#implied giant!george

[kayla-crazy-stuffs]

I draw something about tiny mer while I'm still answering an ask :)

Part of George's arm is out of the water and Dream took the chance to lean on it

I was trying to practice a bit with blinking animation, it's a bit bad but i kinda like how it turned

#mcyt g/t #mcyt gt #tiny!dream #mer!dream #giant!george #implied giant!george #blink animation practice #tiny mer!au

[colossal-red]

TinyHunt Side Stories: A Third Boyfriend?

Tw: None, as far as I know. WC: 1K

A shorter one today folks!

Sapnap had received a call from his boyfriend Quackity. He wanted them to go and hang out at his place for a bit, and Sapnap hoped he hadn’t forgotten an important date again. Quackity lived a long while away, all the way in Las Nevadas a few miles away from Essempi. Once he got to the bright lights of the city, he turned into Quackity’s apartment complex, where he was there waiting. “Hey Sapnap!” He waved his boyfriend down. Sapnap stopped and let Quackity into the car, “I have some BIG news Sap!” He exclaimed sliding into the passenger seat at the front.

“I’m excited, what is it?” He asked, “Well, you know how we’ve been talking about being in a polyamorous relationship? And how we needed to find a third guy if we were gonna do that?” He asked Sap. “Yeah, and I’m assuming that you found someone good?” “Yep! Just head to this location in the woods.” He pointed at a map. Sapnap squinted at the location. “Near the Ruins of L’Manburg? Why would he be there?”

“Dunno, that’s just where he chills, but you’ll understand once you see him!” Sapnap was getting a bit nervous, who exactly had they eventually reached an area where the cement road turned to dirt. “Umm, how much further?” He asked Quackity again. “Hmm, oh! Take a left into this clearing!” He pointed to the left where there was an opening, Sapnap obeyed and turned the wheel. They pulled to a stop in the clearing and Quackity got out and stood in the middle of it. “Quackity…?” He tried to ask when a Tiny stepped out from behind a tree.

“Red are you sure this is the best idea?” Karl asked the deity nervously as they watched the Quackity and Sapnap of Karl’s original universe before he was recruited drive toward the clearing. “Yes, after all, every multi-verse version of Quackity and Sapnap needs a Karl. And I also need you to help convince Sapnap that borrowers aren’t that bad.” Colossal Red added on to the end. “Aren’t you like a God? Can’t you just change him?” He stared off into space for a second, Karl wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but it was ominous. He shook out of his stupor. “It’ll be fine, alright? Just go out there and be yourself. Just without mentioning the Multiversal Traveler thing.”

Karl reluctantly stepped out from behind the tree as they entered the clearing and Quackity stood in the middle waiting. “Hey Quackity, *clears throat* Sapnap.” Karl added nervously as Quackity placed his hand on the ground, waiting for the borrower to step on. “Quackity, how does this, thing know my name?“ Sapnap asked Quackity, eyes locked on Karl as Quackity picked him up and presented him to Sap. “Because this little guy is who I found! I think he’s cool!” Sapnap’s expression softened as he turned his eyes to his boyfriend, “Ah, so you want to keep him as a, pet?” He asked questioningly.

“What? No! As our third boyfriend!” Karl and Sapnap locked eyes again, it’s okay Karl, just remember you can portal out of here if anything happens. Or he could turn himself into one of his alternate universe selves, he could also do that. Sapnap closed his eyes and looked at the floor as if he was thinking. Eventually he appeared to come to a conclusion. During this Quackity’s demeanor started getting more and more nervous as he realized that Sapnap probably wasn’t the biggest fan of borrowers.

Sapnap looked up, and saw his boyfriend and the borrower who was apparently named Karl. After he presented himself as accepting of Karl in the clearing, they had gone and ordered some pizza and were eating it on an old bench somewhere around L’Manburg. No one really knows the history of this place, people just kinda found it one day, with a sign oh a heart made of pink wool that only had one letter left. ‘L’. There was also what was presumed to be an apostrophe next to it, so they called it L’Manburg. Pretty bold assumption, but that’s really all they had to go off.

Anyway, Sapnap while he despised tinies, (which he just found out were called borrowers) he decided that he’d give Karl a chance, for Quackity. And he had to admit, Karl was a pretty cool guy. Then Sap’s phone rang. “One moment my love.” He told Quackity as he took a few steps away from the table and picked up the phone. “Dad?” “Hey Sap, I just wanted to tell you that the Exterminator is here, and that you should stay away from here while he does his work.” Sapnap blanched for a moment, he had a brief moment of thinking that Dream could be a friend too. But then upon remembering the torment he and George went through, he set his jaw and said, “Alright, I’ll stay away.”

He, Karl, and Quackity hung out for a while after that, talking about a variety of things. Sapnap was glad that Quackity had Chesticuffs in his trunk, it is a rather fun game that everyone can play. It was getting late, and now was the time for him to leave them. “I got to go now, I had a good time Quacks and Karl.” He got up to leave and gave Quackity a small kiss on the cheek. Quackity gave him a pointed expression, and he sighed. “And goodbye Karl.” He gave Karl a small peck as well. Prime what has he become? He then left for home and sat on his bed, pondering what would happen next when George summoned him and Bad for a meeting in the living room…

@funtimemoth @baka-monarch @eiscreme135 @squishys-soft-stories

#mcyt g/t #tinyhunt au #side stories #giant!sapnap #tiny!karl #giant!quackity #implied giant!george #implied tiny!dream #giant!bad #giant!colossal red #self insert

[atundratoadstool]

Before Dracula Daily starts tomorrow, people eager to hear from Jonathan Harker might be interested in knowing that there's good evidence that the first chapter of the book was originally Chapter III, and that in the first two chapters, Jonathan was possibly supposed to have:

Checked out the Pinakotek art museum.

Visited a leichenhaus in Munich where Count Dracula was seemingly hanging around pretending to be a dead body before apparently popping back to life.

Attended a performance of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman (which probably ties into Stoker's fascination with the play Vanderdecken, which Henry Irving starred in) .

Done all the stuff in the short story "Dracula's Guest," which includes (1) having a scary time on Walpurgisnacht before having his scary time on St. George's Eve, (2) finding a mysterious mausoleum in which a blonde woman--implied to be the blonde vampiress who later features in Dracula's castle--has a giant iron stake in her and gets struck by lightening in a storm, (3) spending the night in the snow with a wolf--who is probably Dracula--sitting on him to keep him warm and abrading his throat with its file like tongue.

#Bram Stoker #Dracula #Dracula Daily #Dracula's Guest #Jonathan Harker #dracula daily spoilers

[leclerc-s]

big reputations - part three

series masterlist // previous // next

yuki tsunoda so when is daniel going to man up and invite daphne jones to a grand prix?

daniel ricciardo wow. this is a betrayal i never saw coming. my own teammate.

daniel ricciardo and i’ll do it when i can actually drive in one again?

lando norris BOO! COWARD! INVITE HER TO SUZUKA!

fernando alonso invite her before i do.

daniel ricciardo do not threaten me fernando.

daniel ricciardo why do all of you just assume i’ve talked to her?

max verstappen what is it logan says, ‘slide into her dms?’ logan sargeant never thought i’d live to see the day max verstappen said ‘slide into her dms’

lando norris there’s no way she hasn’t see the tweets from your fans.

george russell and you have? lando norris they're practically thirst trapping the woman! of course i have! charles leclerc sounds like a horrible excuse.

alex albon i thought we were all aware of lando's man crush on daniel??

lando norris fuck you albon

logan sargeant and he's trying to steal my boyfriend!

lando norris what the hell are you going on about? logan sargeant don’t think i haven’t seen the heart eyes you send oscar! oscar piastri do you just like picking fights with lando? AND WE’RE NOT DATING! STOP TELLING PEOPLE THAT

pierre gasly my favorite tweet was the one telling daphne jones that max will be a third wheel in their relationship.

max verstappen i hope you dnf gasly

kevin magnussen someone warn the poor girl that dating daniel means accepting max and his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s boyfriend.

sergio perez who’s his boyfriend? and boyfriend’s boyfriend?

kevin magnussen charles and carlos

charles leclerc HOW DID I GET DRAGGED INTO THIS? carlos sainz and me? esteban ocon that’s your biggest problem with that? not that kevin implied you two are dating? or max and charles?

max verstappen you two are shitheads

daniel ricciardo but this is so much fun

max verstappen fun for who? certainly not me.

daphne jones you're an f1 driver, you keep secrets all the time, how is this any different?

max verstappen BECAUSE AT LEAST FOR THAT I'M NOT CONSTANTLY GETTING ASKED ABOUT IT! IT’S ALSO MY JOB!

daphne jones those tweets were right, max has become a third wheel in my relationship

max verstappen YOU TWO AREN'T EVEN DATING??

daphne jones my hypothetical relationship

daniel ricciardo

max verstappen definition of down bad

daphne jones i'm taking your girlfriend out to dinner.

max verstappen excuse me?

daphne jones i'm taking out alex and pierre's girlfriends too. they're my girlfriends now.

daniel ricciardo YOU'RE IN ITALY?? WHEN I'M NOT??

daphne jones oops? daniel ricciardo I HATE EVERYTHING!!!

