out alive," Alex sniffed.

He pulled off his helmet. His face gleamed with sweat.

"Ugh, I forgot he was running with you in armor," Magnus grimaced. "That's some extra level training."

"Have to do it at Camp too," Percy shrugged, it hadn't crossed his mind to be impressed since he'd deduced Ethan had training.

Annabeth gasped. "I remember you! You were one of the undetermined kids in the Hermes cabin, years ago."

Will frowned that he still didn't remember an Ethan Nakamora, but he wasn't perfect. Maybe the guy had come and gone before he'd gotten there, maybe he'd been to young to yet realize the disappearances and patterns to it.

He still felt guilty no matter what he told himself.

He glared at her. "Yeah, and you're Annabeth. I remember."

"What—what happened to your eye?"

Ethan looked away, and I got the feeling that was one subject he would not discuss.

"You guys are strangers on a first-name basis," Jason lightly defended. "None of us are gung-ho to share that kind of thing."

"Yeah," Percy still agreed with a troubled frown. It wasn't the eye, but there was something about him Percy instinctively mistrusted now like he hadn't back then. He hadn't been at Camp so he obviously couldn't be the traitor, but still, the idea bothered him a lot where he'd been and what he'd been up to since Annabeth had last seen him.

"You must be the half-blood from my dream," I said. "The one Luke's people cornered. It wasn't Nico after all."

"Congratulations on not getting caught Nico," Magnus said heartily.

"It's a life goal I'm currently not living up to," he smirked.

"Who's Nico?"

"Never mind," Annabeth said quickly. "Why were you trying to join up with the wrong side?"

Ethan sneered. "There's no right side.

"The side that doesn't casually kill kids sure doesn't seem like a wrong side," Will said hotly for his Camp. Nobody was going to sit around arguing the point, but Will also knew there had been a lot of unrest about the gods too, even from Percy and him.

They were the better side because of the half-bloods running it, not what the gods represented they could be.

The gods never cared about us. Why shouldn't I—"

"Sign up with an army that makes you fight to the death for entertainment?" Annabeth said. "Gee, I wonder."

"That Athena smarts really does come in handy," Alex chuckled.

Ethan struggled to his feet. "I'm not going to argue with you. Thanks for the help, but I'm out of here."

"We're going after Daedalus," I said. "Come with us. Once we get through, you'd be welcome back at camp."

Thalia really did admire that about Percy so much. He didn't think twice about the fact he'd found Ethan trying to join Luke, or refusing to talk about his life before he wound up lost in the labyrinth. That instinct to help, to welcome him back at Camp was the only thought that crossed his mind.

Will had to stop himself from giving Nico a superior look for much the same thoughts as he watched out of the corner of his eye his friend studying Percy with very obvious shock.

"You really are crazy if you think Daedalus will help you."

"He has to," Annabeth said. "We'll make him listen."

"Has Annabeth ever tied somebody up before and tried to get information out of them?" Percy asked Thalia in mild concern she seemed so convinced this was going to be true.

"Not that I'm aware of," Thalia scratched her nose without concern. "Don't underestimate her adaptability though."

"Right," Percy sighed...an uneasy feeling in him as he wondered how far they were going to go to save their camp.

Ethan snorted. "Yeah, well. Good luck with that."

I grabbed his arm. "You're just going to head off alone into the maze? That's suicide."

He looked at me with barely controlled anger. His eye patch was frayed around the edges and the black cloth was faded, like he'd been wearing it a long, long time. "You shouldn't have spared me, Jackson. Mercy has no place in this war."

Then he ran off into the darkness, back the way we'd come.

A part of Percy felt sorry for that guy. He knew that kind of anger, that blind acceptance that there was nothing you could do to fix a situation because it was out of your hands. Ethan deserved better, but he had to accept there was another way.

The larger part of him had wanted to throw a rock at the ingrate and instead had made himself turn away.

Annabeth, Rachel, and I were so exhausted we made camp right there in the huge room. I found some scrap wood and we started a fire. Shadows danced off the columns rising around us like trees.

"Something was wrong with Luke," Annabeth muttered, poking at the fire with her knife. "Did you notice the way he was acting?"

"Like the usual trigger happy, talks to himself, needs crabs in his shorts nutjob?" Alex scoffed.

Thalia bit her lip, her stomach in knots. She knew that's how the others all saw him...but she could never make herself see him that way first.

"He looked pretty pleased to me," I said. "Like he'd spent a nice day torturing heroes."

"It's what all the best clubs and camps are up to," Nico sneered. "You have to pay top dollar for those shows!"

"I hope he got a lovely spray-on tan as a bonus," Thalia tried to say with her usual sarcasm, but it just didn't sound right to her own ears.

"That's not true! There was something wrong with him. He looked...nervous. He told his monsters to spare me. He wanted to tell me something."

"Sparing one out of three does not make you one-third less of a monster," Magnus said with a pit in his own stomach. He didn't think he'd ever hate anybody for sparing his cousin, but man did Luke find a way to make even that feel horrible.

"Probably, 'Hi, Annabeth! Sit here with me and watch while I tear your friends apart. It'll be fun!'"

"I hope Annabeth would have turned him down if he didn't offer popcorn," Alex sniffed.

Thalia was debating with herself if she should release one of those fart arrows to shut them up, and only stopped herself because she knew it wouldn't do any good.

"You're impossible," Annabeth grumbled. She sheathed her dagger and looked at Rachel. "So which way now, Sacagawea?"

"Is that racist now?" Jason asked blankly.

"Everything's racist now," Alex rolled his eyes. "Considering we're trying to keep track of ancient Greek mythology and none of us have finished high school, I don't think we're qualified to decide that." His dark brown skin spoke of experience for itself, so nobody pestered that further.

Instead Magnus all to happily lobbed at Percy, "what is with you always trying to interrogate her while she's holding that knife? Are you actively trying to get stabbed?"

Thalia didn't hear Percy's sarcastic answer. She'd noticed that too, and it brought back the feelings of pride and joy all to easily to the surface of the first time Luke had given her that knife, how Percy seemed to instinctively and yet accidentally keep bringing that up.

Rachel didn't respond right away. She'd become quieter since the arena.

Now, whenever Annabeth made a sarcastic comment, Rachel hardly bothered to answer. She'd burned the tip of a stick in the fire and was using it to draw ash figures on the floor, images of the monsters we'd seen. With a few strokes, she caught the likeness of a dracaena perfectly.

"Girl's going to make a killing on the market," Alex said with pride for those skills.

"If she even sells them," Percy grinned, "she strikes me as the type of giving it all away."

"We'll follow the path," she said. "The brightness on the floor."

"The brightness that led us straight into a trap?" Annabeth asked.

"How many times is she going to harp on that?" Nico asked, exhaustion already in his voice. "It's not her fault what the maze does."

"Lay off her, Annabeth," I said. "She's doing the best she can."

Annabeth stood. "The fire's getting low. I'll go look for some more scraps while you guys talk strategy." And she marched off into the shadows.

Percy was rubbing his temples. How could one girl be the cause of like, seventy percent of his headaches?!

Rachel drew another figure with her stick—an ashy Antaeus dangling from his chains.

"Annabeth's usually not like this," I told her. "I don't know what her problem is."

Rachel raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure you don't know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Boys," she muttered. "Totally blind."

"Hey, don't you get on my case, too! Look, I'm sorry I got you involved in this."

"Dudett, I want to introduce you to a new world called jealousy," Alex told him with a mild touch of sympathy.

"What's Annabeth got to be jealous of?" Percy frowned. "Does she want to be mortal that bad?"

Alex faced palmed and Thalia patted Percy's shoulder with a stage whisper to the others, "he's hopeless."

"What?" Percy protested.

Magnus had the book. He was very tempted to just stop and enlighten Percy what those two girls were actually jealous of.

But frankly, that just wasn't a conversation he wanted to hear, let alone be a part of.

"No, you were right," she said. "I can see the path. I can't explain it, but it's really clear." She pointed toward the other end of the room, into the darkness. "The workshop is that way. The heart of the maze. We're very close now. I don't know why the path led through that arena. I—I'm sorry about that. I thought you were going to die."

Percy instantly wanted to comfort her. To make her laugh. The freckles on her face had all been scrunched up, there was a troubled look in her green eyes that he recognized. She still had huge streaks of gold in her red hair. Her blue hairbrush had been sticking out of her pocket with a few of Tammi's wild, tangled black hairs caught in it he'd swear were trying to whisper into the fire.

Why was every moment he'd shared with Rachel two parts awkward and one part terrifying?

She sounded like she was close to crying.

"Hey, I'm usually about to die," I promised. "Don't feel bad."

Thalia smacked him, again, with another eye roll to boot. "Maybe if you'd stop almost dying we wouldn't feel bad!"

"I can't control that," Percy pouted, really wishing she'd been along on this quest right now. He bet she would have gotten through to Annabeth there was nothing to be jealous about.

She studied my face. "So you do this every summer? Fight monsters? Save the world? Don't you ever get to do just, you know, normal stuff?"

There was a long-standing pause as somebody tried to pull up something 'normal' Percy had done without something causing trouble...and all seven of them were coming up blank.

Percy instantly brushed it off as a non-issue though. If he'd ever had a normal life, he'd probably be dead by now. His boring lazy days at the skate park and walking around New York were usually what led to him being off his game by the time he came back to camp the next summer. He'd get Annabeth or some other camp killed if he let himself have a day off like that.

I'd never really thought about it like that. The last time I'd had something like a normal life had been...well, never.

"Ah the one thing every half-blood has in common," Will nodded.

Nico frowned. His memories had shown a normal life...but he couldn't remember any details to know for sure if there had been monster attacks in their youth or any strange happenings before he'd gone into that hotel. It was odd, actually kind of hoping there had been some abnormality to his life so he wouldn't be left out of that stupid general statement.

"Half-bloods get used to it, I guess. Or maybe not used to it, but..." I shifted uncomfortably.

Something about the careless, almost numb way Percy described his horror of a life really struck Jason. The near deaths, the battles, the concept of his camp, none of it had felt out of place to him. It bothered him a lot that it didn't bother him more.

"What about you? What do you do normally?"

Rachel shrugged. "I paint. I read a lot."

Okay, I thought. So far we are scoring a zero on the similarities chart.

"Oh come on Perce," Alex pleaded for some kind of right-brain activity. "Your mom had to encourage some of that!"

"I bet I could do a really awesome blood splatter and frame it," Percy offered.

"I accept that," Alex looked more than pleased while Magnus swallowed the question of whose blood it would be.

"What about your family?"

I could sense her mental shields going up, like this was not a safe subject.

Percy wasn't that surprised, after the way she'd responded to Annabeth asking earlier, and Ethan had just run off into the maze rather than considering discussing such a thing. Sensitive topic, Percy was well aware. He just wanted to be a friendly ear. Just because it didn't get better didn't mean you had to live with it in silence.

"Oh...they're just, you know, family."

"You said they wouldn't notice if you were gone."

She set down her drawing stick. "Wow, I'm really tired. I may sleep for a while, okay?"

"Oh, sure. Sorry if..."

But Rachel was already curling up, using her backpack as a pillow. She closed her eyes and lay very still, but I got the feeling she wasn't really asleep.

"Are you sure Percy," Thalia gave him a disparaging look of pity. "Are you completely confident about that? I'm worried your lack of being able to take a hint caught onto the fact she instantly fell asleep!"

"Nico told me to never let anyone say that about me," Percy actually looked a little wounded, and Thalia sighed, instantly feeling bad. This idiot had no idea what he was doing, but at least he was a well-meaning idiot.

A few minutes later, Annabeth came back. She tossed some more sticks on the fire.

Percy huffed and decided he was grateful she didn't try to throw him in the fire.

She looked at Rachel, then at me.

"I'll take first watch," she said. "You should sleep, too."

"You don't have to act like that."

"Like what?"

"Like...never mind." I lay down, feeling miserable. I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as my eyes closed.

"See, Rachel might not have been faking it," Percy waved at the book.

Thalia looked like she was watching a limping puppy try to beg for treats when the bag was all out.

In my dreams I heard laughter.

The way Magnus's face brightened for a moment was sad. He really seemed to think for a split second Percy was going to have a nice dream, maybe something silly about his favorite character rescuing him and telling a good joke.

Cold, harsh laughter, like knives being sharpened.

"Nobody would laugh during that noise, why would you even know that?" Magnus huffed, looking particularly put out when he did know better.

"Maybe it was just a chef who enjoys his job to much," Alex offered. "Laughing it up with his buddies about what sea creature they're going to eat."

"Right," Magnus chuckled just for Alex even trying.

I was standing at the edge of a pit in the depths of Tartarus.

"I thought he was in a coffin now?" Jason frowned. "I liked the idea of that better, easier to throw into an active volcano."

"Without a body, he still exists wherever he wants," Thalia oh so cheerfully explained. Just like Gods, their consciousness able to be in multiple places at once.

Below me the darkness seethed like inky soup.

"So close to your own destruction, little hero," the voice of Kronos chided. "And still you are blind."

The voice was different than it had been before. It seemed almost physical now, as if it were speaking from a real body instead of...whatever he'd been in his chopped-up condition.

"And here most people always try to say what makes a person is their heart," Nico shook his head. "Percy has identified it as the larynx."

"I'm just mixing it up, I refuse to use a boring metaphor," Percy shrugged.

"I have much to thank you for," Kronos said. "You have assured my rise."

Percy looked about as impressed as if some school bully had taunted him. "Does that also mean I assure his downfall? Is that how that works?"

"You really want to Yin and Yang Kronos Percy?" Will sighed. "Are you getting this tattooed somewhere?"

"I might," he smirked, while Magnus read on swiftly before that escalated into actual dare territory.

The shadows in the cavern became deeper and heavier. I tried to back away from the edge of the pit, but it was like swimming through oil.

"So you can't swim through anything," Jason nodded seriously like he was taking notes.

"I knew that," Percy frowned, "I wasn't going to the desert and trying to swim through sand! Just because you put swimming in it doesn't make me immune."

'I don't think he's using that word right,' Magnus frowned as he signed to Alex.

'Let it go,' he sighed back.

Time slowed down. My breathing almost stopped.

"A favor," Kronos said. "The Titan lord always pays his debts. Perhaps a glimpse of the friends you abandoned..."

"I don't want to know, I do not want to know," Magnus wished he could cover his ears and just pretend he couldn't hear what this slimy pit considered a reward, but he had the dang book in his hand and the voice in his head really never did shut up.

The darkness rippled around me, and I was in a different cave.

"Hurry!" Tyson said. He came barreling into the room. Grover stumbled along behind him.

Percy never knew relief could hurt this much. The slam of emotions hearing them being alive and yet running for their life would have given him gray hair if he didn't have that already.

There was a rumbling in the corridor they'd come from, and the head of an enormous snake burst into the cave.

Will's arm dropped off the back of the couch, his whole body tried to shrivel up into the corner arm as his feet leaped off the floor to knock into Nico's legs. He was far to lanky to be scrunching up that much, but it wasn't stopping him from trying. The yelp was more shock than distress, but his mind still couldn't help but instantly imagine a mammoth-sized snake trying to force its way through the door.

"Sorry Will, would have warned you if I could," Thalia offered. "Nobody's ever mentioned this part to me."

"Oh, him you'd share every detail with," Percy pitched his voice into the highest mocking. "Me, I can blow up a volcano with no warning."

"Exactly," Thalia rolled her eyes, "the worst he'll do is make a bad pun, not cause another eruption in the room!" Meanwhile Nico was patting Will's shoe that was dug into his hip.

"Well at least I know one part that's not going to make it into the next play," Magnus said with apology clear in his tone he didn't know how to gloss over that.

"Stop encouraging him!" Percy groaned.

I mean, this thing was so big its body barely fit through the tunnel. Its scales were coppery. Its head was diamond-shaped like a rattler, and its yellow eyes glowed with hatred. When it opened its mouth, its fangs were as tall as Tyson.

Will felt like red flashes of light should be shooting across his eyes, a warning sign unneeded as he shivered harder than ever.

"It's okay Will," Nico said in a quiet voice that none-the-less sounded strong and confident. "His defense sucks. You could knock him out with one basic Apollo Follower card."

Will couldn't believe he found himself laughing right now, but he was as his eyes darted from Nico holding firmly to his shoe to help keep it supported in place and the door that obviously did not have a snake coming through it.

It lashed at Grover, but Grover scampered out of the way.

"Having the bottom half a goat does seem to come in handy more than the top half," Jason nodded.

The snake got a mouthful of dirt. Tyson picked up a boulder and threw it at the monster, smacking it between the eyes, but the snake just recoiled and hissed.

"It's going to eat you!" Grover yelled at Tyson.

"How do you know?"

"It just told me! Run!"

