#i mean originally ruby dies in brief lives too

[dxliriumoftheendless]

sandman fandom how are we feeling about the season two casting call??

#i’m so hyped to see del and destruction on my screen #like omg…. #but also i’m apprehensive if wanda’s new role means we see less of her? #also since she dies in agoy i’m not sure how this works #i mean originally ruby dies in brief lives too #so will we still get the iconic barbie @ her grace scene? #i really hope so #i hope agoy isn’t too rushed too 😭😭 #not to be a classic lesbian but i love that run #the sandman #the sandman comics #dream of the endless #delirium of the endless #destiny of the endless #netflix the sandman #wanda mann #sandman #sandman comics

[powerbottomblake]

the P in Penny stands for (V8′s) Protagonist

So Monstra! Interesting name! Reminiscent of Monstro, the name of the whale from Disney’s Pinocchio (1940).

This confirms that the whale is indeed, here to complete Penny’s Pinocchio allusion. In other terms, Penny is the protagonist of this volume. The main conflict is her conflict; taking down the whale is her endgame and her turning point.

More undercut because apparently I am cursed with not knowing how to make brief and to the point meta

We know that RWBY uses the narrative beats of the original allusions (with some decisive tweaks that align with its overall hopepunk vision and themes), going as far as having direct visual parallels to the source material (Adam vs Bees fight/the original Beast vs Gaston fight anyone?). 

In the original Pinocchio movie, Pinocchio is tested three times before finally achieving becoming a little boy, and I think, likewise, Penny faces three tests before becoming a fully flledged huntress and maiden:

- Setback n°1: Pinocchio, still new to the world, the very concept of morality but eager to “do good” and willing to listen to Jiminy Cricket’s guidance, is tricked by a duo of conmen; in the movie, it’s into captivity, but the original story takes a much darker turn where the evil cat and fox - one pretending to be blind (Emerald and her perception bending Semblance) and one pretending to be a cripple (Mercury) - actually cause Pinocchio’s “death” through hanging (the author abhorred naughty children and was very...extreme about it). This is V3 Penny in a nutshell, discovering friendship and bonds and values through her own Jiminy, which is Ruby, but being set up by Mercury and Emerald to fight a losing battle that ends in her apparent “death”.

- Setback n°2: Pinocchio is embarked on a trip to Pleasure Island, an apparent playground especially catered for everyone to be happy! and have fun! but oh wait they’re actually being turned into jackasses geared for labor or sold to the Dust I mean the salt mines! You’ve guessed it, this is Penny’s V7 arc. Atlas Academy is Penny’s Pleasure Island, masquerading as a safe place where  but the veneer of Ironwood’s civility and apparent conflicted utilitarianism finally cracks to reveal how it’s ultimately a place of indoctrination, producing no actual people-serving Hunters but perfect soldiers concerned more with following orders than doing right, and where the disadvantaged and the poor are ostracized, taken advantage of and ultimately sacrificed. Pinocchio escapes Pleasure Island with Jiminy’s help, but not unscathed, having grown donkey ears and a tail. Likewise, with Ruby’s help and constant strong supportive presence, Penny proves herself fit to receive the maiden powers and escapes Atlas, but she’s still not completely free of Ironwood’s hold, still having to grapple with his and the AceOps’ manipulation tactics, still not sure what her role, who she is and how she fits really are. Which bring us to the third and last test:

- Setback n°3: the Whale. In the original movie, Gepetto gets swallowed by the whale when he tries to follow Pinocchio to Pleasure Island to save him. Pinocchio then dives in, saves Gepetto and, in the process, apparently “dies”, before finally earning his existence as a “real” little boy after that show of bravery and self-sacrifice. And I think these are the beats to look for in Penny’s V8 storyline. As of Episode 3, Penny is about to join Pietro and Maria, and there have been strong hints (and by that I mean we were basically hammered over the head) that she’s about to be “hacked” by Watts. How do the original narrative beats play out? Here’s how I think it fits:

Gepetto is swallowed by Monstro: After Penny is effectively “hacked” and by that I mean that while her soul and spirit remain unchanged, Watts hacks into the mainframe and forces her to surrender control over her body the same way we’ve seen her do (but willingly) for Pietro. Penny essentially ends up trapped inside her own body as it follows Watts’ commands. I suspect Watts will force her to take Pietro and Maria (who’s of interest to Salem by being one of the last remaining SEW, and I strongly suspect her soul/aura could be used to make more of whatever the Hound is, but this is a whole other matter to delve into in a separate post) to Salem.

Pinocchio dives in to save his father and takes down the whale: I think Pietro and/or Ruby will appeal to Penny/be in enough danger that she will snap out of Watts control on her own, effectively reclaiming her bodily autonomy on her own and then creating a mayhem big and terrible enough with her powers that will take down the whale and give everyone else enough time to escape. This will be Penny’s heroic moment and her stand. Right now, everyone is making the mistake of having people protect the maiden powers. Penny realizes what makes her a maiden is to use those powers to protect the people; it’s a decision she makes on her own that cements her as a true Maiden and a hero of the people.

Pinocchio “apparently dies” but is then granted his wish and becomes a “real” little boy: Here I think Penny takes down the whale but goes down with it. We don’t see her die again onscreen (I think it would be overkill to show her “corpse” a second time and would cheapen her dying at all. In general I am wary of the resurrection trope being overdone or coming without a cost because it severely undercuts the emotional payoff of a death), but I think by the end of V8 she’s MIA (which would make her the second person Ruby loses that way, but also the first to return to her so). I think Penny uses her powers to stall Monstra, and I’m willing to bet good money that whatever Penny does next has to do with the Gravity dust that keeps Monstra afloat. The thing with Gravity dust is that, it does push things off the ground, but it can also pull things towards it. I think whatever number Penny pulls on the gravitational field ends up pulling her down in that sillage as well.

I know the popular theory is that Penny “dies” again and Pietro sacrifices his life to resurrect her one last time, and I can see it happening, but here’s the thing: RWBY subverts popular tropes, exploring new (and more hopeful!) paths. Just look at Qrow: RWBY said, oh the mentor figure, scarred and haunted by his past? is not just another stepping stone whose death cements the hero on his journey, but becomes a character with a drive of their own, and an arc of their own, and who gets to pass the torch and live to see it burn well and bright and to the end. Gepetto lives and mourns the apparent death of his son but is there to welcome him home when, rewarded for courage and abnegation, Pinocchio earns the right to become a human boy. I think Pietro, too, will live, and get to welcome a Penny that has finally earned the right to call herself Mantle’s Protector, no longer Ironwood’s puppet (heh) nor an extension of her father but an actual established hero of the people, around whom Mantle can rally and who can work with the right people (Robyn and the Happy Huntresses) for the right reasons and outcomes, people and reasons she herself chooses and decisions she herself makes and a power she’s reclaimed and accepted and knows how to use. 

Penny’s quest has always been one of identity, slowly transforming from getting her bearings and realizing what makes her humanity is her soul, her ability to develop and deepen and protect her bonds to people and her natural empathy and kindness (V3′s ”am I worthy of calling myself human, too?”); to navigating morality, the nuances of doing good and the need to make her own calls and judgement of what is right and wrong (V7′s “who should I protect? what should I follow?”); to now, having established that she’s worthy of being one, Penny still has to find how to be a maiden, what that role entails for her and how she can finally fit as herself and into this new role, 100% reclaiming herself, her body (even from Pietro!!), her title and her mission. V8 (and maybe onwards) is the culmination of Penny’s identity journey, and I see it playing very much as an Iron Giant moment.

“You are who you choose to be,” says RWBY (and Ruby!) to Penny.

“Superman A human, and a hero, and a maiden” will be her answer.

And just like the Iron Giant, Penny saves the world, and rises again.

#rwby spoilers #rwby theories #rwby8 #penny polendina #rwby meta #I haven't written meta in. so long this has taken me embarrassingly long to assemble #also incredible how ruby is there every step of the way huh #is this nuts and dolts colored. ye #I am SO into Penny's everything rn #this volume's theme is going to be SO GOOD #identity...penny and oscar but also RUBY #anyway Penny's maiden arc is gonna walk so that Yang's turbo blasts #my meta

[rwby-grimm-guardians]

RWBY Grimm Guardians Arc 4: Re-Bonding In Mistral Ch 1

I’m back! With the first chapter of Arc 4: Re-Bonding in Mistral a.k.a. The FUCKING ARC THAT I’VE BEEN DYING TO WRITE SINCE I STARTED THIS THING!!!!

Now then, this arc is split into two parts. First part is Vol 5, which will be chapters 1-9. Second part is Vol 6, which will be chapters 10-17.

Some of the chapters WILL be semi-original (i.e.: Chapters 1, 4, 8, and 9). With that out of the way, let’s start.

This first chapter is, obviously, Ruby, Qrow, Oscar, Evergreen, Summer, and team JNPR returning to Patch for some rest.

As usual, please give constructive criticism and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Surprise. Still own nothing.

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

(4:48 PM)

(In Patch…)

“Yes, Tai. We’re almost there.” Summer said into the scroll. “Trust me. We’re only a few minutes away.” The group looked at Ruby’s mother as said woman groaned. “Taiyang, for the last time. We’re almost home. Trust me, please.” The former STRQ leader said. “Thank you. See you then.” Summer then hung up, before letting out a sigh, “Was he really like this? Even back then?” Qrow nodded, “After you...legally died, yeah. That only got intensified with the Fall of Beacon.”

Ruby looked at her scroll, before smiling, “Yang’s made it to Mistral.” Summer and Qrow both sighed with relief, with the former saying, “Thank the maker.” “Has she encountered any of your friends yet?” The former bandit asked. The red cloaked teenager shook her head, “Not from what I know. She might encounter Weiss and her mom when searching for her own mom.” The former STRQ leader sighed, “I hope THAT goes well.”

Qrow nodded in agreement, knowing that Raven would probably be stubborn. He then looked at his former leader, “How are your eyes doing?” “Still good. Nothing else’s changed...yet.” She responded. Both of Summer’s eyes had Grimm-like red sclera with her initial silver eyes, though neither had shown any signs of pain. Summer even used her silver eyes and that remained unchanged. Right now, she was instructed by Anna Pine to observe them and their behavior for the time being.

After a few more minutes, the group arrived at the Xiao-Long-Rose Family Home, which Ruby proceeded to walk right in, shouting, “Dad? We’re home!” Upon hearing her voice for the first time in a while, Zwei immediately rushed out from who knew where and almost tackled the red cloaked teenager to the floor, yeeping and licking her cheek as he did so. “Missed you too, Zwei!” Ruby laughed, before the corgi leapt off and ran towards the rest of the group.

Summer picked him up, scratching her ear with a smile. “How’ve you been, hun?” She asked, receiving another yip. Chuckling, the former STRQ leader nodded and gave the corgi a brief nuzzle, “Good. Would you like to meet some new friends?” Zwei nodded, before the taller woman brought him over to Oscar and Evergreen. Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora looked at Ruby and Qrow with understandably confused expressions.

“While it’s easy for him to understand us, Summer can understand and speak with Zwei due to her semblance.” The former bandit chuckled. Pyrrha tilted her head, “Does she remember that?” Ruby sighed with a disheartened expression, “She does not, along with most of her childhood still. And she’s understandably frustrated with it.” While Oscar was having a genuinely enjoyable time getting to know the corgi, Evergreen seemed...slightly intimated.

And while Summer noticed it, she didn’t question it, figuring the headmaster possibly had a phobia of canines...or allergy.

With that, she set Zwei down, who then rushed back to Ruby. The group was then greeted by a VERY exhausted Taiyang. “Gods, Tai.” Qrow sighed with a smirk. “Did you run a marathon when you heard we were home?” The blonde man said, “Just hug me, you ass.” as he was catching his breath. The taller of the two wrapped his arms around Taiyang with a chuckle, with said man sighing, “I missed you, dude.” Qrow nodded, “Same here. I hope everything was somewhat peaceful here.”

“Mostly, yeah.” Taiyang nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He lifted his youngest daughter off the floor in a hug, smiling, “How’s my baby girl doing?” “Healing well.” Ruby chuckled, hugging her father in return. The blonde man then set her down, before noticing a couple new faces. “I see I got two new friends to meet.” He said. Summer smiled, “And adopt. But only as a godfather, according to Anna.” She then introduced Oscar, explained that he was Anna Pine’s daughter.

Taiyang nodded, “Your friend who’s a doctor in Mistral, right?” His former leader nodded with a chuckle, “Same one.” Ruby and Jaune then introduced Pyrrha, who, along with the rest of team JNPR, was very amused by the blonde man. “Ah, is she your girlfriend, young man?” Taiyang asked Jaune, both teasingly and seriously. Jaune and Pyrrha blushed furiously, before the younger blonde stuttered, “We’re...still kinda trying to figure that out. Taking slow steps for now.”

Everyone gave them disbelieved looks. Summer rubbed her eyes, before saying, “Let’s head inside. I’m sure you all want some dinner, yeah?” Pyrrha and Jaune both mouthed “Thank you.” at the elder Rose, before receiving a comforting nod. Soon, the teenagers went inside the building, along with Zwei and Evergreen. Taiyang and the headmaster gave each other a recognized nod and a small smile. “I’ll explain as much as I can with you privately.” The while haired man said, heading to the building.

After the group went inside, Qrow pointed at his former teammates, before heading in as well. Summer sighed, knowing that the former bandit wanted her and Taiyang to talk in person. She then turned, “Tai-...” She was cut off and caught off guard as the blonde man hugged her tightly. “I missed you...so fucking much…” Taiyang said, his voice cracking and tears staining the taller woman’s shoulder as he buried his face into it. Something inside the woman cracked, before she tightened her hold on him.

“I missed you too, Taiyang.” Summer whispered. She began rubbing the blonde man’s back as he choked out, “I...I thought I lost you-...!” “Tai… Look at me…” The taller woman said, briefly breaking the embrace and holding the blonde man’s face in her hands. “I’m here. Okay? I’m here and alive…” It took a few moments for Taiyang to process what was happening, but he eventually nodded, sniffing and wiping away his tears. “Sorry…” He mumbled.

The former STRQ leader gave a reassuring smile, before kissing Taiyang’s forehead, “It’s okay, hun. I’d react in the same way in your position…” The two then looked at each other, before slowly kissing one another. One kiss turned to two. Then to three. And then five, before the couple gently broke the kiss for air. After a few moments of silence, Taiyang wrapped her arms around his former leader, sighing, “I missed you, Sum.” Summer hummed with a small smile, “You too, Tai.”

He then pulled back and looked at the woman’s eyes, “They’ve changed.” Nodding, Summer said, “Yeah. They’re fine for now though. No pain.” “Good. They look nice.” The blonde man said. The former STRQ leader blushed and smiled, playfully scratching the man’s beard, “Thank you. You should keep the beard.” Taiyang grinned, rubbing the back of his head, “It looks nice, yeah?” The two then shared a laugh, before Taiyang explained to Summer what she had missed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Meanwhile, inside the living room...)

“They look happy.” Evergreen hummed, sipping his cup of coffee as he looked out the window. Ruby and Qrow nodded in agreement, though the former bandit then mumbled, “Gods, I hope Tai and Rae can have a somewhat tolerant reunion.” The headmaster looked at the red-eyed man, “Does he know the truth on why she left?” “No. Hell, I’m not sure if he’d even understand.” The former bandit answered. “Then again… I was like that too until Raven told me herself. So who knows?”

“The same might happen with Yang.” His niece said. “She wants to believe that her mother left for a just cause...and she and I trust Mom immensely.” Ruby then sighed, “She wants to hear the truth from her though, rather than someone else.” Qrow nodded, “I can understand that.” The young leader bit her lip. She wasn’t sure if she should say this, but decided to do so anyway.

Hesitantly, she said, “She...wants to be able to call her ‘Mom’...” “She wants to...view both Summer and Raven as our moms.” She explained.

Qrow turned to his niece, shocked. “I wanna be able to call your sister...‘Mom’ as well...and view her as my other mom when I meet her too.” Ruby said hesitantly, grabbing onto her cloak. Suddenly, Qrow felt his initial shock turn into joy as he smiled, ruffling the red cloaked teenager’s hair, “I hope that happens. I really do, kiddo.”

He was sure it’d mean the world to both Summer and Raven if Yang and Ruby called them both their moms. And he prayed that would happen soon. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that’s it for the first chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it.

Now, I know I showed Taiyang x Summer here, but...Rosebird is going to be the main ship. I just...need to try to do that in a realistic way.

Next, we’ll be seeing what Weiss and Willow are up to...as they unintentionally meet a certain bandit leader.

#ruby rose #rwby #rwby fanfiction #rwby au #grimm guardians au #Summer Rose #taiyang xiao long #taiyang x summer #brief but still there #qrow branwen #rwby ozpin #Oscar Pine #Jaune Arc #pyrrha nikos #rwby arkos #lie ren #nora valkyrie

[sootcloak]

Day One: Foster

For a Future yet Unseen

Warnings need to be applied before going on to the piece itself; This one goes to some dark places in general, and depicts a character struggling with suicidal tendencies, and graphically describes injury and death.

Roughly 1600 words. AO3 Link

I’m not going to put this on character tags for the reasons above, so be aware that this work involves dialogue from G’raha in case you don’t want to read anything which involves him.

   “What is it?” Her hair, tangled and greasy, bobs as she turns her head to look back at the Seventh Heaven. Panting in the threshold of the door, G’raha Tia holds up one finger. A moment passes, and he catches his breath.

    “You are to leave, then? With so much yet undone? Even Ser Estinien has-”

    “Spare me the high and mighty speech,  Exarch .” The lalafellin woman cuts him off, voice sharp, metallic and bitter. “I answered your call, aided your order while the Archons were away, and worked to reign in the Tolophoroi because it aligned with my needs. Now, I return to my work.”

    G’raha reels a moment at her tone, then gathers himself, a familiar restraint creeping into his words.

    “Your work is important - hunting heads so as to protect those less fortunate than ourselves. But you are, to put it lightly, overqualified. Your skills are needed here, joined with ours.” He extends one hand, ruby eyes unflinchingly gazing down to her.

    “No, they’re not.” She breaks eye contact, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “And besides - if and when I am truly needed, I can be called by a number of means. Azem should-”

    “Do not call them that.” The sternness in his voice catches her, emerald eyes matching his for just a second.

    “Your hero should be able to summon me whenever they please. Besides, best not to let you get used to me. Once all this is done, the Empire in the grave, Fandaniel put down?” Her voice softens and she pauses a beat.

    “After that, I’ve only one task left to me.” She glances up at the sky, awash in rainbow hues, ambient aether built up in colorful clouds. The silence sits there, uncomfortable and weighty. The thin crowds mill about their business, the air humming with soft waning activity.

    G’raha steps slowly from the pub, until he’s a couple paces from her.

    “Vavara, there’s more to life than the duties we must undertake. More for us here than the purposes we were made for.” His voice is low and gentle, but insistent - a warm undertow.

    “Don’t go trying to impart wisdom to me. I don’t deserve it and I don’t particularly like it, either. I chose this path. Let it guide me. The only conclusion acceptable after all I’ve done is to blast clean all I’ve stained this world with. The Weapons project is dead and buried, and once I’m sure none of it remains in the Empire proper…” Her hand brushes against her sternum, a grim air washing over her.

    “After that, only this body, my weapons, and my core will remain. I will not have it misused again. Not now, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand after my aether has dried up and this body has begun to rust.” She casts a brief glance at him, expression briefly softening as their eyes meet. “Oh come now, you’re an old man. Older even than me. You’re not so naive to believe I’d  want  to ‘live’ in this shell for eternity, are you?”

    “No. I know. But that does not mean we are without options-”

    “G’raha…”

    “Allagan cloning technology shows great promise, and while none of your original body remains in a condition we could use as a base for a newly grown body, we could see if there is a way to-”

    “G’raha.”

    “-restore your aether to a living form, rather than a primarily magitek one. Or perhaps we could simply make your life in a magitek body less uncomfortable, experiment with other kinds of crystal and stone. Try variations on the technology you’ve-”

    “Stop.” She pulls her cap from her head. Knotted locks tumbles out from beneath it in waves of gray and sandy brown, over her shoulders and down to her hips.

    “I don’t think I can face death as I have again.” She says. Softly, so quiet one can barely hear the metallic ringing in her voice. Her eyes trace upwards to the lights above.

    “But once? And then to bid everyone farewell, knowing I’ve done my part? That I had helped to raise a better tomorrow, quietly and from a distance? To know that I’ve made amends. I don’t need to live long, or happily ever after. To just know that would be enough. But if I stay, I will face it again and again. More viscerally than any of you have ever known.

    “I have died ; I was shot through the chest and lost my heart and half my ribs - I was saved, barely, but I felt my life leaving me. No healer could repair that foul of a wound. They worked around the clock to keep me just on the threshold of death’s door. I choked on my own blood and bile for days as my aether was moved to my core. Drowning and experiencing my soul being torn from my body, all at once. It was not pleasant.

    “I was scorched by artillery shelling when someone betrayed my position to the Imperials. Torched and thrown this way and that, until barely anything remained save for charred bones and fragments of hardened sinew. I felt every moment, every pounding detonation; My aether safe in my core and preserved to experience it all.

    “I was dashed to pieces in Rhalgr’s Reach, my head removed from my shoulders by the Crown Prince’s lackey. Wasn’t even worth his attention. But I still felt it. Felt as all my senses went black -no, worse, they were just  gone  - and all my bearings were lost. Not even  time  held sway in the abyssal depths of that crystal without any sensation to anchor me. For what could have been a dozen seconds or a dozen years, I waited, hopeful that I  wouldn’t be found - but destroyed - so as to just end the misery then and there.

    “And again, this time I’d grown clever enough, fast enough, viscous enough, and strong enough to challenge the beast at Ghimlyt. Lost my arm, those last few organs I’d had, and my legs there.  And again, I had to suffer through  every  moment of pain, every pulse of agony. Unable to do aught but  watch  as he nearly cut down the one, the ONE person I’d begun to place any stock in."

    “..."

    “I… I’m not strong enough to die again and have to live with it for…” Her voice stalls, eyes distant and posture stiff.