¡leclerc-s speaks! not going to lie, i didn't feel like changing the date on the final set of tweets. (i noticed too late and didn't want to go back and change it.) i'm like eh about this part and hopefully the next one is better. also manifesting vegas isn't the giant shitshow we're all expecting it to be. praying for the drivers' safety because the track is going to be fucking cold.

¡disclaimer! this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

#leclerc-s #big reputations series #daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo x female oc #formula one #formula 1 #formula 1 fic #fanfic #fanfiction #f1 #f1 smau #f1 social media au #f1 instagram au #f1 fic

[gffa]

I don't know if you have done this before, but can you explain the differences between EU's Darth Vader and Canon's Darth Vader in terms of power levels? I heard that EU Vader's power levels weakned after Mustafar due to losing his limbs, and yet Canon's Vader was like a beast in terms of power.

Hi! I would say that this is a bit of conflating two different things. One, is that Vader's power levels were weakened after Mustafar according to George Lucas, in terms of what Anakin could have been if he hadn't had his limbs chopped off. Second is that Vader in the OT is where he seems at his weakest, but honestly I think a lot of that is just that those movies were made in the '70s/'80s and don't have the same special effects as we do today, but that the way the other characters react to him imply that he's pretty terrifying. I mean, he chokes a dude from all the way on another ship, that's pretty walking nightmare of him! I think it makes the most sense to look at it this way: When Mustafar had just happened, Anakin was just a giant ball of rage over all the losses he'd felt, the anger he had boiling inside of him because he thought everyone betrayed him, he had the focus of hunting down the Jedi, he had his "I need you to hate me because that's the only way I'll believe you ever cared about me" dynamic with Obi-Wan to fuel his obsessions. But by the time of the OT, it had been nearly two decades of him not having any real connections to people, only his relationship with Palpatine. He had no one who sparked anything worthwhile in him, he had no one that he truly cared about (other than the whole fucked up thing with Palpatine), and it's just. A fire has gone out of him. He's old and sad and tired. There's still a few embers left that he can stir up now and again, but it's not until his obsession with Luke gets going that he really feels like anything anymore. Vader was never going to reach the heights that Anakin Skywalker could have reached, but he was still an absolute beast of a walking nightmare, from Mustafar all the way to Endor's moon. He was just too tired to display it during the movies because he'd burnt himself out after that much time of not having the kind of people around him that Anakin actually wanted. (And because they were filmed in the '70s and special effects weren't what they are now.)

#lumi.txt #star wars #anakin skywalker #meta

[quasitsqueeries]

The Emperor wasn't 12 feet tall

I see this meme a lot in my Instagram feed and it really grinds my gears:

Not because it seems to be trying to shame a fictional antagonist for being "wrong" (although that really doesn't help), but because whoever made it seems to have missed that depictions of the Emperor as superhuman are meant to be Imperial Propaganda.

Now, I realise I'm going to be fighting an uphill battle here because there seem to be people working for Games Workshop and producing their media who also missed that memo, and for a while now the studio has started producing actual depictions of the Emperor, and some of those depections show him as 12 feet tall and immortal. This might be controversial but I think what this shows is that Games Workshop don't understand Games Workshop's source material.

Here's a picture of the Emperor from the original Rogue Trader rulebook.

Even this is obviously meant to be a propaganda image, but here he looks like just a regular guy in armour, he's about the same size as the people around him. Not a superhuman, just a guy with an excess of hubris.

There's this literary construct called the unreliable narrator. When I studied literature we were given this short story to read called Bartleby the Scrivener. It's told from the point of view of an employer about a clerk who was apparently really difficult to manage. The subtext is that the narrator is trying to manipulate the reader to make themself look good.

For a long time, that's what Warhammer 40,000 did, the Imperium was made out to be an unreliable narrator. Stories about the Imperium's "glorious past" were told through the haze of ten thousand years of unending war, by an ecclesiastical class with a vested interest in keeping Imperial citizens committed to feeding the war machine. To the Imperium, the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy serve the function of myths, more than history. I've gone on before about how important heroic figures like Siegfried and Perseus and Prometheus were to the Nazis. The Imperium, being a fictional state that draws on the aesthetics and ideology of Fascism, uses the figures of the Emperor and Primarchs the same way.

Basically what I'm saying is that when Imperial sources state that these people were twelve feet tall and immortal and could, um, turn a giant ork into a lightbulb on a whim, it's not because they had these powers, but because they've been ascribed these powers by their priesthood, who have total control over the flow of information in this setting.

And I get that this is hard, because most people don't get taught this stuff, and often people are probably looking for escapism from their fiction and why would the book I'm reading lie to me? But I think it really makes the setting more interesting if you look at it this way.

Also, I realise that since 2006 there have been books around that describe the Emperor, and they do show him as superhuman, and I think those depictions are based on the writers misunderstanding the material they're working from. I guess Tolkien wrote the existence of The Hobbit into Middle Earth as the Red Book of Westmarch so I can tell myself that the Horus Heresy novels are meant to be in-universe Imperial propaganda.

ADDENDUM: I need to add this because I've been reading about Perpetuals, which is apparently what the Emperor is since the Horus Heresy series was published. Apparently these individuals are human mutants that are both immortal and invincible. I remember Mechanicum heavily implying that the Emperor and St. George are the same person. Here's the problem with that. There are two themes that I think are really important in Warhammer 40,000. One is the Emperor's hubris, the idea was that he was playing god, genetically engineering monstrosities in the form of the primarchs. In the Greek tragic mould, it's this hubris that leads to his downfall. This kind of loses its sting if he's just trying to recreate what what he already is.

The other theme is the Imperium's superstition. This one is really the core of 40K. The Imperium has taken the corpse of a man who tried to rule the galaxy, told themselves he's not dead, plugged the corpse into a machine that "regenerates" him, and founded an intolerant, violent and expansionist religion around this husk. This theme changes significantly if the Emperor actually was as powerful as the Ecclesiarchy makes him out to be, and actually isn't dead, and has somehow been regenerating for the last 10,000 years. There's a question here about what would make an entity worthy of worship, or being called a god, and I probably shouldn't get into it but this is my blog so I'm going to. It seems like there's an assumption among some writers that if something can be rationally explained then it's not a god, because gods ipso facto don't exist. They've incorporated nonexistence into their definition of gods. This is where you get the idea that the Chaos gods aren't gods, because the setting explains their existince "rationally" with its internal logic (nevermind that there's nothing rational about the warp). If there were gods in a rational sense, then our model of the universe would have to change to accomodate them. I think the upshot of this is basically that if what the Horus Heresy novels claim about the Emperor is true, then the Ecclesiarchy are right and he is a god within the logic of the setting. That doesn't justify the genocide and expansionism, but maybe it does justify the worship, and that's something that I think takes away from the setting.

#warhammer 40000 #horus heresy #emperor of mankind #games workshop #wargaming

[pauls1967moustache]

I've also been pondering George's role in all the girl Paul/John business, and I feel like he and Paul had their first kiss with each other and Jim always wished Paul would end up with George instead of John, but it didn't take long for George to figure out she just wasn't into him like that. John is definitely a giant competitive dick toward George for a while when he first joins the band, but eventually they decide to put aside fighting for Paul's attention and form their own closeness which they frequently ostracize her from, leading Paul to ironically feel like she has to compete with John for George's friendship. Also, the media deeefinitely milks the love triangle for all it's worth with them. (Not to mention the Paul/Yoko catfight lol, which they always deny but in ways that just keep fanning the tension. Also Yoko gets really put out whenever Paul/Linda don't invite her to their sapphic potlucks)

God, okay, I’ve actually thought about this a stupid amount because obviously when she meets John (and George) Paul’s still young enough that she’s still in that comp het mentality. Like she feels so different from other girls because sure Elvis is hot, she’d love to marry Elvis as much as the next girl, but also don’t they want to be Elvis?? But all the girls around her are talking about boys, and expect her to be talking about boys, so she kind of fakes it a bit to fit in, and she’s like “I’ll just kiss George to see what all the fuss is about”, and then promptly decides that the fuss is about nothing.