"Why don't these animals ever say anything secretly helpful to Grover," Alex pouted, "like oh no, I hope you don't accidentally hit me in my weak spot located right behind my left nostril!"

"You would think they'd slip up a little more hissing taunts, since most demigods they try to eat don't get to hear them," Magnus agreed. "They might want to stop and chat more."

"Not this time," Will pleaded, he had unclenched himself enough he just looked like a very big dog in a very small space wanting the thunder to end.

Tyson darted to one side, but the snake used its head like a club and knocked him off his feet.

"No!" Grover yelled. But before Tyson could regain his balance, the snake wrapped around him and started to squeeze.

"Ooh, this is my worst nightmare," Will whimpered, his arms crossing and uncrossing to try and not feel as restricted as possible and literally fighting himself over it.

"It's my worst nightmare, get your own," Percy wasn't looking much better, the intensity on his face warring between battle and concern. The worst part was, he wasn't going to wake up this time. He was trapped not knowing if they were okay.

Tyson strained, pushing with all his immense strength, but the snake squeezed tighter. Grover frantically hit the snake with his reed pipes, but he might as well have been banging on a stone wall.

The whole room shook as the snake flexed its muscles, shuddering to overcome Tyson's strength.

Grover began to play with pipes, and stalactites rained down from the ceiling. The whole cave seemed about to collapse...

I woke with Annabeth shaking my shoulder.

His shoulder jerked and rotated like a muscle he had no control over. Annabeth wasn't here to wake him up from this one, and he missed her like a physical ache on that side of him.

Will felt bad for sighing in relief while Percy was twitching like he was having a fit, but he couldn't help it. In his heart, that snake was crushed in the collapse while Tyson and Grover made it out without a scratch.

Nico's hand flew away the moment Will's foot unwedged itself to slowly lower back to the ground, but the two couldn't help but grin at each other for a moment as Will whispered, "turns out you did get on my lap."

"Sitting on your shoe is nowhere close," Nico tried his hardest not to blush as he managed a halfhearted scowl.

"I'll try harder next time," Will promised, relaxing back to normal and trying to stretch out again like nothing had happened. His feet still stayed suspiciously hovering over the ground for a few paragraphs though.

"Percy, wake up!"

"Tyson—Tyson's in trouble!" I said. "We have to help him!"

"First things first," she said. "Earthquake!"

"Those gosh dang priorities," Jason groaned.

Percy's heart was pounding so hard in his chest his hand crumpled up his orange shirt over it on reflex. Was he causing this because of his nightmares? Was he that unstable?

"Easy Perce," Thalia placed her hand on his still trembling shoulder. She was familiar, and a friend, and he was all the more mad at himself he couldn't just relax and believe her like he wanted to. The constant stress of being away from the rest of his friends and family for so long was really getting to him.

Sure enough, the room was rumbling. "Rachel!" I yelled.

Her eyes opened instantly. She grabbed her pack, and the three of us ran.

"I knew she was faking that sleeping!" Percy said with that same old smile. It was troubled, and not as genuine as it could have been, but it was still Percy's.

We were almost to the far tunnel when a column next to us groaned and buckled. We kept going as a hundred tons of marble crashed down behind us.

We made it to the corridor and turned just in time to see the other columns toppling. A cloud of white dust billowed over us, and we kept running.

"You know what?" Annabeth said. "I like this way after all."

"All it took was a little encouragement," Will said brightly.

"What would be a lot of encouragement in this case?" Nico muttered.

It wasn't long before we saw light up ahead—like regular electric lighting.

"There," Rachel said.

We followed her into a stainless steel hallway, like I imagined they'd have on a space station or something. Fluorescent lights glowed from the ceiling. The floor was a metal grate.

I was so used to being in the darkness that I had to squint. Annabeth and Rachel both looked pale in the harsh illumination.

"This way," Rachel said, beginning to run. "We're close!"

"This is so wrong!" Annabeth said. "The workshop should be in the oldest section of the maze. This can't—"

She faltered, because we'd arrived at a set of metal double doors.

Inscribed in the steel, at eye level, was a large blue Greek .

"We're here," Rachel announced. "Daedalus's workshop."

"Actually, that, kind of makes sense," Jason admitted with a curious smile and his head tipped to the side. "Daedalus is an inventor, he'd be upgrading his place as time went on, not leaving it in rocks and mud."

"She's still missing the obvious of trying to be logical about this place from the beginning," Nico rolled his eyes. He wasn't as nervous as he was last time about knowing he was going to show up in this room. He'd finally gotten rid of Minos like everybody else figured out from the start and hadn't tried to murder anyone, so at least he didn't have to worry about being the source of trouble for once.

Annabeth pressed the symbol on the doors and they hissed open.

"So much for ancient architecture," I said.

Annabeth scowled.

Alex sniffed and dramatically dabbed at his eye. "This is better than any romantic subplot I've read in my life. You two are meant to be!"

Percy was surprised he hadn't finished with a dramatic wail as Percy flipped him off.

Together we walked inside.

The first thing that struck me was the daylight—blazing sun coming through giant windows.

Which made plenty of sense. Daedalus had lived to much of his life trapped beneath the sun with no means of escape. Here, in his own corner of hell, he'd make sure to have the widest view, and an easy way out.

Not the kind of thing you expect in the heart of a dungeon. The workshop was like an artist's studio, with thirty-foot ceilings and industrial lighting, polished stone floors, and workbenches along with windows. A spiral staircase led up to a second-story loft. Half a dozen easels displayed hand-drawn diagrams for buildings and machines that looked like Leonardo da Vinci sketches. Several laptop computers were scattered around on the tables. Glass jars of green oil—Greek fire—lined one shelf. There were inventions, too—weird metal machines I couldn't make sense of. One was a bronze chair with a bunch of electrical wires attached to it, like some kind of torture device. In another corner stood a giant metal egg about the size of a man. There was a grandfather clock that appeared to be made entirely of glass, so you could see all the gears turning. And hanging on the wall were several sets of bronze and silver wings.

Thalia didn't know how to describe the word she felt for that. She'd lived in a tent mounted with trophies, but these were something more. Like a memory of his mistakes.

A memorial, she finally realized.

"Di immortals," Annabeth muttered. She ran to the nearest easel and looked at the sketch. "He's a genius. Look at the curves on this building!"

"Thing's that never cross a man's mind," Thalia snorted in delight, clearing away her melancholy mood a bit.

"I resent that," Alex sniffed.

"I bet Daedalus never looked at his curves from behind in a mirror," Thalia insisted relentlessly.

"And we are ending this conversation!" Percy pleaded, which Magnus needed no further encouragement on.

"And an artist," Rachel said in amazement. "These wings are amazing!"

The wings looked more advanced than the ones I'd seen in my dreams. The feathers were more tightly interwoven. Instead of wax seals, selfadhesive strips ran down the sides.

Will appreciated nobody had the heart to make a quip about that. That Daedalus had spent lifetimes agonizing over the perfect design of what could have saved his son's life long after it didn't matter to the one it was meant for, just in case it might be used to save someone else someday.

I kept my hand on Riptide. Apparently Daedalus was not at home, but the workshop looked like it had been recently used. The laptops were running their screen savers. A half-eaten blueberry muffin and a coffee cup sat on a workbench.

"You really would make a great detective someday if you'd ever stop getting in trouble with the law," Jason grinned.

"So, never," Percy agreed.

I walked to the window. The view outside was amazing. I recognized the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

"How do you recognize a mountain?" Will looked at him strangely.

"Cross the continental U. S. enough times buddy, you start picking up that stuff," Percy sighed.

We were high up in the foothills, at least five hundred feet, and down below a valley spread out, filled with a tumbled collection of red mesas and boulders and spires of stone. It looked like some huge kid had been building a toy city with skyscraper-size blocks, and then decided to knock it over.

"Annabeth," Magnus stage whispered.

"No, no, say it loud and proud as she would," Percy chuckled.

"Annabeth!" Alex happily shouted right in Magnus's ear.

"Where are we?" I wondered.

"Colorado Springs," A voice said behind us. "The Garden of the Gods."

Standing on the spiral staircase above us, with his weapon drawn, was our missing sword master Quintus.

"Dam," Alex scowled. Percy got the feeling he wasn't referring to wanting a snack bar. "Luke is right behind you isn't he?"

Thalia knew it all got sorted out soon, and even if it didn't hurt Percy she'd still rather wait. Alex had really wanted to like Quintus, and she didn't have the heart to correct earlier than necessary he'd never even been Quintus, the cool guy with a dog.

"You," Annabeth said. "What have you done with Daedalus?"

Quintus smiled faintly. "Trust me, my dear. You don't want to meet him."

Nico fought hard not to snort with laughter. Did this guy think he was the Hulk or something?

"Look, Mr. Traitor," she growled,

"Annabeth, with the sick burns," Will snickered. "Next she'll call him a stinky head."

"She saves her important insults for me," Percy reminded.

"I didn't fight a dragon woman and a three-bodied man and a psychotic Sphinx to see you.

"Who would be worthy after that kind of trip?" Magnus said fairly. "I feel like even the person she's been fighting to see isn't worth all that."

"The ending never lives up to the journey," Alex nodded sagely.

Now where is DAEDALUS?"

Quintus came down the stairs, holding his sword at his side. He was dressed in jeans and boots and his counselor's T-shirt from Camp HalfBlood, which seemed like an insult now that we knew he was a spy.

"You'd think he'd know he lost his element of surprise," Percy scowled, twitching fingers trying their best not to draw his sword. "No need to keep up appearances!"

"He was probably doing it just to piss you off," Jason frowned, it had clearly been working.

I didn't know if I could beat him in a sword fight. He was pretty good. But I figured I would have to try.

"How to sum up Percy in three sentences," Thalia said warmly, giving him a light punch on the arm.

Percy blushed in surprise, momentarily breaking his anger and rubbing at his arm as he shrugged and muttered it's what anybody would do.

"You think I'm an agent of Kronos," he said. "That I work for Luke."

"Well, duh," said Annabeth.

"Has anybody told Mr. D. that the kids do still say that?" Jason asked randomly.

"Updating him on everything we said during our quest is my top priority," Percy promised with all the mocking in the world.

"You're an intelligent girl," he said. "But you're wrong. I work only for myself."

"Luke mentioned you," I said. "Geryon knew about you, too. You've been to his ranch."

"Of course," he said. "I've been almost everywhere. Even here."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, he could write the next Odyssey," Thalia rolled her eyes, not particularly impressed with him.

He walked past me like I was no threat at all and stood by the window.

Percy's scowl kicked up another notch, so much so the others started checking the floor already.

"The view changes from day to day," he mused. "It's always some place high up. Yesterday it was from a skyscraper overlooking Manhattan. The day before that, there was a beautiful view of Lake Michigan. But it keeps coming back to the Garden of the Gods. I think the Labyrinth likes it here. A fitting name, I suppose."

Magnus was starting to wonder if he'd been slowly inhaling the ocean water without noticing. He felt so sick and his stomach gave a tsunami of a roll at everybody reminding him this place was alive!

"You've been here before," I said.

"Oh, yes."

"That's an illusion out there?" I asked. "A projection or something?"

"No," Rachel murmured. "It's real. We're really in Colorado."

"Has she been to Colorado and knows this exact view?" Alex frowned.

"I'm still waiting for the nightmare fuel of the maze just whispering in her ear," Magnus groaned.

Quintus regarded her. "You have clear vision, don't you? You remind me of another mortal girl I once knew. Another princess who came to grief."

"Enough games," I said. "What have you done with Daedalus?"

Quintus stared at me. "My boy, you need lessons from your friend on seeing clearly. I am Daedalus."

"Ooooohhhh," Jason said with a blank face. "Yeah, I didn't see that coming." The tiniest twitch of his face almost flickered into a hysterical laugh but he tried to keep it straight.

"I'd be worried if you did," Magnus looked in physical pain. "What? How? What? Why? What? When? What-"

"I really didn't think he managed that project," Alex's double-toned eyes danced with fascination. "Magic and machines really can do anything."

"But he's not an inventor," Percy frowned. "He's just good with a sword."

"Is that all you're good at Percy?" Thalia shook her head. "Just a sword?"

Percy wasn't going to argue the point, but he still looked pretty unconvinced.

Alex still had to smack Magnus to get him to concentrate on the book again rather than the suddenly very real possibility of an AI take over that was being hinted at.

There were a lot of answers I might've given, from "I knew that" to "LIAR!" to "Yeah right, and I'm Zeus."

"You definitely should have gone with the first one Percy," Jason chuckled. "Nobody would have believed you, but you still should have tried to sell it to Annabeth and Rachel."

The only thing I could think to say was, "But you're not an inventor! You're a swordsman!"

"I am both," Quintus said. "And an architect. And a scholar. I also play basketball pretty well for a guy who didn't start until he was two thousand years old. A real artist must be good at many things."

"Fair," Alex drew out the word with all his breath as he forced himself to agree with the cool artist/ swordsman/ dog owner/ traitor.

"That's true," Rachel said. "Like I can paint with my feet as well as my hands."

"I will never forgive Oceanus for making this girl vanish before I could see that," Alex sighed.

"You see?" Quintus said. "A girl of many talents."

"Flattery gets you everywhere," Nico chuckled with his own amusement. He'd always wondered why Percy had tried to stay behind and help Daeadlus after he'd betrayed the Camp. Percy's loyalty to him should have been broken, and yet Percy had resisted leaving until the last moment, possibly because of just this one moment where the old swords master still took time to talk to them like this.

"But you don't even look like Daedalus," I protested. "I saw him in a dream, and..." Suddenly a horrible thought dawned on me.

"Yes," Quintus said. "You've finally guessed the truth."

"You're an automaton. You made yourself a new body."

"Can Rachel see that?" Magnus asked. "Does he even have a skeletal system in there?"

"She didn't say anything to me," Percy sounded a touch awed himself by the idea. "I bet she could have made a wicked cool painting about it though."

"Percy," Annabeth said uneasily, "that's not possible. That—that can't be an automaton."

"The amount of things she keeps saying isn't possible like her mom isn't an immortal goddess who sprang out of her dad's head," Nico said in exasperation.

"We all take things at our own pace," Will shrugged, deciding against bringing up the fact some people were more comfortable with certain topics than others so as not to put Nico on the spot.

Quintus chuckled. "Do you know what Quintus means, my dear?"

"The fifth, in Latin. But—"

"This is my fifth body." The swordsman held out his forearm. He pressed his elbow and part of his wrist popped open—a rectangular hatch in his skin.

"That's terrifying!" Alex said in the most jazzed voice.

Jason started poking at his elbow in worry he could be an android and not even know it.

Underneath, bronze gears whirred. Wires glowed.

"That's amazing!" Rachel said.

"That's weird," I said.

"Does anything impress you Percy?" Thalia scoffed. She really wished she'd seen that in person.

"Recognizing Tony Hawk," Percy sniffed and took an imaginary sip of wine. Thalia smacked 'it' out of his hands and Magnus quickly kept reading before that turned into a whole slap fight.

"You found a way to transfer your animus into a machine?" Annabeth said. "That's...not natural."

"See, she gets it!" Percy wished for the gazillionth time she was here so she could high five him and call him a seaweed brain for understanding her point or something.

"Oh, I assure you, my dear, it's still me. I'm still very much Daedalus. Our mother, Athena, makes sure I never forget that." He tugged back the collar of his shirt. At the base of his neck was the mark I'd seen before—the dark shape of a bird grafted to his skin.

"A murderer's brand," Annabeth said.

"What's the marketing like for that brand?" Alex smirked. "Murder two kids get this free? Did Athena make that up on the spot especially for him?"

"Really not funny Alex," Will said in complete disapproval.

"Sorry, kind of," Alex shrugged. He was struggling not to think of Quintus as a two-faced traitor right now.

"For your nephew, Perdix," I guessed. "The boy you pushed off the tower."

Quintus's face darkened. "I did not push him. I simply—"

"Made him lose his balance," I said. "Let him die."

"Don't you give him any slack Percy," Thalia nodded approvingly.

"Could cut him a little slack," but Will's was mostly a mutter out of the corner of his lip to nobody. He was sure Daedalus regretted many, many things he did and didn't do over the course of that many lifetimes.

Quintus gazed out the windows at the purple mountains.

"Who said they were purple? What?" Magnus knew he was not caught on the right detail there, but that was a weird description. His brain was probably still broken on anything else really.

"It's not literal Magnus, just light refraction and junk," Percy shrugged, "trust me, they looked it though."

"I regret what I did, Percy. I was angry and bitter. But I cannot take it back, and Athena never lets me forget. As Perdix died, she turned him into a small bird—a partridge.

"Why do the gods keep turning kids into things instead of, you know, saving them," Percy asked the girl who had once been turned into a tree.