    “I think. I think I’d just like to be done, truth be told. There’s not much left of me. But a professional has standards, and I’m not given to leave a job half-done.” Her face remains fixed on the clouds of aether above, in their myriad colors and shapes, the night sky awash in a tapestry of foggy, rainbow hues. As the crowd thins and she stands by the lamp, G’raha says nothing. He just takes another step closer, and looks up at the sky besides her.

    “If you mean to finish what you’ve set out to do…”

    “I’ll have to face it once or twice more. I… I know.”

    “Had I but known you were struggling so much, I’d-”

    “What, you would have called down from your tower to  save me  ? I did not ask for your pity.” A trembling anger briefly flashes through her. “I  chose  this path. I’ll walk it, don’t think to drag me off it now.”

    “No, I don’t think I could. I was told I should save my breath - that you always depart after you’ve decided you’re ‘no longer needed’ . That no one had been able to convince you to stay. None of the Scions, or Archons, or Warriors who had reached out to you could convince you that you had a place here.” G’raha’s eyes slowly shift from one star to the other.

    “Because I don't.” The words are a weak, half-hearted hiss.

    “Perhaps not. But whether or not there is a place for you here, you need not make your journey alone. Whatever end awaits you, you need not face it with  your  strength and resolve  alone .”

    “I’m more than capable of-”

    “I know. I wasn’t suggesting that you are weak, or that your will is lacking.”

    “...”

    “If at the end of the road, you find your journey has ended, that there is naught else left for you save your duty? Then in that too, I would walk with you. To ensure you may rest at ease, knowing that you have indeed played your role. But pray, give me - give us - a chance to repay all that you have done for  us . You have answered our calls, our prayers. I wish to show you the future you have long labored to create.” He stretches a moment, and turns back the way he came. He glances back over at her.

    “Though you have been laboring in the dark for longer than I’d feared, there is yet hope. If you’ll let us show you, we would be proud to walk alongside you. But the choice is yours. If you feel you must face the final days of your journey alone, then I will not stand in your way.” He takes a deep breath. His eyes break from her, jaw set, walks into the Seventh Heaven, and disappears from sight.

    Vavara’s hand reaches for her sternum, the resonant clicking of the gears just beneath the surface rhythmically vibrating through her coat, her gauntlet. Her core burns in her chest, cold and stinging like alcohol on a wound. She tears her eyes away from the sky, and looks over her shoulder at the door, left slightly ajar. Her thumb brushes the brim of her cap, still held in her hand.

    “Forgive my cowardice…” She whispers.

    She pulls her hat over her head, the brim low near her eyes.

    She wrestles with the strap of her bag, the rifle and spear strapped to it clinking.

    And she turns on her heel.

#vavara kir aceris #ffxivwrite2021 #aegis' writing archive

[littlemisssquiggles]

For the longest time I’ve been saying the wizard and the maidens share some sort of bond. Even before penny got the powers I wanted Oscar to talk to the old maiden, as like the wise old witch giving advise to the young warlock After v7 I made a theory that Oscar and penny would practice and learn to use there new-found powers together I mean, there’s gotta be some sort connection between them right? They share the same power, a power the original wizard literally gave the original maidens

Hello Mia. As far as I’m aware given the context of the canon, despite a Wizard originally creating a Maiden, there is no real connection between a Wizard and Maiden at least from a relationship standpoint.

Despite the Hermit sharing a friendship with the original Four Maidens, this dynamic doesn’t seem to have carried over to his successors. I understand that you would like for Penny and Oscar to have a connection but, according to the canon, they don’t. As I was telling an anon-ninja who brought up this subject, outside of their shared bonds with Ruby Rose, Penny and Oscar share no direct relationship with each other. They are not even friends. Allies in arms who fight on the same side (for now anyways), sure. But nothing more than that.

Penny wouldn’t even have the maiden magic if she hadn’t “pilfered” it from Fria the former Winter Maiden, according the Ace Ops. Penny was never even supposed to become the Winter Maiden yet she received the powers by circumstance. As interesting as it is that Penny---a sentient lifeform--- did become a Maiden, I’ll admit that I’m personally not a fan of how the showrunners chose to portray the Polendina girl’s rise to maidenhood. Penny becoming a Maiden feels almost forced since unlike Winter Schnee, she never shared any ties to the original Winter Maiden.

I remember that following the V7 finale, other RWBY theorists began speculating that Fria was meant to represent the Blue Fairy in Penny’s Pinocchio story and while I quite liked that interpretation, it doesn’t help rationalize what was done in the show. At least in the Pinocchio fairytale, Pinocchio had a relationship with the Blue Fairy who watched over him and even came to his aid at certain points to help steer him on the right path to “being a good boy”.

If Penny was meant to be chosen as Fria’s successor then where was this kind of bond? The rule of thumb for the succession of the maiden powers was that maidens chose themselves. The only exception is when the power was forcibly taken away like in the case of both Cinder Fall and Raven Branwen. Penny had no real bond with Fria yet…she was made to be her successor over Winter Schnee who was actually shown to spend time with Fria and even grow to care for her. While I understand that Winter’s time with Fria was only done as an act of grooming and the General’s attempt at manipulating how the cycle worked. Nonetheless, I wish the show had done a better job at building up Penny becoming a Maiden.

Imagine if…as a means of doubling his chances at ensuring that the Maiden powers went to one of his own operatives, Ironwood had assigned both Winter and Penny to establish a relationship with Fria. However this info was left unknown to both girls until Winter discovered that her and Penny were being pit against one another as rivals for the Maiden power and rather than take her disdain of this method out on the General, instead Winter absolves what little friendship she had developed with Penny during their time working together and accepted her role as her rival which hurt Penny who genuinely saw Winter as a friend.

Imagine if…we had actually gotten moments of Penny bonding with Fria and having a stronger connection to her than Winter? Or perhaps Fria, who never got the chance to have children of her own as a Maiden, grew to care for both girls as her surrogate daughters leading to her being upset by how their rivalry was affecting them emotionally.

Instead of the “out of the blue” way the show had Fria just hand over the Maiden powers to Penny---an absolute stranger she had never met until the moment she died…it would’ve been better for them to have had a bond with a Maiden actually passing on the power to a person they grew to care about as a opposed to the powers being “stolen”---again!

Because although Penny didn’t take the Maiden power from Fria by force…she did technically kind of steal it from Winter which is sad since it follows this weird trend that the showrunners have done with the succession from old Maiden to the next.

The powers keep getting hijacked. With the Fall Maiden, Cinder killed the original and stole her magic. With the Spring Maiden, Raven killed the original maiden and stole her magic. With the Winter Maiden, while Penny didn’t kill Fria---at least this maiden died naturally due to old age, Penny still technically stole the powers since as I’ll reiterate, she was never supposed to be the Winter Maiden. That role was meant to be Winter’s and Penny took that from her. So it’s kinda like the same trend. At least, in my opinion.

“.....After v7 I made a theory that Oscar and penny would practice and learn to use there new-found powers together I mean, there’s gotta be some sort connection between them right? They share the same power, a power the original wizard literally gave the original maidens...”

I mean… look at Oz. Oz was the Wizard before Oscar and as far as we’re made aware, he never had a relationship with Amber (the Maiden for his respective vault) either. As the canon shows, despite a Wizard creating a Maiden, their successors don’t share in this relationship. The Wizards will probably watch over the Maidens to ensure that they aren’t attacked but…other than that, the wizards and maidens are free to live their own lives never truly needing to be involved in each other’s respective lives.

As a matter of fact, at first, I was of the opinion that the reason why a wizard doesn’t have a direct relationship with a maiden is due to the possibility of the maiden magic returning to the wizard in the event of a maiden’s death. However this theory was more or less debunked in the show since Amber was killed in front of Ozpin and instead of the remaining half of her magic going to him, it sought out its other half and went straight to Cinder Fall. Still makes me curious as to what would happen in the event of a maiden at full power dying in front of wizard. Oh well.

Going back to Oscar and Penny---since you’re like the fourth person to bring this topic to me, I have to say that I don’t quite understand what the sudden fixation is with Penny and Oscar having a connection in the canon. I understand that some fans might like this pair for their own reasons and might want them to have an actual friendship (which is fine) but…that’s not the case in the show.

This fact isn’t really helped either by the notion that Penny was never meant to be a Maiden in the first place and essentially did what all  the other succeeding Maidens before her did---which was take the Maiden powers for herself when it was meant to go to someone else. I know it’s sad to say this about Pen-Pen since she is a hero (and a likeable character) but…she did take the Winter Maiden powers from Winter and while for the greater good, that detail still remains true.

Point is, you cannot sell me on the concept of their needing to be some sort of connection or bond between Penny and Oscar, not even with the point that he’s a wizard and she’s a maiden since…admittedly, these two freckly-frecks have no relationship in the canon and their doesn’t seem to be a push for one either . Despite Penny becoming a Maiden, her relationship with Oscar is still the same as it was. Respectful but not close.

And he’s not the only wizard with this dynamic with a maiden either. As I mentioned before, Oz wasn’t close to Amber and she was the Maiden for his vault. So why should Oscar have to share a bond with Penny just because she’s a maiden. It doesn’t change the established relationship they already have which is as acquaintances who fight for the same side (for now).

Penny may be a maiden now but she’s not the “magical girl” who Oscar is meant to have a deep meaningful bond that transcends magic with. That deep connection appears to be going to Ruby. Oscar’s true rose.

And undoubtedly, this connection is much stronger than anything the show could’ve done with Penny and Oscar as a maiden and a wizard. Oscar and Ruby share many similarities too. Not only do they both share in the burden of being placed with great power and responsibility despite their age as the two youngest members of their respective teams but unlike a maiden who is the byproduct of a wizard’s magic, a wizard and a silver eyed warrior are the byproducts of a God created to aid humanity.

A Maiden is a wizard’s creation. However it was the God of Light who first created a wizard to be the champion for humanity to unite the world while also creating the silver eyed warriors to be the living antithesis to the soulless Creatures of Grimm.

As a Wizard of Light and a Silver Eyed Warrior respectively---Oscar and Ruby share a divine power as well---they are connected by the same light from the God of Light.

According to the Lost Fable, magic was a gift from the Gods and it was through the God of Light’s power that a wizard is able to retain his immortality and keep reincarnating. As for a Silver Eyed Warrior, according to Maria and Ruby’s brief conversation from RWBY V6CH8, the Silver Eyes originated from the God of Light who shared in the same unique ability.

That being said, while Penny may share in the maiden magic which was created by one of Oscar’s predecessors, Oscar shares the God of Light’s power with Ruby and unlike Penny, he actually has a genuine wholesome relationship with Ruby as she is seen as his closest companion at the moment (more so than Oz since Oscar seems to actually like Ruby which is the least I can say regarding his feelings toward Oz).

I’m not quite sure what kind of answer you were hoping from me, fam but that’s as much as this squiggle meister can say on this particular subject matter. I can’t say that there should be a connection between Oscar and Penny since…there is nothing of the sort established in the canon.

Oscar and Penny have no real relationship outside of being teammates fighting for the same cause and even if you bring up the fact that they are wizard and maiden, that detail has neither affected nor actively changed the dynamic they already have in canon. Which is…nothing or rather not much? Again, they are colleagues at best but not really friends at worst.

It’s kind of difficult to sell me on a product that doesn’t really exist, mate. As I’ll say again, I know some folks really want Oscar and Penny to have a connection and nothing against that. That’s cool. However…canonically---in the show, as it is right now as of this volume and recent episode--- it’s not there. No other way I can say it.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

#squiggles answers: rwby #oscar pine #penny polendina #ruby rose #rwby theories #rwby volume 8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 theories #miaicefyre #squiggles answers

[marvelslut16]

Like a virgin

Synopsis: (Y/N) is an old college buddy of Sam’s, and after they meet up for the first time in a few years she joins him and Dean on their hunts. Your old feelings for Sam fade and stronger new feelings surface for the older Winchester.

Word count: 2271

Warnings: Swearing, talk of death, alcohol(?), brief unwanted advances, slight nsfw moments. I think that’s it. Oh, and talks of virginity and the hymen. 

Authors note: I just finished writing this and it’s like 4 in the morning so I’m sorry if it sucks. Also, this takes place in season 4 right after Dean comes back from Hell. I took a brief conversation between Sam and Dean from the episode monster movie where Dean claims to be a virgin, hence the title. Absolutely no hate to Genevieve Cortese (Padalecki) for the one offensive comment I make about Ruby’s appearance. 

You had bumped into the Winchester’s when they came to your house to ask about the mysterious deaths that were happening in your neighborhood. Dean came to your door first claiming to be from the FBI, but his partner soon followed. Your face went from a courtesy smile to straight anger, which was rolling off of you in waves.

“Shit,” Sam muttered as he stepped up onto your porch. 

“Do you get kicks from impersonating federal agents?” you glared at him. “Last time I checked that’s illegal Samuel. You would think you’d know that though, considering you were pre law.” 

Sam Winchester, your Chemistry partner for a semester, and eventual best friend. He was your first real friend at college and made sure to include you when he went out with his friends. He started dating Jessica and that's when you realized that you had feelings for him, always too late. The longer he was with Jessica you realized that she was a good and genuine person, that they were destined for each other. Sam asked you for advice on how to propose to her, because ‘you’re a girl right?’ Let's just say you were not amused by his phrasing. But then Jessica died and Sam left without a word. 

“(Y/N/N), I can explain,” he promised. 

“Two and a half years of radio silence warrants more than just some empty promise that’s supposed to make me feel better,” you crossed your arms and let out a huff. He may have been taller than you, but in that moment he had never felt so small before. Not even with his father. 

You begrudgingly let the two into your house, well your parents house, to explain. They swore up and down that they were supernatural hunters and they were going from state to state killing monsters. They said that there was some vengeful spirit in your town going after atheists, some dead priest or something. You did the only logical thing and laughed in their faces, because that was beyond ridiculous. Sure you believe in spirits and such, but they said that witches and vampires were real too. 

“You don’t want to tell me the truth?” you were fuming. “Fine, but don’t insult my intelligence by lying to my face.” 

“It’s the truth,” Dean said gruffly. 

“God, you’re both delusional,” you throw your hands up in the air and let out a humorless chuckle. 

“I told you back in college what my family did,” Sam desperately tried to get you to believe.

“We were wasted when you told me that story Sam!” you practically yell, good thing your parents weren’t home.

“We’ll take you with,” Sam jumped up from the couch and walked over to you, grabbing your wrists. 

“Sammy,” Dean warns from his seat. 

“Please (Y/N), you’ve gotta believe me,” he gave you his perfected puppy dog gaze. 

“Fine, but you better not be lying to me Sam,” you sigh and lean into his chest. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too beaker,” he teases you.

“I broke one beaker!” you defend.

“Yeah, right after Dr. Keck had just told the class to be careful while carrying them,” he laughed at the memory and you couldn’t help laughing with him. Something felt different this time around, like everything would work out the way it was supposed to.

But that was just under two years ago, and nothing has changed between you and Sam since. He even said you were like his sister to some demon named Ruby. And if that weren't insulting enough, he left you with Bobby after Dean died before running off again. Dean, poor sweet Dean, you missed him more with every day that passed. The two of you had gotten close over beers after hunts, he was different from Sam. A good different.  

On the bright side, Dean was brought back from Hell and you’re out getting drinks with him again. But Sam was running off with that damn demon. 

“A demon Dean, he’s fucking a demon,” you say over what you think is your fifth beer. “Have you noticed how her lips are too big for her face?”

“I’m a virgin,” Dean says thoughtfully to himself, completely ignoring you.

“Excuse me?” you laugh and almost spit out your beer. 

“Well, look at me. I mean, I came back from the furnace without any of my old scars, right?” Dean tries to convince you. “No bullet wounds, knife cuts, none of the off-angle fingers from all of the breaks- I mean, my hide is as smooth as a baby's bottom. Which leads me to conclude, sadly, that my virginity is intact.”

“That’s not how that works,” your laugh is so powerful it shakes your entire body. It's so loud that a few customers turn to glare at the two of you. 

“I've been re-hymenated,” he insists, before taking another swig of his beer. 

“No amount of trips trips to Hell could ‘re-hymenate’ you,” you shake your head and take a giant sip of your beer. 

“Why are you so hung up on Sammy anyway?” he changes the subject as if you two never strayed from the original topic. 

“I don’t know,” you sigh, knocking back the rest of your drink. “Maybe it’s because he was my first friend in school, or maybe it’s because he was so smart without being a stuck up ass. Or maybe it was because he was dependable when it came to partner work-”

“So he was loyal to a fault, dependable, and your friend?” Dean cuts you off. “Are you explaining a dog or Sam?”

“He does do some killer puppy-dog eyes,” you scrunch your nose as you imagine them. The song in the bar switches to one that you like and you get excited. “I’m gonna go dance!” you leave before he can respond. 

You're awkwardly dancing to the music when you feel a body press into your back. You immediately assume that it’s Dean and giggle at his 

“Hey there little lady,” a voice that definitely didn’t belong to Dean whispered into your ear. You let out a little squeak as you tried to push away from the man. He was stronger than you, but your hunting skills should have helped you get away. And they would have if you weren't so damn tipsy. 

“Hey!” Dean’s deep voice rattles off the walls of the bar as he angrily walks up to you two. “Let her go.”

“Or what?” the man taunts. 

“Or you won’t live long enough to find out,” he growls. 

“You her brother or something?” the man laughs. You see the rage on Dean’s face grow as you wait for him to agree with the man. 

“No, she’s my girlfriend,” Dean’s voice raises along with his anger. “So I suggest you take your hands off her.” 

You’re heart pounds as you make eye contact with Dean, no one had ever stood up to a guy for you. Not even Sam had, surprisingly. As the man released you, finally, all you could think about is how your lips would feel on yours. So that’s exactly what you do. 

You just throw your arms around his neck and pull his lips to yours, they mould perfectly together. He tastes like beer and and the slice of cherry pie you two split earlier. The faint smell of gunpowder and car oil washes over you, and you feel completely calm for the first time in a long time. The kiss is a perfect mix of the fiery passion you two feel for each other in this moment, and slow and savory to help ingrain the feeling of the others lips in your brains.

A low whistle coming from a bar patron causes you to break apart. And when you do, you can see that the entire bar is staring at the two of you. Dean grabs your hand and drags you outside. He pins you to the door of the Impala and kisses you again, this time his tongue invades your mouth. You moan into his mouth and he kisses you with more fervor. You groan as he pulls away, but he quickly helps you into the car before running to his side. You spend the entire ride back to the motel cuddled up to his side and kissing his neck, he almost runs off the road once or twice. 

You’re ripping at each others shirts before the motel door can close behind you. He takes your shirt off before kissing you and gently leading you back to his bed, he shared a room with Sam while you got your own. You were busy taking off his many layers of shirts as he was admiring your shirtless form.

“Wait,” he pants and pulls away as you kiss him again. He gets up and paces the room, running his hands through his hair causing it to stick up in different directions.

“Why?” you pout. You start to get self conscious, do you not live up to the other girls Dean had been with? “Am I that bad?”

“No, God no,” his lust-blown green orbs meet your worried ones. “You’re perfect (Y/N), and that’s the problem. I don’t want this to be a one time thing to get your mind off of Sammy or the guy in the bar.”

“It isn’t a one time thing,” you admit softly, standing up and walking towards him. “Somewhere along the way I forgot about Sam and all I saw was you. I was just too scared to admit it, and then you were gone. It was easier to tell myself that it was always Sam instead of you.”

He doesn’t respond, not verbally at least He lunges at you and his mouth attacks yours. His lips detach themselves from your lips and gently kiss down you neck as he leads you back to the bed. 

--

You wake up the the sun seeping in through the cheap motel curtains. You blink away the sleep in your eyes and see yours and Dean’s clothes thrown haphazardly throughout the room. You smile softly before cuddling back up to his bare chest, his anti-possession tattoo stands out on his blemish free torso. You lightly trace the lines of the said tattoo, causing Dean to groan softly before shifting and pulling you closer to him. You're crazy messed up life had never felt so good before. 

You must have fallen back asleep because next thing you know, a loud what the Hell is waking you up. You blink quickly to adjust to the light, and see Sam standing at the foot of the bed. You quickly make sure that the sheet is pulled up high enough to cover your chest while slinking back behind Dean, who is now sitting up. 

“My best friend and my brother,” Sam says incredulously, reminding you a bit of Ross from friends when he finds out about Chandler and Monica. Maybe Dean was your Chandler. No, he is definitely a Joey. 

“It’s not like that Sammy,” Dean defends. God, that extra raspy morning voice is so sexy. 

“Not like that? Not like that?” Sam’s voice rises with every word. “I come back this morning to see my best friend and brother lying naked in his bed with your clothes everywhere. And it's somehow not like that? I come back-”

“From fucking a demon,” you roll your eyes. Both Winchesters turn to look at you; Dean in shock and Sam in rage. “I said that out loud, didn't I?”

“Yeah sweetheart, ya did,” Dean gives you a wink before turning back to Sam. “Sammy it’s different with (Y/N), she took my virginity.”

“Why?” I sigh, slamming my head into the flat space between his shoulder blades. 

“What?” Sam asks, more aggravated and confused than before.

“I came back from Hell, I was re-hymenated,” Dean says for what feels like the thousandth time in the past twelve hours. 

“Dean,” you groan into his back, wrapping your arms around his bare waist. 

“Dean, maybe angels can pull you out of hell, but no one could do that,” Sam frowns at his older brother. 

“Virgin or not, it’s different with (Y/N),” he leans back slightly in your arms. “I never want to let her go.”

“So don’t,” you whisper into his ear before nibbling on the lobe. 

“We’re gonna need our own room from now on,” he turns his head to capture your lips in another passionate kiss. 

“Can you guys not?” Sam asks in disgust. The only response he receives is an annoyed grunt coming from you. “I don’t fully support this, Dean’s going to hurt you.”

“I’ll give her a safe word,” Dean smirks as he pulls away from your mouth. He slowly eases you back onto the bed, hoping that Sam gets the idea and leaves. 

“(Y/N), listen to me-” Sam starts.