And then she meets John and that’s completely different, but also John takes her music seriously and she values that so much, so even if she sort of gets what the other girls are talking about now, she doesn’t want to be John’s girlfriend because a) she’s seen how John treats his girlfriends, and b) everyone already says she only got in the band because she’s John’s little girlfriend and she isn’t even, so she can only imagine how much worse it would be if she actually were.

Plus she can’t date any other guy because now that she’s in the group she knows how guys talk about girls, and she doesn’t want some loser who can’t even play the guitar as good as her going around saying he went all the way with the girl in the quarrymen.

So she comes to the very logical and pragmatic conclusion that she simply won’t have sex until she’s famous :)

But yeah I think JPG just end up in this little triangle of jealousy where like George is jealous for all the usual reasons, John is jealous because oh what she’ll kiss baby George but not him?? (He definitely calls George her boyfriend to piss the both of them off when he’s being antagonistic). Paul is jealous because John and George join forces to do chauvinism at her when she’s being annoying. Horrible little friend group all around!

Also I think it would be really funny if when they do get famous the general public just like ships Paul and George together. Like there’s definitely rumours about whatever the hell is going on with John and Paul, but because John’s married, they���re a whispered low-key implied in tabloids but in a way that works around libel laws kind of thing. But Paul and George are the single Beatles, and they are a girl and a boy, so reporters are straight up like “Are you two going to marry each other? All of your fans want you to,” to Paul and George (and John!)’s mutual disgust.

#also in my head George is the first person paul kind of comes out to because she’s scared John will be weird and crass about it #asks

[beatthegame]

Elden Ring just beat me...and it's a bummer because I REALLY wanted to like this game. It has all the ingredients to make up a killer game. An open world with crazy art direction. Plenty of challenging options to keep you playing. But what went wrong? Why do I hate this game so much? I'm getting angry just trying to think about it, so let's try to make this quick...

In a nutshell: The setting seems to involve a fantasy setting where you are a fallen soldier. Getting involved in a brief skirmish with a giant spider demon. Then waking up in some sort of medeval hellish landscape with giant gold trees? There seems to be a detailed backstory written by George RR Martin (Game of Thrones). Although I wouldn't know because I'm too busy getting gangraped by skeleton warriors every step of the way to take notice. It's a "souls" game. So these games are annoying by design. But the broken game mechanics and tedious grinding make this game unplayable. Let me break it down like this...

The Good: The graphics are visually stunning, let's be honest. The environments and character designs are insane! Every enemy you encounter is menacing and emit pure nightmare fuel. Which is exciting to say the least. Elden Ring offers one of the best character creators in modern gaming. You can get really detailed adjusting the most minor facial features. Multiple character disciplines that greatly affect your gameplay experience. Diverse skin and body types. You can be really creative, which I adore! And then you put on some in-game armor that covers up the details you spent hours building. Cool! But let's appreciate the good elements because there's a whole lot of bad. Where do I begin...

The Bad: My first attempt playing this, I noticed these glowing rocks scattered around the floor. Apparently they were messages from other players across the Playstation network. Messages like "hidden treasure behind boulder" was pretty neat and helpful. But then you see more and more of these glowing messages. With a lot of not-so-useful messages like "is this dog?" and "finger in ur but". But what crossed the line was "boss up ahead" and you know what? There was a fucking boss ahead! What kind of troll shit allows spoilers mid-game? Can you imagine playing Resident Evil. Right before opening the door of that iconic dog chase scene, you read a community message saying "bow wow ahead lol" Like, way to ruin the immersion asshole! At that moment, I hated the game and pretty much gave up. But after discovering you can disable online messages, I tried it again. Which made a huge difference. I was starting to enjoy the game at first. But once you leave that cave, it was a pure shitshow from there. But let's start with the name "Elden Ring". This would imply upon a grandiose adventure involving a magical ring of some sort. But I would have appreciated it more if they were honest and called the game "YOU DIED" Because that's pretty much what you experience throughout the entire game. Every enemy you encounter was a pain in the ass with little relief in between. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining about the challenge level. I appreciate a good challenging game. I hate to compare, but you have hard ass games like Cuphead, Doom Eternal and Battle Toads that are fantastic, despite their difficulty. There's a balance to their difficulty. Plus their controls are tight and responsive. But when you have to try and maneuver through shitty mechanics, you're not playing a fair game. I recall one instance where I was running around a stone wall to avoid an enemy. But I can't explain why the enemy's spear could clip through this stone wall for a one-shot kill? And what good is perfecting the timing of a defensive parry if a giant boss can just one-hit stomp you like a cockroach? And you get paid in turds so the risk/reward balance is off. I'd rather work a sweatshop, hand-sewing Lulu Lemon leggings than to grind hours for one stamina point. At least you'll get paid at the sweatshop. But if you play Elden Ring long enough, and memorize the patterns and "git gud" you'll eventually beat one of the bosses and get a weapon you can't use, because your charisma stats or whatever is too low. LOL! This game blows.

Overall: Video Games are supposed to be fun. But Elden Ring was a burden to get through. It felt like work after a while. Like an abusive unpaid intership in hell. You can hire a dominatrix if you enjoy the abuse. It won't take up as much of your time and it's better support for your local economy. LOL! Fuck Elden Ring.

(Edited: Just remembered more things I hated about this game, but adjusted the score to something more reasonable. This game is obviously not shit and had me hooked for a while. It just wasn't fun for me. Plus it's not cool to shit on a particular fanbase. Play whatever you want. Don't let my opinion take a shit on your cereal. This is just a place to vent since it would be super weird to scream about Elden Ring out in the real world, with real life problems. But the game still sucks in my point of view so whatever. LOL!)

D-Class

#elden ring #video games #video game review #game review #playstation

[hillnerd]

WAKING UP - CH 15

AO3   FFN      Beginning of story | Previous Chapter

chapter word count 13 114

Gigantic thank you to my beta @abradystrix. Check out her work as it's truly lovely writing!

previously in 'Waking Up'(honestly, I recommend re-reading the chapter before as lots of it ties to this chapter)

Ron briefly connects with Ginny and she tells him how worried she is for him before she leaves the Burrow- she had a confrontation with Harry the night before about Ron's safety that the couple are still reeling from.

Ron learns some spells to use in his Combat Readiness Exam. Harry and Ron go to the Ministry for their C.R.E. but are confronted by loads of reporters, including Rita Skeeter. Robbie rescues them with a side room to weigh their wands.

They get ready for their C.R.E. and Ramona is late and looking bedraggled.

It's time for the C.R.E.- it's a hostage situation, they're all wearing the same safety vests as before, and they split up to find the hostage.

Harry Ron Ramona Claudia and Neville take out a team of 3 Aurors- one of which was a rooftop 'sniper' type Auror Ron was able to overpower.

They meet with the other recruits and get the 'hostage dummy' in a flurry of action- Ron's definitely experiencing PTSD symptoms and his arm is doing poorly-

There are 3 'enemy' Aurors left- Robards (head of Aurors), Sealy-Pearce and Musaad. They are in a 'squid room' that deflects spells and dove into the earth.

Neville and Vyse help with his arm that's numb and acting up.

The recruits split up to find the squid, Ramona Claudia Ron and Harry go underground, while the rest are above.

Harry and Ron split off and hear a voice:

"Harry?" came a voice. They both turned to the sound of the feminine voice.

"Was that—?" asked Harry.

"Harry?"

That was Ginny's voice! What was Ginny doing here? Her voice was there, clear as day, but there was no sign of Ron's sister. It had come from a different smaller tunnel.

"Gin?" Harry called out, going down the tunnel a few paces.

"Harry… I don't think—" Ron began.

"Harry?" came Ginny's voice again.

They slowly crept down the tunnel, wand's light being eaten up by the darkness.

"Harry!" They swung their wands and there was Ginny, covered in blood, reaching towards them.