"Not stepping on Hades's toes?" She shrugged, "makes for a better life story? They want credit for inventing the most shit? Why would I know that Percy?"

"At least I got the all mighty and wise Thalia to admit she didn't know something," Percy shrugged that was answer enough.

She branded the bird's shape on my neck as a reminder. No matter what body I take, the brand appears on my skin."

I looked into his eyes, and I realized he was the same man I'd seen in my dreams. His face might be totally different, but the same soul was in there— the same intelligence and all the sadness.

Percy vividly recalled the first time he'd met him was defending his dog, the innocent good girl, and wearily shaking his hand. The first time he'd dreamed about him had been right after his first tumble into this maze.

Which was the true man to be believed? The imprisoned old guy who had grown bitter enough to murder after losing everything, or the guy who had let Annabeth get away with a whole conversation over breakfast? How long did you have to be alive before one turned into the other, if that was even possible?

And how the heck did he go to the bathroom in between each new body?

"You really are Daedalus," I decided. "But why did you come to the camp? Why spy on us?"

"To see if your camp was worth saving. Luke had given me one story. I preferred to come to my own conclusions."

"I really hate that I find that a noble and valid answer," Jason frowned.

"Yeah, yeah, open-minded, blah, blah, he should have asked us first and believed us!" Percy still scowled this guy had come in disguise and unsure if their camp was worth saving the moment he'd arrived.

"So you have talked to Luke."

"Oh, yes. Several times. He is quite persuasive."

"I haven't heard a hint of that," Magnus huffed, "he's mostly just been a pest."

Percy's heart sunk though as he couldn't fully agree. The way he was going about it was wrong...but that arena to Poseidon his dad had never put a stop to...Calypso...there were to many things in the gods name that would never sit right with him...

"But now you've seen the camp!" Annabeth persisted. "So you know we need your help. You can't let Luke through the maze!"

Daedalus set his sword on the workbench. "The maze is no longer mine to control, Annabeth. I created it, yes. In fact, it is tied to my life force. But I have allowed it to live and grow on its own. That is the price I paid for privacy."

"I want to go home now," Magnus decided he'd officially hit his limit of overwhelmed. He didn't care 'home' was a sleeping bag in the park and no secure source of food.

There was a sentient maze tied to some guy's life force who may or may not doom the home of his cousin. This was his limit.

"That took much longer than me," Percy gave him a sympathetic nod. "Good to know your limits," he then happily mocked Jason, who gave him a casual grin.

"If we knew how to kick you guys out without it being a major concern we would," Thalia sighed. Agitating a Titan into doing it didn't seem like a bet even they were willing to play though.

"Privacy from what?"

"The gods," he said. "And death. I have been alive for two millennia, my dear, hiding from death."

"Man, I can't even blame him after everything he's been through," Alex couldn't help but sympathize. The number one reason he wasn't stressing about getting up top was the privacy away from Loki.

"But how can you hide from Hades?" I asked. "I mean...Hades has the Furies."

"And that's just one of many," Nico said with an ominous smirk. The kind that made his face flicker in shadows and send a thrill of fear up all of their spines. Nico wouldn't be killing Daedalus for his soul or anything like that, but he still wasn't fond of the guy who had cheated death and gave his dad a bad name.

"They do not know everything," he said. "Or see everything. You have encountered them, Percy. You know this is true. A clever man can hide quite a long time, and I have buried myself very deep. Only my greatest enemy has kept after me, and even him I have thwarted."

"I think thwarted is to strong a word," Jason sniffed. "He's been relentlessly after you and still scheming away."

"I can see why Daedalus likes tag so much, he really doesn't want to be It," Percy frowned.

"You mean Minos," I said.

Daedalus nodded. "He hunts for me relentlessly. Now that he is a judge of the dead, he would like nothing better than for me to come before him so he can punish me for my crimes. After the daughters of Cocalus killed him, Minos's ghost began torturing me in my dreams. He promised that he would hunt me down. I did the only thing I could. I retreated from the world completely. I descended into my Labyrinth. I decided this would be my ultimate accomplishment: I would cheat death."

"And you did," Annabeth marveled, "for two thousand years." She sounded kind of impressed, despite the horrible things Daedalus had done.

Percy debated for a moment before deciding he wouldn't take his fist bump back, but he would have been sure she'd see his 'you need better roll models' look this time she'd missed while ogling him.

Just then a loud bark echoed from the corridor. I heard the ba-BUMP, baBUMP, ba-BUMP of huge paws, and Mrs. O'Leary bounded into the workshop. She licked my face once, then almost knocked Daedalus over with an enthusiastic leap.

"That's got to be one of the best feelings in the world," Alex's smile looked different when he talked about Mrs. O'Leary, a kinder expression than his usual slightly mocking grin. "When your pet shows up from out of nowhere and you didn't call them. They just wanted to be where you are."

Magnus couldn't help but smile right along with him, a feeling he suddenly knew he'd never take for granted again.

"There is my old friend!" Daedalus said, scratching Mrs. O'Leary behind the ears. "My only companion all these long lonely years."

"You let her save me," I said. "That whistle actually worked."

Daedalus nodded. "Of course it did, Percy. You have a good heart. And I knew Mrs. O'Leary liked you. I wanted to help you. Perhaps I—I felt guilty, as well."

"Guilty about what?"

"That your quest would be in vain."

"He decided you guys were a lost cause that fast huh?" Magnus looked a little offended on the Camp's part...and also like he kind of understood where Daedalus was coming from.

"What?" Annabeth said. "But you can still help us. You have to! Give us Ariadne's string so Luke can't get it."

"And hopefully burn it," Will shivered.

Jason's eyes brightened with understanding though, and dread. Where had Kampê been in that arena? Off to fetch her honorable position?

"Yes...the string. I told Luke that the eyes of a clear-sighted mortal are the best guide, but he did not trust me. He was so focused on the idea of a magic item.

"Does it have other properties, or was he just refusing to believe a mortal could be of help?" Magnus frowned.

"Wasn't there for that conversation," Percy huffed.

And the string works. It's not as accurate as your mortal friend here, perhaps. But good enough. Good enough."

"Where is it?" Annabeth said.

"With Luke," Daedalus said sadly. "I'm sorry, my dear. But you are several hours too late."

Sizzling anger washed over Percy as he realized why Luke had looked so happy in that arena. They'd been to late.

He wondered if Daedalus had stalled for time. If he'd looked at the door to his workshop hoping they'd show up and have an excuse not to be a traitor.

He also wondered where Luke had kept that string. Had it been his shoelace the whole time?

With a chill I realized why Luke had been in such a good mood in the arena. He'd already gotten the string from Daedalus. His only obstacle had been the arena master, and I'd taken care of that for him by killing Antaeus.

"Well the obvious solution here is, stop being so good at killing monsters Percy," Thalia smacked his shoulder.

"I'll get right on that," Percy sighed.

"Kronos promised me freedom," Quintus said. "Once Hades is overthrown, he will set me over the Underworld. I will reclaim my son Icarus. I will make things right with poor young Perdix. I will see Minos's soul cast into Tartarus, where it cannot bother me again. And I will no longer have to run from death."

Damn if that wasn't a persuasive argument though, Will sighed. How was it Luke had probably only read Daedalus' stories while dreaming of nothing but Kronos's schemes and still managed to say the exact right thing to get him what he wanted?

To much practice is what it was.

"That's your brilliant idea?" Annabeth yelled. "You're going to let Luke destroy your camp, kill hundreds of demigods, and then attack Olympus? You're going to bring down the entire world so you can get what you want?"

"Hades would be pisssssed," Jason said with confidence. "We already know he doesn't want that at all, and then someone usurping his throne! Oh, this guy's in for a bad day when he hits the Underworld."

Nico wasn't sure if Jason meant Luke or Daedalus, but either way he was going to be surprised at the outcome.

"Your cause is doomed, my dear. I saw that as soon as I began to work at your camp.

The fact that he never referred to it as our Camp, as his Camp bothered Percy. Like he'd never given the place a chance, or refused to let himself be attached to anything. He remembered first waking up there, how insane it had all felt, how alien everything seemed...and yet he'd already considered the place home before he even realized it. A feeling that all Half-bloods should share no matter how old they get.

There is no way you can hold back the might of Kronos."

"That's not true!" she cried.

"I am doing what I must, my dear. The offer was too sweet to refuse. I'm sorry."

"So what I'm hearing is we need to violently cut out his sweet tooth," Alex sneered.

"If you think that'll help," Magnus sighed in a long-time resigned voice for somebody who had only known him a few days.

Annabeth pushed over an easel. Architectural drawing scattered across the floor.

Nico felt that in his core. He wondered if Tyson had wanted to shove something over too after he'd rescued Briares.

"I used to respect you. You were my hero! You—you built amazing things. You solved problems. Now...I don't know what you are. Children of Athena are supposed to be wise, not just clever. Maybe you are just a machine. You should have died two thousand years ago."

Instead of getting mad, Daedalus hung his head. "You should go warn your camp. Now that Luke has the string—"

Suddenly Mrs. O'Leary pricked up her ears.

"Someone's coming!" Rachel warned.

"Rachel's hearing is as good as a hell hounds confirmed," Alex said with one of those diabolical smiles that meant nobody knew what he was going to do with that information.

"Or worse, the maze warned her," Magnus shivered like he half expected her to become possessed by the place staring at its secrets to long.

The doors of the workshop burst open, and Nico was pushed inside, his hands in chains.

Magnus's voice stuttered in surprise while Nico fought hard not to scowl at all of them. He didn't owe anyone an explanation for being weak and getting caught! That Minos had led him right into a trap and he'd been to stupid to realize it...

To Nico's shock however, no one did any such thing. Will in fact leaned forward in his seat. Not much, but enough his arm was dangling close to the collar of Nico's jacket and sending chills up his neck.

Then Kelli and two Laistrygonians marched in behind him, followed by the ghost of Minos. He looked almost solid now—a pale bearded king with cold eyes and tendrils of Mist coiling off his robes.

"All the easier to stab," was all Thalia seemed to hear.

"Is this like one of those if you wish hard enough your dream comes true?" Percy mock whispered out of the side of his mouth.

He fixed his gaze on Daedalus. "There you are, my old friend."

Daedalus's jaw clenched. He looked at Kelli. "What is the meaning of this?"

"It's called a double cross," Alex said with almost pity. "It's what happens when you make deals with monsters and traitors."

"Luke sends his compliments," Kelli said. "He thought you might like to see your old employer Minos."

"And here Daedalus was just complimenting Luke on his good persuasion skills," Jason said snidely. "See, this doesn't sound very persuasive. You'd think a smart guy like Luke would know the greatest inventor would be more helpful to have on your side than a grumpy old ghost."

Nico cleared his throat but uneasily offered, "I assume Minos tried to drive Luke insane when he first ventured into the maze and Luke struck this deal with him all the way back then. He would have already been under Kronos's favor and had the weight to hold up a deal like this."

Jason still felt like the obvious answer should be to double cross the ghost then, not Daedalus, but he noticed Thalia swallowed bile at this so casually being talked about, so was grateful Magnus didn't stick around for any details.

"This was not part of our agreement," Daedalus said.

"No indeed," Kelli said. "But we already have what we want from you, and we have other agreements to honor. Minos required something else from us, in order to turn over this fine young demigod." She ran a finger under Nico's chin.

Percy gave an exaggerated shudder as he tried to give Nico a sympathetic smile about how intoxicating and awful that must have been, before he did a double take and asked, "hey, were you-"

Then he shut his mouth just as fast with a guilty look at him and Thalia. Right, wait for him to volunteer if he'd been attracted to the pretty demon.

Nico was touched beyond words at the level of self-restraint Percy had just shown in regards to him. Not enough to answer a truth that really should have been an early indication he had not looked back on fondly about himself.

He had not found the empousa appealing in the slightest. He had not fallen for her charms, and wanted to be as far away from her as possible. All he'd felt were Percy's green eyes asking if he was okay. Nico had wanted to be beside him, wanted to prove himself worthy. Her horse and roses smell had been pungent and entirely unappealing to him like a girl with way to much perfume on he'd wanted to cough and retreat from.

"He'll be quite useful. And all Minos asked in return was your head, old man."

Daedalus paled. "Treachery."

"Get used to it," Kelli said.

"That doesn't sound like a very school spirit kind of attitude," Will said in as snooty a voice as possible. "I thought we were all in this together at Goode!"

"To many cartwheels must have dislodged her brain out of her ear," Alex scoffed.

"Nico," I said. "Are you okay?"

He nodded morosely. "I—I'm sorry, Percy. Minos told me you were in danger. He convinced me to go back into the maze."

"I am really, really glad you guys are okay," Will's voice shook with nerves like he wasn't saying this with full knowledge they were all right in front of him and this had happened years ago.

Nico still wasn't quite used to hearing that, but he found himself smiling at Will this time, at least acknowledging he'd heard it with still no idea what to say. Will's smile felt like an answer anyways, just like usual now.

"You were trying to help us?"

"I was tricked," he said. "He tricked all of us."

I glared at Kelli. "Where's Luke? Why isn't he here?"

"Vengeance will be swift," Alex savored.

"Good to hear you defending the kid's honor back then," Jason agreed with a forlorn smile.

Nico was a miserable huddle of black jacket, and it wasn't a stretch to figure out what was causing this jumble of painful emotions. His only friend for months had just betrayed him, he'd given up the idea of getting his sister back, and the outcome of everything he was going through was Percy realizing he was to weak to take care of himself.

The she-demon smiled like we were sharing a private joke. "Luke is...busy. He is preparing for the assault.

Thalia's eyes felt strained all at once. Like she wanted to sleep, but she knew the moment she got up from her comfortable spot the feeling would vanish. A breath shook past her lips, and the moment was gone.

She knew it was coming back soon.

But don't worry. We have more friends on the way. And in the meantime, I think I'll have a wonderful snack!" Her hands changed into claws. Her hair burst into flame and her legs turned to their true form—one donkey leg, one bronze.

"Percy," Rachel whispered, "the wings. Do you think—"

"Get them," I said. "I'll try to buy you some time."

And with that, all Hades broke loose.

"You were right Jason," Nico managed a chuckle. "Hades would have been pissed at his kingdom being broken loose. Percy is way to liberal with his choice of words."

"I think of Hades as a naturally pissed and yet helpful guy who would be happy to see his kingdom break lose to get one guy back," Percy insisted.

"Then you need to study more," Nico rolled his eyes.

"Hard pass when I'll live it eventually," Percy scoffed.

Annabeth and I charged at Kelli.

The giants came right at Daedalus, but Mrs. O'Leary leaped to his defense.

Nico got pushed to the ground and struggled with his chains while the spirit of Minos wailed, "Kill the inventor! Kill him!"

Nico sighed, if that wasn't the story of his life right there. Pushed aside and associated with nothing but death, nobody's concern.

Rachel grabbed the wings off the wall. Nobody paid her any attention.

Nico gave himself a good mental shake though as he heard that. Rachel was off doing her own thing that certainly saved all their lives. The lowly mortal none of the monsters had thought to pursue key to their escape. He had made himself be seen.

Kelli slashed at Annabeth. I tried to get to her, but the demon was quick and deadly. She turned over tables, smashed inventions, and wouldn't let us get close. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. O'Leary chomp her fangs into a giant's arm. He wailed in pain and flung her around, trying to shake her.

Daedalus grabbed for his sword, but the second giant smashed the workbench with his fist, and the sword went flying. A clay jar of Greek fire broke on the floor and began to burn, green flames spreading quickly.

The chaos, crashing and smashing of a fight, speckled blood, and heavy thick smoke lingering in the nose just didn't have the same echo in here like it did in Percy's mind. Magnus's voice was shaky, he was waiting for somebody to get really hurt, like Annabeth. The silence of the room was a defining kind of noise all its own as everyone except Percy held their breath to see how to get out of this.

Even Nico. He couldn't seem to get the idea out of his head this next display of his powers was going to send someone into a screaming fit about having him around.

"To me!" Minos cried. "Spirits of the dead!" He raised his ghostly hands and the air began to hum.

"No!" Nico cried. He was on his feet now. He'd somehow managed to remove his shackles.

Nico watched his hands carefully, suspiciously, to make sure they didn't start phasing in and out of existence without his permission. His first instance of shadow traveling, of being able to turn to pure liquid darkness. His anger at Minos had been absolute. A true testament to what would ultimately happen to an entity he did have a grudge against.

Something he was afraid of letting happen to anybody if he wasn't careful with himself.

"You do not control me, young fool," Minos sneered. "All this time, I have been controlling you! A soul for a soul, yes. But it is not your sister who will return from the dead. It is I, as soon as I slay the inventor!"