“I’m finally happy Sam,” you can feel the blood rush to your head as you grow angry. “I was a mess after Dean died, but you wouldn’t know that. You dumped me at Bobby’s and then ran off with the demon. Just let me be happy.”

“If it’s really what you want,” Sam says unsurely. You would respond with an affirmation if you could, but Dean’s lips were already back on yours, this time with the hint of a smile. Dean grabbed a pillow you aren’t on and chucks it, with surprising accuracy for someone not paying attention, at Sam. After Sam gets smacked in the face, he takes the hint and leaves, finally leaving you and Dean alone again.

permanent tags:  @crimson-knuckled-queen​ @rexorangecouny

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural x reader #supernatural fanfic #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #dean winchester #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x female reader #sam winchester x friend!reader #supernatural season 4 #supernatural imagine

[fandomflail]

title: Recognition (7/8)

rating: M

summary: Soulmate trope AU. Set in a world where humans and elves coexist.

a/n: The whole fic has been edited, and this Chapter was posted somewhat 2 years ago, but I’ve now revamped it, it’s twice it’s original length and basically, just different. so yes, this is a legit update! and chapter is currently being edited so we’re almost there! Also, thank you kmomof4 for your encouragement. And galadriel from Ao3 for reading everything I’ve ever written and leaving a comment. This one is for ya’ll. 

Past Chapters: on AO3

_____________________________

CHAPTER 7: Rattled

When she had first laid eyes on him, there was no mistaking Killian was an elf of quality lineage. With his sharp jaw line, piercing eyes, and tipped ears, he was the embodiment of a dashing elf.

However the night he came to pick her up for dinner, less than a week after the embassy dinner debacle, Emma would have never have guessed the man was elf.

His hair was artfully mussed, covering his distinctive pointed ears. He was dressed in a dark leather jacket, a dark blue dress shirt and dark jeans. Perhaps it was the jeans, a vintage human clothing that was all the rage across fashion spreads, that cinched the look, but Emma had been stunned into silence when she’d seen him.

He simply flashed her a cocky grin, as if he knew exactly how good he looked. “I know, Swan,” he had said, even though she hadn’t said a word.

She glared at him, but the effect was lost when she dove in for a kiss to show her appreciation.

“Seriously? You’re supposed to kiss after the date,” Henry complained, even though he was grinning.

“Mae g’ovannen, lad.”

“What do you know about kissing?”

“Mae g’ovannen,” Henry responded, ignoring her.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay alone?” she asked, deciding to have that conversation with him later.

Henry rolled his eyes, making a ‘go’ motion with his hands. “Yes, mom, I’ll be fine, bye, go enjoy yourselves.”

She shook her head at him, linking her fingers through Killian’s. “Okay. Holo me if anything comes up, okay?”

“Yes, mom. Bye!”

As the door shut behind them, she could feel Killian laughing next to her.

“Oh shut up, just you wait.”

His laughter went silent abruptly, as she realized what she said.

“Emma?” he asked, the question hanging in the air.

“No! I mean, no, not that I know, no I just meant… not that.”

He nodded slowly, blinking, even as his eyes darted to inspect her flat stomach. His long lashes danced across his cheeks, before he exhaled lightly.

“Ready for a night of debauchery, Swan?”

“Are we buckling some swash or something?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

* * *

“He took you on a cruise?”

“He did,” she confirmed, unable to stop the stupid grin on her face. “Up and down the river.”

“Damn, girl.”

Emma shrugged, sipping her vin in order to stop smiling.

“You’re really happy,” Ruby breathed out.

“Why the tone of surprise?”

The red-headed woman laughed, signaling to the waiter for a refill.

“It’s you, Emma. I love you girl, but you’re not exactly the warmest human this side of Alamané.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“So when do I get to meet him?”

“Woah, slow down,” Emma said, flicking a peanut at Ruby.

In a show of her excellent reflexes, Ruby caught it with her mouth, chewing on it with a shit-eating grin.

“Show off,” Emma muttered.

“Anyway, like I was saying, when do I get to meet him? It better not be on the wedding day itself!”

“For goodness sake,” Emma grumbled.

“Emma,” she whined, “you’re not answering the question.”

“He’s a little shy,” she hedged. No one knew she was dating an elf.

“I’m your best friend!”

“That’s debatable.”

“That’s rude.”

“Bite me,” she said, only to roll her eyes when Ruby grabbed her hand and bit it. The woman was an animal sometimes.

“I would love to join in on this little soiree,” a man’s voice pipped up beside them, sliding onto the open stool next to Ruby.

Emma turned to tell him off when the words died on her tongue. He was an elf. Not that being creepy assholes was limited to the human species, but it was rare to see.

He smiled. “I do have that effect on women, elf or human.”

“The only effect you’ll have from this conversation is my shoe in your arse,” Ruby said, with a cheerful tone that promised pain.

“Feisty, I like it,” the elf said, standing to face them. “and you, my lovely blonde vixen, look familiar. Have we met?”

She hadn’t been introduced formally to elvish society. She lived pretty much on the ‘human’ side of Alamané. It was unlikely that he’d ever seen her, as she’d kept away ever since that night in the embassy.

“You’re not even meeting us now,” Ruby snapped, clearly not in the mood for random hookups tonight.

“And if you decide to ignore her, you’re in for pain. And not the good kind,” Emma added.

“What a pity,” the blonde haired elf drawled, chocolate eyes twinkling at them.

“Yeah sure, bye,” she said, turning her stool to ignore the amused elf.

Ruby was glaring mutinously at the back of his head.

“You okay?” Emma asked, eyeing her friend. Ruby wasn’t usually that rude or standoffish.

“I’m not a racist,” her friendly said quietly, “but lately there’s been an influx of policies that seem to favor elves. I’m just a little pissed with the whole I’m a victim card they’re pulling.”

“What do you mean? How?”

Ruby leaned closer, speaking almost directly into Emma’s ear.

“A lot of it has only been tabled, nothing official. You know it’s my job to read Senator Katherine’s documents and brief her, right? A lot of it is…problematic. Apparently the elves think humans need to be limited to one child a family, because we’re overpopulating the planet. And because the Republic works on a representation basis, it means more humans in the Senate than elves. They’re worried about their interests.”

“Would that be bad?”

Ruby sat back with a sigh, keeping her voice low.

“I’m not saying we humans don’t need better family planning. Clearly some ancient practices of the First Voyagers has stuck around. But this is where it starts. They’ll say let’s stop them from having more children, then it’ll be let’s decide who gets children and so on.”

“Come on Rubes,” Emma cajoled, “they’re just holding humans accountable.”

“The problem is they still act like we just landed on this planet. It’s been 4,000 years!”

“It’s only been 6 generations for them. Isn’t the oldest elf like 900 years old or something?”

“Whose side are you even on right now?”

Emma blinked. Even if she hadn’t just found out about her elvish issues, she would have still had made the same remarks. It was objective, wasn’t it?

She stretched her neck, soothing the muscle with her palm before looking at Ruby.

“I was just saying, is all.”

“Whatever, let’s talk about something else.”

* * *

The breeze was strong up in the penthouse, the clear blue of the Vistula River reflecting the city in its waters. Emma shut the balcony door, leaning against the railing as she took in the city view. Three months had passed in a blink of an eye.

She fingered the chain hanging from her neck, finger dancing in and out of the ring Killian had given her. She could see the desperation in his eyes to accompany the gift with three words, sacred in both English and Elvish, but something about her expression must have stopped him.

And she had wanted to encourage him, perhaps even say it first, and yet…she had faltered, the words dying in her throat in an overwhelming tide of emotion.

He’d taken in it stride, though he couldn’t hide the light dimming in his eyes. It had been the same when she’d been sick two months prior, and he’d hesitantly given her a pregnancy test, only to softly smile at her relief at the negative result. A fake smile, one that said despite his insistence that she was right about a goddamn baby complicating everything, he still wanted it badly.

The weight around her neck had only been there a week, but Emma could no longer imagine not having the comforting presence of the ring resting in the valley of her breasts.

She sighed, taking in the city.

None of Liam’s search had yielded results about her parents. She wondered if they had died, or maybe, truly hadn’t wanted her. Killian was adamant that she had been sent away for protection, but the longer the fruitless search went on, the harder it was to deny that maybe she really was an unwensket.

“What are you thinking about?” a voice asked her, making her jump.

She turned in surprise, the heir to the elven kingdoms walking up to her soundlessly. She hadn’t even heard the door open.

“Stuff,” she responded eloquently.

“Stuff,” Liam repeated, with a bemused smile.

“Stuff,” she affirmed.

“You looked like you were brewing a storm just from your thoughts. Mother used to say that, especially when Killian threw tantrums.”

“He threw a lot of tantrums as a child?”

“What are you talking about, he’s still throwing tantrums.”

“No, now he broods and sulks in corners instead,” she said, laughing at Liam’s little grin.

He rested his forearms on the balcony, looking out in the same direction as she was.

“True. So why are you emulating him?”

“Just thinking.”

“If you say stuff…”

She laughed, nudging him with her shoulder.

“I know I got mad before, but I do want to meet my parents. I mean, I have so many questions.”

“I can only imagine. Unfortunately, it seems like they don’t want to be found.”

“That’s the thing I’m worried about. I mean, I got cycled into the human system. But it shouldn’t be that hard to fish me out from it, if they really wanted to, right?”

“Except it’s not like you stayed in Nysno. Or that we’ve broadcasted your origins.”

“I know, I know. I was moved, I travelled too far, they may have given me a human last name instead of whatever my elvish name is. I know,” she said, ticking off the possible reasons from her fingers.

“Actually… come to think of it… Emma is the human version of Ardhoniel.”

She stood straighter and cracked her knuckles. “Are-thonn-ee-ell? That doesn’t sound like Em-ma.”

“It’s the meaning, not the sound that is translated.”

“What does it mean?”

“Universe.  All encompassing. Everything.”

“Hmm… I don’t know about that.”

“I know you’re Killian’s everything,” Liam said, not a trace of irony in his tone.  

Despite herself, Emma found her face flushing. “Umm,” she said, “it’s only been a few months.”

“Short yes, but you’ve got the universe backing your claims.”

She sighed. Liam, despite his non-Recognition union, was a strong believer in the fates of true love or whatever.

“We’re still learning one another.”

“Oh please, you’re both madly in love yet dancing around each other despite being together. It’s maddening.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, quickly braiding it so the wind could no longer torment it.

“And to think, you first hated me.”

“You grew on me like moss on a damp forest tree, what can I say,” Liam teased.

“That almost sounded complimentary, you’re losing your touch.”

Before Liam could respond, a loud, insistent rapping on the glass door sounded. They turned in unison to see Killian, a big grin on his face as he held up a glass of mulled vin. He had insisted on remaking their mother’s old recipes.

The door slid open, and Killian poked his head out.

“What’re you two doing out here?”

“World domination plans, little brother.”

“It’s younger, not little, there’s nothing little about me, and two, Elsa is challenging Belle to some kind of trivia competition and I think Belle is winning. You better go referee.”

Liam rolled his eyes in exasperation, shaking his head conspiratorially at Emma.

Killian stepped out, two goblets in his hand.

Liam swiped the one his younger brother was just about to bring to his lips, earning a loud protest and an ensuing tug of war that ended when Liam warned that the liquid was about to spill.

Emma laughed as Liam used that opportunity to tug it neatly out of Killian’s grip, absconding with the mulled vin.

“Asshole,” Killian muttered, glaring at his brother’s smirking face behind the now closed glass door.

“Elves really are no different than humans, you know,” Emma said.

“Yeah, they’re all assholes.”

“Oh, stop being grumpy and let me taste it.”

Turning to her, he visibly brightened as he thrust the goblet in her hand. The nervous, excited energy she could feel from him was sudden and all encompassing. Emma felt a rush of adoration sweep through her as she met his wide blue eyes.

Emma took a delicate sip. It was surprisingly good - fruity, rich and potent.

“Impressive, Your Highness,” she teased.

“Really? It’s good?” He coughed, clearing his throat, “I mean, of course it’s good.”

She rolled her eyes at him, “Yes, it’s good.”

“Anyway, more importantly, do you know what just happened in the kitchen?”

She sipped her wine, nodding at him to continue as her eyes darted to see what could possibly be going on inside. Henry and Gracie were playing holo games. Belle and Elsa were moving their hands animatedly, seemingly talking over each other, while Liam watched like he was a hummingbird undecided between two flowers. Jefferson was the only one in the kitchen.

“What did Jefferson do?” She asked, as Killian said nothing, merely grinning at her madly like he was waiting for the ball to drop.

“Oh, not what Jefferson did, love, but Belle.”

“Belle?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Well, are you going to tell me or what?”

“She asked him out for dinner.”

“She what?”

“Well, more like…” he bit his lip and squinted, “more like, she asked him to dinner tomorrow to discuss something that came up during Gracie’s tutoring.”

Emma groaned, “That is not asking someone out.”

“You just had to be there. Context is key.”

“I didn’t even know Belle liked Jefferson. Oh wait, did he say yes?”

“Of course he said yes.”

“Huh,” she said, peeking another look at the elf in the kitchen.

“What?”

“He’s I mean he’s not… he’s fine with humans, obviously, but um, he’s never struck me as the kinda guy who would date a human. Not that it’s a date.”

“Darling, elf or human, he’s not exactly the most pekný.”

“Pek-what?”

“Pekný,” he repeated, “which is like… being pleasant. Personable.”

“Oh, well yeah, that’s an understatement.”

Emma put her glass down on the ledge, and moved forward to nip at Killian’s lips. The ease of which she could do this, and the sheer comfort it brought her would make her head spin if she thought about it too much, so she simply didn’t.

Before he could escalate their kisses, a shrill alarm sounded from his holo.

“Výstraha! Výstraha!”

They both looked down as Killian straightened his arm out. Výstraha was a warning call, and use of the holo in such a manner was regulated for emergencies only.

A string elvish words followed that warning in panicked, hurried, tone that Emma did not understand. She watched as Killian’s body immediately tensed, his eyes darting around, and was not startled when he grabbed her arm and pushed her inside the penthouse.

“Liam!”

But Liam had already moved towards them. Anticipating her question, Liam looked at her, with his brow furrowed and body tense, face one of shock.

“There was an attack,” was his explanation.

“At the place,” Jefferson clarified, and before she could ask, he said, “The King is dead.”

#cs ff #ouat ff #recognition #killian jones #emma swan #rouhn #kmomof4

[valkyrieelysia18]

RWBY Rewrite: Pyrrha Nikos

Hello again! And this time I get to use that for the right post. Today we are taking a look at one of the characters that got severely short changed when it came to character development Pyrrha Nikos.

Pyrrha is perhaps one of the more popular characters of RWBY and her background and fighting abilities gave her immense potential. Her personality was rather sweet too. Unfortunately, the first two volumes didn’t really give her much outside of Jaune and when we finally got something in the third volume, she got killed off. Here’s the thing....I don’t actually mind that she got killed off.

Now before you all crucify me, let me explain. Volume 3 was a mixed bag of storytelling, but I don’t have any problems with the deaths and losses. It was a good way of setting the tone going forward: People are going to die, characters we have grown close to aren’t safe, and even our main team is not untouchable. Pyrrha’s death, the death of the seemingly untouchable perfect hero that seemed fated for success, was honestly a good idea.....executed poorly.

To get what I’m going on about, I’m going to talk about one of the few things I think the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime did better Brotherhood; the buildup and death of Maes Hughes. We get introduced to him a couple of years prior to the story’s present and when we come back to the current time, we see Maes quite a bit whether it helping the other characters or just him being his loveable self. We know him and his family very well. We see him as a father, a husband, a soldier, and a friend. When he dies, its a genuine gut punch. Especially because we know he had a life prior to the plot.

That was never something I got from Pyrrha. For someone who hates her fame, we don’t really see her deal with it all that much outside of her first conversation with Weiss and the Pumpkin Pete’s advertising which one episode in early Volume 1. We only get her talking about one member of her family (her mother) and it’s never brought up again. No, that scene in Argus does not count. Show, don’t tell is a very much a problem with Pyrrha’s story arc.

Then of course there is the biggest problem of all this: her relationship with Jaune. Now, I’m going to get into this more when we get to the Rewrite for the Jaunedice Arc, but I’ll give you a brief overview of feelings on him. I like Jaune and I don’t think that he’s an inherently bad character. He does have some good qualities and potential. Unfortunately, even though I like Jaune, I recognize that he has gotten way too much screen time (to the detriment of many other characters including Ruby and Pyrrha) and he has gotten away with a lot of things with little blowback to himself. I guess I’m more inclined to blame the writers than Jaune because everyone is done in by the writing. So, it’s still going to be there, but majorly changed to make it a lot more balanced and believable. Basically, the relationship is important to her, but it doesn’t define who she is as a character.

I feel this writing is going to get a bit more in depth so prepare yourself accordingly. Also note that I dropped RWBY after Volume 6 so anything introduced or mentioned in Volume 7 and beyond will be disregarded. So let’s get into it!

Before Beacon: Prophecy and Fame

In this Rewrite, Pyrrha was born in a port city in Southern Anima that draws heavily from the Ancient Greco-Roman culture. She was the only child of very prosperous merchants, her family having gained great wealth following the Great War due to their ties to other kingdoms in trade. Much like Weiss’s family, they’re relatively noveau rich. Her parents doted on her and when she got older, they saw she was a natural in the art of combat. They took her to a seer in the city, an older woman by the name of Laurel Visione who as you might guess is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi. Laurel tells Pyrrha and her parents that she was blessed with great strength and talent. That her star is bright and she has the ability to become a great warrior with a great destiny.

Her parents are pleased by these words, but Pyrrha notices the woman seems to be holding something back. As her parents leave, she lingers behind and asks the woman about it. Laurel smiles and tells that those gifted with that much brightness, also tend to burn out young. She goes on and tells Pyrrha that if she chooses the path of a hero, she will save many lives and inspire many more, but it will also take her away from what she truly wants. It doesn’t mean that she will die, free will should always be taken into account, but if she chooses this path she will meet death sooner rather than later. She’s telling Pyrrha this because it’s her destiny, not her parents, and its up to her to choose how she’s going to face that destiny. As a parting piece of advice, she tells her that everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t see that reason until much later.

Pyrrha keeps this all in mind, as well as keeping it a secret from her parents. We’ll get back to Laurel later.

Her parents, unaware of this, go all out in supporting her in her training. With every new tournament and success, their pride grows even more. They do however realize, that the success is affecting her standing among her peers, her fame making it all but impossible for her to have friends. There is an also accident with Pyrrha’s semblance that almost permanently injured someone because Pyrrha lost control. As a result, Pyrrha only uses a fraction of her semblance’s power and that gives more context to when she got upset during Volume 3 when she used it on Jaune in the courtyard.

When she announces to her parents she’s applying for Beacon, they’re shocked. Not everyone who graduates from a combat school ends up at the Academies (such institutes are super competitive) and with Pyrrha’s semblance mainly geared towards fighting people, throwing away her tournament career when she’s at the top of her game seems rash. Tournament fighting isn’t easy and isn’t as prestigious as being a Huntress, but it’s also much safer with sanctioned rules and the paycheck being just as lucrative. Not to mention, she’d be doing her schooling on a completely different continent. As parents, they love their daughter and want what's best for her, but they honestly can’t understand why she’s doing this. Nevertheless, she’s made her decision and there’s nothing they can say to change her mind. All they can do is see her off with a smile and wish her well.

Beacon: Fame, Friendship, and Love

Now a somewhat constant thing that comes up with Pyrrha during her school days is that her fame is very much hanging over her. Students are constantly trying to get her autograph, people like Cardin try to rile her up, and during the tournament some Haven students openly disparage her for transferring to another kingdom. This will eventually allow her and Weiss to get closer, as Weiss has had to deal with fame and even higher expectations since she was younger than Pyrrha.

Her relationship with her teammates become the first genuine experiences she has with friendship; Nora is a great workout buddy who makes everyone laugh and Ren is someone she can talk a lot of things over with such as the differences between Central Anima and Southern Anima. However, she is new to working with a team and it takes her a little while to get used to it. This is part of the reason why she’s so trusting of Jaune’s leadership at the beginning until it is shaken by him revealing the truth about his transcripts.

Of course, being a rewrite she also gets a lot more interaction with Team RWBY. Her relationship with Ruby is very much highlighted with the younger girl being a tad more idealistic and naïve with Pyrrha being a bit more reserved and more knowledgeable about her future goals. These two are very much foils to each other, which I will get to later on.

Then of course there is her relationship with Jaune. In the show, she says that Jaune was the first person to treat her as a regular girl and this rewrite will be showing that. While others will be interested in her accolades and fame, Jaune will show interest in Pyrrha as a person like the things she enjoys and what growing up for her was like. They start on a strong friendship with Pyrrha’s feelings developing into something more and Jaune a tad more oblivious to it. This will definitely change their relationship from Volumes 1 and 2, but not 3. Though I would probably cut out one of the Arkos songs because there are two more than it needs to be. It gives off the impression that Pyrrha defined herself solely by her relationship with Jaune and you never want to make a character come off as just a love interest to another character. And there are so many other people who would probably benefit with a song POV.

Death: Aftermath and Distrust

The main difference about Pyrrha’s death in canon and this rewrite is that her death affects everyone in the main group, especially her teammates and Ruby. Jaune is still very affected as he was her partner and friend and still has very conflicted thoughts over her romantic feelings towards him, but Ren and Nora are also noticeably grieving her in their own ways. Ruby tries to bottle it up most of the time, much like how she treats a lot of her negative emotions and that comes back to bite her much later on when she is at her lowest and reaches her emotional breaking point. For most of the story, she gets very haunting dreams about Pyrrha (occasionally accompanied by Penny) saying that she has accepted her destiny and questions what Ruby is going to do. This will be foreshadowing for what I’ll talk about in the next section.

The biggest effect that Pyrrha’s death has is that JNR is much more distrusting of Ozpin than RWBY. While they will recognize that Pyrrha made her own decision and they blame Cinder and the others for her death, they still see the whole choice presented to Pyrrha as extremely sketchy and questionable. Pyrrha was the type of person who would not have said no if it meant saving people. And more than just what could have been the result of the transfer, its the fact that they chose a first year student for the job when there should have been better candidates with more experience and a better understanding of what they were getting into (especially as we know the cut off date for Maiden powers is 30).