Chapter warnings: cannon level violence, descriptions of cannon dead characters, ptsd symptoms, cursing, hallucinations, nightmarish creepy imagery, spiders, mention of blood and having trouble breathing, implied sexual assault memories, choking and water going up sinuses, reference to dead parent, reference to severely disabled parent, broken bone, characters with limited control of emotions/selves, strong emotions

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

CHAPTER 15 - C.R.E. #4

Ron wrenched back from his blood-covered sister, feet submerging in sludgy water.

“You didn’t do enough!” Ginny accused, pointing a bloody finger.

At first Ron thought she was directing her words at himself, but he soon realised she only had her piercing gaze set on Harry.

“Everyone’s dead because of you. You killed Fred. You killed Lupin and Tonks. Dobby and Sirius and Cedric and—”

“Don’t listen, Harry,” said Ron. He tried to step in front of him, but his boot caught fast in the slurry at his feet.

“Bill and George and Dad and Ron and I all nearly died because of you! Everywhere you go, people die for you! You use us as human shields and everyone ends up dead! Ron’s the next one to die becau—”

“Riddikulus!” Ron shouted at his sister. With a crack, she was in clown makeup, complete with clown nose and hat. It wasn’t particularly funny, but at least she wasn’t terrifying anymore.

Harry was pale beside him, eyes wide.

“Nothing that thing said is true,” Ron immediately said. “Not one word of it. Ginny doesn’t think that!”

Harry mutely moved his head in a pale imitation of a nod.

“Fucking Boggarts…” muttered Ron,

pulling at his leg until it squelched with a loud ‘thhhwip’ and came free.

“Here, let’s move before it changes into a giant spider.”

There was a crack behind him. He began to point his wand when he heard the voice rasping, “Got you to scream good and loud for me, didn’t I?”

A claw of terror raked over him, rendering him unable to move, to utter a single word.

That voice brought back every strike, every sensation… It felt like an iron suit of armour had dropped onto his chest from a fourth story window.

He turned and there stood the hulking figure of Otho Crowthers lurching towards him. His brow was as sloped as the last time he’d seen him, his steps as heavy and menacing. It even had that rancid smell of his body and breath. Ron thought he might throw up as that same smell rolled over him. How could the Boggart know the smell of him?

“Riddikulus,” he gasped, waving his wand.

“Bet I can make you scream without a wand… Can’t I?”

“Riddikulus!”

He couldn’t make it funny. He couldn’t think of anything. This wasn’t funny. His mind raced, searching for a way to lighten the darkness that surrounded him, but all he found were the suffocating grip of shame and the gnawing bite of fear.

“Who’s—?” Harry began to ask.

“I like raw meat like you, ginger.”

“Ri-Riddikulus,” Ron croaked.

“You know what I want to do to you? I’m gonna tear—” Crowthers crooned.

“Riddikulus!” cried Harry, stepping in front of the Boggart. Crowthers changed into an oversized Gorilla with a kazoo.

A tsunami of shame overwhelmed him, battering him to and fro until he was a pulp of useless flesh. He couldn’t bear to look over and see Harry grimly studying him.

The things it had said…

Every particle of him wished the cave would collapse on him. He didn’t want to see or be seen. How many times did he have to have his soul ripped out and put on display for his friend?

“Ron, who was that?”

“No one,” his mouth said before his brain could even begin to create an explanation. “Let’s… Let’s…”

“Ron…” He could hear the pleading in Harry’s voice to tell him what was going on; to let him help in some way. He couldn’t give that to him, as much as he wanted to spare his friend an iota of hurt, he just couldn’t.

“Please can we move away from the Boggart? Please?”

He was already pathetic, why not add begging to the mix?

“We can go back to the other tunnel,” agreed Harry, tone horribly gentle. They both ignored the Boggart as it latched onto Harry and turned into a bloody Ron on the ground. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Ron felt a hand on his back and jerked away.

Harry took a deep gulp of air, as if he was about to dive underwater. He tended to do that before an unpleasant conversation topic.

“So,” Harry began, but before he could say more the earth beneath their feet shook, and a great rumble echoed through the tunnels.

“The Squid,” Ron exclaimed, running towards the noise.

Harry hesitated, but quickly caught up with him.

Their wrists heated as their watches showed the message: ‘Found Squid! We’re at a manhole near Bethune! -Claudia’

They didn’t need a map; the crashing of the Squid was practically upon them.

As they rounded the corner, chaos unfolded and the air cracked with magic.

Ramona and Claudia were in the corner throwing spells, taking cover behind fallen stones and fragments of ancient columns.

Through the small red window, the Squid room churned out a destructive onslaught of hexes and blasts, each more destructive than the next.

Harry and Ron joined the fray, launching a flurry of spells, but nothing seems to hurt the Squid.

The Squid's tentacle-like limbs effortlessly blocked each spell, nullifying the magic as if it were nothing more than a puff of air.

“Can’t get anything through!” Ron panted.

Harry’s only response was to yell his spells louder.

One of Harry’s spells deflected off a metallic arm and struck the red window, causing a blink-and-you-miss-it crack to form.

“The window!” Ron yelled at him.

"Aim at the window!" Harry shouted to the team. Claudia and Ramona promptly responded, and the tunnel was alight with destructive spells.

"Reducto!" bellowed Harry. With his final hit, the crack spread across the window.

"We're doing it! It could break!" exclaimed Claudia.

The Squid's massive arms thrashed, striking the tunnel's side with a bone-shaking force and a pillar fell, pinning an arm of the Squid.

The Squid struggled to move, pulling at its trapped arm like a dog tugging at a rope. With a final lurch, it shook itself loose.

A horrifying crunch followed as the pillar was thrown across the alcove, taking out masonry as easily as one would brush away cobwebs.

“GET BACK!” yelled Harry.

Time slowed as pillars of brick crumbled, one brick at a time popping into dust, shaking the stone floor beneath their feet.

The tunnel walls groaned like an old whale, then gave way to the impending collapse.

The ground was gone from beneath Ron.

For a moment he was weightless and his stomach swooped. There was nothing to grab or do, but hang in the air and feel everything falling.

The impact knocked the wind out of him as he landed on unforgiving rocky terrain. Stones and masonry fell around him. He couldn’t breathe, but managed to pull his legs and arms in to protect himself.

The sound of everything collapsing was a deafening roar. Every pitch of sound both high and low was hit at once, surrounding him as he was shaken and hit.

The ground lurched again and he was thrown like a limp doll into darkness.

He struggled through his nose to take in air. He’d had the breath knocked out of him before, and knew what to do, but surrounded by dust and detritus it was hard to feel like his inhales were doing anything.

The cacophony of collapse finally eased.

Amid the darkness, he heard the moans of his companions.

He squinted up and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He found himself trapped between sections of the collapsed floor and a slanted piece of ceiling. He was not able to stand fully upright in the tight space and his arms began to ache.

He was filthy, and from head to waist he was sprinkled in a thin film of rust-coloured dust he tried to wipe off. Each brush against the orange dust only moved it around.

"Everyone okay?" called Claudia from somewhere above him.

"We're down here! We're alright!" came Harry's voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the tunnel we were in, but I don’t see anyone!” cried Claudia.

"Harry?" Ron coughed, swatting away the dust.

"Here!" A wand illuminated, and an orange hand waved from a corner of his alcove. There was a small opening; enough for an arm to fit through, but not enough for a whole body, even one as wiry as Harry's.

Ron peered into the hole.

Harry and Ramona were deep within the crevice, the wall and collapsed floor of the tunnel blocking their escape. Covered head to toe in a much thicker coating of orange dust, they looked like a duo of mutant Crookshankses.

Ron could feel a pressure building around him and the hairs on his neck began to rise. Something was wrong.

"Can you Apparate out?" Claudia called from up above. "I'm afraid to move any of this rubble without help. I don’t want to cause another collapse!"

Ron attempted to Apparate, but the anti-Apparition Ward was still in place. "I can’t Apparate. We'll have to wait until everyone regroups."

"Got you to scream good and loud for me."

Ron whipped his head around, certain the sound had originated from behind, but there was no Boggart in sight, just stone and dust motes still settling.

"Harry, do you see the Boggart?" he asked.

"No," Harry quietly replied, before adding, “but I can hear Ginny again.”

"You hear Ginny?" Ron questioned. “Can you hear anyone else?”

“No… Why? What do you hear?”

“Mum?” called Ramona.

“Ramona, what do you hear?” asked Harry.

“It’s… It’s my Mum… She’s begging for help… You said it was a Boggart? Where is it?”

Ron couldn’t hear Ginny or Ramona’s Mum.