Spirits began to appear around Minos—shimmering forms that slowly multiplied, solidifying into Cretan soldiers.

"I am the son of Hades," Nico insisted. "Be gone!"

Minos laughed. "You have no power over me. I am the lord of spirits! The ghost king!"

"No." Nico drew his sword. "I am."

"Oh, snap," Alex said with pure delight. "Ghost fight?"

"Ghost fight," Nico agreed with a weary, yet proud smile. A victory he wouldn't exactly say he was proud of...and yet it was the first time he'd truly claimed his identity and knew he had to stop hiding who he used to be and accept who he was.

He stabbed his black blade into the floor, and it cleaved through the stone like butter.

"Damn Nico, you ever stuck that thing in a microwave to see what would happen?" Percy asked in a tone of one who might have some experience with that.

"Not many microwaves down in the Labyrinth to test that Percy," Nico frowned and clutched his sword tight in case he was getting ideas.

"Never!" Minos's form rippled. "I will not—"

The ground rumbled. The windows cracked and shattered to pieces, letting in a blast of fresh air. A fissure opened in the stone floor of the workshop, and Minos and all his spirits were sucked into the void with a horrible wail.

Nico's breath looked a little ragged coming out of his chest. His dark eyes glittered as he watched the book and those in the room carefully, darting to Will too, but last.

Will really wanted to kiss him right now but thought that might be inappropriate and seriously debated if he cared for several moments before Thalia said casually, "thanks for that by the way. I know this ingrate never said that."

"If I thanked every person who saved my life, my mom's wrist would cramp from all the letters," Percy sighed.

"You'd make your mom write the letters?" Jason looked at him with the kind of moral disdain he'd seen all his life in teachers.

"You're right," Percy conceded, "I'd type them and not bother to see what got spell-checked correctly."

The bad news: the fight was still going on all around us, and I let myself get distracted.

Nico actually blushed. Percy looked awkwardly away from that flush of coloring and decided he didn't want to ask.

Alex made a whooping noise of laughter to add to it all anyways, "how have you never died in a fight? Every life or death instance you've been in you notice the randomest things."

"Very talented friends and some mild talent with a sword," Percy shrugged.

Kelli pounced on me so fast I had no time to defend myself.

My sword skittered away and I hit my head hard on a worktable as I fell. My eyesight went fuzzy. I couldn't raise my arms.

Which made Alex's joke not so funny when it almost came true a second later, but Percy only seemed mildly concerned as he scratched at his neck and glanced hopefully at Nico again like he expected that sword to pierce right through her next.

Nico didn't particularly want to admit he'd fallen to his knee, his head dizzy from such a blast of his powers and hadn't even noticed he was about to die.

Kelli laughed. "You will taste wonderful!"

"I still think he'd be to salty," Magnus wrinkled his nose in disgust. "I can't imagine the seasoning you'd have to add to balance straight."

"A recipe book I pray never hits the shelves," Percy agreed.

She bared her fangs. Then suddenly her body went rigid. Her red eyes widened. She gasped, "No...school...spirit..."

And Annabeth took her knife out of the empousa's back.

"Atta girl," Jason looked so pleased and disappointed all at once he couldn't be patting her on the back. "That was perfect synchrony, using you as bait, that spectacular timing."

"Hands off Jason," Percy laughed along, remembering spitting out monster dust that had a bit of a kick to it and seeing an angel in resplendent golden hair above him with the most intense gray eyes as the point of her knife followed every mote to the floor to make sure the deed was done.

With an awful screech, Kelli dissolved into yellow vapor.

Annabeth helped me up.

Will shook his head at what an odd sentence that was to include. It was just implied that's what had happened next, like glossing over every time they stopped to swat a bug away or sneeze and brush dust off their face. A silly detail that everybody knew had happened and there really was no reason to point it out.

I still felt dizzy, but we had no time to lose. Mrs. O'Leary and Daedalus were still locked in combat with the giants, and I could hear shouting in the tunnel. More monsters were coming toward the workshop.

"We have to help Daedalus!" I said.

Thalia pressed her lips tight together upon hearing that. It was one of those moments she would have been at odds with Percy, trying to push him out the window with or without the wings for suggesting they save the traitor to their camp. It was very black and white to her.

And yet.

She often wondered if Luke had tried reaching to Percy for help, what Percy would have done. Luke had tried appealing to her and Annabeth, but there was to much history, to much resentment to get anywhere.

They'd only been friends for less than a week...but Percy might have helped Luke better than she ever could.

"No time," Rachel said. "Too many coming!"

She'd already fitted herself with wings and was working on Nico, who looked pale and sweaty from his struggle with Minos. The wings grafted instantly to his back and arms.

Nico had never been aware of the prejudice Zeus might have to children of Poseidon being in the air enough to be worried if that applied to him too. He swallowed gratefully nobody had stopped to point that out right then.

"Now you!" she told me.

In seconds, Nico, Annabeth, Rachel, and I had fitted ourselves with coppery wings.

The resemblance to Nico and Icarus had been uncanny at the moment, and Percy shivered now as he felt them graft into place minus the hot glue gun. The sound of swords clanging, the feeling of doom still licking up every inch of his skin as he surveyed that room one last time. The architecture designs curling up into black nothingness, Rachel's face a ghastly pale.

That room had been full of death, and as eager as Percy was to escape, everything about it made him want to stay and save what was going to be lost.

Already I could feel myself being lifted by the wind coming through the window. Greek fire was burning the tables and furniture, spreading up the circular stairs.

"Daedalus!" I yelled. "Come on!"

He was cut in a hundred places—but he was bleeding golden oil instead of blood. He'd found his sword and was using part of a smashed table as a shield against the giants. "I won't leave Mrs. O'Leary!" he said. "Go!"

"Oh gods," Alex touched his chest in shock at how much that meant to hear. He'd really wanted to like Quintus just for his dog, and he'd proven to be a very mixed man of honor and tragedy.

"The only depressing cliche I think my life has ever dodged," Percy smiled, his eyes still troubled even as he made a joke. "I don't think the dog dies." He winced, but it was a hopeful stabbing pain to his brain that he was right.

There was no time to argue. Even if we stayed, I wasn't sure we could help.

"None of us know how to fly!" Nico protested.

"Great time to find out," I said. And together, the four of us jumped out the window into open sky.

"Yeah, I don't recommend that Percy," Magnus looked up. The amount of times someone in this room had told him that could have filled a whole page.

"I do! Learning to fly on the way down builds character!" Alex said confidently as he snatched the book away.

"This guy would climb a mountain during an earthquake," Percy frowned in concern his mortality never seemed to be a major concern around here.

Oh, right, he was alive. There was no tension of that anywhere except his own head.

#pjo #Percy Jackson #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #Alex Fierro #Magnus Chase #Nico Di Angelo #Will Solace

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catofadifferentcolor · 2 years

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Terrible Fic Ideas #10: DA:I, but make it Old God!Inquisitor

I don't think it's ever mentioned in DA:I, but before the Temple of Sacred Ashes was discovered, Haven was home to a heretical dragon-worshiping cult only eleven years previous. While I think it would have been hilarious for someone to have brought up ("I guess they have no dragon to worship this time, so I guess some nobody with a glowing hand must suffice."), it also makes me wonder: what if the Inquisitor was a dragon - specifically, the same dragon the cultists worshipped as Andraste reborn?

Hear me out:

We know from the games that archdemons have to be killed by Grey Wardens or else their soul will just pass to the next darkspawn, making them effectively immortal. But what if that wasn't an archdemons thing but an Old God thing?

We also know from gameplay that just approaching a normal dragon tends to get one attacked very quickly. So either the dragon the cultists were worshiping at Haven was unusually docile... or it was the type of dragon that welcomed and was used to worship, such as one of the two as yet uncorrupted Old Gods: Razikale, the Dragon of Mystery.

(I chose Razikale largely because she's the only stated female Old God and there were a lot of eggs in the tunnels, but also because I love the idea of the goddess of mystery being such a mystery to her Ancient Tevinter worshippers that they'd never notice she'd occasionally go on holiday and leave them worshipping a simulacrum. This is how she managed to avoid being trapped like the others - she was on holiday and just kept hidden afterwards.)

So anyway, the Warden "kills" the dragon the cultists were worshiping, and while they're busy getting the ashes Razikale shunts her soul into the nearest available body and decides to chill out in the mountains for a decade or two. There's a Blight going on, after all, and the last thing she wants is to run into one of her Blighted brothers.

This works out pretty well until The Conclave happens, with all the noisy visitors disturbing her rest and eating her goats and blowing up what had once been her place of worship. She's not so much spit out of the Fade as the only thing left standing in the aftermath, albeit with somebody's annoying mark trying to eat its way into her magic.

And so Ragna, the deceptively fragile-looking human avatar of the dragon Razikale, becomes the Herald of Andraste.

Ragna runs with it. It's not unlike her cult days and she was getting a little bored just sitting in the mountains waiting for things to calm down. She comes to enjoy running around with her little mortal pets, ferreting out secrets and being asked her opinion on how to fix things. It makes her feel Important again.

Corypheus' attack on Haven just makes her angry because how dare he. These are her minions, not his, and Corypheus is still nothing more than the whiniest of her brother's whiny minions. Ragna can't even make Dumat deal with him because her brother's been dead for a thousand years, and what's the point of being a god if she always has to clean up her brothers' messes?

Things proceed apace until the Fade, at which point Ragna is revealed to be Razikale, largely because she goes screw it when it comes time to fight the Nightmare and shifts into dragon form to fight him. Everyone survives, but things get awkward after that.

Surprisingly Dorian is the most accepting - granted he's a little unnerved by Ragna declaring him to be her new High Priest ("Dumat's been dead for a millennium. If he can still have one, I get one too.") but she's a goddess of mysteries and he's a nerd. It works out.

Iron Bull has a more difficult time accepting, but only because he's shared a lot of his dragon sex thoughts with Ragna while drunk - and then only because she's shared a lot of her dragon sex thoughts with him in return. The realization that her thoughts might be dragon sex deeds she's actually done breaks him a little bit. As does her, "Sorry, but I'm only sexually attracted to dragons." (Blackwell and Sera eventually work themselves up to ask All The Questions about this and are a little broken themselves with the details - and also the admittance that, should they stumble across Lusacan before the Blight gets him, she'd jump him like a tree, "I haven't gotten laid in so long.")

This is probably what the bulk of the fic is - the Inquisition finding Ragna just slightly odd before the reveal and struggling to deal with the truth afterwards.

At all points, Ragna should be notably draconic, in action if not appearance, but everyone keeps coming up with excuses for it - "She's an exceptionally strong elemental fire user and arcane warrior, of course she'd be arrogant about it, who wouldn't?", "Who doesn't like shiny things? I hoard them too and people call me a businessman," "I think the minions thing is meant as a term of endearment. She always fusses when we get hurt, doesn't she?" - and then hating themselves afterwards because she made no attempt to disguise her personality at all.

As for the actual plot, the final battle ends with Ragna in dragon form just eating Corypheus - which can't be good for the digestion, what with all that red lyrium, but seems to work out well enough.

Otherwise... just dragon shenanigans, and dragon/mortal cultural misunderstandings, and at least three instances of someone bringing up the old dragon-worshipping cult.

...and that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, but let me know if you end up doing anything with it.

More Terrible Fic Ideas

#dragon age: inquisition #dragon age #da:i #fic ideas #plot bunny

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ramblrthebloghog · 1 year

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Total Eclipse ‘Review’

Just like with Shadow Fall, I will be going through Reboot Archie’s ‘Total Eclipse’ arc to see if Ian is in the right regarding Shadow or if maybe he just isn’t great with him. While I’m primarily looking at Shadow, I’ll also be looking at other things that stood out that I found incompatible with game lore or with game characterizations. Not posting a page means I didn’t really find something worth bringing up or praising. I did read through The Great Chaos Caper since that arc comes between Shadow Fall and this one, and I can safely say it was pretty good aside from the quirks of handling Tikal and Chaos, and having to sit through Ian’s Deadpool Bean. But I’m not really interested in talking about that one critically.

I addressed Team Brand and GUN last time, but in short, my stance is that there’s no problem with them working for GUN as a team here, but it’s also not bad or wrong for Sega to reject it today. Shadow is off to a good start. Omega isn’t. I can see and understand the easy comedy, but like, scroll for a minute through something like Colors DS’ script. Omega does nothing there but speak factually in his robotic way, yet the situations and scenarios are still funny, like Orbot and Cubot panicking. The comedy is placed on them in that instance. Him muttering the way he does in this page could be argued as humanizing, but it’s anti-Omega in my book. What’s interesting is that a comedic panel later with Fixit describing his function achieved this pretty well. As I’ve gone through Shadow Fall and now this story, I realize I probably should’ve gone back and added from the start that this was going to be a criticism of Ian’s Omega as well. Sorry if this gets redundant. As for Snively… I don’t particularly care for Reboot Snively, because Preboot Snively was more interesting, and I know that Reboot Snively had to be different from previous incarnations, so it would be kinda silly to judge him for “not matching up to SatAM Snively” or something. So I guess we can mostly ignore him unless it’s in regards to another character that matters.

Which comes up in the page after as he tries to order Shadow around. I appreciate Shadow’s response both to Snively and to the implication of needing Knuckles’ cooperation. Rouge is done pretty good. I can appreciate the meta humor of Omega destroying the Barrel of Doom, or the cool factor of seeing Shadow’s legs spin like Sonic’s running or Shadow zooming across water. The next few pages are all pretty good so far, actually. Knuckles is done well. Relic is one of my favorite Archie OCs, she’s a cute and lowkey addition and gives Knux someone to bounce off of.

The Omega and Fixit panels I was referring to earlier. This is good comedic Omega.

This page could go either way. Shadow would usually not have anyone sway him in his goal (as seen earlier in this very issue), but Rouge IS one of the few people who can wrangle him, I suppose. Even IDW works off of this logic during Chao Races and Badnik Bases. So it’s not bad per say, but walking a fine line on interpretation. Eclipse is also great in the next few pages. I enjoy how much he cares about the Dark Arms, and I chuckle at him calling Rouge and Omega “Shadow’s minions.” Great little imp. He once again is able to play some mind games on Shadow, but it’s excusable as part of his anti-Shadow repertoire, I suppose.

Onto Issue 2, and there it is. The page starts off strong with a heartfelt plea from Eclipse, and then just goes down the drain as Shadow recites yet again that his reason for fighting is Gerald and Maria. That extra reference box down there really throws salt in the wound by adding “Shadow the Hedgehog”. Adding it in there is almost thoughtless, like either the writer/editor did not understand Shad05’s ending if they knew of it, or simply didn’t care because their perception of Shadow is strictly “Maria”.

Rouge and Knuckles begin to have a conversation about Knuckles’ being shackled to Angel Island and the Master Emerald, a hot topic amongst the fandom for years that persists even today. In our present 2023, Sonic Frontiers has come out, and the English script pushes the notion that Knuckles will be more open to taking breaks from his duty (the Japanese script doesn’t align with it, but that’s irrelevant to my larger point). This itself is in-line with the idea that Knuckles is envious of Sonic’s free adventurous lifestyle despite his commitment to his duty.

I’ve always considered Ian someone that understands Knuckles and does him well. And I’m not expecting this 2014 comic to be in line with the ideas from a game that came out 8 years later. But the arc right before this one referenced that Knuckles is a treasure hunter, although rather jokingly. Knuckles does want more for himself, but he answers to a higher calling. And this page isn’t treated as him coping, either. He’s portrayed as content. And don’t get me wrong, Knuckles doesn’t dislike his job or staying on his island. But to say he doesn’t want more is wrong.

I like Monster Form and all, but it’s just dumb to have Shadow try to use Chaos Control when he knows he can’t in Eclipse’s presence. And then they go out of their way to have Eclipse explain that “it wasn’t the new Black Comet”, but that was literally not in question.

This page from the second issue of Shadow Fall shows us everything we need to know. Shadow is made aware that it’s Eclipse’s doing and asks how, and Eclipse gives him an explanation. If this was about portraying this power to a potentially unfamiliar audience, which I doubt it was but whatever, then you could’ve simply had either one of them say a line about Shadow not being able to rely on his Chaos abilities when fighting Eclipse as he usually would, as opposed to him trying, failing, and getting punished for it. To be clear, I’m not mad about the optics of Shadow jobbing to Eclipse. I’m mad that this is the manner they chose to execute it, where Shadow is stupid instead of just overpowered, which I would’ve had no problem with because I liked their clash in Shadow Fall.