Jaune, Ren, and Nora still see Salem and her group as the biggest threat to humanity, but that doesn’t mean they like or trust Ozpin (this is not the same for Oscar, but that’s another post). And given that this rewrite will make Oz a much more morally gray character who HAS done some pretty reprehensible things in his conflict with Salem, this distrust will turn out to be very much justified.

Another change to the story is that after Mistral Arc, JNR would actually split off from the main group. Getting the Relic to Atlas is definitely a priority, but this also leaves Shade Academy in a bit of the dark with how things are going. So RWBY, Qrow, and Ozcar would head to Atlas with the Relic while JNR accompanied by Team SSSN would head to Vacuo (which doesn’t have closed borders and therefore would be easier to travel to) after a taking a short detour to Pyrrha’s hometown to give the news to her parents in person. This would make writing the Atlas Arc easier by trimming down the size of the group.

The meeting with Pyrrha’s parents....does not go well. The actual confirmation of their daughter’s death is heartbreaking and their grief and anger is focused on the immediate targets: her teammates. They angrily ask why they didn’t try to stop her or get professional help. They especially treat Jaune harshly when he tells them she sent him away before going to confront Cinder. The three very much realize that they’re not welcome and present what’s left of Pyrrha’s personal things (including her circlet). The two calm down a bit as they see these things and accept them with thanks, but politely tell the group to leave and allow them to grieve alone. They disapproved of her choice and this result makes them feel justified in their opinion. They feel cheated of their only child, who could have done so much...had she not chosen to become a Huntress. 

As JNR leaves the house, they’re greeted by Laurel Visione. After a brief conversation about her past with Pyrrha in Laurel’s home, they question why she would tell Pyrrha about her destiny if that destiny would lead to her death. Laurel would tell them that she wanted to Pyrrha to understand the full risks of the path she was walking towards. If she wanted to turn back from that, she could have, she’d have more than enough time to come to the decision, but she choose not to. She accepted her destiny and had viewed it with a measure of peace. Laurel states that she probably died with some regrets, very few people don’t, but she made her own decision to that end and she wouldn’t have blamed anyone for it.

Before the group leave to meet up with Team SSSN to head to Shade, Laurel tells them one last thing: That the choice that Pyrrha had in front of her is the same one that Ruby is also going to deal with.

Destiny: Ruby

Perhaps the best way to summarize the foil relationship between Pyrrha and Ruby is a quote from one of my favorite animes of all time Princess Tutu: “Those who accept their fate find happiness; those who defy it, glory.”

Pyrrha knew from practically the beginning that her destiny as a hero would lead to an early end. And she accepted it. If it meant saving others and doing what was right, she would gladly give her life to do so. During Volume 3 with the Maiden choice hanging over is when she actually considers walking away from everything and staying with her friends, realizing what Laurel meant all those years ago. But in the end, she still chose her path even if she didn’t know everything about what was going on.

As for Ruby, I mentioned Raven giving a warning to Ruby about using her eyes would lead to an early grave like her mother and grandfather (who are posthumous characters who will play a role in the greater story). I’m not going into specifics right now, but the Silver Eyes bear a great cost in this Rewrite and almost all Silver Eyed Warriors die extremely young. The path of a Silver Eye, of a great hero that Ruby had wanted to emulate, will turn out to have a dark price to it. 

The difference between Ruby and Pyrrha is that Ruby does not accept this fate. She will not walk away from the fight, but she is not going to readily sacrifice herself either. She is going to take a look at her fate, her people’s history, Ozpin and Salem’s conflict, and tell them to screw destiny. Screw people making assumptions and choices for her. The only person who gets decide who she is and what she stands for is her. And everyone has the right to make that same decision.

OKAY, that post took longer than I thought it was going to. At least I got it out before I went with my family on our Christmas vacation. The next post will probably get out in 2020. As for the topic, let’s just say it’s not about a person....

#rwde #pyrrha nikos #Jaune Arc #ruby rose #rwby rewrite #lie ren #nora valkyrie #arkos

[satan-chillin]

Faux

Summary: Sam wakes up in another world, apparently replacing the version of him there, the one who lives in a bunker and with a strange gunshot wound on his shoulder. 

(Where demonblood!Sam replaces the present Sam. Smut. PWP-ish.)

Also available in Ao3 & FF.net

Sam wakes under the dim lighting.

It takes him a minute to adjust, and he takes note of his surroundings: the room is sparse with personal belongings like books and clothes, and if not for those he’s going to mistake the place as a prison cell with the walls bare of wallpapers and the metal door. For a moment, he’s actually intrigued to know whether someone managed to catch him. It has been quite a while since he faced a challenge after all.

 Sam gets up when he feels a pang of hunger.   

 There’s no one outside, and Sam sees the rows of metal doors that look the same. He exits the hallway and realizes that he’s in a military bunker that he has never been in. He’s on high alert, though he’s getting more and more curious the longer he explores the place; hungrier too, in more ways than one.  

 He comes across a large library, expansive with not only books but various old trinkets collected throughout the years if the appearances are to go by. Sam can see himself liking the spot, hunched on the table over a volume for research.

 Except that version of him has been gone for years, gone for at least a decade. He’s no longer bound to the same human vulnerabilities, not when it’s demon blood coursing through him and powering his abilities.

 Sam still hunts, only this time it’s for his own survival and the pleasure of the thrill.

 He meets no one on the way though he senses two presences in the vicinity. The nearest one is coming from the kitchen, and when he gets there, Sam gets treated with the sight of a woman sitting alone and nursing a cup of tea.

 She’s aware of his arrival and turns around. Sam doesn’t know her and her face doesn’t strike even a bit of familiarity, but he thinks he knows what she is.

 “Sam?” she asks, a little perplexed and relieved to see him standing there.

 Sam observes her. She’s less than of average height but the amount of magic contained in her is astounding, archaic and magnetic than any of the witches’ Sam encountered before. She can be destructive if she wishes to be with the dexterity she surely possesses if she can handle this kind of power with ease.

 This one’s no ordinary human, nor is she an ordinary witch. Sam has to move carefully.   

 “You’re awake,” the woman says. She moves to pour him a cup of tea. “I tried to convince your brother to rest because I’m sure he would have stayed up the rest of the night to keep vigil, but you know Dean. He’d rather be awake. He left for Harlan with Castiel an hour ago. Here.” She easily breaches his personal space, and she tugs him down to a stool with surprising strength belying her stature—that, or Sam lets himself be led while he’s trying to figure out what’s going on here exactly.

 The woman continues to fuss around him, and within a few minutes, there’s a plate of food in front of him. Sam devours the food with the hunger of a beast—or a demon, in his case—and he pays no heed at the woman watching him oddly and with concern when he drinks the scalding tea in one gulp to wash down the meal.

 “Samuel, are you alright?” she asks, her eyes darting between him and the empty plate.

 The serving alleviates some of his hunger, though not completely. Still, it’s enough to clear his head and regard the woman with more focus. “Yeah,” he says. He places an elbow on the counter and slumps his shoulders in a display of tension subsiding. “Just hungry. Thanks for that.”

 She nods, though she looks unconvinced with either of his answers. Sam tries a different approach.

 “What happened?” he asks with the right amount of confusion. “Before…” he trails off and hopes that he’s right in his assumption that he—the other Sam he apparently replaced—had been unconscious due to some reason or another.

 “What do you remember?” she asks him, and Sam knows she’s not testing him when her suspicion is overtaken by worry, probably of a possible concussion.

 Sam tells her a pretty vague answer of remembering nothing but blackness taking over his vision. Come to think of it, he doesn’t remember anything either before waking up here in this unknown place. Sam is sure something brought him here, wherever this is. An alternate universe? He heard of that before. And while he doesn’t know at to what end, he relishes in the fact that he’s maintaining the right appearance so far.

 He’ll have to do something with Dean because it turns out that this Sam he’s wearing still has a brother. He doesn’t know of this Castiel, though the name strikes a chord of distant familiarity in him. Sam knows he has to be careful of him. There’s also the matter of the other presence he detects within the bunker, suppressed and dormant for the meantime. That’s a total of three he has to watch out for, and if he’s lucky he’ll manage to convince them that he’s their Sam. Hook, line, and sinker, the same way he does so effortlessly with this woman with him.

 “How’s your head?” she inquires.

 He winces. “Have a bit of headache,” he lies.

 She leans close to place her fingers on his temple. “May I?”

 Sam nods, and he will know if she’s making a move to prod his head for memories. She doesn’t, more concentrated on soothing his nonexistent pain. There’s a cool wave of magic that seeps to his skull and the muscles protecting it, and this close Sam can see the purplish hue coming from her fingertips, from her thin arm, and from the core in her chest where Sam’s own psyche, the part that processes all that demon blood he takes, yearns to make a connection with.

 Sam pulls away abruptly when he feels his head subconsciously leaning to the touch. He grips the thin wrist, and he stares at the woman who doesn’t wretch her hand away, staring at him in equal intensity like there’s something there between them that they both refuse to acknowledge.

 It's a testament of her strength that she can shut his defenses down with mere fingers, and Sam both detests and finds it arousing she has that kind of power over him.

 Sam’s thumb makes a circle on her skin, and the gesture is pleasing to her with the way her eyes flutter half-close until she shakes her head as if catching herself, putting a good distance away from him in a few strides.

 “We talked about this, Samuel,” she says, not quite looking at him and biting her lip. “I thought we already agreed.”

 Sam is frustrated that he doesn’t know what she means, that he doesn’t know who this woman is and why in the Hell is she rebuffing him if she clearly desires him.

 He gives a brief pause and racks his brain—the brain of the other Sam. He’s not certain if that remains possible if he already overtook the original owner of this body.

 Sam jabs harshly at the right place and something gives. There’s a torrent of memories there, a few of them similar to his earlier years and stops where Dean died, torn by hellhounds as his soul was dragged to hell. The version of Sam he replaced has more key memories beyond that: Ruby was there and was able to make him addicted to demon blood, though even when she succeeded in manipulating him to kill Lilith, unlike what originally happened to him where he killed her in advanced when he learned of her plans to use him and continued using demon blood for sustenance, this Sam succeeded in cleansing the fixation from his body amidst the Apocalypse he started.

 There was a memory of an angel who claimed he pulled Dean out of Hell, and Sam learned that this was Castiel who became friends with the other Sam and Dean fresh from Hell but very much alive. This Sam had been to Hell as well and his experience there are stored behind a measly set of dilapidated walls.

 Sam breezes through the inconsequential recollections of hunting various creatures, pagan entities, and angels and demons alike. This Sam had faced bigger threats such as the Darkness, Death, and presently God himself due to Lucifer’s son that this Sam, Dean, and Castiel pretty much adopted as their own.

 There were former enemies turned allies, one of them was a former King of Hell, and the other was his immortal witch mother.

 Rowena. It’s the name of this redheaded woman.

 There’s several images of her in his head: as an enemy, a necessary evil, a reluctant ally, a tentative acquaintance, a trusted person with shared trauma from Lucifer, a friend that he was told would die by his own hands, and a woman he promised he would bend his fate for.

 It’s not difficult to conclude that the other Sam loved her—loves her still even after their mutual agreement that they avoid crossing the boundaries of friendship before it’s too late for the both of them.

 Sam thinks that this version of him is a moron for letting something as trivial as fate stop him from taking this woman.

 He’s within her bubble in a few steps. She’s tinier at this proximity, and Sam is exhilarated at the prospect of handling such a dainty thing.

 She looks up at Sam with unadulterated lust and he knows she’ll keen at his roughness and will push back against him with equal force and just as animalistic. He’ll split her when he slides into that small body and pound mercilessly, but she won’t break.

 Sam picks her up by her waist, slamming her against the nearest wall. Her head smacks with a thud, though she doesn’t complain, her pupils dilating and sharp nails finding his nape. She’s the one who crashes her lips against his and Sam returns the gesture with tongue and teeth, caging her further against the wall and holds her up with his body pressed tightly against her.

 “Tell me you don’t want this,” Sam whispers against her ear, biting on an earlobe before nipping down to her neck. Sam laps at her artery, and he can feel the thrum of rushing blood under her skin that smells of raspberries and lavender. Later, he promises himself. “Look at me straight and tell me to stop.”

 She groans when he descends to her exposed clavicle and he squeezes her left breast through her dress. “I—ah—I think it’s already obvious that I do want this, Samuel.” She wraps her thighs around his waist, her fingers creeping to his hair, and she pulls him back with a twist of her fist to devour his mouth with much fervor.

 Sam slips his hand underneath her dress to cup her ass, thumbing the seams of her lace underwear. His other hand searches for the zipper at the back of her dress and pulls it down, practically ripping the dress off in his hurry. Not that Rowena minds, her own hands busy unbuttoning his shirt hastily.

 By the time Sam pulls back briefly to admire his handiwork, Rowena’s chest is heaving with her milky breasts exposed, her nipples pert at the open air, and her dress bunched around her slim waist. Sam slips out of his torn shirt and grinds against the pooling heat between her legs.

 Sam latches on a nipple and bites and sucks. He likes the sound that escapes Rowena’s lips and the way her hair falls on her face as she arches under his mouth.

 Her responsiveness makes him incredibly hard under his jeans, and while Sam doesn’t care whether somebody stumbles upon them while he fucks her against the wall and the counter, he knows the kitchen won’t be enough for what he plans to do with her.

 He stands back and lets her slide down to catch her by the hips, letting her short legs wrap around him with her feet entwined on his lower back. She gives a breathy giggle when he carries her. And while Sam doesn’t feel the mutual affection to what she’s giving as she strokes his bare chest, he lets her be, knowing she’s more pliant during this kind of moment.

 She has no idea, does she? She has no idea that the man carrying her and ravishing her mouth isn’t the same person she’s looking up to as if he hung the stars.

 Sam thrills at the fact that Rowena has no clue at all.

 He maneuvers back to the room he initially came from and slams the door, willing the lock in place behind him while Rowena isn’t looking.

 He dumps her on the bed unceremoniously to unbuckle his belt, slipping out of his pants. Rowena stares up at him behind hooded, inviting green eyes, her red curls spilling on her front and back as she leans back on her elbows. Sam spreads her legs and slots himself towards her, his arms on the sides of her head supporting his weight.

 They both fall in a standstill when they meet each other’s eyes. She cradles his face with her hands, her touch tender and affectionate. A long-forgotten part of him recognizes the love she holds for this Sam she’s mistaking him with.

 Sam takes a moment to breathe and let the wash of envy cloy in his gut. It empowers him, the motivation to ruin her for anyone else even for her Sam.

 He rips the rest of her dress, the sound of the tearing expensive fabric is lost on both of them as she palms Sam through his boxer. He nips on her neck and works down again on the dip of her clavicle, down on her right breast to flick the hardened nub with his tongue. He watches raptly as she arches against him, his clothed cock rubbing against her stomach.

 She slides down his boxers as he shimmies her out of her lace panty to get rid of the last pieces of clothing between them. Rowena pulls him by the nape to nibble on his bottom lip and bite in urgency. Sam is more than willing to oblige, grasping her hip forcefully and imprinting his fingers possessively on her milky skin.

 He moves to touch her mound—she’s already wet and pushing against his hand. Sam presses her hands further above her head while he works his fingers inside her. He pushes in and out, massaging and curling on her velvety walls. Rowena twists on the sheets, panting Sam’s name when he circles his thumb on her clit. Sam inserts another finger once she’s too wet and the slide is as smooth as silk.

 Sam holds her thigh underneath and flips her. He mouths her nape and grips her hair aside to nibble on her shoulder. Rowena moans and demands with a hiss, “Less teasing and more doing, Samuel.”

 He smirks on her skin and complies readily.

 His member sits heavy in the valley of her ass, and he allows himself to linger there for a moment with shallow thrusts. Rowena wriggles her hips to slide his cock down with much eagerness that it hardly matters which way Sam takes her.

 Sam pulls her up on her elbows and knees, and he sinks home with one push. Sam bites her ear with a groan, and she moans at the sensation of his cock filling every space inside her.

 Sam moves without so much of a warning and starts off with a brutal pace immediately. It must have hurt her, though she only encourages him with appreciative noises and never once asks to stop.

 He grips her hair in his fist and his free hand on her hip to pull her back to him every time he drives hard within. Her back reddens, and Sam finds the color on her skin attractive. He smacks her rump in time when he circles his hips and she screams.

 She topples over, with only her knees holding her up, when she snakes her hand down on her, rubbing her nub to completion. Sam sees what she’s doing, and he lifts her up, her back on his chest as she’s practically sitting on his lap.

 He palms her breast and twists a nipple painfully before creeping up to her neck and wraps his fingers around her delicate neck. He replaces her hand when she swats it away from her clit, and he touches her there unhurriedly, wanting to draw it out but at the same time wanting her to spill her juices on his cock as he fucks her like this, burrowing and reaching up and up to open her womb and spill his seed inside.

 “Samuel, oh, Sam.” She cranes her neck to kiss him before her face goes slack with pleasure when her orgasm comes crashing down. Her nails scratch on the side of his neck and down on the juncture on his shoulder.

 Sam doesn’t stop, drilling her with the same pace throughout. There’s a sticky squelch aside from the sound of skin hitting skin, and he can’t think of anything more perfect. He doesn’t let her go.

 Rowena lays her head back with a satisfied hum, though she makes no move to stop him. She allows Sam to continue, occasionally letting out a whimper when he hits a particular spot while she’s oversensitive.

 “Such stamina,” she comments idly with a smirk. Sam pointedly hits the spot again and watches her red lips gasp. Next time, he’d like that mouth around him, full of his length.

 He feels her clenching deliciously around his member—not yet unresponsive compared to his previous partners who were pretty much lax the instant they released—urging him to get to completion.

 But not yet, Sam thinks, maneuvering her lithe body to lay her down on her back. He enters her again, slowly this time, and his mouth descends to her chest where her heart is, where the core of her magic is. Sam murmurs an incoherent word and he tugs.

 There’s a surprised gasp from both of them, and Sam knows that she feels it too. He looks up to find her eyes blown wide in shock at the sudden spike of pleasure.

 Sam is no better with his skin that turns sensitive with every bit of her touch, his cock hardening further inside her. It’s not quite the same for him before when he did it with a white witch who did not possess the same strength as Rowena.

 They both charged the air, and Sam is once more stirred, pounding in and out, his vigor and pace escalating alongside Rowena’s voice. He nails her down brutally, and if she isn’t pushing back against him with all her might, she’ll hit the headboard.

 In the middle of their animalistic coupling, Sam’s head is clear enough to recognize Rowena as a suitable mate who will bring him stronger children with both the power of a witch and the power of demon blood. He likes it, he likes the thought that it’s a union that’ll be beneficial to him and his legacy in the long run.

 “Dimittet et dimittere,” he hears her whisper brokenly to his ear before Sam goes rigid and breaks down like a dam. He releases inside her with such intensity that curls his toes and sends white across his vision momentarily.

 Sam comes down with a sharp intake of breath, heaving when he looks down on Rowena who’s no better with her wildly disheveled red hair. She stares up at him, panting and exhausted, but with a touch of a soft smile gracing her lips.

 Sam thinks it’s not him anymore who swoops in to kiss her tenderly and who calls her name fondly.

 Oddly enough, he becomes aware of a dull ache coming from his shoulder. He pays no attention to it but with a quick glance sees that it’s a wound, a gunshot wound of the other Sam.

 Remembering the other Sam he supposedly replaced turns his mood mildly sour.

 He makes a move to pull out when Rowena stops him and carefully guides his back on the sheets. They remain connected once she’s above him, her head on his chest. She hardly weighs a thing that if she’s anybody else, Sam knows a long-buried instinct of protectiveness in him will resurface.

 “I love you, Samuel,” she murmurs sleepily, adoringly, and instead of feeling the same green envy latching, it’s something else that Sam feels.

 Something he’s familiar with a long, long time ago in another world.

 Maybe, just maybe, there’s hope for him yet.

fin

#samwena fanfic #samwitch fanfic #samwena #samwitch #sam x rowena #rowena macleod #sam winchester #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic

[cao-the-dreamer]

Sweet child o’ mine: Who am I, who are they

I wasn’t patient enough to wait for someone to beta-read this chapter, so forgive me if there are any mistake. But I’m so glad I finally finished it!

Time for Optimus to give Nebula a clue about her past… 

Enjoy!

(You can read it on Ao3 or Fanfiction if you prefer)

The first time he meets her, he cannot help but think how similar and yet how different she is compared to her creators.

Optimus Prime is standing in front of a wooden house — a cabin, according to Bumblebee — which blends in between the broad and twilight-like trunks of the forest, where the young girl is hiding from the world.

They are a few miles away from the place his fellow Autobots currently are, trying to settle down on this foreign planet after their arrival a week ago.

Optimus knew that there was a chance he might come across her, the little one, the miracle child, but he hadn't expected her to be aware of her origins. Her eyes pierce through the darkness of the door frame, questioning, wary, ready to fall back into the shadows should he reveal himself as a threat.

But Bumblebee hums a soothing tune, gesturing with patience, willing to prove her that his leader means no harm.

The truck takes a step back, giving her space, before getting down on one knee, making himself smaller.

Electric blue dives into dim red.

“Take your time, little one,” his deep voice is a foreign sound amongst the forest's. “I will not force you to come out if you don't want to.”

Her eyes lower, avoiding his gaze.

“I'm sorry… I don't know who I should trust anymore.”

Before he can question the eerie statement, a dark hand comes forward, pointing at the yellow scout.

“You comforted my best friend, you protected her, you threw away her loneliness and gave her a sense to her life. I’m deeply grateful that you did so. But… those two titans who were eager to destroy my planet, and yet who treated me like a precious gem, they told me who I really am, they told me you took me away from a loving father.”

“More complicated… than that,” a feminine voice whispers from his radio.

“I know. That's why you told me to wait. To wait for someone who could properly explain me what happened.”