A bloodcurdling scream rent the air. Hermione’s.

“Ron! Please! Help!”

He stood and yelled into the dark, “Riddikulus!”

But there was nothing to see, nothing to transform into something humorous.

The pressure from before was pounding on Ron now. He could feel the magic of the place swarming them. They were surrounded by it.

“I reinforced the walls so you won’t get crushed,” called Claudia. “But I’m nervous to move anything on my own up here. Hold tight- we’ll have the others help soon!”

“WHERE IS IT?” screamed Ramona.

“I— I don’t…” Ron began— but Hermione was screaming as she did in the Manor as Crowthers crooned in Ron’s ears what he’d do to them. “Harry? Do you see it?”

He knelt down and peered into the darkness expecting to see Harry next to the opening, but his friend was bent over, hands on his ears.

“Harry!” Ron yelled at him.

Harry shook his head, green eyes wide and unseeing.

Ramona was pacing the back of the room, arms clutched around her middle. “We have to get out of here! They’re going to get us!”

“Who?” asked Ron.

“The Snatchers are coming!”

“Ramona, It’s not real! Whatever you’re hearing, it’s not—”

Hermione’s screams ripped through him.

Ramona was in the corner screaming. “Mum! Mummy! No! Please, Please!”

Harry on the ground with hands over his ears muttering to himself. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry!”

“Mate, it’s okay, we’re going to get you out of there!”

“I’m so sorry!” cried Harry.

“Riddikulus!” Ron shouted again, but nothing stopped the cacophony of terror; it rang through him as screams and nightmares flooded his ears.

“Someone tell me what’s happening!” Claudia pled.

“We’re… We’re hearing things!” he managed to say between hitched sobs. When had he started crying? Why couldn’t he Apparate to Hermione? He had to get out of the cellar! No… No he wasn’t in Malfoy Manor.

“Ron! Please help me,” sobbed Hermione before letting out another blood-curdling scream.

“Hermione!” he called back, punching the wall, but nothing helped.

A quicksand of fear was pulling him ever down down down. He wiped at his face, which was wet with something. Tears? Blood?

Where was he? Everything was dark… He couldn’t Apparate to Hermione! She needed him, or Crowthers would… Wait, she wasn’t there with him. He was alone… How… How did they get them all in Malfoy’s cellar again?

“I’m going to make you scream,” growled Crowthers.

He punched at the walls. He had to get to her! He couldn’t let Crowthers touch her!

He could see her on the other side, small and pale as she was dragged along the floor by her hair. She didn’t even flinch as she was thrown onto a stump and tied in place.

“Hermione!” He screamed and sobbed, but couldn’t get to her. His hands were bleeding as he madly scrabbled for her. “Hermione!”

Spiders of every size were crawling over him and he nearly vomited as their sharp little legs caught on his skin.

He tried to shake them off and get to Hermione, but blood was on the ground,slowly oozing towards him, and Crowther’s toxic breath was in his nostrils.

“Ron!” came an insistent voice from above him.

He shook his head. His mind felt flayed open, a rupture of raw hurt and confusion.

“Please answer me, Ron! What’s going on down there?!”

Suddenly Malfoy’s cellar was brightly lit, blinding him as he sobbed into the ground.

“Christ— he’s covered in Boggart dust! Put your shirt over your face or bubblehead charm yourself,” came a male voice.

There were murmurs, but the main thing he heard was Crowthers in his ear whispering, “tell me your name, pretty…”

A hand latched into him and he could see Fred, corpse pale, blood pooling down his neck and bits of brain falling onto the ground.

“It should’ve been you… George even said so,” said Fred without malice. He was right.

“Ron, don't let him kill me!” pleaded Hermione, tears in her eyes.

His head was wrenched back, and he threw an elbow trying to stop Crowthers. A stinging rush of something went up his nose. It had to be spiders crawling up inside his face scrabbling and tearing out his brain to lay eggs.

He was drowning and gagging as water flushed through his sinuses.

“Sorry, we need to get it all out of you,” a voice apologised.

“Get… What? Weneedta get Hermione…” he slurred. Another course of water flushed up his nose and down his throat, making him retch on the ground. He was sprayed down, and the cold made every muscle twitch.

“I needta stop ‘im… Crowthers!”

Hermione screamed in his ears and he struggled to get to her, not minding the sting of the cuts in his hands.

“He needs at least one more flush out once I pass him up to you,” said a male voice.

His teeth chattered as a spell lifted him into light.

“I’m sorry, but it looks like we need to do it once more, Ron,” someone said before water flushed through his sinuses a third time, stinging his eyes and even the inside of his cheek bones.

He coughed and felt snot dripping from his nose and hocked even more of it on the ground.

A warm hand was on his shoulder.

“You with me?”

He squinted up into the face of Neville.

“Nev?”

“Yes! Where are you?”

“I’m…” Ron blinked around the dark cavernous room. It wasn’t Malfoy Manor. It was well-lit compared to the hole he’d been in. Hermione wasn’t there. Crowthers wasn’t there… Fred and the spiders were gone… “The… The C.R.E. In a tunnel.”

“That’s right,” he nodded, giving a tight grin. Neville had the film of a bubblehead charm around his face, and Ron belatedly discovered he had one as well. The charm slightly distorted his view and made his breath feel hot on his face.

With a sudden realisation he scrambled for the hole they’d just lifted him from. “Oh fuck, we need to get Harry!”

“We’re getting him. It’s going to be okay, Ron,” said Neville, gently pushing him back until he was lying against the wall.

For some reason Ron started crying again. His voice was broken as deep sobs shook him. He wrapped his arms around himself. “M’sorry!”

“Don’t apologise. You all fell into an old Boggart breeding den, it looks like. That’s what Vyse said, anyway. There’s ‘Boggart dust’ everywhere. It basically makes you mad with fear and hallucinations until it works its way out of your system fully. Emotions of every kind will be intense for a bit, so we’ll stay here until you’re feeling up to moving.”

Ron looked over the side as he continued to cry.

The stones keeping Harry and Ramona imprisoned were floated aside.

“Spray down the area first, then we’ll get them individually,” ordered Vyse.

He could hear Ramona sobbing and screaming for her mother, but nothing from Harry. For minutes he waited, but he still hadn’t heard Harry’s voice.

Ron shook his head. “I need to help.”

“We’ve got it,” said Neville.

“No you don’t. Not with Harry.” Ron stood on wobbly knees and unshrunk his broom. They didn’t understand! Ron had seen Harry afraid before and he knew what he was capable of. He had been on the receiving end of punches as Harry was rent out of nightmares, and had seen his friend destroy an oak door because it slammed too hard.

He flew down to ground they’d cleared of Boggart dust. Ramona was sobbing on the ground, struggling against Theold as Vyse attempted to Aguamenti her face.

Harry was shaking, but otherwise limp on the ground, arm protectively grasping his shoulder with white knuckles. He was wet all over, a bubble charm in place.

“Ron? Shouldn’t you be up with Neville?” asked Kevin.

“M’fine,” he said, kneeling beside Harry. “Harry? You okay?”

“He hasn’t responded to any of us, and we’ve flushed him out like five times,” said Claudia, worry pinching her features.

For a moment Ron considered putting a restraint on Harry, but the thought of doing that to him after whatever he’d been forced to listen to was repugnant.

“Harry, I need to get some water into you again. It’s going to sting. Can you hear me?”

Harry stared ahead with open eyes, tear tracks or water running down his cheeks— Ron couldn’t tell which.

He removed the bubble charm.

“Aguamenti,” whispered Ron with a shaking voice. His own face was wet with tears again as he flushed Harry’s face with water and his friend barely flinched.

“Harry, wake up!” Ron said, giving his friend a shake.

“Flush him again,” he dimly heard Vyse say.

Ron performed another ‘aguamenti’ and with a start Harry flinched and vomited up orange tinged water on the ground.

“That’s it, get it all out,” Ron croaked.

Harry choked and spasmed before his bleary eyes caught Ron’s.

“R-Ron?” he whimpered.

“Yeah! Yeah it’s me,” Ron blubbered, unable to stop himself. Fucking Boggarts…

Claudia washed off Harry’s glasses and handed them to Ron. He put them in place and cast another bubble head charm on Harry.

Harry was pale and patted his hand along the ground for his wand.

“Here,” said Ron, handing it to him.

His friend took the wand, but didn’t try to move again. As Ron explained the Boggart dust, he could feel the wet tracks down his face and a gross itch at his nose. He wished he could wipe his face, but that might get more dust on him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ron urged.