This page is mixed. On the one hand, the Master Emerald isn’t for just anyone to use. It’s not just a giant Chaos Emerald, contrary to popular belief. That’s why Sonic can’t actually go Super off of it. Sonic can’t use the Master Emerald, and Knuckles can’t use the Chaos Emeralds. That being said, this *kinda* feels like it’s in the realm of possibility, since it’s using Chaos Control. And there’s no denying the pure cool factor. So I wouldn’t be opposed to giving this idea another shot with modern, hands-on Sega. Though, Shadow’s Chaos Blast doesn’t line up with what it’s actually supposed to be like, but I guess we can say they were working off Chronicles or something and didn’t know better. This also establishes that Eclipse’s block can be overpowered if Shadow has a big source like that, which is neat confirmation to have.

Onto Issue 3. I don’t love the cocktease of this cover, because Eclipse doesn’t end up using the Master Emerald. I know it’s comic’s industry, but still, that would’ve been cool to see.

Shadow decides the Master Emerald needs to be moved. I enjoy that callous pragmatism from him and it’ll of course lead us to Shadow vs. Knuckles. I also enjoy that Shadow initially tries not to waste time fighting before he’s forced back into it. Beyond the earlier speed bumps, Shadow and Knuckles have mostly been pretty good. And Rouge as well, seen now.

Rouge has been great the whole time. And she’s not bad in IDW either, so it’s funny how that works out. Omega on the other hand… yeah. And while Knuckles and Shadow’s fight is nothing short of awesome, with Knuckles’ determination, sensing Shadow’s Chaos Snaps, and setting him off with a Sonic comment, Omega continues to be… yeah.

First Monster Form, now Dark Arms, and that’s on top of Chaos Control and anti-Shadow power. Eclipse is stacked and I’m here for it.

Anyway, Omega here is powered by a Chaos Drive. In the games, his power source isn’t revealed, which is pretty common for character robots like Metal Sonic or Gemerl. I would’ve preferred they kept it vague and just had Eclipse tear him up, because either way, Fixit was going to fix him. Omega debuted in Heroes, so having a Power Core might not have been out of place, but I assume he was given a Chaos Drive to match GUN’s other robots, which are all powered by Chaos Drives.

Onto Issue 4. This page is an ambitious one. Knuckles delves into his purpose, and Shadow says he can find a new one. And it’s ironic because Shadow isn’t consciously written like that in this take on Sonic. He’s written like his purpose is still Muhria’s wish and keeping her promise, as seen in this very arc, which means that this otherwise decent effort comes out hollow.

I think it’s safe to say this is just inaccurate fanfic, though I’m sure this was part of some bigger plan or something.

There was no need to use Tikal’s Prayer here. I get it was just trying to be cool or focus his energy or whatever but when Knuckles punched the Master Emerald in SA2, it didn’t need all that. I see the appeal of Shadow questioning if it was Chaos Control, but it’s ultimately kinda forced. That being said, the statement and apology he tells the Emerald itself is sweet.

A minor nitpick, but it’s annoying to see them reference ‘Sonic 3&K - the game’ as if Snively was a part of it. I get he was part of that adventure in this verse, but it’s just kinda disingenuous and tacked on. Otherwise, I’m glad Rouge comforted Knuckles here.

Last thing I wanted to say, but I think the decision to shatter the Master Emerald was incredibly smart on Ian’s part. Nowadays he complains on the podcast about “getting him off the island” (because Knuckles palling around with Sonic is just top priority for his character and the story), but this was an excellent compromise that allowed him to travel and adventure around while maintaining his duty and purpose. A lot of times, when people say that Knuckles should ditch the Master Emerald and Angel Island, or he should just get someone to watch it for him, it makes me feel that these supposed fans don’t truly value Knuckles and just want him as a toy in the box. If that’s the case, so be it, but don’t pretend it’s a matter of critical discussion at that rate.

In regards to Shadow, this arc was slightly a step up, but as a whole, I think I enjoyed it a lot more and it overall had less “problems”, or at least, what I considered to be problems as listed here. I guess that’s obvious from the difference in lengths between this review and Shadow Fall’s.

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is-that-you-satan · 2 years

Text

SO i was texting a friend @lacewingballad that absolute fiend and we were talking about this fanfic we’ve been reading that’s amazing (highly recommend, read Survival is a Talent from ShanaStoryteller) but we got to talking about characterizations of Ginny (she’s amazing in siat, all the characters have depth and personality even if they’re side characters and you root for all of them and it’s so well done and the worldbuilding and everything) and ended up brainstorming a concept we REALLY want someone to write. if not we at least want to share it.

ok concept:

after the end of the whole chamber of secrets debacle in ginny’s first year the horcrux is gone, but because tom riddle was possessing her for so long she ends up with like a ghost/remnant of him constantly following her around and linked to her. he can’t actually touch things and she’s the only one that can see or hear him, and both of them hate it.

and like, okay, it sucks for pretty much all of ginny’s second year. the dementors just make things worse and she’s obviously traumatized by what happened but he just is constantly sarcastic and insulting in a vaguely endearing way and doesn’t give a shit about ginny near the beginning and has just decided that since he’s stuck like this he’s NOT going to mute himself and this thoughts. and ginny hates it for a long time but then starts to get used to it and realizes that yeah he possessed her but he’s harmless right now and kind of just wants attention instead of to be ignored even if he’s SO annoying in class

“really, he’s teaching it like THAT? there’s more to learn on a chocolate forg card. i can do it in half the time.”

“ginny ignore severus he’s being a twat. add some occamy eyes to your potion instead.”

“minerva FUCKING mcgonagall that bitch, you know she ruined my perfect record at hogwarts??? i would have been top of the class in everything every year but that scottish pile of basilisk dung always beat me in transfiguration.”

Ginny: just SHUT UP! *everyone turns to stare at ginny* Tom: oooooo Ginny’s in trroublllee

like, her 2nd year and a lot of her third are hard but she slowly gets better and more used to it, and he’s actually very helpful with the dementors and during the quidditch up attack. he’s all—”you’re my only link to the world without you I’ll disappear so you’re not allowed to die, even if you are incompetent. don’t be so selfish” and she slowly realizes that yeah he’s being a dick but he is scared of disappearing and he’s slowly growing on her like a parasitic mold.

Ginny keeps hexing walls because she tries to throw curses at him and they go right through and he gets so fed up he’s like, “NO, you’re stance is wrong. let me fix it.” and accidentally ends up teaching her a bunch of stuff.

and he also has opinions about people. like the amount of blackmail and judgement he has is astounding and he’s not afraid to call people about because this is sixth year tom, not yet voldemort, just a very salty teenage boy.

Tom, grudgingly impressed: “the goyle line is still going? do they look like the hapsburgs yet?

“it’s leviosA, not leviOsa. honestly ginny your classmates are idiots. has the collective intelligence of the wizarding world gone down since i was alive?

“aaaah, i remember crabbe and goyle. i think they were still following around malfoys in my day; i kind of wis hi had just poisoned them instead of cultivating them as minions. look at them. a mountain troll has more intelligence. i’d rather people marry mudbloods than those two, sweet merlin.”

around the middle of her third year she has to prepare for the yule ball but has no idea how to dance and he spends like three days insulting her, “what sort of pureblood witch doesn’t know how to dance? were you raised in a sty? were you too busy balancing out the idiocy in your entire household brought upon by all that red hair to learn basic manners?” until she finally challenges him to do better. he’s like FINE and just grabs her and spins her around and empty room and they’re spitting insults the whole time and purposely stepping on each other’s feet.

“what if someone sees?” “you dancing by yourself? eh, so maybe you’ve had a drink” “merlin to do this, i’ll need more than one.” “madam rosmerta is very easily bribed if you want firewhisky”

and they finish dancing up and realize that they don’t hate each other so much anymore and don’t acknowledge it, it’s just awkward and quiet and they don’t talk about it but ginny’s a great dancer by the yule ball even if tom spends half of it running around the room collecting gossip and blackmail like a magpie and the other half insulting neville but being begrudgingly impressed by neville’s dancing skills. ginny originally spent all of second year learning occlumency on her own so that she could tune out and get rid of tom when necessary because she’s incredibly determined and scared after being possessed by the diary, but as time goes on she realizes that she doesn’t need to use occlumency against tom and stops, lets him teach her legilimency so that she can defend her mind as much as possible.

and ginny originally hates all the slurs but by her fifth year has just given up and has fully brought up the fact that her blood is purer than his. when he gets particularly annoying she starts pointing out all the people he hates who have purer blood than him and he can’t even run away because they’re linked. at this point even she has grown on tom, his insults have continued but gotten less pointed and he spends more time snarking at others and teaching her revenge spells “to corrupt her” even though they both know she’s not going to get very corrupted.

by her sixth year his retribution to her annoyances is to start pointing out classmates and asking to play fuck marry kill. he’s even done it with professors and on one memorable occasion when he was particularly salty, dumbledore. and while this is happening there is a war going, for the record. like, he’s showed her dark magic spells for reversing cruciatus exposure and acts as lookout for ginny and the DA during her sixth year and has such scathing insults for the Carrows ginny has burst into laughter in public. and tom helps her out as much as he can even when she yells at him that he’s stifling her and that she can take care of herself.

“but you’re so pathetic! and helpless! like a baby niffler!” and she scoffs and hexes the first bully she comes across with a vicious bat bogey hex and is like “helpless? me? bitch you’re a ghost.”

and even while the war is going on tom’s officially realized that he doesn’t want voldemort to win because then he’ll disappear and it sucks but he’s kind of invested in ginny now, she’s been there and she’s kind of what he wished a friend would have been when he was younger because everyone in slytherin either looked down on him for being a mudblood, was jealous of him for being smarter than all of them, or was scared of him. ginny has experienced the darkest parts of him and still refuses to be scared and flinch away, matches him word for word and snark for snark and he can appreciate it okay. so he starts feeding information about voldemort to ginny so she can share it with harry, who doesn’t really question where it comes from because ginny asks him to trust her and just says that she remembers some stuff from being possessed from tom as a first year. and it’s weird stuff too, like how tom lost his virginity, or tom helping to make lesson plans for the DA around grey borderline dark magic spells that can be used for healing and stuff.

harry, in the middle of the battle of the department of mysteries: “you’re scared tom. scared of what i can do to you. just like you were scared when lisa cromwell rejected your ask to the yule ball.” *everyone else is confused* voldemort, spitting and hissing. “whAAAtttt?? hOOOw??? tell me POTTER?? WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT NAME??????” tom, sitting on the side with ginny. “it was very traumatizing for us. we learned to dance for her and i’m still bitter about it.”

and HERE’S THE THING. around her fourth year ginny found a book in the room of requirement that taught her how to get rid of his ghost. but. she doesn’t. and since she can’t keep secrets from him for long, she writes herself a note, hides the book, and obliviates the knowledge from her own mind. she doesn’t want to find out or think about why she has found the book again and obliviated herself again, another two times.

the war ends and tom is still there, even though all the horcruxes are gone. and ginny does end up with harry at the end (we debated luna for a while but decided on harry as the ultimate endgame) and it’s weird because they like each other, but they can also both acknowledge that tom is part of what links them. he understands what it is like to be possessed by tom, to be seduced by his whispers and how charismatic he could be. sometimes at night he whispers that he misses the horcrux because he’ll close his eyes and feel alone but he was never alone as a kid, he always had tom, even if he didn’t know it, in the back of his mind, no matter how dark the cupboard under the stairs got. they bond over it a lot.

one day, a few years after the end of the war, after both of them have graduated, ginny sits down and explains the whole tom remnant to him, about how he is there and following her around, and how she thinks that she can modify a spell meant to send him away to make him visible to the both of them, if he wants, instead of just her. and she explains what happened after the chamber and how he’s always been there and how tom is curious to actually be able to talk to his horcrux, someone like him but not really. and harry says yes and soon tom ends up as the third weird brother in the household, not in love with either of them, just an annoying houseguest that ginny and harry both begrudgingly enjoy snarking with. just a ghost.

and the thing is that harry gets tom. because harry understands how tom became a megalomaniacal dark lord because harry was also neglected and ignored and scared. the only difference is that he had ron and hermione to teach him how to love, and value friendship, and be a normal human, and tom had no one to teach him. hogwarts was his home, but emotionally, it wasn’t any better than the orphanage.

OK WOW. that was long. we were texting for like more than an hour mind you. but now we have this idea and neither of us have the time to write it but i’m nevertheless putting it out there in case anyone wants to expand upon it or just add to it, i’d love to hear people’s thoughts about this AU, little scenes and funny tidbits.

#harry potter #ginny weasley #tom riddle #voldemort #harry potter au #fanfiction concept?

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makerofmadness · 7 months

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I am yet to do the golden cheese stuff but lately some cookies who ive used that help me are

Stardust cookie

Red velvet

And someone with a magic candy(either espresso, rye, or licorice help greatly)

They massively helped throughout many things on the story mode and helped me get 3 stars on hard stuff i redid

Red velvet helps with enemies at the back and takes hits like a boss ive topped him with 3 swkft chocos and 2 searing raspberries iirc

Stardust cookie helps chip away at the enemies health with his ability(i dont think i have a topping build for him yet-)

Espresso helps with keeping the enemies back a bit i have all searing raspberry build for him

Rye helps with the same as espresso does(tho she is less stronger eith the same build as espresso but she does still help in tower of sweet chaos which ive used milk a lot recently on ToSC and hes really well there)

Licorices minions help deal extra damage and take a few hits he has a searing raspberry build with 1 swift choco

Take this with a grain of salt cause i havent done the golden cheese stuff yet but have used these cookies for hard stuff in the past i would try expirimenting with the toppings a bit though

Hopefully this helps to get you to 3 star ^^

Legit I'm fine and breezing through the normal levels it's just that M Cursor is a random difficulty spike out of nowhere and forced me to actually Play The Game dnsksmdmmsmsmsmsms

like my team for that boss fight specifically ended up being Fettuccine (who just absolutely does not die) Golden Cheese (The Big Cheese also she was like my main shield-breaker 'cus multi-hit attack vs. hit shield) Shining Glitter (pretty sure she just makes you Not Die right? Something about increasing HP, I need to read her skill description again, anyway she ended up being the main reason I didn't get completely fxcking obliterated because M Cursor just kinda Kills You. A Lot) Sorbet Shark (+ magic candy. Does good damage, idk how exactly it works on a technical level) and Snapdragon (healer that wouldn't get fxcking stunlocked/silencelocked/whateverthefxcklocked seriously like. Apparently Snap's like the only healer in the game immune to that I think someone said??? And that was like VITAL to this even if their healing wasn't like Pure Vanilla's or anything)

like idk I'm not exactly a mechanics expert I just know that this time was vital to Not Sucking so. Yeah.

(The Big Cheese and Fettuccine were also helped by max hall of encounter buffs because. Yeah I put the time into that-)

Idk if anyone wants I can post my exact team and treasures so they can copy off of me or something because dear god I looked at so many things to find a good team for this when I realized this wasn't gonna be brainless- like good for being an actual video game but like Jesus did you have to make it THIS tough-

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #crk spoilers #cookie run spoilers

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akshigo · 1 year

Text

Perspective

>Hello reader, I shall be a guide of sorts. To help things flow if you will. My name is... unimportant. I am simply here to serve. Now let us focus on the scene. Death is quite busy right now. There is a massacre occurring. Why? Because some deranged lunatic has decided so, and now there are many unfortunate souls meeting a gruesome end. Our madman, designer of this chaos, has found himself a comfy spot in the steeple of an old church. He sits overlooking a morbid scene, but I need not describe more, he shall fill in the holes for us.

The townsfolk are running, running in any direction that sounds like it has one less scream because surely they'll be safer there. Unfortunately for them I'll draw this out for as long as I can. Just let me enjoy this cacophony of pain, while you watch in horror as your fellow man is torn apart. Love the ones that are fighting back, they fight so hard, struggle against certain death, they work so much harder, and fail all the same. So defeated, broken. I do wonder what they think. Do they think they’ll prevail or save anyone? That they can eek out any kind of win? Cause I promise I won’t let anyone go. Others beg, so desperate that they’ll try reasoning with their agents of destruction.

>Our sadistic architect unveils a heinous, wicked grin at the carnage unfolding in his view. A scene which was not planned very well. But he is familiar with this chaos, this bloodbath. He has done this enough times to have a basic plan for when he is-- desperate to feel euphoric.

They are sooo naïve, but I revel in their suffering all the same. Gotta hand it to the twisted bastards that made these unholy monsters. Oh how I adore these mindless beasts. Way too many legs and even more arms, guess they put 'em to good use though. Watching them rip someone limb from limb is something else; what a treat. They don't even talk back or despair at their orders! They smell like death, but a pleasant smelling amalgamated corpse would be so bizarre. Not sure what some of them are made up of though. Sure some humans are clearly in there, hint of some horse hooves. But their mouths are waay too large. Maybe a hippo? Nah the teeth don’t match. I honestly have no clue, probably shoulda asked huh... Hmm those two are making some distance, they actually might have gotten away. Not anymore though.