Her stare goes back to Optimus.

“And you came.”

Then she takes a step forward, she comes into the light, and for a brief moment the faces of her creators hide her own.

But soon the illusion is gone, because even if she has the same ruby eyes of her father and the same dark skin and round shape of her mother, she is not like them.

The rage eating the warlord from the inside out is absent from her eyes.

Her gaze is not determined like her mother's.

Her shoulders are hunched and her head lowered — it is so different from her parents who always stood proudly.

She is just tired. Tired, and alone again.

He can see she has gone through a lot. Optimus doesn't know why, but his spark begs him to lean forward and welcome the child within his arms, to give her some comfort. He suppresses the urge, knowing that such a brusque and invading gesture would scare the little one off.

He nods instead, explaining that it would be a long story to tell, for he has to dig deep into the roots of the Cybertronian society to explain how her parents came to be.

“Go ahead,” she shrugs as she brutally flops onto the stairs of the porch. “I have plenty of time for storytelling.”

He cannot help but ask if she is alright.

“Fine,” she grumbles.

Her tone is a clear indicator that she is not fine, but should Optimus press the matter, he has no clue.

He still doesn’t know a single thing about her. For now, they are strangers.

Maybe later… When they will be more comfortable around each other, maybe he will try to make her speak about her.

So he pushes the thought away and he kneels, the grass brushing his plating, and Bumblebee imitates him in a cross-legged position. Then his — soothing, she discovers with surprise — his soothing voice begins the tale of an old world.

“Cybertron once was a vast empire, with dozens and dozens of colonies implanted on several planets across the galaxy. Our leaders believed that our kind was above organic species; thus they never hesitate to wipe entire populations out if their homeworld’s soil was rich in resources — and the newly free space would be used to host the ever-growing Cybertronian population. We live for millennia, sometimes millions of years; back then the deaths did not compensate the newborns, which didn’t allow a balanced population growth. It seemed like our ruthless appetite was endlessly unsatisfied, despite the empire’s immense wealth.

“Cybertron was powerful, rich and feared, but that did not mean that Cybertronians were happy. Our society was framed by a rigid system of castes: according to the body and the alt-mode you were born with, you were labelled with the corresponding caste: the politicians, the military, the intellectuals, the entertainers, the merchants, the manual workers, the priests, and the outcasts, called “the strays”. Your cast dictated your profession for the rest of your life, no matter how misfit you could feel within it. You couldn’t have a Conjunx — what you humans would call a spouse — outside of your own cast. Every cast had to face prejudices and wariness from the other parts of society — which divided us, making it almost impossible to live as a community. And by the time I was online, the upper casts, politic and military, were heavily corrupted: bribes, favours and blackmails were common things.

“Before the war, my name was not Optimus Prime, but Orion Pax. I was a historian, from the cast of the intellectuals. My work was to study the Cybertronian archives and vulgarize their content for the general public. But it was more propaganda than an actual job: many times my books were returned to me, because it did not glorify enough the system. I never liked it, but I was too young to know how to write something that would satisfy the specification of the Council, and, at the same time, would give a clear insight of our past. The Council pretended that Cybertron was better now, and that the previous ages were uncivilized and dark periods of time, but I easily knew it was a blatant lie. Easy for me, since I had all the resources available to prove the absurdity of Functionalism — but I could not speak out loud, nor could any of my fellow Transformers, because whoever disapproved the Council was sidelined, banned, and sometimes killed. The atmosphere was of ignorance and fear, making it heavy and unbearable.

“And then, one day, a book appeared. The Council tried to remove it from the book stores and forbade its distribution, but by doing so they only increased the value of the novel, and it spread out in a small amount of time. Everyone wanted to know what was so special about this particular book (some people even downloaded it directly into their brain!), and I was curious too, so I looked for it. When I found it, I immediately became fascinated.

“It was simply called Dialogues. The story, beautifully written, was about a Cybertronian, who had died in an accident, and, as he waited in the Afterspark to be judged by Primus, our god, he came across a character called “the Stranger”. Who or what they were, the reader didn’t know, only that “they were not from here”. The Stranger asked the Transformer why he was crying, and he told them that all his life he had been miserable. Again the Stranger asked why, and as they comforted him, he told them his life. Gradually it became an explanation of the Cybertronian society, fueled by the remarks of the Stranger. The more the characters spoke, the more flaws of our world were pointed out. The mech explained that freedom was a foreign concept for him, and the Stranger was outraged to hear such a thing. They told him he was free to be himself, he ought to, actually, because everyone else was taken. It was the most touching part of the book: when the Cybertronian realised that he could hope, that he could dream. But then he asked what was the point in dreaming about a better life, if he was dead. And the Stranger pronounced an iconic sentence: “Because dreams occur when one is sleeping. It is time to wake up.” And he woke up in a hospital bed.”

For a fleeting moment, he stays silent, before speaking again:

“No wonder the Council tried to get rid of this book: it was an evident criticism of the very system they promoted. Whoever had written it had signed its own death warrant — but despite the Council’s investigations, they were never found. And the politicians were too late: the seeds of hope were sown. “It is time to wake up” became a forbidden motto, thrilling those who said it, thanks to someone who had been brave enough to shout that something was wrong.

“I wanted to meet this someone. I wanted to help them, I wanted to be part of this bravery. Thus I started to look for clues, anything that would lead me to them. I went all over the planet, I asked publishers and librarians who might have been in contact with this mysterious author. But none of them gave me an answer, denying the fact they had an acquaintance with them. I was about to give up, when a book seller from Kaon accosted me, and simply told me I should go to Zagoran.

“Zagoran is a desertic planet on the borderline of the Cybertronian Empire. It had been left untouched because it was only made of sand and barren mountains, making it “unworthy” of our leaders’ attention and unfit for Cybertronians to settle down. Only a few natives peacefully lived there, undisturbed by our expansionism.

“There were only two options. Either the book seller had given me a clue about the author's location, so I could meet them away from prying eyes; or it was a ruse from the Council, who might have noticed my researches about them, and maybe I was becoming too annoying, so they were trying to lure me away from Cybertron to kill me without any witness. But that last hypothesis was illogical: why send me on a faraway planet and waste resources in following me there, whereas there were people who easily disappeared every week? No, it was very likely that the place would lead me to the unknown writer.

“So I decided to go.”

The more he speaks, the more enthralled she becomes. It is as if Nebula can see the past through Orion Pax's eyes, and she beholds a world she doesn't know a thing about, yet who unfolds before her like the stage of a theatre.

She follows Orion Pax through his journey to Zagoran, can feel his excitement and his apprehension as his ship gets closer and closer to the planet and finally lands not far from a mountain massif.

The hot sand tickles her toes as he puts his feet on the ground. The tip of her tongue tastes the dry wind whistling around him, and she bites back a whine when the sun heating up his armour almost scorches her skin. But the sensation is quickly forgotten when he catches a glimpse of a shining object, standing at the base of a canyon.

The sun is reflecting on the plating of another Cybertronian, and Nebula is as curious as Orion about this stranger. A cloak is thrown around their shoulders, hiding their body, but everything about them is massive, and both travellers suddenly feel wary. They are even more anxious when the other robot beckons them to come closer before retreating into the canyon, but does Orion Pax have a choice? There is no turning back now.

Nebula is a simple witness, and cannot comfort him as he follows the stranger — and like his spark, her heart clenches in dread when a black bag is shoved around his head as soon as he enters the shadow of the cliffs. She feels his panic while he struggles against whoever harshly grips his wrists together and forces him down to his knees. His body is shaking and she shares the frightening hypothesis that this is a trap, and she jerks with him when another pair of hands palpate his body, looking for who knows what.

How long lasts this agonising moment, she doesn't know, but then a rumbling voice speaks.

“No tracker, no camera, no weapons. The guy is clean. You can let him go.”

Orion breathes out a sigh he has been holding — robots are able to sigh apparently — when he is released. But a firm hand stops him when he tries to take the bag off.

“The bag stays on,” the rumbling, calm voice tells him. “Now, follow us.”

He genuinely asks how he is supposed to walk if he is blind. The voice sighs and another one snickers, then Orion gasps in surprise when two callous hands scoop him up and press him against a broad chest.

“Aww,” the second voice, gravelly and deep, exclaims, “the little guy is cute when he squeaks! You look like a creator with their sparkling, bwahaha!”

Orion coughs in embarrassment while the one holding him — a femme, according to her voice — lets out an exasperated huff, before beginning to walk.

“Does this situation look like a joke to you?” and there is a warning in her tone.

“Oh, don’t worry, if the little guy tries any funny business, I’ll happily crush him. Got it, little guy?”

The smallest of the three shakily wonders what kind of situation he has got himself into while he nods and gulps.

The mech then makes an odd noise, something between a laugh and a snarl, like a wolf chuckling at a frightened dog, demanding him to go away, to leave his territory, or to submit.

So Orion submits. It's not like he can run away anyway. Not when the femme carrying him can easily smash him with her hands. He cannot see her, but he can guess she is taller than he is, or should he said huge, considering the arms supporting his weight are larger than his thighs. Each of her steps slightly shake the ground. Her thick and square fingers speak of strength, yet the powerful joints pressed against his armour are nothing but gentle and steady. He can feel the dents in the metal, a sign that her hands are used to harsh work… or more violent business.

He really, really doesn't want to think about the implications of such thoughts.

Then he notices that the air is cooler, it’s refreshing after having to cope with the burning heat of the desert. The femme turns right, turns left, turns left again — and after a moment he is so confused he cannot grasp directions any longer.

An eternity that could have been a second elapses during their walk — until she stops walking, and suddenly it seems like he is being stared at.

Anxious, he instinctively clings to her — and in response she unceremoniously drops him on the ground.

Someone snorts as he yelps in indignation then pain when he lands on his buttocks. He tries to get up despite the bag blindfolding him and he wobbles, almost losing his balance. A clawed hand catches him just in time, and sight is given back to him.

The first thing he sees is red. In the darkness of what looks like a cave, several pairs of glowing rubies warily peer at him. They stand straight, ready to strike should he do anything wrong. Their plating is dented and their paint worn, but their armor is so thick not even the strongest bullets would be able to pierce it. Some of them have cannons mounted on their back, others have guns and blades sticking out of their wrists — but all of them are covered in scars.

Orion realises in horror that he is before a pack of soldiers, beasts hardened by war — war dogs that can tear him up before he can say anything.

Despite being part of the military, one of the highest casts, soldiers are not worth more than strays. They are the tools of the expansion and the defence of the empire: they invade planets chosen by their superiors, they kill the people the strategists have decided not to spare, they guard the outposts implanted by their masters after having watched the battle from afar.

Never mind that dozens of them die on the battlefield — they are just pawns on the chessboard. They are made for violence, decimating everything, until violence claims them back.

Soldiers are almost never seen on Cybertron, if not as bodyguards — a job they are really good at — and they are so feared no one approaches them.

Are these people bodyguards too? Are they here to protect the mysterious author? It would be the most feasible explanation, yet Orion cannot shakes the feeling that he is missing something. They look old, battered by life, and at the same time there is something very young about them.

“What is your name?” a blue bot with gold accent coolly asks, his hands resting on the hilt of a long sword that can cut him in half in one swift motion.

“My designation is Orion Pax,” the historian manages to say with a steady voice, something he is proud of.

“Typical body from the intellectual cast,” the femme that carried him adds, and Primus, she is not tall she is a giant! “He fits Kat's description. He’s got nothing he can use against us. He’s either a spy or someone who genuinely wants to help.”

“I want to!” Orion exclaims, and everyone immediately stiffens, until they notice he is not speaking vehemently, but enthusiastically. “This novel, Dialogues, it was… it was something that everybody needed to read. The author was very brave to speak out loud, and I want to support them, so they can keep speaking.”

“And how would you do that?” two large, scarlet optics ask, inquisitive, only visible feature of a body hidden in the dark — and at this moment Orion regrets he has not an infrared vision.

“I am an historian. I have studied the past of Cybertron for a long time, and I want to share this knowledge… even if the Council doesn’t allow me to. That is why I am here: the writer spread hope, and if there is anything I can do to make this hope grow, if there are arguments the author needs to strengthen his ideas and resist against the Council’s propaganda… then I will not hesitate to provide them.”

The embers are closed now, reflecting upon the historian’s words. But when they open again, it is another voice that speaks, sounding strange, almost alien.

“We cannot trust you. Not yet. But if your words are true, then we will gladly accept your help. For now, go back to Cybertron. Think about the implications of such a choice. When we will decide that you are trustworthy, we will contact you again. And you will see the one you seem so keen to meet.”

When the silence comes back, Orion understands that it is time to leave. As they put the bag back and escort him toward the exit, he cannot help but feel disappointed. However, he understands that they have to take precautions — it’s survival.

He wonders how they will be able to tell that he is not a traitor, and he doesn’t feel the minuscule camera they have installed on him when they frisked him a moment earlier.

And the mysterious author is still plaguing his mind.

“Back then I didn’t know. I didn’t know that there was not one but two authors. I didn’t know they were already there, in this cave where everything began. I had seen his eyes and I had heard her voice. One was a soldier, like his brothers in arms. The other was someone who came from far away.”

Nebula is back to the present, and watches this robot full of memories, closing his eyes for a moment, trying not to get lost into the maze of his past.

“These people, one of a kind, were your parents. Megatron and Esther.”

#i know it ends up with a cliffhanger sorry #but i had to cut there bc it was too long #don't worry several parts of the next chapter are already done #hope you liked it! #sweet child o' mine #megatron #esther #nebula #optimus prime #transformers #beeverse #knightverse #bumblebee movie #interspecies romance #science-fiction

[athyrabunlord]

About LLSHP AU (Afterword)

[Brief note about School Term] [other LLSHP AU stuff] [YohaMaRuby concept arts] [ChikaYouRiko concept arts] [KanaDiaMari concept arts] [Hogwarts Staff]

[FFN link] [Pixiv Link] [Translated to Chinese by plin2290]

I’m just so pleased and happy to have made it! I have so many existing incomplete stories that it’s astounding for me to actually complete a multi-chapter story. Once again, I’d like to say a huge THANK YOU!! to my readers for staying with me to the end, providing me feedback and expressing interest, motivating and inspiring me enough to reach this point.

The following is really just about my rambling, about my thoughts, about the planning process and my decisions, so do keep reading if you’re interested in the makings of this story. I just feel like sharing (aka: blah blah blah) since, again, I actually friggin completed a story omg (´；Д；｀)  

===================

First of all, let’s go way back to near the end of October 2016, not long after LLS Season 1 ended. Yes this is so long ago lmao. After drawing several canon-related fanarts and writing short blips to satiate my thirst, I decided to create a complete whole AU so I can fantasize more XD I ended up picking the Harry Potter verse because, come on, it’s always fun trying to Sort your favorite characters and think about their abilities and whatnot.

Ideas started to whirl and initial sketches began. There’s an old post explaining why I Sort the girls into their respective Houses. That’s also when extra details were pondered over, the why and the pros in doing so. You should know by this point that I’m a complete useless 3rd Years trash, but as I brainstorm more, I realize that their story is more suitable to be a prequel, something that supplements a main story. And so, what should the main story be about? What kind of story do I want to present? Who would be the perfect main character/narrator for this?

Yoshiko. In canon, she’s already associated with (black) magic and, as a First-Year and Muggleborn, she would be perfect for a reader to immerse into this fascinating new world of magic through her perspective. As an old post says, I fudged up the School Term and age during the initial stage and didn’t realize until everything’s all finalized, that’s why I had to keep it as it is XD;;;;

Anyway, at this point, I’ve already decided Yoshiko to be a Horcrux, with the antagonist of this story to be Yohane, and how the last few chapters are going to play out.  Everything else, even the other characters’ backgrounds are all further elaborated and refined based off of this central plot. On a side note, how sexy is Aikyan’s solo in the 3rd Live, I mean, the white and black wing I could only think about Yoshiko/Yohane DX

Ahem, I’ve always found Yoshiko’s character fascinating, that there’s a Yohane side of her even though, really, she’s Yoshiko (a good girl). The Chamber of Secrets and the Half-Blood Prince are the main source of inspiration for this particular idea, but of course HP fans might notice many elements from the original story used or modified in my story. I’m also a strong believer that the Patronus Charm can do more than just warding off Dementors or Lethifolds (and Obscurus), hence its significance in this story, especially later chapters.

Therefore, each girl’s Patronus was tentatively decided at this early stage, with 1 or 2 possibilities. After this, I then thought of what ships should this story present. As much as I did not want romance/ships be The Major Point, I have to acknowledge that ships are what people go for in a story, myself included. I understand shipping might turn people away from even trying a story, that’s why I kept it secret for the first few chapters before confirming it on tumblr (where the chapters were first uploaded). I was just testing the waters, to see if people are interested in the story enough to keep reading even if the ships aren’t their preferences.

Back to planning stage - as a multi-shipper, I did not want to set in stone right off the bat what the ships are either. And thus I continued expanding on ideas and see where things would  go, keeping most of the initial interactions and important moments intact. This is why there are times it might seem there are multiple pairings even though nothing was specified (cough wee kanadia, youriko etc (｡･ ω<)ゞてへぺろ♡). Not to mention, as the main character, Yoshiko will always have moments with each of the 8 girls. I remember joking in an old post that, if this were a gal-game, there are various routes to this story, from the default path to those you have to unlock via certain conditions XDDD

Naturally, members of the 1st-year trio and Guilty Kiss get more screen time with Yoshiko. Then, as a fellow Slytherin and part of the tsurime trio, Dia does too. Not to mention Season1’s anime ED shows You & Angel together, You gets special moments too. Chika is Aqours’ leader who first accepted Yoshiko into the group as datenshi, so I tried to show that as much as I could given the circumstances in the story. And so, this leaves poor orca on the side lol. But yeah, YoshiMaru, YoshiRiko, YoshiRuby, so many possibilities! However, as more details get finalized, such as Yoshiko’s childhood, her Shiira-KANSU! Patronus and about the Augurey, YoshiMaru just happened. Things seem to click into place with their love as the focal point and I was able to keep expanding the story. First puppy love, innocent and pure. A dream that grew to become reality. Could other ships have worked? Yes, but then that would’ve given this story a different direction and it wouldn’t have been LLSHP AU – Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel anymore. As I developed YoshiMaru more and more, I was very satisfied with my choice.

On a side note, I confirm Yoshiko did have a crush on You at first (and Hanamaru had a crush on Kanan) xD it’s mostly just physical attraction in a “the-senpai-I-admire” kind of way, and it soon morphs to strong friendship as this story progresses. I don’t know if this was obvious at all but that’s why these two girls always have a soft spot for Gryffindor Baka#2 and Baka #3 xD!!!

On the other hand, I was not expecting DiaRiko to form. Yes, it was my guilty ship but I didn’t intend for them to be a couple in this story, just close friends/confidantes. In canon, they’re already the straight man of their respective year trios (most of the time anyway, I’m looking at you ponkotsu penguin). Yet, given their respective pasts and personalities, they became intimately close and found solace with each other, and that kind of relationship is what I tried to show to the readers, especially through the Carbonado Interlude. They’re not predestined to fall in love but they did and found happiness. Out of the four ships, I was most worried about DiaRiko since it’s a rareship unlike the other three. That’s why I keep saying how pleased I am that it ended up being well-received by fans ;;A;;

ChikaYou came to be as I finalize the 2ndYears’ background and Riko’s part, while KanaMari’s story is set aside for the prequel and thus not given much spotlight in the main story (and also due POV effect). In spite of how much I adore ChikaYou, it’s also not shown much because of what happened in the story but also because I wanted to present their dynamic as a duo and CYR bond with Ruby (since that’s how Yoshiko perceives them most of the time anyway).  

Ruby, my widdle cinnamon roll baby, is left unpaired for a reason. I want to show that platonic/friendship love is just as wonderful and powerful. There’s a saying ‘lovers come and go, but friends are for life’, and that’s exactly what Yoshiko and Hanamaru meant for Ruby, and vice versa. Now, while I’m on this, I have a confession about Ruby’s fate. After the concept arts were drawn and uploaded, I was finalizing the details of the three Arcs before I toss the first chapter onto tumblr. The end of ch19 is definitely one of the biggest climax of the story - Ruby ended up being Yohane’s target instead of Dia. Originally, uh, yeah, Ruby is supposed to die because her wounds were too much. Regular healing spells do not work on sectumsempra, only a special counter-Curse could reverse the effects. I tried very hard to find a way around it to save her. I don’t want my baby to die, any of them really, and she still have so much ahead of her. Fortunately, I was able to save her through Yoshiko/Yohane which, in turn, saved this raven-haired girl as well. I was able to continue working backwards on finalizing the Arcs and individual chapters with a peaceful state of mind.