Harry weakly nodded, and limply let Ron guide him to a standing position.

“Here Ron, let me help,” said Kevin.

He put a hand on Ron’s back.

It felt like Crowthers was about to rut against him and he gave a small cry of alarm at the contact.

In an instant Harry wrenched away, his features twisting into an angry snarl. “DON’T TOUCH HIM!”

Before anyone could react, a spell hurtled through the chamber, a destructive projectile hitting Kevin squarely in the chest. The large recruit flew into the wall with a gut-wrenching crunch before he vanished into thin air.

"Oh, shit!" Ron's exclamation mirrored the collective shock, his mind racing as panic and disbelief battled for dominance.

“What the fuck, Harry?” asked Theold, pointing his wand at Harry. All the wands were on Harry.

“Wait!” Ron said, standing in front of him. “It was an accident! It’s the Boggart dust. Don’t—”

Ropes were around Harry in an instant, and his friend let out an aborted cry before toppling.

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Claudia.

Ron knelt beside Harry as he shook on the ground, writhing like a mad man.

“Harry… Harry please snap out of it…”

“More water,” said Vyse, pushing Harry to a seated position. “You hold him, I’ll flush him out.”

Ron got behind him, putting Harry’s back against his own chest.

“Ready?” asked Vyse.

“Do it, already!” he said through gritted teeth, as Harry struggled and nearly hit Ron in the nose with the back of his thrashing head.

After what seemed like an endless stream of water Ron stopped them.

“Harry? You okay?”

“Wh-what?” came Harry’s voice, sounding so small it didn’t sound like him at all. “Ron? What… What happened?”

“You fucking spelled Kevin into the wall and now we’re down a man!” spat Theold.

“I… I what?” asked Harry.

He looked feeble and lost. Ron had seen Harry like this only a few times. When he spoke Parseltongue in second year. When he’d seen Cedric die. When he’d seen Dad nearly die. When Sirius was dead. When he’d held Dobby.

He might have been reliving those nights.

“It’s okay. He’ll be fine,” Ron assured him.

Harry’s eyes shifted his way, haunted, glossy and unsure. Then Ron’s arms were holding nothing. His friend was gone in an instant.

Ron stared at the spot where Harry had just been.

The vest had taken Harry out of the Exam.

“What the fuck?!”

“Looks like they realised he was a harm to himself and others,” snorted Theold.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, THEOLD!” Ron snarled.

A sear of vitriol scorched his insides until nothing was left but a burning hot coal.

Who were the Aurors to decide to take Harry away? Who was going to be there for Harry when he’d had to listen to Merlin knows what? They’d ripped him away and Ron had barely begun to comfort him. Had they put this snarl of Boggart dust on purpose?

Every bit of hate he’d felt now pointed in one direction: The Auror Department.

He was going to destroy them. He didn’t know how long it’d take, but he was going to dismantle them, and every one of their sick tests. He wouldn’t rest until every single person responsible for the fucked up nightmares he and Harry, and even fucking Ramona, had gone through, paid.

“Should… What should we do?” Claudia asked.

Ron glared at the group the moment eyes turned to him. “Stop fucking looking at me! I don’t know, okay?”

He stalked away from them.

He was sick and fucking tired of this stupid fucking exam, and all of them gormlessly staring at him every time they don’t know what to do.

They were still watching him in anticipation.

“Why don’t you come up with some ideas, eh? The one person who always knows what to do got fucking tortured and ripped out of here to wherever the fuck, and I’m—” He gripped his arms around himself and squeezed until his ribs ached. “I’m no one, and you’re looking at me like I have answers! I don’t have any fucking answers! I’m fucking tired and this is fucked. We’re fucked and —”

He stopped himself, seeing their faces for the first time since Harry’s disappearance. They were watching him with large eyes, not one of them moving.

They were scared.

He couldn’t stay angry.

Harry was supposed to be invincible. Hell, to them, they probably thought Ron was a bit invincible too— which still felt like putting on a jacket two sizes too small. Ramona was one of their toughest and she was still crying and rocking on the ground.

They were all shook by it.

And now that he’d yelled at them, they probably were a touch worried they’d need to have Ron in ropes like Harry.

He let out a sigh. “Okay…”

He rolled his neck, trying to buy a moment to think.

“I’m sorry… It’s okay, we’re not fucked.”

He fleetingly wished he could touch his face. He hadn’t realised how often he wiped his hands over his face and through his hair as he thought. He wanted to push on his head and hopefully wring out a wild hare idea like one would a wet towel.

“We need to get out of this hole in the ground.”

“And we’ll need to take a moment to recover,” said Vyse with a tiny nod at Ramona.

“Right,” said Ron, taking a steadying breath. No one knew what she’d been through, but he had the closest idea of it.

He didn’t like her. Not one bit. She hated him and Harry for no reason and was surly, rude, prideful, irrational; just about everything he disdained… but she’d clearly been through something terrible.

“You lot go on up. I’ll sort things out here.”

All the recruits quickly did as he said, leaving him with Ramona; All, save Neville.

“Nev…” Ron began.

“I’m only here as back up,” he said, putting his hands up and wedging himself in the far corner.

He wasn’t sure how much Neville could do if Ramona were to go full feral on him at close proximity, but he appreciated the gesture.

He decided approaching Ramona like a wounded animal was best. He’d been around a skittish animal or two over the years. He wasn’t great with beasts, but he could try.

Despite knowing she’d probably hate him more for it, he knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. She twitched but let it remain as sobs continued to shake through her.

“They got the powder off of you, right?”

She nodded and gave a vociferous sniff.

“I know it may be hard, but you need to stop thinking about things from the past. Think of right now, this moment.”

Her face seems to crumple further and her eyebrows scrunched together.

“Don’t try to be nice to me! You hate me!” she cried.

“I don’t hate you,” Ron said, but couldn’t stop himself from adding. “I don’t particularly like you- but—”

“No- you should hate me,” she said with a shake of her head, scowl turning ugly and slightly unhinged, “because I hate you! You and Potter.”

“Shock and horror, what a surprise!” Ron feigned, rolling his eyes.

“I’m only sorry they didn’t kick you out with crazy Potter.”

Ron immediately dropped all pretence of politeness.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” He looked to the ceiling. “Was your Dad a Death Eater or something? Fucking hell…”

A sharp, almost manic laugh escaped from Ramona's lips. "My dad isn't anything anymore."

Ron's confusion deepened, his anger momentarily clouded by her cryptic statement.

"Okay?" he responded, concern and exasperation uncomfortably mixing together.

She brooded on the ground, no answer forthcoming. Fuck it.

“At the end of this exam, either I never have to see you again or we’re going to be co workers. Either way, I’m over this. What is it, Ramona? You said you hate me and Harry— so why? What the fuck have we ever done to you?”

Ramona's gaze bore into his, her eyes holding a world of pain and resentment.

“You’ve never done anything!” she yelled, acid and venom in every syllable.

“What does that mean?!” he roared back.

“It means you are the biggest disappointments I’ve ever had to meet!” she bit. “September first last year. Do you remember what you did that day?”

Of course he remembered. Every instant he could perfectly recall, until he was splinched; then it all got rather blurry.

He nodded his head, but began to dread what might come out of her mouth.

“You lot saved the Cattermoles. The Joneses. Cynthia Dooley. Robbie Reins. And more! I know the name of every person you saved that day,” she said with a sniff. “My parents are both Muggleborn… And my Dad reported to the Muggleborn Commission Registry September the first, but he didn’t escape.”

Ron’s stomach dropped.

“When we realised Dad wasn’t coming back, the rest of us ran for it. My Muggle-born mum, myself and my little sister…” Her voice trembled with emotion.

“I was so stupid… I really thought you might help my family like you did the rest. I kept telling my little sister you three were going to end the war. That we’d be safe. You’d save dad eventually!”

She turned her head down to her lap.

“They captured my sister and took her back to Hogwarts. That’s when they killed Mum,” she said, almost conversationally.

“I listened to Potterwatch every day hoping you might do something to help. Maybe free prisoners from Azkaban, strike the Ministry again, or free everyone from Hogwarts. Anything to help!”

Big tears formed in her eyes.

“But you never did.”

Shame wasn't a new feeling to Ron; he felt it daily for over a decade. It was a heavy cloak he'd worn since his earliest memories, a cloak woven from threads of poverty, indifference, and perceived inadequacy.