>He whistles to grab the attention of one of his minions, a shambling mass of rotting flesh. A mix of things never meant to be conjoined. Constructed by those who don’t understand life, but have tried to imitate it. Think themselves masters of it, failing to see how much they have yet to understand... I appear to be getting caught in the details. Let’s get back on track. He grabs the attention of one of his minions.

“Some cattle have managed to escape the party. Hunt them down! Do not kill them! I don’t have escapees often, I want to have some- intimate time with them.”

>Let us now change our perspective, switch focus if you will to our sadist’s new targets of his malice. A child and mother. Our duo.

Ma’s running so fast, it’s hard to keep up, and she’s holding my hand so tightly I feel like she’ll pull my arm off. I wish she would slow down, it’s hard for me to keep up... I- I’ve never seen Ma so scared. I don’t know why we’re running, I don’t think I want to know. I need to run faster, s- so I don’t slow us down.

>Our unfortunate duo don’t realize they have been spotted. Don’t hear the snapping of twigs and stomping feet signaling the monster barreling towards them from the trees on their left. They can’t react in time, couldn’t plan even if they did. In a moment the mother has been grabbed, not by hands mind you, but jaws. Within seconds it’s crushing her bones like twigs. Flesh is being torn and twisted. A truly gruesome sight for anyone; let alone a simple child.

It’s... it’s killing her- there’s so much blood. I- I can h- hear her bones snapping.

>The mother may be in excruciating pain, but she knows what will happen to her in a few moments. She looks at her child. Her baby stricken by fear and grief. Desperate to improvise, she speaks a most beautiful lie.

“It will be ok sweetie, just- just close your eyes.”

I try to cover my eyes, but he grabs one of my arms and stops me. He looks so... happy? H- He’s grinning?! Like he’s been t- told a joke.

“Don’t close your peepers kiddo. Look at her, because even if you don’t know exactly what’s happening, this moment will replay in your head. The memory will burrow deep into your mind, and every now and again it’ll surface for air. To remind you. So look at her, watch as she’s mangled. You do love her don’t you? So the least you can do is remember her in her final moments as clearly as possible. Imprint this feeling of powerlessness, and pure terror on yourself.”

>The mother tries to reach out to her child with her dwindling strength. She may be encaged by teeth and flesh but that isn’t enough to stop her. Neither is the pain. It’s not enough to stop her desperate attempt to console her precious little baby.

“Don’t listen to hi... *crack* im...”

>Her arm drops to the ground with a small thud. A small thud. That’s all her struggle could muster. A doomed attempt to save her son from the anguish that has gripped his mind. Its found a cozy spot to sit and fester.

“This moment will pass, but you’ll never truly escape this, it’ll persist. Just like you feel the need to eat, sleep, and breath. You’ll be unable to go long without replaying this, so let’s make sure when it does replay, repeat, it’s crystal clear. No forgetting. No misremembering. Feel it mutilate you, as it carves its way deeper into the recesses of your mind, Like how my little beastie rends her flesh and shatters bone oh so effortlessly! Leaving you irreparably changed, damaged. But hey, there’s nothing you can do, and if you wanna survive this, which trust me you do, then look at her. Watch her die in front of you. Got it? Live so this wretched, beautiful moment can live within you. Forever! The child you were before this is dead, killed. Just. Like. Her. You however- you get to be born anew. The new you will forever be scarred by this, no matter how much you grow or change this moment will always live on, maybe not on your skin like a scar, but in your mind, like a tumor.”

>With sorrow in the child’s throat and tears building in his eyes he asks a genuinely good question.

“W- why!?”

“WHY?! Haha, because I want to hurt you, torment you. But alas you're just a child, so young, so frail, brittle really. So if I can't physically torture you, I'll just have to settle for mental anguish. To put it in a way a tiny helpless child like you could understand. Because I like to!” HAHAH-

>He laughs for a while, I think we can stop here. Well not stop as in end, just a little more to go so hang on. Let’s change things up one last time. We’ll fast forward a bit. We’ll jump sixteen years forward, yeah? OK, let me set the scene one more time. We’re in a shabby house. It’s certainly not the prettiest but it’s enough for those without much money to their name. Our child has done a fair bit of growing. He’s got some friends too, and they have been doing a fair bit of drinking. You would think it helps to ease his suffering, but it doesn’t, not really. Just makes him feel- vulnerable. Like easy prey. His friends gladly indulge however. After all, it’s supposed to be a fun night. Now here’s the important part, the friends are so intoxicated that if they haven’t passed out, they’re about to. They might even forget all about such a wonderful, cheerful night. However, our child. Our grown man finds himself feeling quite distraught. Desperate to let a small tiny voice out. It’s begging him to alleviate himself of his pain, to let someone know his trauma. With his friends on the brink of passing out, he gives in.

“You know, sometimes when it gets quiet. Really quiet... I hear his laugh. It’s faint, like... its- its far away, but it sounds so close, and real... Like he’s found me again. And he’s come to finish what he started all those years ago. He’s lurking behind a corner somewhere, with her- her body. He’s coming to drag me back into those woods. He’ll force me to truly relive that. The memory, the scar, the tumor, wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough to satisfy his disgusting and horrific appetite. Would I be able to stand up to him? Could I beat him? Kill him? I wanna say yes, of course. But then I realize I’m shaking. He’d see me shaking, see me start panicking. He’d know he won. Then I get so mad and angry and furious and- and disheartened. How can I sit here, and let this happen? HOW CAN I SIT HERE WEAK AND USELESS! SO... So incapable of fighting wickedness personified. Even though I survived. Should I have? If his grip, his hold can control me so far into the future then... then maybe I should admit that the child died, just didn’t realize that death had come and left with one more soul in tow. Some have told me that my hurt and pain made me stronger. I survived after all. I don’t think that’s true. If I was truly, truly strong, I would FIND him, and END him! Save god knows how many souls. Yet I don’t, I’m not hunting him day in, day out. I- I hate the man I see in the mirror, so helpless, and- repulsive. If the lone survivor of such an atrocity is too weak to do something, then what was the point? My inaction, my continued inaction means it was pointless right? Nothing was achieved beyond death and destruction. Sometimes... sometimes I wish the child I used to be... never survived.”

>What a tale. death, pain, joy, all wrapped in a package with a little bow on top. This is where we conclude. This is the end, this is all there is. There is no revenge. No more killing. No more hurting. Nothing. I could wax some truth, attempt to help those struggling to make sense of what’s come before. But why should I? I could despair at the evil that is free to torment. But I see no reason to. In fact, I see no reason to dwell for much longer. My task is finished; you no longer need me to guide.

Inspired by a comic called Bloodline, page 384.

First draft started at “It’s killing her”, Was listening to Coyote by Mako during that first draft.

Should I put my thoughts here? Fuck it, why not. For those who are curious as to my thoughts on trauma and suffering feel free to read. The nature of trauma means yeah it’ll stick with you in some form, that’s the tragic reality of it. But while it may define a part of you it doesn’t need to define who you are as a person. It doesn’t need to rule your life. It’s not an easy thing to get a hold of. And I don’t think it’s easy or even possible to just put in a mental lockbox and never let out. This sounds grim and kinda is, however if you try and hold onto this mindset that you can completely escape it, I think as a completely unqualified non-professional, that you will simply become more miserable when you feel it control you or part of you. The past can’t be changed, what has happened to you can’t be undone, but the only way forward is to look forward. Don’t forget what’s happened because while it hurts it doesn’t need to control and define your future existence. You also may struggle for a long time to make sense of it, or even be ok with it in some form, and that’s ok. Time can help give us a sort of distance from things. It gives us the opportunity to move on, or even look back and find meaning. You don’t have to find meaning if you don’t want to and you can change your interpretation of things that have happened if you so wish. Time by itself won’t heal you but effort and support can help lessen your struggle, and time helps make that more possible.

Points of note:

1. The child/adult feeling the need to stop the madman could be seen as generic, created mixed feelings, wasn’t sure if it was good or bad, in one reader.

2. Could use bigger/grandeur words, similar to cacophony, was a preference in one reader.

3. Add reactions from the people the child/adult is talking to, any reaction including the lack of reaction.

4. One reader would have liked if the mother called the child’s name before dying, also felt the monologuing was anime- esk.

5. Narrator says “if you will” twice

6. One reader brought up mentioning the monsters earlier so readers have a better understanding of what’s happening to the townsfolk.

7. Interpreted message (violence begets violence) is bluntly delivered, melodramatic, ending monologue is anime- esk.

8. Personally wasn’t a fan of the narrators casual demeanor and thought bold lettering for the narrator was out of character for them

Common consensus. Narrator’s bold text helps provide a break from the violence, a sort of safe spot before delving back into it.

Personal points:

The ending monologue from the child/adult could include physical descriptions of what’s happening to him as he talks. The narration from the madman doesn’t give the reader a good reason for why he says what he does. Maybe reader’s perceiving the madman as death is bad, not sure.

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

Text

Fake Sith TCW Trio

I have another fucked up time-travel AU! Who’s surprised? (Nobody.)

So like. Have you guys read that one fic where Luke and his students go back in time and pretend to be Sith Lords and are super hammy about it? (Sith Lord Swell by AMournfulHowlInTheNight)

This AU has contributions by @atagotiak, @the-lunar-system, @purronronner, @gelpenss, @creepingthroughthistidalwave, and @thisarenotarealblog.

I want TCW trio (plus Rex and Cody) to go back to several years pre-TPM and, since the Council DEFINITELY won't believe them about the Sith being back... they'll force the issue.

Anakin is weirdly excited about things and building up their backstory.

Anakin: Okay so I can definitely be a Maul type, with the unhinged ranting and manic laughter, Obi-Wan can be the whole Refined Rich Guy type like Dooku, where you can't even tell he's evil until he starts talking about getting out the eyeball scoops, maybe toss in a bit of mad science stuff? Ahsoka could play up like Ventress OR, oh oh, she can be the Light Side Child we need to PROTECT who's publicly begging us to return to the Light after our big dramatic Falls where we murdered like eighty people to save her, and-- Obi-Wan: Why are you never this enthusiastic about actual undercover missions. Ahsoka: Did you just have all this ready to go, or...? Anakin: WE COULD GET YELLOW CONTACT LENSES FOR ME.

Obi-Wan: How's my evil laugh?

Anakin going “Okay.. so if any of us need to murder someone to sell the bit it should be me, I think I could handle it the best. Why? No reason.”

Obi-Wan: I'm not sure a complete Fall could come from protecting Ahsoka, really-- Anakin: No, no, it could.

Obi-Wan: Surely you’d hold back because you realize neither of us want that for you. Anakin: Uh. Sure. Definitely.

Obi-Wan points out that none of them can channel the dark side to Prove they're Sith and Anakin just goes "Okay, give me like two seconds to stew in my negativity and--right, you can stop staring in horror, please."

Anakin rambles on that they can TOTALLY make the galaxy a better place while playing at being Sith! He's got a whole LIST of slave empires to "take over" and disassemble!

Anakin has a whole excited spiel about how EVIL soldiers and assistants are minions, in this case partly because Cody and Rex are too good at what they do to be mooks. Cody could pull off evil minion very well. Facial scar? Looks good in black? Quietly competent and sarcastic?

He also pushes for Obi-Wan to lounge in a fancy throne with a glass of wine while Anakin stalks the shadows and Ahsoka hangs out on the window ledge. The disaster lineage is dramatic, okay, Anakin’s just leaning into it, he’d appreciate it if everyone stopped looking at him like that.

Qui-Gon, surprisingly, ends up a skeptic about all of this. Everyone is freaking out about the Sith and he’s like “y’know I’m not even sure they’re darksiders.”

Some Jedi, possibly Qui-Gon for his conspiracy board, gets in a real risky situation and one of the Fake Sith saves them, but also panics and kinda drops character for a bit.

Jedi: You saved me! Why’d you do that? Anakin: I uh... just wanted the pleasure of killing you myself?

"You saved me. Why?" "Mmmm. Jedi." [walks away]

Qui-Gon: [trying to figure out what is up with these people semi-competently (from his perspective) pretending to be Sith] Dooku: [trying to protect Qui-Gon from Sith influence]

The gang is the most successful at pretending to be Sith to Dooku. Sure, they’re not gonna punish him for something he hasn’t done, but it’s not hard to act menacing and angry around him.

(They really do have so much fun irritating the heck out of Dooku. He hasn’t Fallen yet, but they want to keep an eye out.)

At some point, future Obi-Wan definitely drops that little tidbit of "What, you didn't think the Banites were the only Sith running around did you? You... didn't even know about the Banites. How... disappointing."

They REGULARLY use Ahsoka as an excuse to be marginally less terrible. They claim that if Ahsoka pouts, they stop. ‘Soka also uses them as an excuse for why she’s a lil feral. (To be fair, that one is accurate. She was already a lil feral before but it’s not like they did anything to stop it.) Ahsoka gets her "breaking into people's offices" jollies by bugging Nute Gunray's office.

The Jedi keep trying to Rescue Ahsoka.

Rex and Cody end up in real beskar, there's a whole Thing with Mandalore and Jango and Satine.

Obi-Wan is CONSISTENTLY worried about Anakin Falling for real, which... hey, at least he knows to be worried about Anakin Falling. Step up from canon, really.

Anakin is WAY too into killing the Hutts but like. It does... technically sell the bit.

Obi-Wan: Sure, I’m not sad that they’re dead, especially because we’re not connected to the Republic, so we don’t need to worry about starting a war and all that. But. Anakin is disturbingly cheerful about this. Rex: Wasn't he a Hutt slave? Obi-Wan: Well yes, but-- Rex: I'd kill Nala Se if I could get away with it.

Cody and Rex are very supportive of Anakin's murderous intentions.

Obi-Wan does understand anger, even killing someone in anger. Like Maul (the first time at least) and D’nar and a few others. All the same, like... y’know. The level of bloodthirst from the others is a little off-putting.

At one point, Anakin accidentally addresses young Obi-Wan by name, despite never having met before, and to cover it up, he... panic-flirts. He panics, and so he flirts, with young Obi-Wan.

(He will later blame this on old Obi-Wan, because he had to pick up the habit of flirting with the enemy from somewhere.)

Anakin vaguely implies that he's a wee bit obsessed with young Obi, and that the padawan should "get used to being the target of a dark-sider's interests," because he’s scrambling for Ominous Shit and, well, future Obi-Wan was pretty frequently a fixation point for darksiders, right?

The second he gets out, he just starts screaming into a bucket while Rex pats him on the back.

For the next however many terrible months, possibly years, he has to keep up the act while having an ongoing meltdown about how That's My Dad As A Twenty-Something.

(It doesn't help that young Obi-Wan reflexively flirted back.)

Old Obi-Wan, meanwhile, is just very "you dug this hole yourself, padawan."

There is an argument at the beginning about Obi-Wan’s outfit. If he’s gonna be a Sith, he can’t just go around in beige, but he’s like “I like this and it’s comfy.” Sure, he’s changed clothes for undercover stuff, but that’s always been temporary, y’know? He likes his beige.

We have a number of options.

My first instinct? Beige linen three piece suit, like a southern lawyer. "Now I may just be a simple Outer Rim force adept--"

And, of course, you can TOTALLY make the beige sinister: he’s impersonating a Jedi! Jedi impersonation would also explain why nobody has a red saber.

“Sure is good that the Jedi don’t seem to realize most of the galaxy doesn’t know red sabers are different and bad.” “Shhhh, stop poking holes in our story where a Jedi might overhear.”

Like.... if you do enough doublethink, it works! How would a Sith hide? In plain sight. Also, it’s a GREAT way (if they were actually assholes) to try to slander the Jedi name.

(Anakin and Ahsoka still think he could stand to put a little more effort in. Add a splash of color, for pity's sake!)

Though tbh part of me is like “What if Old Obi wore, like... a split skirt suit...” Victorian womenswear inspired because he misses his robes, but he has to look Professional, and like he's MOCKING Jedi instead of BEING one, so he wears a vintage-y split skirt thing over his leggings. Ends up looking a lot like what Ventress had for a while, but Beige. I also keep wanting to put him regency menswear.

Anyway. Obi-Wan’s wardrobe aside...

Anakin builds up his Tatoo accent again. It helps him with the (mostly true) "slavery helped me fall" backstory.

Either Cody or Rex offhandedly mentions being made to serve them (the Fake Sith) and now the Jedi are somewhat concerned about brainwashing. Are these Mandos the victims here?

“No like. Literally made for this. In a lab.” This is even more horrifying. So...