‘Yoshiko’, as in the one who’s been narrating the story from ch1-20, still died in a way, but at least I was able to change the story from Bad End to True End (?). True End is the ch21 I uploaded. Bad End route would have Ruby dead, Yoshiko gone and ch21 would turn out completely different. A Happy End would be Yoshiko the Narrator miraculously alive and the others not having scars or still recovering, but I just find that too unrealistic. I’ve minimized the, uh, damage enough as it is, given the circumstances. J.K. Rowling did go on a killing spree in Book7 but come on, with a psychotic maniac like Voldemort and all those magical spells, you can easily kill people. You don’t need Avada Kedavra to kill someone, a sudden Diffindo or Reducto is enough. I’ve chosen my sacrifice and one is too many already. And speaking of sacrifice, let me talk a bit about Riko and why she was the ‘first victim’. Omoi yo Hitotsu ni Nare. Even though this story was outlined even before the First Live, this song already stands out to me from the anime, a song where the 8 of them sang in Riko’s absence but her spirit is still with them. And so, I sort of portrayed that the way it is in this story. Even though Riko didn’t get any lines from ch12 onward until ch20, her role remains significant and is the pivotal point for the remainder of Arc2 and Arc3. In terms of the plot, I’ve followed my outline quite closely. All the core points remained unchanged as I write out the chapters, though how I write a chapter (ie the wording, the extra little details, and actual professor dialogues instead of just narration) did change as I go along, influenced by more of the official content. Facts about characters that are only revealed in Season2 or other media such as SIF etc were not incorporated into this story (for example, Kanan being afraid of ghosts and height). As I mentioned in an older post about wands, I would have chosen phoenix feather for Ruby’s wand core had I known about the Duo-Trio results. The Kazuno sisters would have been incorporated into the story alas, back then, very little was known about Saint Snow in Season1 of the anime. Yes… season2 was finished and, like, a total of 15 live performances have happened between the creation and the completion of this story LOL Back to the plot. Seven is said to be a magical number in the HP verse and that’s why each Arc has 7 chapters. Arc 1 is the Intro, Arc 2 is the turning point, Arc 3 is the climax and the resolution. Sounds easy and straightforward so I thought I would’ve finished the story within a year. Well. It ended up almost taking two years lmao. Obligations IRL aside, new ideas, more AUs, more fanarts etc also make sticking to the update schedule difficult. It’s the worst when it comes to writer’s block – you have the outlines, you know what’s supposed to happen in a chapter, yet the words just aren’t flowing and you’re stuck. Thankfully, with you lovely readers giving the feedback and encouragement I need, I made it over each bump on the road to get to the finale. Hanamaru wrote most of this story, yes. Each chapter titles with exception of Ruby’s interlude and ch18-19 also showed up in ch21. The title of the ‘book’ is supposed to be revealed in the Epilogue but, since I had to upload it onto Fanfiction.Net, I can’t just call it LLSHP AU so I had to reveal “Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel” right away. Back then I called this a temporary title because I did think about giving this story an alternate title, since she didn’t write the interludes, ch21 and the epilogue. However, at the end of the day, this still suits the story best. After all, the individual titles for ch21 and the epilogue make up the story’s title.

“Yoshiko has always known that she isn't normal like everyone else. Surely, she would master everything about magic at Hogwarts, and become the amazing fallen angel she's meant to be. Little did she know, her school year would be more than eventful as she makes great friends, uncovers secrets, and learns what it truly means to be Yohane.” - this is the summary I put on Fanfiction.Net. It speaks from both Yoshiko the Narrator’s perspective, and Yoshiko from the Epilogue’s perspective. It probably sounds confusing but I hope you understand what I mean. So, what’s next? I’ve invested a lot in this world of LLSHP AU already and there are still so many more possibilities, especially with the rather open ending both ch21 and the epilogue presents, so I’m definitely not done with this AU! Since I have the memory of a goldfish, I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned this but the prequel will be told mostly in Mari’s POV. It will have occasional Dia and Kanan POVs too (because I’m a shameless 3yrs-oshi and writer privilege); Rather than taking forever to write and cramping the scenes into a massive interlude chapters, I’ve decided to split it in shorter chapters - this will roughly be a 12-part story that took place before the main story, showcasing segments of the kanadiamari’s first 3 years at Hogwarts.

This prequel is… relatively normal and lighter compared to the main story, meaning it’s more school-oriented and more slice-of-life episodes for the most part (at least, that’s the outline), and much more Professor cameos. There will be more N-card girls to be showcased as well, such as kanadiamari’s Housemates and Quidditch teammates. Overall, it’ll be shiny °˖✧���(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° There will not be a full sequel to the main story. Instead, there will be blips/drabbles about events that happen after the main story, as teased in the Epilogue - the TriWizard Tournament for one XD And, unlike the main story, the ideas for blips in this sequel-timeline are more vague, so I’ll be able to incorporate new content into it (as in, from official content 2017 onward such as proper characterization of Saint Snow).

There are plans for omake/filler fun blips as well - little incidents that happened throughout the main story or, rather, ‘excerpts’ that Hanamaru wrote but didn’t make it to the final version of her book. The first Halloween, more scenes with the Professors, birthdays and so on.

There are also plans for character-exclusive blips as well, similar to an Interlude. For example, DiaRiko’s ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) cough cough.

My tentative plan is to keep going with the prequel, and maybe every few chapter or so I’d write a sequel-timeline blip. I’ll see how my muse and inspiration is in the future, I’m already extremely satisfied that I finished the main story XD And I do want to work on some of my other existing AUs (ie Animus AU and Mafia AU just because I’ve already invested time in creating the concept arts and so I don’t want them to sink into oblivion…) or who knows, there might be new AUs. I mean, pretty much every new SIF set is enough to inspire a brand new AU please allow me a moment to giggle like the trash I am over the DiaRiko UR set *pterodactyl screech*

AHEM. Another thing is illustration/artworks. Since most of my time was spent on writing, there are much fewer artworks than I would’ve liked for this story. I think I mentioned this somewhere that I’d love to have an individual cover art for each chapter alas, no time at all DX I’d like to have at least one illustration per chapter too but OTL I can only pick one and so for this AU I chose writing over drawing. Cry.

Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough and I think I’ve talked about everything I want to get off my chest. If you have any questions/feedback, go ahead and fire’em at me, since I’m now able to answer anything without fear of spoilers now XD (unless your question is about the prequel or things that happen in the sequel-timeline)

Thanks for reading the whole thing and, ofc, staying with me until the end of this story!

#LLSHP AU #athyra rambles #really just athyra blabbering #this thing is almost 3k #at least it's shorter than the Patronus Ramble lmao #but yeah I think that's everything #all that's left are the fun times with the prequel and blips #makings-of #I feel accomplished to have come this far #it really has been an amazing journey #yeah I think that's everything I want to say #it's not like this is the end-end... #prequel and other stuff

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 1X16 - Heart of Darkness

Howdy! It’s been well over a week since I wrote my last review, so will this episode get me back into the swing of things or just leave me with a heart of darkness?

Your answer to this most deliberating question lies below the cut.

Press Release Mary Margaret hires Mr. Gold as her attorney when Emma is forced to arrest her for the suspected murder of David’s wife, Kathryn. Meanwhile, back in the fairytale land that was, Prince Charming sets out to stop a determined and unhinged Snow White, whose memory is still clouded by Rumplestiltskin’s potion, from assassinating the Evil Queen. General Thoughts Past Snow’s character in this episode is just phenomenal. Her character builds on the aspects introduced in other episodes. In addition to seeing almost this path she’d walk if she’d never met Charming come out in full force, demonstrating just how much love is necessary in Snow’s life, we see some of the snarkiness (Such as in her scene with Red in the flashback of “7:15AM”) taken to eleven. And what I think works even better is that while Snow is undeniably showing unfavorable behavior, especially to her friends and roommates, until we get to Charming, just like Rumple in “Skin Deep,” it’s kept funny. It’s domestic (A term that the fandom often abuses and can sometimes demand too much of, but here it works because those scenes act to better the story) and snarky - and most importantly, fully enjoyable for the audience. Annoying characters should be annoying to the other characters, not to the audience, and Snow fulfils that so well. I found myself cracking up so much here! And at the same time, the tonal shift for when things need to get serious lands. Originally, I thought it happened after Snow went to Rumple, but I was shocked when we saw just how horrifying Snow could be in the second flashback. Not only do we see her viciousness in that attack on the knight, but those bits of manipulations towards Grumpy do a good job reflecting her change and lack of concern. Present The conflict in this episode is richer than a bite of the world’s finest cookie, and by that I mean that it’s tragic as all hell, but so fascinating to sit through. The main relationships are being picked at and brought to their limits - friendships, romances, power dynamics, rivalries - and it all works so well. Everyone’s motivations are laid out and you can see where they are coming from because they’re all from real places - even those on the more fantastical side of things. For the first time, we’re seeing Emma in this impossible lose-lose position where to help Mary Margaret, she has to hurt her, and Mary Margaret’s expected frustration is so understandable. While they make it clear that she logically understands what’s going on, her frustration at having to be the person going through all of these consequences is - while hard to watch - a reasonable reaction, especially as the evidence against her grows that much more. And that in turn fuels Emma’s frustrations, though those are kept more reserved, a very in-character move for Season 1 Emma. And I love how Regina is there - making things as painful and complicated for all involved. From her mere appearance to her fake shows of sympathy to her brief shows of her hand, Mary Margaret and Emma’s conflicts rise like gas prices in every instance of her presence. It gives this episode the feeling of breathlessness because you never know when she’s going to show up next. Both I feel like the episode was trying to push a theme of “maybe you don’t really know the people in your life as well as you think you do,” but the fact that the people judged are either being framed or have their memories wiped makes it fall flat. It works better in the present, since Regina’s the one who is setting everyone up to fail (Another instance of Regina bringing up the theme of the episode), but in the past, it’s weaker. Insights -Ruby taking off that hood makes me feel things. Very gay things. :D -I think that opening in the flashback may be in my top 5 opening flashbacks in the entire series! -I know that this is more of a “That Still Small Voice” things, but it just came to mind: Do you think a post-finale Jiminy is still immortal? Will he die as soon as Marco dies? Blue mentioned that he’d live as long as it took to help Gepetto. Did the curse take that away since he wasn’t a cricket anymore? -Why did no one let Jiminy out of that thing?! -Damn, I love Regina’s dialogue throughout this whole interrogation scene. In addition to touching each and every nerve of Mary Margaret, David, and Emma’s as I stated before, because we know now what happened to Regina, everything she says has this double meaning. -I shouted “FUCK” when Snow attacked that guy. Snow...I know you go on to kill Cora and all, but that was just fucking brutal. -I love how (1) Emma’s knows that Henry’s going to sneak out to hang with her no matter what and is now just making moves to ensure he’ll be safe about it, and (2) the MM picture with Henry reflects on her too, as if that’s her ideal life now. -The more I see August and Henry, the more I wish they’d bro’d out a bit more in the later seasons after Henry became the Author. I know they wanted to give more of an impression that Henry was going into his authorship blind so he wouldn’t have all the answers and make conflicts too easy, but I feel like since August was pretty flawed and didn’t fully understand what it meant to be the Author, he and Henry could’ve still had some interesting conversations about it. -”As real as I am.” August, was that a backhanded compliment I spied? -Gold, you glorious bastard! That smirk as Emma’s leaving fucking kills me! -”If you can bottle love, you can do anything.” That is just a cool fucking line, and it sort of comes back in Season 3 with the time travel recipe. -Fuck, I’m always so impressed by the double meanings of these lines, and half of what Rumple says in his flashback scenes can go here. -And the way that Rumple sells himself as a madman to make others underestimate him is so genius. The way that he only lets that down for a few individuals throughout the flashbacks shows just how much he respects them. -Snow, that was a very good reaction! Charming, love you man, but you are such a dolt sometimes. -JMo’s “holy shit” faces are priceless! The door opening was incredible! -Josh’s eyes are so blue! They’re like the color of the ocean in Florida! -Davie, my boy. If MM killed her, how did she suddenly grow and de-grow all of that hair? -Why no rainbow of love from that Snowing kiss? -Can anyone tell me the timeline of Snow living with the dwarfs? Like, Charming was getting married at most one day after Snow’s visit. Then Grumpy tells Snow that the wedding was off, presumably on the day of the wedding, and that’s when Snow took the potion. And after an undisclosed amount of time, Snow became Bitchy Snow. How long did the dwarfs have to get to know the real Snow before that ended? -Why weren’t the keys court-worthy? Is it because she’s the mayor? I still feel like they should count for something? Phoenix Wright, anything to add on this? Arcs Kathryn Nolan’s Kidnapping - The strength of this arc comes not from the mystery itself, but from all of the character interactions we get out of it. Like, last week, I found the search for Kathryn that didn’t touch upon Ruby’s character to be confusing and a little boring. However, those character moments between them? Amazing! For instance, in this episode, I feel like things were better structured because they played around with and prodded their most engaging relationships. Emma’s search for evidence probably wouldn’t have done anything for me had Henry not been there to hang out with her and help her solve things. The strain on Mary Margaret and Emma’s friendship that this case and Regina was causing was heartbreaking and drew my attention like a fly to a house light. But the development of the mystery did work, hitting all the plot points it had to to bring out everyone’s desperation. Favorite Dynamic David and Mary Margaret - Because I haven’t really liked this dynamic for the most part in the present, I felt especially impressed with them here. David’s determination to help save Mary Margaret, even at his own expense, is just inspiring. Taking a fall like that shows the dedication I wanted to see out of David and it really makes me feel like he learned his lesson from “Whatever Happened to Frederick?” And that just makes those subtle bits of manipulation, the horribly timed bits of memories returned, and his discussion with Mary Margaret so sad. On Mary Margaret’s side, it’s so awful to see that someone who believed in her who wasn’t bound to a job turned on her. From her perspective, that just happened on a dime and it makes that scene between them so profoundly powerful. Writer Chambliss and Goldberg are at it again! These guys are so solid together. They have a way of taking advantage of these story ideas and making the nitty gritty of these conflicts so nuanced. While I’ve only adored their use of theme in one episode (“Fruit of the Poisonous Tree”), they do a great job balancing out their episodes through their use of story and characters to make the ride fun! Rating 10/10. I genuinely had no problem with this episode. While the theme isn’t an especially strong one, the story and character interactions more than make up for it. We finally get to see what so much of Regina’s plotting and scheming is starting to add up to, and it brings everyone to their brink. And in the past, we get to see so much of Snow with other characters and understand what a Snow without love could become. This is such a tragic episode to watch, but it’s so engaging seeing everyone try to figure out this mystery as obstacles are introduced and allegiances are tested. Flip My Ship Snowing - I love how these brief windows of time when Snow and Charming can actually be together show how strong their love actually is. Their lines are poetic and their actions are big and dramatic but not at all off-putting. Additionally, unlike in “Whatever Happened With Frederick,” we see what Snow’s life would’ve been like without love, and we see just how much Charming has changed and benefitted Snow’s life just by being there for her and showing her that she can be there for someone too. Additionally, their banter is just fantastic. Finally, Snow said the full line for the first time! Squee!!!

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Another winner! Let’s see if the next episode can pull something similar out of it’s hat!

Thank you again to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales for putting this together and giving me some space on their pretty page!

Season Tally (139/220) Writer Tally for Season 1: A&E (41/70) Liz Tigelaar (17/20)* David Goodman (24/50) Jane Espenson (36/60) Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (29/40) Daniel Thomsen (8/10)* (* = Their work for the season is complete)

Operation Rewatch Archives

#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 1x16 #ouat rewatch #jenna watches ouat #ships mentioned #snowing #basically every character in this episode is discussed

[anythingstephenking]

Time Traveling Swing Dancers/Teachers/Assassins

Welp, I did it y’all. I made it full circle to the book that started it all, 11/22/63. I read this brick of a book back in 2016, which lead me to The Stand, which led me to a journey towards 73 novels. Bless your heart, 11/22/63.

I just love this book. My first read through back in the day took me only a couple days; my second trip back in time took me almost a week, still a feat for the 800+ pages of book. Let’s go.

Another tale, like Under The Dome, that ruminated in King’s mind since the 70’s but came to fruition in the 21st century. Although the idea kicked around in King’s head for decades, he was daunted by the research that would be required to tell the story properly, so I think he waited until he was swimming in that sweet sweet money to hire a research team. Per usual, I am speculating.

But King did have a research assistant on this book, that much is true. He also consulted with the likes of Doris Kearns Goodwin, a treasure of American history, who gave King some real fun ideas about what might have happened if JFK had lived. The research was obviously thorough, and like it or not, you sure learn a lot about real-life Lee Harvey Oswald in this work of fiction. You’ll also squiggle in your seat through reminders of racism and hate that lived out loud in the 60s, different but also the same as we see today. History doesn’t change everything.

King has said that the extensive research and reading he did to prepare to write this story confirmed in his mind that Oswald acted alone. While it’s fun to imagine conspiracy theories of magic bullets and a second shooter, if King believes, I’m inclined to believe. If QAnon has taught us anything, it’s that Americans love a conspiracy theory. If Jack Ruby hadn’t shot Oswald in that parking garage, we may have learned what actually happened on November 22, 1963. If Oswald had gone to trial and had been placed under oath. If his last words weren’t about how he was a patsy. If, if if. Maybe Jake should have stopped worrying about stopping Oswald and stopped Ruby instead.

So, yeah, Jake Epping. Our hero of this tale. He’s a writer that teaches and lives in Maine. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time I started a book summary with that sentence, I’d have like $10 bucks and I probably go buy myself a fancy coffee of something.

Jake’s a teacher and loves hamburgers! Who doesn’t. He get’s them cheap at his favorite diner, from the proprietor named Al Templeton, who harbors a pretty rad secret that he’s gunna toss onto Jake. Now, why Jake? I mean, I don’t really know. Al doesn’t have any family and Jake is young and unattached? I suppose at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, because Jake, like Frodo Baggins before him, is off on an adventure.

Because Al’s diner is actually a portal back in time. We all suspend some disbelief - it’s some version of a thinny (maybe?) that plops you from present day back to 1958. The rules are this: however long you spend in the past, you can return to the future just 2 minutes after you left. Al says there’s no impact on quick trips - Al’s been going back and forth for years buy ground beef for his cheap burgers - but when you do something that might change the future, the past will push back. We learn that Al is very, very wrong, but more on that later.

Al’s set out to save John Fitzgerald Kennedy from his head exploding, but the past gave him lung cancer and he didn’t make it to ’63. He’s back in the present and ready to tag Jake into the ring to get back to the fight for him. Jake hesitates but not NEARLY enough. Seriously, if some stranger told you had to go back in time, follow around a total assmunch for 5 years and live WITHOUT CELL PHONES OR NETFLIX?? I don’t care how delicious the root beer in 1958 is. Fuck that.

Jake goes. A couple times actually. He’s first interested in saving Harry, the high school janitor’s family from being murdered, which is a real noble cause. The past gives him diarrhea, and he wears a diaper to take out the bad man. He fails the first time (diarrhea), heads back home to “reset”, and back to 1958, succeeding the second time around. Sayonara douche.

We cross paths with Beverly and Beep Beep Ritchie in Derry, where Jake spends a fair amount of time in 1960. The town is dark, creepy and troubled, and Jake hates being there. Little interconnected web of the King-o-Verse is always there, and I love every second of it. 

Jake heads to Dallas to wait on Oswald, realizes he hates it (lol, fuck Dallas-Fort Worth), and moves out to the country instead. He gets a nice little job and meets a librarian, and our heroine, Sadie. Sadie’s got some real baggage in the form of a psychotic ex-husband (men are mostly the worst in this book) but her and Jakie fall in love anyways. She’s a well written, strong female lead and I haven’t loved a female King character this much since Lisey.

General consensus is that the mid-section of this book is that it drags a little bit, but I couldn’t disagree more. Sure, does Jake putting on a big theater production have literally anything to do with Lee Harvey Oswald? Nope. But I loved all Jake’s time in Jodie, Texas. He falls in love with Sadie, they are lovely and happy, and albeit doomed because of time travel, it’s a wonderful distraction from all the heaviness.

That said, PLEASE Stephen King, DON’T WRITE SEX SCENES LIKE THIS. ::Monkey with hands over eyes emoji:: The sex stuff is awful. There’s a lot of broad references to Jake and Sadie’s love life, like “She looked. Then she touched.” Gross.

Exhibit B:

She said, "Don't make me wait, I've had enough of that," and so I kissed the sweaty hollow of her temple and moved my hips forward ... She gasped, retreated a little, then raised her hips to meet me. "Sadie? All right?"

"Ohmygodyes," she said and I laughed. She opened her eyes and looked up at me with curiosity and hopefulness. "Is it over, or is there more?"

"A little more," I said. "I don't know how much. I haven't been with a woman in a long time."

It turned out there was quite a bit more … At the end she began to gasp. "Oh dear, oh my dear, oh my dear dear God, oh sugar!"

Guys, this passage was from Sadie’s FIRST TIME. She comes? And Jake notices there is blood on the sheets afterwards. But she orgasmed. Yeah ok, sure.

Other than poorly written Harlequin romance passages, the rest of the story clips along with lots of fun (and not so fun) bits, leading the the culmination of Jake (spoilers) killing Oswald. Sadie dies in the process and it is heart wrenching. But at least the world got saved?

WRONG. Another gripe is this; Jake goes back to 2007 and it’s a fucking post apocalyptic wasteland. Nuclear war has ruined the globe - Jake somehow crosses paths with Harry the janitor, who gives him a 5 minute synopsis of how everything went to hell. It is TOO SHORT. Why do we spend so little time here? I want more dystopian future.

We also get a brief bit about how each trip back isn’t a real “reset” - each one triggers a new “string” or parallel universe. Al’s diner isn’t the only passage, and anyone that has read the Dark Tower books gets it. Al was dumb and Jake was dumb, and at the end of the day Jake resets the past and saves this new string from nuclear fallout but you know those poor souls that were on that timeline are still fucked?

Anywho, the end is lovely and King changed what he originally planned (which was lame) at his son’s suggestion. Good job Joe Hill. Maybe I’ll read some of his books someday.

So that’s 11/22/63. This is the latest in King’s bibliography that I have already read, so I’m headed into the last 20 or so novels without any spoilers at all. I still haven’t even let myself watch The Outsider on HBO yet.

Speaking of adaptations, Lisey’s Story on Apple+ starts airing on Friday. Will be watching and hope that it is better than The Stand.

9/10

First Line: I had never been what you would call a crying man.

Last Line: Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.

Adaptations:

A Hulu miniseries! They did 2 seasons of Castle Rock, so they’re a-ok in my book. Anything not produced by ABC is a-ok with me. I watched it when it aired and it was pretty decent IIRC. I’ve started rewatching, but only made it through the first episode so far. It’s a hard rewatch knowing what a creep James Franco is. And his fake goatee in the first 30 minutes is the actual worst.

The show takes its own liberties with the plot which is fine; Jake gets a partner in crime named Bill; without Bill we’d have a lot of internal Franco monologue I’d guess. The show is well cast and well acted, and has an 8.2 on IMDB, so it’s doing a lot better than most King projects.

James Franco channeling his inner Annie Wilkes.

[yoshimickster]

RWBY Volume 5 Ep 1 Recap(plus shorts)-HERE WE GO(spoilers)!

Shorts will be recapped in a few sentences cos...well they short.

Weiss flashes back to her sister Winter foreshadowing that the’s next to die while sitting on a train. SORRY WINTER QROW SHIPPERS-her time is nigh.