Growing up poor in the cramped Burrow, he had often felt the sting of shame as his hand-me-down clothes bore the marks of his older brothers' wear. There was an ever-present whisper in the back of his mind, telling him he was the unwanted sixth boy when his mother had secretly yearned for a daughter. The weight of shame had pressed even harder when he compared himself to his accomplished siblings and friends. And there were the insecurities he carried with him into adulthood. The gnawing fear he was never enough, not as a wizard, not as a friend, not even as a person. The lurking doubt he was merely a sidekick to Harry, forever in his shadow. The dread he'd never live up to the expectations of his friends, his family, or himself.

A litany of inadequacies played in his mind every day, echoing the voices of those who had ever doubted him.

Ramona's tears fell, and her words found a familiar dwelling place among the many shadows of shame that already haunted him. He wanted to explain, to tell her how much he'd wanted to do all those things she'd hoped for, but the words caught in his throat.

He had a wider group of people he’d let down than ever before. How many more people were out there cursing him for not doing enough?

Neville, who had been listening quietly, interjected, “Ramona… They did help. They were the most responsible for ending the war.”

“Not in time!” Ramona pressed on, her words heavy with pain. “My sister was tortured in that school— Dad got a Dementor’s kiss a couple of weeks before the Battle at Hogwarts. If they’d done something my dad might still be… be my dad.”

“Ramona…” Neville insisted. “It’s terrible what happened to your family. But this is not on Ron or Harry or Hermione. They’re just teenagers and it was a — ”

“Just teenagers?” Ramona spat, eyes falling to Ron. “I thought maybe… maybe you were ‘just teenagers’ when I finally met you at the first exam. I thought maybe I had been delusional, thinking anyone as entitled and lazy as you could be a hero… But then I saw you duel, how you flew, and how you lead…”

She shook her head.

“You’re not ‘just some teens!’ I’ve seen you! You’re amazing in the field. It’s like watching real-life superheroes… You broke into the Ministry, and Gringott’s and Hogwarts and saved so many families. You’re good and smart, and I had to watch as you helped family after family, but never mine!”

“That’s enough!” Neville said standing up. “You know that’s not fair, right? To expect them to save everyone?”

“They could've saved my family!” Her hard look crumbled and Ron wondered how young she was. She looked small and he found all the lingering anger at Ramona became brittle as tears welled in her eyes. “S-someone could’ve…”

Ron slowly slid down next to her.

"I’m sorry…” said Ron, not exactly sure what he meant by it. It was everything and nothing. It was a condolence for someone who had lost so much. It was an apology for not doing enough to end the war sooner. It was empty words to soothe someone whose anger and mourning he could endlessly empathise with. It was a place holder so he didn’t shout at the injustice of it all, or the injustice of being blamed. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”

“Don’t apologise, Ron,” said Neville, voice surprisingly stern. “You did what you could, and it was so much… You don’t have a thing to apologise for.”

Part of Ron wanted to agree and tell Ramona off for her delusions. What did she think he was? How could she think him capable of saving her family? It was completely demented!

But… But he still wished he could’ve done it. Even if it was barmy and unrealistic and impossible…

And he had to wonder, how many other families had they let down? How many other people died or had their lives destroyed because they took too long gathering Horcruxes?

“So…” Ron managed to say through a tight voice. “Is it just you and your sister, now?”

“My dad’s not dead… I take care of him when his nurse can’t. That's why I was late for this exam—we’d run out of catheters and it was a huge mess, and then he puked, and I couldn't leave my sister alone with that. His nurse didn't show up because of a flat tire, and— and…”

“That sounds like a lot," Neville's voice cut through, a mix of understanding and sympathy. If anyone could understand ‘losing’ a parent, but they’re still alive, it was Neville.

Ramona nodded, her tears continuing to fall, and for a moment, amidst the pain and regret, a fragile connection formed between them all.

“Shall we join the others?” asked Neville.

Ron nodded while Ramona bit her lip.

“I don’t know how useful I can be, right now,” she said, voice smaller than he’d ever heard it.

“Ramona,” said Ron, standing up with a small groan. “You’re strong; tough as shit and mean as a fucking bag of rabid badgers. Let’s use that and end this exam, okay? Then you can throw darts at my photo or whatever you do in your spare time.”

Somehow that made her snort and a small smile flickered across her face.

“So… are you ready to kick arse?” he asked, finally noticing how sore his shoulders were from stooping.

She nodded and accepted a ride on his broom to the surface level.

“All good?” asked Vyse as they squinted into the sunny street.

“Yeah,” said Ron, giving his body one more Aguamenti before removing the bubble charm.

They were expectantly watching him, but this time he had a plan, a clear mind, and a fiery coal of hate against the Ministry keeping him going.

“Claudia, did you put a tracking mark on the Squid?”

She nodded the affirmative and did a Point Me spell.

“Brilliant. Okay we can hunt it down properly, now,” he said looking at his map. “When we were underground we weren’t able to hurt the Squid, except the red window. Harry managed to crack it. We need to break it to pieces and get the Aurors to leave the Squid.”

“Why would they leave it?” asked Ramona. “It can defend everything we throw at it.”

“Only if the arms are moving,” he said. “For a second, as the tunnel collapsed, an arm got stuck. If we get its arms stuck and bust through the window, we can get them.”

“It burrowed into the ground last time. Is there a way to prevent that from happening again?” asked Vyse.

“At the corner of the map,” said Ron, expanding the shrunk map from his arm for all to see and pointed to a spot. “Harry and I got to the edge and hit an invisible barrier. I’d wager the Squid can’t get past it either.”

“And once we get the Aurors out?” asked Theold.

“We need to split the Aurors up. If we get them in the open, we might stand a chance.”

“If they’re an easier target out in the open, we are too,” noted Neville. The corners didn’t offer much cover either.

“Then we’ll have given them a bloody good show for their money.”

The group grinned at one another.

“That’s all they want anyways,” Ron added in an undertone.

In minutes, the plan was in motion, and the recruits were positioned. Vyse and Ramona soared through the air on their brooms to strategically herd the Squid toward the designated corner of the map.

Ron, Neville, Theold, and Claudia waited with bated breath for the moment the Squid would come their way.

The waiting was absolutely interminable, and soon bated breaths turned to sighs and huffs.

The high sun had shifted and the shadows were growing long across the alley.

Standing at the ready in their buildings made his shoulders ache and hands twitch for something to do. The stillness of waiting let his exhaustion slowly take over. He was counting bricks to stay awake, when a tiny lone beetle landed on the sill.

The black beetle marched along, swaying to and fro as a small breeze tried to buffet it about. Its little legs made it positively waddle.

He let out a snort, and Claudia began to watch it too, an amused look on her face.

The two let out a small laugh as the beetle tripped over a nail and fell over, its small legs wildly flailing for purchase.

“Oh no,” Claudia let out, trying to poke it off its back without touching its little insect legs. Her compassion for the little bug reminded him of Hermione; she was always cooing at gross little things.

He told as much to Claudia as he pushed the beetle over for her, not minding touching it. Somehow beetles weren’t the same as spiders.

“She had a soft spot for Kreacher even, and he’d been calling her slurs for years!” laughed Ron.

“How did you and Hermione get together?” Claudia asked, a sappy look on her face he’d seen girls get about anything remotely romantic.

“Dazzled her with my good looks and charm,” he joked, watching the beetle nestle down and take a rest, no doubt exhausted from its time flailing.

Neville let out a snort.

Claudia watched Ron expectantly, a broad smile on her face.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely those,” he conceded with a small laugh.

“Those two were dancing around each other for years,” said Neville with a rueful shake of his head. “We thought sixth year it’d happen. Dean, Seamus and I had a betting pool and everything.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” said Ron. “Eventually I got my head out of my arse… ”

“How long have you been together?” asked Claudia.

“Only a month or so, but I’ve been mad about her for years. I mean, she’s brilliant and beautiful and has this wicked passion about every single thing she does. And she’s fucking brave, it’s unbelievable. She sacrificed so much during the war, but even before, she’s the most kickarse witch I’ve ever met.”

Theold rolled his eyes while Neville and Claudia grinned at him.

His cheeks reddened as he realised how much a gushing sap he was being.

“Anyway, that’s part of why I’m joining the Aurors; so I can help her out when we get our signing bonus.”

“That’s so sweet!” Claudia sighed, her curiosity sated.

“Didn’t you win the Order of Merlin?” asked Theold. “You get thousands of galleons with that— no need for a piddly signing bonus.”