On the one hand good! The Jedi should be scared about Sith! On the other hand... it makes the Jedi more determined to stop them, specifically. They keep on getting in the way, just, all the time, and they’re not investigating the actual Sith problem, which is decidedly not great since the Team doesn’t actually know who’s a real Sith right now, except Maul, and who even knows where that guy is.

Obi-Wan, at some point: Do you think we've succeeded at this ruse... a little TOO well? Anakin: I don't follow. Obi-Wan, gesturing at the truly obnoxious amount of wealth they've collected, including "trophies" of their kills: Really? Because I'm a little worried! Anakin, planning out a battle to take on Nar Shadda: ...I'm not.

"How many people do we realistically we need to take over Hutt Space? Apparently... five."

(Mostly because Anakin is ridiculously op.)

ANAKIN AND YOUNG OBI GET KIDNAPPED BY PIRATES TOGETHER. It's tradition.

Anakin: Okay, so, I need to get really angry about something to pass as a Sith... time to think about my WIFE and how I'll NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.

Since Anakin’s life never goes as planned... this does not work. Instead of getting properly angry, he makes himself sad. There are tears. There is wailing. There’s a distraught rant or two. Young Obi ends up awkwardly trying to comfort him.

“Oh no, this… Sith?? Is crying on me. What do I do???”

Later on, when the Council wants intel: "So... one of the Sith cried on me about his wife. I think she's dead? He wasn't very clear about it but it, uh... it sounded like it might have contributed to his Fall. Also the relationship was a little unhealthy? He basically worshiped the ground she walked on and kept ranting about how he would have given her the galaxy on a platinum platter of she'd only asked, but that might be new and inspired by the Dark."

One of the random Jedi is REALLY good at detecting the truth Through The Force, and asks Anakin how he Fell...

Anakin just. Tells the Tuskens story.

They don't get pinged as lying, but oh boy does old Obi have a LOT of questions for Anakin once they're in private.

There are other things happening to help sell the ruse. Some of them are necessary! Some of them are... not.

Obi-Wan: What's the best way to show we're rich and kind of evil, but like... classy about it? Anakin, immediately: I sit on the floor next to the throne, leaning against it, and you call me pet names while stroking my hair, and then when you need something killed I get to do it for you and then I go back to the floor and you thank me for the directed violence, and then you go back to Negotiations with criminals while I’m sitting there covered in blood. Obi-Wan: ...is there something you want to TELL us, or...?

"You're all going to get a glimpse of something normally kept hidden about me." "Anakin, you don't have to do that." "No, I'm gonna."

(Anakin has decided hes going to peel his kink tomato to sell this ruse, and the others are slightly uncomfortable with that.)

Anakin: Okay, I cannot keep flirting with you. Young Obi: Wait, what? But that's the best part of any time we run into you! Anakin: You look WAY too much like my Master did when I met him. Obi: O...kay? If someone looked like my master when HE was young, I'd-- Anakin: My Sith Master half-raised me. He's basically my dad. Obi: ... Anakin: What's that look for? Obi: I mean, you spend a lot of time lounging at his feet, and, like, given how much you hate slavery, I... kind of assumed it was a kink thing? Anakin, brightly: Oh no, I just have a LOT of trauma. And neuroses. Snips says they’re neuroses.

Young Obi is a little upset because he was actually getting REALLY into Flirting With The Enemy and was hoping it would go somewhere. He mopes to Qui-Gon about it. Qui-Gon isn't sure whether to be proud about Obi breaking rules, or worried over Obi-Wan falling for a Fake Sith.

(As Tia put it: "You enjoy making young Obi-Wan have a completely unrequited crush on Anakin, don’t you?")

Fortunately, one of those attractive Young Mando boys very kindly helped him tape up his ribs this one time, and has thus caught his eye...

I feel like having Cody date Young Obi would court an entirely different kind of (internet) drama because clone ages, but whatever.

Also please imagine an element of "so I'm dating the genetic identical of my boss... who's dating the man I'm a genetic identical of..."

(It's probably not actually Jangobi but man would that be funny and also stupid.)

Somehow Young Obi figures out that the "Sith Master" is a future him before he realizes that they're not actually dark. In his defense, Anakin was pretty convincing. Especially with the wife rant. It makes HIM more obsessed with Anakin, in a reversal of the implied earlier dynamic, which is all kinds of weird. Less romantic but like. Still weird.

"Future Me Scares Me" with Extra stupid. "Future Me Annoys Me." "Future Me acts like grandmaster Dooku, but more sass." "Future Me raised a really hot evil guy that refuses to bang Present Me." "Future Me might be a Sith, but I'm getting more and more convinced he's just fucking with us all." "Future Me is really rocking that beard, and I can't BELIEVE we figured out a way around the babyface."

"I’m kinda concerned about the whole evil thing, but I’m also glad that I know I’ll stay hot as I get older."

Quinlan approves of the priorities.

Also a lot of interactions with older Obi are very Anakin: [does/says something deeply unhinged] Obi-Wan: So, do you want to…. Talk about that? Maybe? Anakin: What’s there to talk about?? I’m fine, everything’s fine! Anyways how about those plans for tracking down Maul?

Anakin later, like way after the ruse is lifted, just blankly tells everyone that he did Fall, once, and Older Obi made him get therapy about it after the truth came out between the two of them a few months into the Fake Sith thing.

Where'd they find a therapist? I'm sure there's one SOMEWHERE around. Denon and Herdessa are close enough, and they've done enough "your criminal empire now belongs to me" that they can pay well. They make sure to find one that takes confidentiality real seriously.

It's all very "we need some more time to unpack all that."

Therapy helps get Anakin to figure out Sheev’s whole deal. They don't necessarily figure out he’s a Sith from it, but they figure out he’s sketchy and they need to look into that more. Obi-Wan probably already thought he was sketchy, but the whole active gaslighting campaign was a little surprising. They realize that he kinda benefited a lot from a lot of Sith plots and they still probably don’t think he’s a Sith but Obi-Wan is definitely starting to think he’s working with one.

"Okay, we're already bugging Gunray, should we bug Palpatine just to be safe?"

They get away with a lot of slicing because Anakin is a technical genius from twenty years in the future.

The reasons they're so good at Taking Over Hutt Space: 1. They know parts of the future. 2. They have superpowers and FAR less reason to not use them, now that their actions aren't going to reflect on the Republic. 3. They have Cody and Rex, who are two of the greatest military minds in the galaxy, and know EXACTLY how to wage a war that covers a solid third of the galaxy, starting from a position of relative weakness. 4. Anakin's charisma is scary high, and his knowledge of slave culture means they gain a lot of trust from the people they free, and they just... keep acquiring volunteers for the army they didn't plan to have. Obi-Wan doesn't know what to do. He thinks they might have started a cult?

In his defense, Dooku sort of started a cult, and Komari got kidnapped by a cult, brainwashed into joining it properly, and then took it over as head figure of said cult. It's practically tradition!

Comics Vader is the central figure of like three different cults, it was really just inevitable.

Anakin: Aw, don't worry master, it's not a cult, it's a revolution! Ahsoka: They're worshiping him, though. Anakin: ...it's still a revolution! Just... with some misunderstandings.

Also, if they got wind of people trying to keep people from being able to leave and other culty stuff like that, they’d probably put a stop to it pretty damn quick.

Names! Time for names. As per usual, it's easiest to keep track of Obi-Wan's alternate Older Self by just calling him Ben.

Darth Ben.

Ahsoka: You should be Darth Boring. Obi-Wan: I can still make you run laps, you know.

Anakin: The Force is telling me to call myself Darth Vader. Obi-Wan: ...why? Anakin: I dunno, but it sounds cool, I'll run with it.

Someone: Ben has all the answers; we shouldn’t question him, ever. Ben: One time I lost a planet, and a five-year-old found it for me.

More options: Going with the "evil word with the prefix 'in' chopped off" that we get with Sidious and Vader: Darth Surrectus (as in insurrection) Just random Latin words: Darth Temporus (time) Darth Commenticius (fake)

Anyway, back to Nonsense:

Maul goes after young Obi early, because the Fake Sith are really invested in this one random Padawan (Sidious is saying he might be a cousin of the false Sith Master? They do look similar enough) so someone needs to investigate. Naturally, Anakin shows up with some wild screeching to fight Maul, and when someone questions why he got involved it gets very "Kenobi is MINE!" and like. Okay. So.

Anakin means it in a very Sith "to toy with" and "to torture" way, or the ‘my chosen opponent!’ way, just the same kind of Obsession as Maul had with Obi-Wan in the original timeline. Unfortunately, Anakin’s a weird-ass person who flirts with Young Obi against his own better judgement, so there's some awkward "Like... your boyfriend?" from young Obi. Anakin just screeches in SOME emotion that nobody wants to interpret, and couldn't even if they wanted to, and starts whacking away at Maul again.

(Anakin hasn't explained the "you look exactly like my dad, sorry, it's just too weird" thing yet, and he is HAVING MANY REGRETS.)

There's definitely at least one instance where a person asks Anakin if he's planning on dating That One Jedi Twink, or at least banging out the tension. At that point in time, Anakin doesn't actually know who the fuck they're talking about, because "Obi-Wan + Twink = Does Not Compute" for dear, dense Ani, and instead he just ends up ranting about how he is LOYAL TO THE MEMORY OF HIS LATE WIFE, how DARE anyone so much as INSINUATE that he would TARNISH HER PERFECT MEMORY and UNWAVERING KINDNESS and WHOLESOME BEING, and the person who asked doesn't end up lightsabered but they do end up with a LOT to tell whoever they're reporting to.

Young Obi-Wan definitely hears Anakin mutter the phrase “something to discuss with my therapist later” a few times, and he’s a little bewildered because darksiders definitely don’t seem like the type of people to go to therapy. They’re the type of people to need therapy, sure, but not the type to go to therapy.

I think it would be very fun for Young Obi to continue sighing over Anakin (who's pretending to be fine with it and even flirting back because he's in too deep to stop and hasn't worked up the courage to explain the elephant in the room) while Anakin is covered in grease and infodumping while having a slightly manic hyperfocus on engine repairs while the two of them Somehow got stranded together in the middle of bumfuck nowhere (it's Plagueis's doing, he finds the interactions between THESE two in particular to be the most informative regarding the fake Sith).

Anakin, at some point while stranded with young Obi-Wan, and having actually started unpacking some stuff in therapy, though he’s def still got a ways to go: I’m pretty sure Ben cares about me. He acts like he cares, like he’ll do stuff like put extra blankets in my quarters in the spaceship because I get cold real easily or track down those droid parts I need for a project and he always has my back in a fight but y’know it’d be nice to hear him say he loves me once in a while. Especially because we kinda had a rough start and idk I don’t think he wanted me around at first.

And uh. Obi-Wan definitely relates to that a bit too much, y’know?

I want to say that Young Obi ends up mentioning All That to one of the clones or Ahsoka later, because they seem probably invested in Anakin's well-being, even if Ben is, well, a Sith, so Obi-Wan's a little worried the man's affection really is fake, but at least Ahsoka...

(Ironic, given what Anakin's actual eventual Sith would-be-Master was like.)

Young Obi mentions Anakin’s most recent rant to Ahsoka, and she just goes "Wait, is that why Skyguy likes to sit by the throne and get called pet names?" "Uh... I don't... know... but it sounds like all of you have a LOT to unpack there, Miss Apprentice."

Later on: "Master Kenobi, you need to tell Skyguy you love him 'cause apparently he's been having a lot of emotions about you not telling him you care and he's been talking to mini-you about it whenever they get stuck together and--"

Young Obi-Wan is just constantly the "Now we don't have time to unpack all of that" John Mulaney gif. Anakin in particular is a mess, and young Obi-Wan slowly goes from "I want to date that" to "I want to study that" about him.

Obi-Wan gets stuck somewhere with Ben, tries to small talk, gets on the topic of Vader, and spills the drama. He gets an awkward “Thank you for bringing that to my attention.”

It’s followed by a fairly frustrated “I try, but Anakin refuses to communicate his needs to me, and it feels like I’m always falling short.”

At least one member of the group is in therapy, probably all of them, but they’re still using young Obi as a sounding board for all this stuff. On the bright side, this is probably good for impressing the importance of good communication on Obi-Wan.

Good for Obi-Wan! And... whatever Padawan he eventually has.

As for baby Anakin, who is approximately age four, I want to go with "Anakin decides to be his own uncle, and Shmi just rolls with it because fuck it, she’s not a slave anymore, and a Fake Sith is a solid defense against anyone trying to re-enslave them."

[This is a backstory I've had them use before (see here and here).]

Seeing Big Ani and Little Ani in the same space might be what finally pings the "oh shit, that's future me" thing for Obi-Wan... you know, if he’s ever allowed close enough to see Little Ani in the first place.

Little Ani stays with the fake-Sith and is sorta jointly trained by all of them, and young Obi-Wan teaches little 'Soka at the Temple. Ani and 'Soka still end up friends somehow, but it is fairly different.

Every time little Ani addresses Old Obi as "Dad," it's just like ten kinds of awkward. The one time someone tried to explain that Ben wasn't his new dad, Shmi glared them down. She is of the opinion that, all the gods be damned, Ani deserves to refer to the most mature man in his life, who raised another him in another timeline already, as a father.

Ani doesn't NEED a father, Shmi herself is more than enough, but he does deserve to have this if he wants it.

An alternative conclusion to the time travel is uh. So the Mandalorians are genetically identical (give or take a hair gene) and really resemble Jango Fett, though whether anyone notices that is up in the air. Then the three ‘Sith’ (two fake Sith and their morality chain tag-along) have three younger, identical copies show up….

It could be really weird cloning shenanigans. Now, it makes no sense that they’d make clones, and stagger their production like that, and leave them as babies on various planets for Jedi to find. IDK what reasons Obi-Wan would come up with for that, but it’s a fun little detour before he gets to time travel.

There's a really painful moment (for the audience, who know about canon Vader) where someone tries to convince Ahsoka to leave the Sith and she's just like "no way, they'd never hurt me!” Then she clarifies that “someone has to keep them from doing stupid Sith shit whenever they get bored, you know?"

A bunch of Jedi probably think she’s delusional, but the few that have seen her get into trouble that is legitimately too much for her, which isn't often, have then seen Anakin show up like the devil himself to save her, and it's like. Oh. This is why she isn't scared of them hurting her.

We’ve discussed how Anakin does get concerningly in character with the fake Sith thing. However, Anakin and Ahsoka are, just once in a while, surprised by how Ben gets sometimes when playing the bad guy.

After all, he stabbed a dude with a fork and threatened to eat him during his time as Hardeen…

He has the same dramatic streak as all the rest of the lineage. He can be vindictive and creepy and scary as fuck.

HOWEVER:

Obi-Wan: I know I'm supposed to be playing at evil right now, but how do we feel about me making that evil a little... fruity? Ahsoka: Fruity, master? Anakin, who knows where this is going: [buries face in hands] Obi-Wan: You know, the... [limp wrist] Ahsoka: ... Obi-Wan: I mean, I'm already bisexual and well-groomed, I can play it up.

What’s the point of being evil if you can’t be flamboyant?

Anyway, I had to put in a lot of thought for what to do with Rex and Cody, because there's a solid place for them in terms of strategy, but it doesn't do much to give them independent narrative arcs, and 'young Obi-Wan has a crush' isn't much of an arc, you know?

So, basic info first: Cody, Rex, and Anakin all hold the rank of General in this AU because, like... who else is gonna. Ahsoka remains a commander because everyone declares her Baby, and also to keep up the "I'm a morality chain" ruse.

Cody maintains a very stern and unyielding public persona, but the second they're behind closed doors, he's roughhousing with his little brother.

Rex has some fun pretending to be a sadist whenever he and Anakin have to team up, because hamming it up as an evil bastard in front of Jedi is actually really fun... but usually, he's a competent fucking professional.

Because here's the thing: someone has to be.

They both kind of hate the army they've gotten, because these people don't even have proper trigger discipline, let alone any actual discipline.

This army? Tragic. They hate it. Give them the clones.

They have to be drill sergeants for months before they have anything worth sending onto the field.

I think that might be how/when they end up reaching out to Jango. Like, the first inroad is absolutely "we're your clones from the future and you were a Shit Dad so you owe us," but then they actually talk him around into letting the Fake Sith hire him. He brings along all the Mandalorians he can get to answer his calls, and on suggestion from Those Mando Twins, joins the army Ben doesn't even want.

Darth Boring doesn't want an army! Unfortunately, Cody thinks that's stupid as hell, and is overruling Ben so they can actually work on this 'cleaning up the galaxy of slavery' thing with actual resources.

Cody and Rex are super competent, and it shows in their horrified disdain for the state of their troops.

Rex: Fucking natborns. Anyone who isn't in the know: What's a natborn? Rex: [leaves without answering] People: WHAT'S A NATBORN???