Blake flashes back to her friend explaining why she fights for civil rights when she passes for whit-I MEAN-human! Yup, human, ALL while failing at an attempt to stop Adam “I love teenagers” Taurus’ plans.

And Yang flashes back to the time her and her sister were almost killed by a bear because Ruby couldn’t do dick without a weapon at the time-RIGHT BEFORE-ironically saying she’ll always be by her side...ALL while riding a motorcycle aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelf!

Basically three sad flashbacks-THERE YA GO!

The episode starts out SWINGING with team RNJR criticizing the show’s logic of having them walk all the way to Mistral, and joking about how Qrow almost died. HAHA death.

1:04 We are then treated to what only looks like rejected character and background designs to Legend of Korra and/or Avatar the last Airbender! Don’t get me wrong, nice drawings, but don’t they have the budget to freaking animate crowds anymore?

1:33 Qrow gives brief Mistral backstory right before-SURPRISE AIRPLANE MOTHER FUCKERS! You are shocked, do not lie.

1:44 Weiss has WITTY banter with the airship pilot of cargo ship three-THE FIGHTIN’ TRES-where Weiss hears a cry for peril which the pilot ignores...kinda...kinda dark.

3:07 We are then treated to the city, where...no-one is anywhere...throughout the whole town...you know you can only use Grimm attacks to not animate crowds in large spaces for SO long Rooster Teeth.

3:56

Nora: Maybe try...LOUDER?!

Damn Nora, when you get sassy?

Thankfully Qrow points out how it makes no sense that there are no CGI models running around-AND SPRING INTO ACTION!  

4:31 They close in on a door and find-SOME OLD MAN THEY MAKE FAINT...FAKE OUT! Next thing you’ll tell me is that his name is Spencer Pokensensen and that he’s a servant of the courts.

4:50 As for what HORRIFYING event caused him to not greet them at the gate it turns out...HE FORGOT...are all headmasters incompetent? Ozpin didn’t see team MEAN until they struck, and this guy is forgetting meetings, what the hell?

5:05 Team RNJR introduces themselves all saying there names as if fans forgot-OR-for those weirdos who start a show in its fifth season. Yeah I know you exist-AND YOU’RE SCUM!

5:12 The new Headmaster’s name is....Leonardo Lionheart...I don’t have a joke for that, that just sounds AWESOME!

5:36 Qrow reveals he told the team about the ancient mystical glow orbs of destiny, and Nora does her perfect impression of every fandom ever:

“...SO-is this not going how anyone thought it would?”

But enough about that-

5:53

Ghira: UNBELIEVABLE!

Sun: TOTAL GARBAGE!

...my god...THEY AGREE ON SOMETHING! FUTURE FATHER-IN LAW AND SON IN LAW BONDING! Er...POTENTIAL future father in law, heh heh(Bumblebee fans don’t hate me please).

5:59

Kali: Well at least you two can finally agree on something.

This is why I love you Kali, you are absolute purity in this magical Harry Potter meets X-men meets M.A.S.K. world.

6:10

Blake: Guys, everything’s gonna be okay.

...Blake...being positive...I am scared.

6:20 Blake is revealed to have an unnamed body-gaurd whom the fandom will attach a personality to WHILE ILIA DROPS IN...okay they HAVE technology in this world, she should’ve tripped off some damn motion sensors-SPEND SOME MONEY GHIRA!

Ilia then reveals that she took the fall for those creepy fox...brothers? Or are they married? I’m cool with either, I just want some background on who were originally supposed to be the main villains of volume 1(seriously, look it up).

8:00 SILENT PRINCIPAL’S ROOM-get ready for dramatic exposition babies!

Leo reveals the reason for a lack of teachers and students is OF COURSE-because of the Grimm...ironically from the Vale attack, DAMN this show is good at long lasting consequences.

9:13 OH WOW-Atlas is being a problem? Know what else, WATER IS WET!

9:42 OBLIGATORY RENORA SITTING TOGETHER MOMENT-there ya go you ship-hounds!

We are THEN told that each Maiden can open a specific door with their own abilities...I keep making Avatar parables, but that sounds RATHER Avatar, you know like in Volume 1 with the fire temple?

“She was determined at first, but the weight of responsibility proved too much for the child”.

AND THEN THERE’S THAT-that is AANG mother fucker!

11:30 Typical Avatar, runs away from home, gets picked up by bird bandits-WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

12:17

Qrow: WE NEED TO GET THE SPRING MAIDEN NOW!

Leo: DAMMIT QROW, you don’t have a search warrant!

Qrow: SCREW YOUR WARRANT-lives are at stake!

Leo: YOU’RE A LOOSE CANNON BRANWEN! YOU’RE OFF THE CASE!

14:06 OOOH-poor Johnny boy, he REALLY wants him some revenge on Cinder.

15:06 But thankfully they make a logical compromise and-HOLY SHIT-he was lying because of Watts! I thought he was tricking him or some shit, this is WAY more interesting!

15:30 HEY-its that end scene from volume four! HOORAY FOR CYCLICITY! 

16:31 WELCOME TO JUST RITE-for all your Seven Elleven gas station allegorical needs!

...wait that place has a BAR?! Its a gas station...where people go to feul their vehicles...and serves alcohol...thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat is a messy combination.

17:30 Yang gets hit on by a drunk guy, then hits him SO HARD he bounces like four time! What is his semblance having a body made of rubber?

18:01 AH-Yang does the Archer drink finger-AWESOME!

18:18 WELP-we got our answer, she went after Raven-COMMENCE ALT-U FAN STORIES NOW!

18:56 Hey girly, I heard your looking for someone!

Damn, literally the ONLY TIME in history when getting hit on by a drunk creepy guy pays off!

19:00 OH DAMN-spooky music, WHO COULD IT B-oh its just Oz...didn’t we know that all ready in the trailer? And did we need a second pointless fake-out? A TAD superfluous.

I would also like to point out this is the ONLY time a man getting drunk and taking an underage boy home with him is okay, the ONLY time!

We then close out the ep with Oscar introducing his Bishie ass to the group as Oscar Pine(mother-fucker’s name was a play on the Prof’s name, twas DESTINY), reveals he’s mother-fucking OZPIN, all while the drunken old man on the couch REJOICES! HOORAY FOR ACCIDENTAL SUCCESS!

We’re also treated to the NEW theme song, lots of action, lots of fighgint, bitter sweet messages yadda yadda, you know how it goes. 

WELCOME TO VOLUME FIVE BABIES-this has been MicksteRecap with Yoshimickster, hope we can be pals this season!

#rwby #rwby volume 5 #ruby rose #Yang Xiaolong #blake belladonna #weiss schnee #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #qrow branwen #oscar pine #professor ozpin #raven branwen #ilia amitola #yang xiao long #cinder fall #rooster teeth #yoshimickster #micksterecaps

[thenightling]

What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

Explanation below.

Warning: Here there be Spoilers.

I fully admit that I, myself, am a late comer to the fandom of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics.  Back in the 1990s many friends had recommended the series to me and or insisted that I would love “Death.”   But no one gave me a proper explanation or summary of what I was to expect.  I figured it had to have been an over-rated trend.  I was too busy trying to get people to watch or listen to the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack (which hadn’t yet become the cultural phenomena it became in the early 2000s).

The comics I read in those days mostly consisted of the likes of Morbius: The Living Vampire, The Midnight Sons, Legion of Monsters, Tomb of Dracula and the occasional Tales from the Crypt reprint when I could find it.  I was lucky enough to have recurring access to a store called Dracula’s Comic Crypt on Long Island.   But as a woman into all things Gothic (and most especially art in the style of Bernie Wrightson) I was recommended Sandman over and over again.

Part of what discouraged me was that I have always had poor eyesight.  Today, of course, on a nice twenty inch computer monitor I can make the comic book images nice and big and keep physical copies mostly for collecting purposes. But mostly I just didn’t really know what Sandman was all about. 

Well, fast forward over twenty years later...  The TV show Lucifer has gained my attention and is both fascinating and fun for being different so I finally cave and decide to read the comics that he first came from... Sandman.  I was particularly interested in the storyline where Lucifer quits Hell (Season of Mists) but I wisely decided to start from the beginning.  I started at the beginning...  It wasn’t long before I realized that I liked this thing... I really, really liked this thing.  In fact I soon found I liked the protagonist, Morpheus, more than Lucifer.   

My response was along the lines of “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was so good?” to which several friends practically shouted “WE DID!”

So for anyone who was or is in a similar situation to me, I’ll explain Sandman as best I can for you right now since no one properly explained it to me back when it was first recommended to me a almost a quarter of a century ago.

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DC comics has had three characters named Sandman.  The first was a gas mask wearing Noir character named  Wesley Dodds.  The second was a golden age style superhero who later passed his mantel on to another, the replacement character called Hector Hall. 

And now for the third, the most important of DC’s Sandman / Sandmen.  The literal Sandman AKA Dream of the Endless, otherwise known as Morpheus. Ruler of The Dreaming realm.  Master of both Dreams and Nightmares.  First published by DC and later concluded by Vertigo (DC’s adult content label) Sandman was a very unique kind of story, set in the DC universe. 

  Morpheus (AKA Dream) sometimes changes his form but he’s fairly easy to recognize because he is always depicted with black talk bubbles with white text, originally intended to indicate a psychic form of communication more than actually vocal (but I think that idea was mostly dropped after the first issue and only hinted at again in the storyline called A Game of You). 

During the very first storyline of Sandman comics Morpheus was captured by humans.

Later it is revealed in a stand alone comic that the universe (in an effort to balance itself out) granted Wesley Dodds certain dream based abilities.  Dodds had something of a psychic link with Morpheus while Morpheus was in captivity. 

Later two nightmares escape from The Dreaming realm and these two (Brute and Glob) manipulate the super hero “Sandman” and his successor, Hector Hall. They do this to create a dream dimension of their own since the one Morpheus ruled had fallen into chaos without him. 

Morpheus / Dream is a member of The Endless and his full title (besides Sandman) is Dream of The Endless.

The Endless is a family of anthropamorphic personifications representing seven aspects or abstract concepts in relation to conscious life.    It’s not as complicated as it seems.

The Endless are:

Destiny:  Destiny is the eldest.  He is depicted as a shrouded blind man whose wrist is chained to a book containing the past, present and future.  Despite being apparently blind he can read his own book.  His sigil (the symbol that represents him) is a book.

Destruction.  Destruction grew weary of ...well, destruction when he saw humanity progressing toward increasing violence.  Determining that each Endless actually represents a concept and it’s counter-part he quit his vocation and wandered off to try to reinvent himself as a creative force instead of destructive.  His sigil is a sword.

Death.  Death is Death incarnate, much like Death of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld but instead of resembling the traditional Grim Reaper Death takes the form of a pale Goth girl with an eye of horas tattoo under her right eye.  You might think that she should be the most depressed or brooding of the group but no.  She’s friendly and optimistic.  She also loves films like Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid (Disney version).  She wears an ankh pendant, which also is her sigil.

Now we have Dream AKA Morpheus. He is The Sandman of folklore.  Dream is the middle sibling and he is The Sandman.  He rules the realm of The Dreaming.  He has wild “Robert Smith style” hair, bone-white skin and black eyes with small star-like pupils.  Morpheus is also very tall and skinny.  Dream’s sigil is his “Helm” - a battle mask he made for himself using the bones of two Lovecraftian “Old Gods” that attacked The Dreaming a long time ago.  (He almost never gets to wear this helm in actual battle as Morpheus is not really a warrior character by nature).  The helm is made from a large skull and spine and so it resembles a bone version of Wesley Dodd’s gas mask. 

     Desire.  Now come the twins, the first of which is Desire.  Desire is a genderfluid being that can be male or female (or both or neither) at will.  Desire is very fickle and can also be extremely cruel but also (on occasion) can be helpful and once even saved the universe (even though Desire doesn’t remember doing it).  Desire is slender, androgynous and has golden eyes.  Desire’s sigil is a heart. 

Despair.  Despair is the twin of Desire though you might never know it.  They look nothing at all alike.  Despair is a short, very full-figured woman who has jagged tusk-like teeth, and almost never wears clothes.  Despair’s sigil is a ring with a sharp hook attached to it. 

Delirium.  Delirium is the youngest of the Endless and very child-like.  She used to be Delight but someone or something hurt or abused her a long time ago and she became Delirium as a way to cope.  It’s implied that someday she might return to being Delight but as it stands that might take a whole lot of therapy.   Delirium can be very sweet but if you are mean to her or try to touch her without permission she will punish you by driving you to madness.  Her sigil was once a flower.  Now it’s a rainbow blob or smearing of color.

And there you have it.  The Endless in a nutshell.  Now on to the basic plot of Sandman...

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Sandman was first published in late 1988 and ran until 1996.  It then had several spin-offs and one shots, a prequel novel set in Ancient Japan (Dream hunters), a collection of short story comics called Endless Nights (one for each Endless), and finally the gorgeous prequel comic Sandman: Overture (compiled as a graphic novel in 2016).

Since the first run of Sandman is over seventy five issues long I will only give a summary of the first story arc.  Preludes and Nocturnes...

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Preludes and Nocturnes:

A group of late Victorian / Edwardian era occultists known as The Order of Ancient Mysteries (Modeled loosely after the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn) is lead by their Lord Magus, Roderick Burgess.  They use a grimoire known as the Magdalene Grimoire (which will later get use in Green Arrow) to cast a ritual spell to summon Death incarnate but instead of summoning her they accidentally summon The Sandman.

They realize their mistake but decide to keep Dream as their prisoner anyway.

A “sickness” occurs where several people end up with severe sleeping disorders because of the way Morpheus was taken.  One woman ends up with “Sleeping beauty syndrome” where she would wake for brief periods of time but usually slept.  Another goes into a coma.  One young man in Africa dreamt of a cloud castle, as was his usual dream, but the castle crumbled and he became catatonic.  A soldier would suffer a form of “Shell shock” that made him severely insomniactic.  But in general most people continued to sleep and dream normally. 

However in The Dreaming realm Morpheus’ absence was noticed.  And over time things started to deteriorate.  The vast library in The Dreaming started to disappear.  Some dream entities vanished.  Some Nightmare creatures escaped into the human world.

And Morpheus��� castle began to fall into disrepair.  This all happened over the span of many years, mind you.

For over seventy-two-years Morpheus is kept prisoner inside a clear crystal-glass cage, surrounded by a magical binding circle in Roderick’s cellar.   They take his helm, his pouch of dream sand, and his ruby amulet as magical trophies. They also take his clothes and leave him naked and caged.  They don’t even bother to feed him and though he won’t die of starvation he does suffer hunger.  The binding circle holds back Morpheus’ magick and psychic powers while the glass cage holds his physical body. 

During Morpheus’ captivity Roderick grew old and died and his son took his place as Morpheus’ main captor.  And eventually old age started to creep up on the son, Alexander.  One night Alexander visit’s his prisoner (who has refused to speak the entire time of his captivity) and Alex’s assistant (and lover) Paul, accidentally brushes Alex’s wheelchair slightly over the rim of the binding circle, breaching it and it’s hold over Morpheus’ psychic abilities. But they do not notice this slight breach.  Morpheus, however, does notice the breach in the circle holding him prisoner.  Morpheus waits for his opportunity.  As one of his guards has a brief day dream about a vacation on a beach, Morpheus is able to psychically connect with this dream to steal a fistful of the sand there on the dream beach and use this sand as he would use his pouch of dream sand.

Morpheus pretends to collapse within his cage.  

Appearing to be dead, the guards call for their employer, and open the glass cell.  Morpheus uses the pilfered dream sand to make good his escape.  

The first thing Morpheus does is he enters someone’s dream about wearing a clown costume to a party and no one else is in costume.  Here Morpheus (still quite naked) raids the buffet, even eating frog legs from a fried chicken style bucket held by Colonel Sanders.  He’s too hungry to think about anything other than eating. 

Once that’s done he conjures clothes for himself and seeks revenge on his captor...

Morpheus enters the dream of Alexander Burgess where he confronts him on holding him prisoner and how he treated him.  Morpheus used to be a very cruel and petty being and his cruelty lingers long enough for him to punish Alexander severely.  He condemns him to a dream of eternal waking, an eternal nightmare which entails waking up from a nightmare only to find he’s in yet another nightmare, just to wake up again and be in yet another nightmare and on and on forever while his body remains comatose and or may actually, one day, die while his soul could be stuck in that nightmare within The Dreaming for eternity. (Dream does eventually release Alexander Burgess though and forgives him).

Exhausted by this act of vengeance, Morpheus tries to make his way to his castle at The Heart of The Dreaming but faints in “The shifting lands” where he’s found by Gregory The Gargoyle.  Gregory is the pet of Cain. 

Cain and Abel are old horror host comic book characters from the 1960 and 1970s in the style of the Crypt Keeper, with Cain compulsively murdering Abel roughly once a night (Abel recovers each time as he’s immortal).  And yet Cain and Abel weirdly love each other. 

These characters originally came from the comic book series The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets.

The House of Secrets are the comics that first introduced DC’s Swamp Thing. 

At The House of Mystery (Cain’s home) Cain is presenting Abel with a new baby gargoyle egg (this gargoyle eventually gets named Goldie.  Originally Abel called the baby gargoyle Irving but Cain insisted that gargoyles need G names) that’s when Gregory (the large green Gargoyle) carries the barely conscious Morpheus to Cain.  This is one of the only times in the comics where you out right see Morpheus ask for help.  He’s a very proud character.

Cain and Abel set about nursing their king back to health.

Morpheus gradually recovers in Cain’s House of Mystery (Abel’s home is The House of Secrets) before making his way to his castle (now in ruins) in the heart of The Dreaming.  Morpheus’ loyal librarian, Lucien, had been trying to keep things running in Morpheus’ absence.

Lucien AKA Mr. Raven (not to be confused with Morpheus’ spy raven, Matthew, who comes later) is another horror host from older DC comics and the castle he resided in (known as the “Ghost Castle”) turns out to be Morpheus’ own castle, which has appeared in both The Waking World and The Dreaming, much like Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

Meanwhile Morpheus’ usual groundskeeper, Mervyn (A Jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow) had taken to driving a bus in The Dreaming and had to be brought back to The Castle to return to his original duties. 

Morpheus realizes he needs to get his property back- The pouch of dream sand, his helm, and his ruby dreamstone amulet (which is a conduit and amplifier for his powers) that had been taken at the start of his captivity and had drifted to different owners over time.  The Hecateae (The triple goddess AKA The Furies AKA The Fates AKA The Kindly Ones) tell Morpheus that John Constantine had his pouch of Dream Sand.  And so Morpheus goes to meet Constantine.  

John Constantine (who is a practicing occultist and private investigator) figures out that a former lover of his his own has the pouch of self-replenishing dream sand (he, himself, was unable to pull the draw strings of the pouch). The exlover has tragically been using the sand to get high and several Dream entities have been feeding on her imagination when she does this.  Her body is shutting down.  By the time Morpheus and Constantine find her there is little that can be done but Constantine demands Morpheus do something for her and so Morpheus gives her a pleasant final dream before she passes away.  Morpheus repays Constantine’s assistance by helping him with his chronic nightmares.

Next Morpheus has to retrieve his helm, which was taken by a demon.  Morpheus is forced to visit Hell to reclaim it.  Here he is guided by Etrigan The Demon (a demon that exists Dr. Jekyll and Hyde style with a human immortal host, Jason Blood).  Etrigan deliberately takes Morpheus past an imprisoned former lover of Morpheus’ own, Nada. She pleads for Morpheus to rescue her but he tells her that though he loves her he has not yet forgiven her.  (later we learn Morpheus left her in Hell because she rejected him back when he was a much crueler character).

Morpheus has started to change since his captivity.  He’s becoming softer, less cruel.  And though he does not rescue her here, he will eventually go back for her after his older sister, Death makes him realize that he had wronged Nada.

The demon who has taken Morpheus’ helm challenges him to a contest where each one has to out do the creativity of the other, inventing personas that would best the previous one conceived by the opponent.  Eventually Morpheus wins with the simple phrase “I am Hope.”  

This is later (much later) very bitterly sweetly elaborated on in the prequel comic Sandman: Overture, where Hope is revealed to have been a little girl whose ghost helps Morpheus but all he can remember of her is her name.

Side note: Lucifer (the main ruler of this Hell) becomes bitter and slowly makes up his mind to quit ruling there.  He does not get around to doing this until the storyline called Season of Mists, in which Lucifer leaves the key to Hell to Morpheus when Morpheus came back, looking to rescue Nada.  Lucifer also asks Morpheus to help him by cutting off Lucifer’s large bat-like wings for him. (Lucifer gets those wings back in his own solo comics, back to their original white, feathery Angelic state).

Eventually Morpheus gives The Key to Hell to two Angels who turn Hell into a place of redemption, and Lucifer retires to Earth where he opens a piano bar in LA called Lux but that’s a whole other story.

Morpheus’ ruby dreamstone amulet had been taken by the villain Doctor Destiny AKA John (or Johnny) Dee. (Not to be confused with Morpheus’ elder brother, Destiny personified).  Doctor Destiny AKA John Dee was being kept at Arkham Asylum.  Doctor Destiny happens to escape around this time as Morpheus is trying to reclaim his lost amulet.  The amulet was in a Justice League of America storage warehouse.  The amulet had been so corrupted by Doctor Destiny that merely touching it saps Morpheus of a great deal of his strength and he collapses, fainting in the warehouse, where it was being stored. 

By the time Morpheus regains consciousness, he finds that Doctor Destiny has taken the amulet and Doctor Destiny had used the ruby’s power on a diner full of people (whom he has toyed with, driven to madness, and then ultimately killed or made them kill each other and themselves in very gruesome ways).  Doctor Destiny and Morpheus have a confrontation where Doctor Destiny says he will kill Morpheus. 

Morpheus tricks Doctor Destiny into following him into The Dreaming where Doctor Destiny destroys the ruby, believing it will kill Morpheus if The Dreamstone is destoryed.  Instead of killing Morpheus, the power that was in the ruby dreamstone reverts to him, making Morpheus more powerful than he had been in centuries.  The ruby had contained a small fragment of Morpheus’ very soul.  Morpheus (who has started to change, becoming a bit kinder) shows pity on Doctor Destiny and instead of cruelly punishing him, he escorts him back to Arkham Asylum where he gives all the inmates a night of deep sleep and pleasant dreams.    

Once Morpheus has gotten back his lost artifacts he restores his castle and library. 

Now Morpheus feels restless and uncertain as to what to do with himself.  He’s lonely and feels like he’s lost his purpose.  So he goes to a park to feed the pigeons in order to try to cheer himself up.

(He loves birds and feeding birds is a comfort for him).  Here he meets up with his sister, Death, who makes pop culture references that fly right over his head (Since he’s been out of touch for nearly a century and wasn’t very good at slang to begin with). 

Morpheus loves and respects his sister and doesn’t understand why so many people fear her. 

He considers himself far more terrible than she could ever be.  She manages to cheer him up by simply being there.  She has him accompany her as she makes her rounds through the city, escorting souls to where they are meant to go. 

There are several adventures for Morpheus after this but this is the first story of the Sandman comics.  Most of his adventures deal with Morpheus righting the wrongs of his own dark past and coming to terms with very human things such as loneliness, friendship, guilt and grief.

Marvel fans might notice that Morpheus AKA Dream has certain similarities to Marvels’ Nightmare character.  And there are definite similarities.  The biggest difference is Dream is essentially what would happen if Nightmare went on a redemption arc.

_________________________

Other adventures of note:

At one point Morpheus is summoned to help Calliope, the muse.  Calliope and Morpheus had been married thousands of years earlier.  She has recently been held prisoner by cruel mortals who use her for inspiration and have physically abused her as well.  Morpheus tries to ask for her release and when that doesn’t work he’s forced to torment her captor with maddening, intensely creative dreams until he releases her.

Another storyline deals with Morpheus going back to Hell to rescue his abandoned lover, Nada, only to find that Lucifer has quit and Lucifer asks Morpheus to help him cut off his large bat wings (which he gets back as pretty feathery wings later in his own solo comics.)

Lucifer goes to Earth and decides to learn how to play Piano, among other things.  His lover, the demoness, Mazikeen, soon follows, while Morpheus’ older sister, Death, tries to sort out what to do with all the newly displaced wandering souls.

When Morpheus is left the key to Hell, various supernatural entities, beings of folklore, and religion come to The Dreaming to try to claim it from him.  One demon that arrives (made of many mouths) has Nada imprisoned inside of his very being.  Morpheus goes inside the demon and rescues Nada and while he’s there he also finds and rescues the very demon that had once had his helm and challenged him during the first Sandman storyline, Preludes and Nocturns.  Morpheus’ sense of compassion has grown.

In his pride Morpheus gives a flimsy apology to Nada for leaving her in Hell and she slaps him hard across the face.

He apologizes more sincerely after momentarily getting angry and tells her that she has a choice to make.  Nada chooses to be reincarnated.

When she’s reborn in Hong Kong, Morpheus sneaks into the nursery in the hospital maternity ward, where he cradles the baby, (The baby is male), telling the baby that he’ll never forget her and that she’ll always be welcome in The Dreaming.   

The key to Hell is ultimately passed to two Angels who choose to try to make it a place of reformation and redemption but somehow devise tortures equally as cruel (if not crueler) than what was there when Lucifer ran the place.  In Neil Gaiman’s lore souls only go to Hell if they believe that is what they deserve and then demons take advantage of that there in Hell.  In Lucifer’s stand alone comics it’s revealed that he was not given Hell as a punishment but as a place where he wouldn’t have to live in his Father’s shadow.  It became a place of darkness and misery because of Lucifer’s own dark mindset.  Lucifer now seems content on Earth and never returns to ruling Hell.

(Note: The current Devil / Satan of the DC universe is “First of the Fallen” (a different entity from Lucifer as Lucifer is “retired” and is not actually categorized as evil anymore.)   

In current DC / Vertigo lore, a different being, “First of The Fallen” has taken the title of Satan while Lucifer has happily become a neutral character, considered neither Good nor Evil (though leaning heavily toward Good in his TV show incarnation).  Lucifer is retired and categorized as Neutral in his moral alignment while First of the Fallen is categorized as Evil.  Lucifer may have been the first Angel to fall from grace but he was not the first entity to fall from grace (by that list Lucifer is actually the fourth to fall) and so Lucifer does not actually have the title First of the Fallen in the current comics. 

One sweet storyline in Sandman is how Morpheus met a man who ‘refused to die” (an immortal) and the man (known as Hob and later Robert) agreed to meet with Morpheus every century to tell him what it was like to go from being mortal to being immortal, how his life has been for the last century, and to tell him if he wanted to continue to live).  In the 1700s they run into John Constantine’s Great, great, grandmother, Johanna Constantine, who mistakes Morpheus and Robert (Hob) as “The Devil and the Wandering Jew” and tries to capture Hob / Robert and Morpheus. 

In the 1800s Hob confronts Morpheus on the fact that there are actually other formerly-human immortals around the world and Hob believes Morpheus only meets with him once a century because they are friends and not because he is curious to know how Hob handles his immortality.  Morpheus becomes indignant and prideful, insisting that he doesn’t need friends.

He storms off and Hob calls after him that if he shows up next century he’ll know it’s because they’re friends and no other reason.

A century later Morpheus arrives and Hob admits he had not thought he’d come and Morpheus tells him that he had been told that it is rude to keep one’s friends waiting.  It’s sweet.

In the lore of Sandman Morpheus is the father of the mythological Orpheus, the musician who went into the Greek underworld to retrieve his dead wife. Orpheus’ mother is the muse, Calliope.  Hades agreed to let Orpheus have his wife back if he did not look back at her until they left The Underworld, proving his trust in the Greek God of The Dead.  Orpheus made the mistake of looking back at her at the last second and so lost her just before they could exit The Underworld.  Orpheus was then later torn apart by zealots and since he was condemned to immortality he was stuck as a severed head.  Shortly before going to The Underworld Orpheus had denounced his father, Morpheus, for refusing to help get his wife back from The Land of The Dead.  Hurt and angry, Morpheus refused to help him other than to send some priests dreams about Orpheus so that they and their descendants would tend to him (as he’s just a severed head) for centuries to come.

In the early 1990s, when Morpheus’ youngest sister, Delirium wants to find their lost brother, Destruction, Morpheus is forced to go to Orpheus to find out where Destruction is.  Orpheus bitterly greets his estranged father and tells him that he will give him the information he needs but only if he does him the one mercy he has been pleading for, for centuries.  Morpheus does not want to do it but finally out of mercy he kills his own son, reuniting Orpheus with his wife in The Underworld.  But Morpheus is left with a deep remorse over how he treated his son and for Orpheus’ death.  Morpheus retreats to his private rooms in his castle where he weeps, alone.

Morpheus eventually gets mistaken as the kidnapper of baby Daniel ( a child who, while fetal, spent an unusually long time in The Dreaming realm.  Daniel is the son of Hector Hall, the second superhero Sandman who passed away).   Lyta, the baby’s Mother, is lead to believe her child is dead.  She calls upon the Kindly Ones (representatives of the crone aspect of The Triple Goddess) to seek revenge. They tell her that they cannot seek revenge for her son but an Endless is not allowed to kill someone of their own blood, nor is Morpheus allowed to kill at all except to protect The Dreaming.  As Morpheus has violated these ancient rules, they can seek revenge over the death of Orpheus.

The end of the Sandman comics has Morpheus “die” sacrificing himself to stop The Kindly Ones from Destroying The Dreaming.  Morpheus’ loved ones grieve him but it’s a little ambiguous as to if he’s truly dead.  Morpheus had become weary of his role as ruler of The Dreaming but he knew that he could not just abandon it the way Destruction had abandoned his role.  And he could not quit the way Lucifer had, though he does quote Lucifer about being so very tired.

 The Kindly ones seek Morpheus’ death or the destruction of The Dreaming.  Morpheus gives up his life to save his realm, allowing his sister, Death, to take him.  As Morpheus “dies” all of his memories and power pass on into baby Daniel, who transforms and now wears an emerald with a small amount of Dream’s soul within it.  Everything that was mortal of Daniel is gone as he is transformed into the new incarnation of Dream.

When Lyta had mistakenly thought Morpheus had taken her baby, Daniel had actually been kidnapped by Puck and Loki but Daniel was ultimately rescued by a Nightmare being known as The Corinthian, and Morpheus’ Raven spy / messenger, Matthew (who had been a human soul who died in his sleep and was allowed to remain in The Dreaming after his death as Morpheus’ loyal servant.  Matthew (in his human form) had originally been a character of the Swamp Thing comics.

Daniel- now simply calling himself Dream- (which was Morpheus’ alternate name) took an adult form that looks much like Morpheus except with white hair instead of black.  This can be seen as similar to a Doctor Who style regeneration however there are other things that make Morpheus’ death fishy and or potentially a false ending.

Hob AKA Robert (Morpheus’ immortal friend) has a dream of Morpheus in which Morpheus is with a man he does not know (Destruction) and both walk off together. 

This can imply two things.  1.  Morpheus could have faked his death very elaborately and is telling Hob (as he has told Hob things via dreams before) or 2.  Morpheus did die and Daniel resurrected him as a Dream (which actually is one of his powers, to resurrect anyone who dies in The Dreaming realm as a Dream entity, maintaining free will, personality, and soul).  

And that’s about it.

Though there are serious and complex parts, some of Sandman is fun and light too, such as when Morpheus allows Delirium to drive... in the human world...

And there you go.  A crash course in what the Hell Neil Gaiman’s Sandman actually is.  Despite the spoilers of this post, I assure you that the actual comics are much more enjoyable to read.

#Sandman #The Sandman #Neil Gaiman #Lucifer #Lucifer Morningstar #Morpheus #Dream #Dream of The Endless #Explaining Sandman #Sandman Explained #What is Sandman? #What is The Sandman? #Explaining The Sandman #The Sandman Explained #DC #DC Comics #Vertigo #Detective Comics #Vertigo Comics #The Endless #Endless #Neil Gaiman's Sandman #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman

[is-osana-here-yet]

Comparing Lunar Scythe and Yandere Simulator 1/? : Character Design

This is Luna, her backstory as written by Dev is:

The main character is a girl in her late teens named Luna. Luna is obsessed with an idea; the idea that this world is full of people who don't deserve to live. Murderers, thieves, kidnappers, human traffickers, drug dealers, arms dealers, arsonists, scam artists, identity thieves - Luna desperately wishes she could do something to rid the planet of such people, but she feels like there is nothing she could do that would ever make a difference. At the beginning of the game, Luna dies. As Luna's spirit looks down at her own body, she feels nothing but apathy. She didn't want to live in a world filled with human filth, anyway. That's when Death shows up. Death looks into her soul to determine which afterlife she belongs in, and he is surprised at what he finds within her. He learns that she is free of sin, yet her strongest desire is to take millions of lives. While examining this pale girl clad entirely in black who yearns to kill, Death feels as though he's looking at his own reflection for a moment. Death decides that Luna may be able to serve him a purpose. Instead of sending her soul to the afterlife, Death makes Luna an offer. "I'll bring you back to life, if you agree to bring me human souls." Luna is shocked by his offer. "But I don't want to kill innocent people!" "Then do not kill the innocent," Death replies. "Kill the guilty." "But who are the guilty?" She asks. "That's for you to decide," Death replies. Death is offering her the authority and the power to kill anyone she thinks deserves to die - and she thinks that a LOT of people deserve to die. She doesn't want to come back to life and return to a miserable world filled with criminals, sadists, and psychopaths...but if she had the power to purify this sinful world, she could create a world that she actually wants to live in. And so, Luna accepts the offer, not to become Death, but to become Justice. Death resurrects Luna, gives her a giant scythe, and grants her superhuman powers that become active at midnight. By day, Luna is an ordinary girl who works part-time jobs to scrape by...and by night, she is the judge, jury, and executioner of her city, an agent of death. If Luna does not bring him enough souls, Death will take her life. Luna asks Death how many souls he wants, and what her deadline is. Because Death does not perceive time the same way that mortals do - in terms of seconds, minutes, or hours - he cannot give her a specific date. As he looks upward in contemplation, he notices that the moon is full. And so, he decides that Luna must use the scythe to deliver a specific number of souls to him by the end of the lunar cycle. Hence the name of the game, "Lunar Scythe." (What do you think? Corny?) The game takes place over the course of a year. After each full moon, Death demands more souls by the next full moon. So, Luna has to kill more and more people to meet her quota each month. What Luna doesn't know is that she's not the only dead girl that Death has brought back to life! He has also resurrected other recently deceased girls who each have the capacity to take millions of lives. Every time there is a full moon, Luna will fight another resurrected dead chick wielding a giant energy weapon. The game takes place in 2015, and there are 13 full moons in 2015, meaning Luna will have to face 13 of these enemies in total.

What is Death plotting? Why does he want mortals to gather souls for him? What will happen once Luna has defeated all of the other dead girls?

You'll have to play the game to find out. ^.~

Alex has given her a fairly simple backstory that could easily be expanded on. In the forum he presented this in, he gets some good feedback on her character wise. The people pose questions such as “what is her goal?” and “well this bit doesn’t make sense because .....” 

We already know Dev made Ayano a blank slate, because when he presented Lunar Scythe, he was met with what he saw as “harsh criticism.” However in the forum no one is really that harsh. Most tend to clue in that Alex doesn’t take critique well, and pose their thoughts in ways such as “well think about why she does this, who made her like this...” One of the major problems fans have with Yandere Simulator, is the lack of personality/story for Ayano. One could say Ayano is meant to be a self insert for the player, but the problem is she is legit nothing. A self insert in other games typically has a base story, and the interpretations of a character are formed based on the choices that the player makes. In otome games, Persona 5, Fallout, you can choose dialogue options. It’s up to the player to pick the snarky comment, the kind comment ect... The only way a player could form an interpretation of Ayano is through elimination methods. Do they stab a person? Blackmail? Pair them up with someone else? Either way the only focus on these options is Ayano’s perspective on removing someone from Taro’s life. The player can’t decide why Ayano loves Taro. What kind of person Ayano is. 

I tried my best to make sure that Luna wasn't a Mary Sue. There are a lot of details about Luna that I left out... Luna's younger sister, Stella, was a child genius and a celebrity. Chess grandmaster, master of four instruments, wrote and published a best-selling novel, graduated college, performed surgery - all before the age of 12. Luna was never able to measure up to her little sister in any way, which left her with a horrible inferiority complex. As soon as Stella started pulling in tons of money and making the family famous, her parents practically forgot that Luna existed. Luna tried everything to get her parents' attention - causing trouble at school, wearing bizarre fashion, dying her hair crazy colors - but this only pushed her parents further away. She moved out at age 18, and she hasn't spoken to them since. She doesn't bother reading any news related to her younger sister, preferring to pretend that she doesn't even exist. The goth fashion and dyed hair became a part of her identity after so many years, so she still keeps a little bit of dye in her hair and wears gothic accessories from time to time. Luna started struggling immediately after moving out. She barely graduated high school, she can't make friends easily, she can't hold down a job, and can't afford to pay her rent. She's depressed, miserable, and desperate when she finally dies. Even after her resurrection, she still lacks the qualifications or experience for any full-time job, and has to keep doing lousy part-time jobs to scrape by. She literally has nothing going for her, other than the fact that she gets superpowers for a brief period of time at midnight...then it's back to being a failure at life.

Again, this is very underdeveloped. Why can’t she hold down a job? Doesn’t she learn? Is being depressed just part of her character? Alex refused to give Ayano a backstory, because he decided that if people didn’t like what he wrote for Luna, they wouldn’t like what he wrote for Ayano. Ayano has been given a few backstory prompts, sort of. The biggest being “Ayano can’t feel anything”, however people criticise Ayano’s character because it contradicts the very basis of her, she’s a yandere. It feels like Alex has just recycled the murderous intent from Luna, removed her backstory and stuck it into Ayano. There is no “deredere” to contrast the “yan” side of her, making her boring and dull.

People began saying Luna looks too generic, looks like Ryuko from Kill La Kill, Ruby Rose from RWBY, and Cassie Hack from Hack/Slash. People also though she looked too “edgy”, typical busty goth anime girl. When met with this criticism, Alex went around commissioning different artist to come up with a different design for his character. He asked the forum what they liked best. The designs presented were:

And this, is Ayano’s concept art.

Ayano’s first design shares some similarities to Luna. The red/black palette. Short hair. It seems as though Alex abandoned the original “having a distinct silhouette” and opted for having a plain design. Ayano is not easily recognisable, as she looks like any other Japanese middle school student. In the forum, he is constantly asking for harsh criticism. He says he want to improve the character. He often asks what other people would suggest instead. 

As he’s met continuously with criticism about the practicality of this all, he states:

I'm totally aware of how ridiculously impractical it would be to use a scythe as a weapon...in real life. But this is a video game, where the Rule of Cool is the only rule I need. I'm willing to throw realism and practicality out the window for the sake of having the coolest weapon possible, and to me, that's got to be an energy scythe. An umbrella isn't a practical weapon to use in a fight, either, but that doesn't stop Parasoul. You can argue that Parasoul is using a special fantasy umbrella that shoots projectiles - and, likewise, my character is using a special sci-fi scythe with an energy blade rather than a solid blade, which opens up combat options that a grass-cutting tool does not.

I agree that the costume is impractical, but that doesn't matter to me very much. Once again, I'm willing to completely suspend my disbelief as long as something looks cool enough...or sexy enough. I'd rather have an impractical and cool-looking character than a completely realistic, practical, boring character. With that said, it may be entirely possible for her to be wearing a much more cool-looking outfit than her current corset / skirt combo...but whatever outfit I eventually decide on will definitely not be restrained by practicality. So, what would you suggest for the outfit?

It seems like this is what fuelled Alex to make Ayano so boring. Ayano seems like she’s just a huge “fuck you” to the people that criticised Luna. Ayano is very practical. Very realistic. To the point of boredom. People continually state Luna’s character is boring and too simple, his response:

The reason I wanted to give the protagonist a simple hairstyle is because I haven't been able to get cloth physics or long hair physics working in my game engine. But, of course, that's a personal failing, and shouldn't restrict the character's appearance. So, what would you suggest for the hairstyle?

Having short hair fits with the first design of Ayano. Perhaps his engine still was that bad that he couldn’t get physics working. Personally, I feel like Alex continuing to ask people for suggestions when met with any criticism becomes very passive aggressive. Every single comment is met with that. It comes off as “well if you think it sucks, tell me how I should do it then.” You cannot saying the hair is generic without giving an alternate suggestion according to Alex.

He also gets upset over someone stating there was no reason for having a young white female protagonist. Keep in mind Ayano too, is a young white female protagonist.

What's wrong with having a young, white, female protagonist? If this is a "social justice warrior" thing, I'm definitely not going to argue about that subject in this thread. The costume is my primary concern here.

Alex quickly abandons is old “please critique my work!” rhetoric and writes this rant defending his choices.

About the cleavage, midriff, and legs...well, there is a story-related reason why she desires to dress up in a sexy outfit when she fights, but even if there wasn't a plot-related reason, I'm going to fall back on the Rule of Sexy. I absolutely love sexy-looking femme fatale characters. ...aren't we on...the Skullgirls forum...?...

This goes back to Alex is making a game for himself. A character for himself. He is sexualizing this girl and is lying about having a story related reason for the sexy outfit. He does the same thing with the characters of Yandere Simulator. 

I really hate over-designed characters with too many belts and zippers and random useless accessories hanging off of every limb...but I really don't think my character suffers from that problem. She's got a pretty simple outfit. There are some details, sure, but I don't feel the design approaches the DeviantArt level of ridiculous over-design. Everything about the character's design, however implausible it might seem at first glance, does have a justification. The reason she dyes her hair, the reason Death thought a scythe would suit her best, the reason she wears a sexy outfit - it's all worked into her backstory. Is that what you're talking about? I didn't really purposefully make the game's storyline dark for the sake of being dark - I just made it a story that appeals to me, and dark things happen to appeal to me, so the story came out really, really dark. I guess you could say that my over-abundant enthusiasm for impractical weapons, sexy outfits, and super dark-and-edgy plot elements is totally steering the design and direction of this game. (However, because the game takes place predominantly in LITERALLY dark environments, it may be a good idea to give her a brighter color scheme...) Maybe it's because all of these aspects of her design appeal 100% to my personal tastes, but I just can't imagine that choosing to go with this character design could actually result in "practically no revenue". Is that what you're really suggesting? Or are you just saying that every time I make a decision about a character's appearance, I should treat that decision, no matter how minor, as being a choice that could ruin the game financially? Because that doesn't seem realistic to me, either... Anyway, why even criticize the original design? I'm ready and willing to replace it with one of the new re-designs that I posted. So, please tell me what it is you like / dislike about the NEW designs.

The thread goes into gameplay a little more, and then Alex says this:

I'm starting to think I made this thread a little too soon. I mean, I'm TOTALLY aware that I could never, ever ship a game that plays exactly like that prototype you played. Obviously, the final game won't just be killing sets of 5 dudes over and over. Obviously, the final game won't have that lame death animation. Obviously, the final game won't have a special move that is just spinning in a circle. But since people are getting the wrong idea, I guess it was a mistake to post that prototype and call it a "demo". Maybe I should have called it a "proof of concept". Or maybe I should have called it a "programming test". Or maybe I shouldn't have posted anything at all just yet...

It’s quite similar to the pity party he threw himself when his game was critiqued by Mike Z. Alex posts more designs for his character at this point

We go back to Luna’s goal and backstory, and Alex just keeps stating that she hates bad people and wants to rid the world of them. He states a few times “you have to play the game to find out” A similar tactic used with core plot points in Yandere Simulator.

What I’ve gathered from looking at Luna and Ayano together, Ayano is Luna. Same sadistic side. Lack of empathy. Similar beta designs and motifs. Ayano just had Luna’s backstory removed because Alex didn’t want to face criticism again. 

#yandere simulator #lunar scythe #yansim #yanderedev #yandev #yandere dev #articles