(I'm assuming that the word smush is harder to parse in Basic.)

I think young Obi-Wan's new crush on Cody should also be unrequited. Cody's just like... bemused. Very "Okay, then, that sure is an Affection you've decided on."

Cody and Anakin both: Sorry, it’d just be too weird. Obi-Wan: Why would it be too weird? Cody and Anakin: Reasons.

Rex has to deal with the "whyyyyy" from both his brother and his (former?) General.

Young Obi-Wan just likes cute boys that fight good! Is that so wrong???

Ahsoka: So since we're not officially Jedi anymore-- Obi-Wan: We're still Je-- Ahsoka: Can we date? Can I date now? I want to date someone before we go back to the Code. It's a classic life experience for most teenage girls, and I want to Have That Experience before we're back at the Temple. Obi-Wan: You're not... you can date, Ahsoka, that's not actually banned by the Code. I mean, you'd have to keep it casual, but-- Ahsoka: I CAN DATE!!!

(Great priorities, Ahsoka.)

An idea I'm toying with is that one of the clones ends up Legally Engaged to Satine for political reasons, and young Obi-Wan is just like ???? because not only can he not date the hot boys, but one of said hot boys has become Mr. Steal Yo Girl.

Young Obi-Wan is suffering, and Quinlan is the worst friend ever because Quinlan is laughing at him.

There is obviously the question of

"How would Satine ever end up agreeing to that, given what their public personas are like and all that? She puts duty ahead of personal feelings but all indications are that it’s a terrible decision both ways." (as stated by Tia)

Which, yes, I forgot to actually say that I was imagining Jango had declared "those twins" his heirs after telling people they were his younger* cousins. Because reasons.

* Jango is about 27 when they land in the past, and I’m going to say the accelerated aging ended after hitting physically twenty because no, I don’t want to deal with that. As far as anyone knows, Cody and Rex are about five years younger than Jango. They’re less than year apart, which isn’t very visible, and most people assume they’re identical twins (except Rex’s hair), and that Cody just looks slightly older because of the scar.

Darth Boring had convinced Satine that the way to keeping Mandalore peaceful was to work with Jango (because Darth Boring, which is not his actual title but it is what Ahsoka insists on calling him in private, has a vested interest in keeping Mandalore and all interested parties calm), and he... maybe accidentally set up a political marriage between her and one of the clones.

It wasn't on purpose! Satine never married in his timeline, okay, he didn't expect her to ever get married here, either! He didn't even suggest it! This just happened!

(I want to say that Cody would be more competent at having a political marriage? But IDK.)

Do I do the Satine thing? It has potential, but also it's a bit of a cop-out. Do I have Cody be a diplomatic representative for their pseudo-Sith empire? He could be, but I think he'd hate it. Do I have Rex date one the Chaos Entities (Anakin or Ahsoka), or is that too repetitive with my other works? THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH GOING ON.

Part of me wants Quinlan to get a crush on Cody, and the crush gets bigger specifically in response to the fact that Cody refuses to take him seriously and/or just doesn't give him the time of day.

Based on their one interaction in TCW, they probably let get along ok. Cody maybe likes him back, buuuuuuut internally he's just a little "you were tolerable at almost-forty; early twenties you is obnoxious."

Just imagine the absolutely puppyish attempts at gaining approval and Impressing The Hot Mando General. Quinlan keeps having vague daydreams of seducing someone to the side of the Light. He really leans into the bodice ripper fantasies of saving someone evil with the power of love! (And also the power of really good sex.)

Bant looks at Quin and Obi and wants to throw them both into the nearest pond because they're idiots, but on this topic they are the same flavor of idiot. She considers calling up Reeft and Garen to help her knock some sense into them.

Quinlan: Can I volunteer to go undercover to the Sith? The Council: No. Quinlan: ...what if I-- The Council: No.

Tholme tries to get Qui-Gon to commiserate over their Padawans getting obsessed with Hot Sith Boys, but Qui-Gon just finds the whole thing funny. He knows from the chats he has with Ben that Anakin feels so completely, utterly, incredibly awkward about all of this.

(Ben continues to hold to "Anakin brought this on himself.")

(Ben also “kidnaps” Qui-Gon a lot.)

Also, hey, at least Quinlan isn’t actually into hot Sith boys! He’s into hot Sith minions which is... probably a step up. At least Cody’s not a Sith himself!

It's a step in some direction but Tholme has no idea which one.

(Quinlan sees Cody in dress uniform once and just keeps the mental image for Ages. It’s in his dreams. Sometimes said dreams overflow to Tholme via Force Mind Magic and Quinlan wakes up to someone smacking his face with a pillow.)

Arguably, Quin's also a lot more romantic about his crush than Obi-Wan is, in this case. Quinlan: I want to save him... Obi-Wan: Hey, hey, cute boy. Look at me. Let’s bang.

Cody: There are currently two future Jedi generals having some form of absurd romantic fixation in my direction. I don't know how to feel about this. Rex: Bed them. Cody: ...I'm not saying that's not eventually an option, but one of them is the younger Kenobi, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Rex: Pat him on the head like a tooka and then bed his friend, it'll be funny.

I think the Quinlan thing and also general exasperation of leading an absolutely useless army can function pretty solidly as the basis for Cody, but I have another idea for Rex now.

Komari is currently brainwashed in a cult, yes? So.

I keep bouncing around back and forth on what to do with Rex, but part of me suddenly really likes the idea of, after Team Fake Sith finds and dissolves the cult (as one does), and takes Komari into custody (because she's dangerous and deeply unwell), Rex kind of ends up her touchstone to being a decent person. He’s not a morality chain, and it’s not really a redeemed-through-love thing, just This Is A Solid Dude who doesn't pity her or thinks she's irredeemable (however you choose to define such a thing), but actually relates to the kind of conditions living like that can involve, and just kind of...

I don’t know. I think Rex's arc in this AU could be very heavily grounded in something to the effect of "You're not the worst darksider I've met. You're not the only person who was in a cult. You're not even the only former Jedi I know that's committed awful, horrible crimes. My question is just this: What are you going to do moving forward?"

Later Anakin: Wait, who do we know that was in a cult? Rex: What did you think Kamino was?

(Rex isn't as chill as he'd like her to think, but he's trying, and she's fairly reliant on the Force to understand emotions, and is currently in nullifying cuffs, so he can bluff.)

Komari needs someone solid and dependable to rely on for at least conversation, and I think Rex needs to feel needed.

I’m not sure if it’d be romance or friendship, but I think there's a solid basis to work with, potentially.

Per Tia:

One thing about Rex and shipping is like. If you want to do Rexwalker again that's fine, but if you're worried about repetitiveness but still want to like. Ship him in a non-political-convenience way. Rexsoka here actually would be different than your other stuff.

I'm trying to figure out if I can make it work because Ahsoka thematically fits very much into a little sister shaped hole here? She feels younger than in other works, despite not actually being younger than she is in, say, Commander Buir. In those other fics, she has some time alone to function and prove herself independently of Anakin and Obi-Wan.

I usually pluck Ahsoka out at sixteen if I'm pulling her from TCW, so she's got most of her competence but hasn't gotten quite all the trauma yet. Commander Buir, in particular, also has baby-shaped Anakin for contrast.

That said, I can see a decent source of narrative conflict in her wanting to experiment with romance and all that, and Anakin trying to tell her she's too young.

A year into this whole time-travel mess, she wants to give the dating thing a shot, and it spirals into "You were only two years older than me when you got married!"

I think I could build a plot out of Ahsoka wanting to do these things, and Anakin as an audience insert not quite processing that she's old enough to make these decisions. If she's choosing to date Rex, whose age works out as being close to hers when one takes into account Kamino fuckery, and whom she trusts absolutely, it’s arguably extra weird for Anakin to be upset with it.

"Senator Amidala was five years older than you, and you married her when you were nineteen and had only really known her for a week! I can go on a date with a guy we both know is one of the most trustworthy people alive if I want, Skyguy!"

I can definitely see Ahsoka getting annoyed with Anakin being overbearing and controlling at some point before that unrelated to romance, too. It’s not exactly a new fault of his.

My god, just imagine someone snidely asking Anakin "where's your little shadow?" and Anakin, being Himself and also a Fake Sith, has an emotional breakdown about how Ahsoka yelled at him for micromanaging her and not trusting her to make her own decisions in life and so she got herself a multi-month solo mission from Ben that Anakin isn't allowed to know any details about, and--

It's another one of those "oh, you have PROBLEMS problems with your mental health" incidents for the Jedi to add to the file, because Anakin having emotionally charged rants about his issues at seemingly terrible times is how they get a lot of information.

Some of the rants are planned.

Many of them, actually.

They want the Jedi to know these things.

Just, well. Anakin.

He really is a little Like That.

On that note, I'm low-key imagining that Anakin gets put on mood stabilizers by the therapist in this context, and he's doing good! He's handling his issues! He's--been captured with Obi-Wan the Younger again and his medication was confiscated.

Anakin is... not great. He's a little out of practice managing his unmedicated self, and when adding withdrawal symptoms onto that... poor Anakin.

(Poor Obi-Wan.)

I think it would be best if Anakin makes a bunch of ominous blustery comments at their captors about how they won't like what's coming to them if they take his belongings (AKA the fanny pack that has his backup pills), and then Obi-Wan just gets to watch Anakin get more and more erratic, because like. Yes, Anakin is using the Force to compensate, but unfortunately he's mostly cut off, and the stress of the situation is pushing him away from depression and into the beginnings of a manic episode.

Anakin is aware of his issues to the point where he's mostly managing, and he keeps asking Obi-Wan "would it make sense for me to [slightly deranged, very impulsive action]," and Obi-Wan realizes he's being the morality sounding board for the Hot Sith because ??? reasons?????

Eventually, Anakin does flop back in bed and dramatically throws his arm over his eyes, and says he needs his meds back, he's absolutely going to lose it, and Obi-Wan tentatively asks what kind of medication. There are levels to worry about. Mild allergy medication is one thing, but heart medication that needs to be taken every four hours is another, you know? He wants to know how much panic is appropriate.

Anakin lets him know that it's Psychiatric In Nature. Obi-Wan suddenly realizes that he really, really, really doesn't want to know what a properly erratic, unmedicated Anakin is like.

(An unmedicated Anakin really isn't nearly as bad as Obi-Wan fears. Anakin's been dealing with this for a while, and knows what his issues are and some of how to deal with them. He'd need to be running on no sleep and higher levels of stress, or to have been drugged with something meant to increase his aggression, to really lose his shit and do something worthy of Vader. RotS levels of stress and sleep deprivation is required to pull RotS levels of manic paranoid delusion.)

Tia asked:

How long does it take the Jedi in general to catch on to how like. They have opportunities. But these Sith never seem to harm any Jedi. And it’s not just like, the past timeline parts of the disaster lineage. They probably get opportunities to hurt other Jedi. Ones that are less skilled at saber work. And more importantly ones that they don’t seem weirdly interested in."

I'm not sure, really. The Jedi don't spend as much time in the Outer Rim as they could, and that's where the Team operates, so actually running into them by accident is unlikely for anyone other than Shadows.

Fortunately, it's really easy to toy with Shadows with the excuse of "I want to see how long it takes before you Fall with us."

I do want like... okay. Here’s the mental image:

Qui-Gon calls them out on being Fake Sith pretty quickly, so Ben just sort of eyes him, dramatically, and orders out "Leave us" to all non-team people. The threat of torture is implied but not stated. He gestures with wine to keep in character. He definitely makes sure Young Obi-Wan is ushered out, so it's just five time travelers, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Ahsoka's immortal force birb.

"...so, what's the reason for the farce, Obi-Wan?" "How in all the hells did you figure it out so quickly?"

(Qui-Gon cheated a bit. He could feel the broken training bond that was never properly severed due to Traumatic Death Of A Master on Ben's end)

Ben didn't realize he'd feel it! Young Obi-Wan can't feel his older self or a training bond with Anakin or Ahsoka, so why could Qui-Gon?

IDK if there would be anything on the level of crying and hugging it out, but I think it would be very funny if, every time young Obi and Anakin are getting captured by pirates or something, Ben and Qui-Gon are just having a nice afternoon tea and checking their watches to see if their respective walking bundles of neuroses are done with their adventure yet.

The Council is So Done, because Qui-Gon continues to insist that they're Not That Bad, but every time anyone other than Qui-Gon brings up the friendship, Ben laughs and makes a comment about how absolutely gullible Master Jinn is.

Obi-Wan is skeptical of his own experiences with Anakin, at least, if only because he's skeptical about Anakin's everything.

"I don't know if Vader is telling me the truth. I don't know if he's telling himself the truth. I don't think he's a great source of information even when he thinks he's being honest."

Anakin could tell Obi-Wan the full and complete truth, and Obi-Wan would worriedly put a hand to his forehead and start doing tests for hallucinations and paranoid delusions. In his defense, this is a very reasonable assumption to make with an individual like Anakin. It's just also not accurate, this time. I don’t know if Anakin hallucinates in canon without a weird inciting incident like Force Nonsense or getting drugged by the enemy, but paranoid delusion is pretty much all of RotS.

"I’m your time-traveling padawan who’s pretending to be a Sith to catch some other Sith who’re going to start a galactic civil war and those Mandalorians you like are from a clone army based on a template of Jango Fett made to serve the Jedi (because that’s totally something he’d sign up for), and one of the Sith is your grandmaster but he doesn’t seem to have fallen yet, it’s probably fine," is hard to believe.

Honestly, even if he seemed stable before saying that, which he doesn’t, it’s all real far fetched. There's a lot going on and Obi-Wan wouldn't even begin to believe it without evidence.

I've had it in my head that he and Bant and Quinlan have been gossiping about the mess for months if not years about these idiots, and at one point it became common knowledge that Ben was a Kenobi, and Bant convinced them (since the two were among the most likely in the entire Order to encounter the Fake Sith) to get a DNA sample, probably hair or blood since that's easiest so they can figure out HOW these two are related, if they are, and then there's a whole big thing.

Bant: No, no, this must be contaminated, it's coming up as Obi-Wan! Are you sure you didn't accidentally grab some of your own hairs? I know it's a little long for most of your hair, but the braid-- Quinlan: Wait, they keep claiming stuff about cloning, right? Maybe someone's a clone? Check for artificial telomeres! Bant: ...okay, so, there aren't any artificial telomeres, but the ones from apparently-Ben are... a lot shorter... um... I don't know what to do with this. It's like I have two samples from the same person, twenty years apart. Quinlan: Obi-Wan, what's that face? Why are you-- Obi-Wan: Vader told me he was a time-traveler. I thought it was the fever talking, but...

That’s how he finds out that Ben is future-him before finding out about how he’s not evil!

"Master Jinn... I think... I think the Sith controlling the Outer Rim is me from the future." "Oh, you finally figured it out?" "I AM HAVING A CRISIS HERE."

Obi-Wan, after a few hours of dazed realization, runs screaming to Quinlan and Bant like 'GUYS GUYS THIS EXPLAINS WHY VADER KEPT SAYING IT WAS WEIRD AND THAT I LOOK LIKE HIS MASTER AND THAT IT WOULD BE LIKE DATING HIS DAD.'

You know, the important stuff.

I think Qui-Gon tells him that Ben isn't evil because, like, That Sure Is A Crisis Obi-Wan's Having. He could hold off for shits and giggles, sure, but Obi-Wan’s on the edge of something Really Concerning, mentally. Best help calm him down on at least one or two things.

Obi-Wan’s maybe still a little skeptical until he confronts them over it. Because their Sith act was real good and also like. Maybe Qui-Gon just wants to believe the best of his Padawan, y’know?

Quinlan runs into Ben before Obi-Wan does, after this whole mess, and gets to observe as money changes hands and people act like sore winners about bets made for When Does Obi-Wan Figure It Out.

Anakin was saying 'soon' because he really didn't think the fever-fueled rant would be discounted as easily as it was.

Cody was of the opinion that it would take at least a few more years since they're actually pretty damn good at this whole schtick.

Quinlan: Wow, he's... going to be really disappointed that you have such a low opinion of his intelligence. Cody, gesturing at Ben: Experience. Darth Ben: ಠ_ಠ

Cody just rattles off some of the Extremely Stupid Shit that Ben's done in their time working together.

Rex cheerily offers up "You didn't even realize General Skywalker was married, sir! And they weren't subtle!" "I knew they were together, I just didn--" "Everyone knew they were together, sir. Everyone."

(Rex had the lowest opinion of their deductive capabilities. He claims it would have taken until Baby Ahsoka showed up at the Jedi Temple.)

-Once Obi-Wan accepts that they're decent people after all- Obi-Wan: Wow, Anakin, you're real good at acting unhinged! Anakin: Haha. Yeah. Thanks?

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