Ron’s head swung round to look at Theold. He didn’t seem to be joking.

“Yeah, my gran said something like that,” Neville confirmed with a nod.

“Oh…” said Ron, not sure how to respond. Did he not need the Auror money after all? The thought of having his own money was nice… but he wasn’t sure he liked it coming from his time in the war…

“How ‘bout you? Why are you joining up?” he asked Claudia, happy to have the attention away from his money matters and his soppiness for his girlfriend.

Claudia gave an embarrassed look.

“I don’t know… I just… The war was terrible, and I didn’t feel like I got to help the way I wanted.” Her posture slowly fell.

“How so?” asked Neville.

“When I read history books, I’d sometimes sit and think ‘ohhh if I had lived in that time period, I would have helped lead a rebel cause, or saved people!’ I thought very grandly of myself… But I didn’t do much of anything and didn’t know how to. I only worked at a farm with rescue animals. I wasn’t part of anything…”

“What kind of animals?”

“All kinds of magical pets— cats, owls, goats, rats— you name them. During the war there were so many animals homeless or hurt. That’s how I got good at tracking spells, and it didn’t hurt with my flying either. We’d get a floo or owl telling us about an abandoned animal, and I’d go in to retrieve it then rehab the animal, if needed,” she said with a shrug. “But I wasn’t like you or your friends. I didn’t save anyone.”

“Sounds like you saved a lot of someone’s pets, though,” said Neville. “I’m sure all those pets’ owners would be happy to know they were in good hands.”

She glumly leaned against the window.

“Not everyone is going to be on the front lines, but you were where you were needed,” said Ron. “If something happened to me, I’d want to know my little Pig was okay.”

“You own a pig?” Theold asked.

“Ooo really?” squealed Claudia.

“Oh! No, that’s my owl,” Ron snorted. The rest of the recruits shared grins. “Don’t look at me like that, my little sister named him.”

“I didn’t say anything!” she laughed.

“Pushover,” said Theold, a vaguely amused look on his face.

“You know… You’re a lot less scary than you seem in the papers,” said Claudia.

“I seem scary?” Ron asked, flabbergasted that anyone could find him intimidating, let alone that he had a reputation for it.

“Mhmm!” she brightly hummed. “The pictures all make you look brooding, and the papers all write about ‘eight foot tall Weasley and his terrible temper’— how you were like a fearsome bodyguard for Harry.”

Bemused, Ron continued to look at the beetle. Him? Brooding and fearsome? He’d only skimmed a few articles before chucking them in a fury, but hadn’t imagined something like that…

“I mean, you are unreasonably tall,” added Theold with a snort from the corner.

“And you definitely can be scary when you’re mad, but… You’re nice. And smart. They didn’t say anything about that.”

He gave a small grunt. Of course they didn’t. “Maybe they called me a smart arse.”

“Your plans have been smashing,” she said with certainty. “If I don’t get to be an Auror… It’s been nice getting to know you.”

“I’m sure you’ll pass. You’ve done really well.”

“Nothing like you.”

Unsure of how to answer, Ron looked to the ceiling. It was cracked and peeling.

He wished he knew how to comfort her, but as usual he wasn’t sure what to do. Ron wasn’t good with words. Funny asides he was okay at… With Harry and Hermione at least.

“If I learned one thing,” he began, trying to comb out a good way to say it, “comparing your achievements with others only leads to heartache. Believe me, I had six siblings and Harry fucking Potter as measuring sticks for years.”

She let out a small laugh.

“Okay, that helps,” she acknowledged. “What about you, Theold? Why are you joining?”

“Because I’d be awesome at it.”

“Come on! Why really?”

He gave a shrug. “Sometimes it’s not that deep. I would be awesome at it.”

“Theooold,” Claudia complained.

“Ask Longbottom.”

“Fine! Neville? Why are you joining?”

Neville thought about it in silence before answering, “this seems like where I’m needed.”

Neville and Ron shared a smile.

“See? Not everyone is a mushy sap like Weasley,” said Theold with a sly smile.

Ron was about to protest when their wrists heated.

‘Nearly there! -Vyse’

Ron shooed the beetle away. “Get out of here, little guy. Don’t want you getting crushed in the upcoming duels.”

With a few pushes of his finger, the beetle buzzed off.

Wands at the ready, they crouched. His thighs twitched like coiled springs, and the agonised suspense took over him. A strange cocktail of fatalistic relief and a blaze of resentment surged within him as the Squid approached. He hated every person in that thing…

He heard the Squid before he saw it. Each step it took viciously crunched into the ground.

Through a small crack in the wall he spied the tiny figures of Vyse and Ramona weaving a path behind the Squid on their brooms like a pair of herding dogs in a field. The moment the Squid turned down an alley, they’d zip to the other side and head it off.

The earth trembled into a chaotic dance as the Squid stampeded down the alley, its metallic appendages thrashing.

“NOW!” Ron's command cut through the chaos, and the recruits launched themselves into action.

Cobblestones exploded, and rubble flew as Ron and Claudia threw forward their ropes. The thick cables wrapped along the length of one of the Squid arms. Its arm was secured to the concrete barriers in the street.

Meanwhile, Theold and Neville did the same to the other side, leaving two arms of the Squid stretched tight.

The ropes strained and the bestial Squidroom thrashed and groaned at the effort.

The ground-recruits fled as Vyse and Ramona flew around the remaining tentacle-like legs and tied them off.

“GET CLEAR!” Neville yelled as he and Theold set off the explosive spells.

The percussive blast sent rubble flying, and if not for shield charms, Ron might have had his skull split by a flying chunk of cement the size of a quaffle.

The buildings on either side of the Squid remained standing for only a moment before collapsing in a sea of dust and particulates, locking the Squid in place.

He could barely see the Aurors inside, but none were standing after the impact to the Squid.

This was their chance.

“THE WINDOW!” Ron bellowed.

As one, the recruits aimed their spells at the blood-red glass. Unable to dodge or deflect spells, the already cracked window shattered.

The recruits continued the assault on the jagged window, but soon spells met theirs, and the Aurors emerged.

A white-hot spell snapped through the air and nearly hit Ron in the temple. He pulled his head back and nearly lost his balance behind a pillar.

He activated his watch:

‘Split up! -Ron’

Ramona and Theold converged like a whirlwind on Sealy-Pearce. Across the fray, Robards squared off against Vyse and Neville, a furious tempest of spells erupting around them.

Claudia ran towards Ron when a red spell hit her from behind. She gave the smallest of ‘eeps’ before her vest disappeared along with her.

Behind her disappearing form, wand raised, stood Musaad.

Spells blazed through the air, creating a kaleidoscope of magic as recruits fought tooth and nail against the fierce Aurors. And then there was Ron. He had no partner. It was him against the best dueller he’d ever met. He was on his own, and in the open.

‘Get to cover! Get to cover!’ raced through his mind.

He ran.

Ron scrambled across the rubble-covered cobblestones, his movements far from agile as he evaded the barrage.

He blindly cast a stinging hex. It must have hit its mark, for Musaad gave a grunt. Despite any injury, Musaad didn’t slow an iota.

Ron had to climb over a downed wall on all fours to avoid a crack of spells. The jagged stones clawed at his palms, but he ignored the discomfort, his sole focus on reaching the nearby building.

Spells crashed all around, and shards of debris tore and whirled around him.

He finally reached the building and hurled himself through the shattered doorway. The room was a dim, wooden chamber with peeling wallpaper, and offered minimal cover. He realised, with a sinking feeling, that he'd be a sitting—

‘DUCK!’ the command echoed in his ears as his instincts took over.

He dropped to the floor as a lethal bolt of magic snapped viciously beside him. The spell collided with the cracked wall, sending splinters raining down like deadly raindrops. A fair few punctured his arm and he let out a hiss.

Ron's heart raced as he scrambled to his feet, wand in hand.

“Fuck!” he let out as a purple spell was hurled his way.

He flicked his wand, barely conjuring a shield in time.

Musaad's assault rebounded off the barrier, unleashing a shockwave through the room's walls. Wooden beams groaned, and dust and debris filled the air like a choking fog.

The scent of scorched wood and ozone hung heavy in the air as Ron crouched behind his meagre flickering shield. He couldn't last long staying pinned down like this.

Seconds seemed stretched into agonising minutes as Ron tried to formulate a plan.

He didn’t have the element of surprise on his side. They weren’t trapped in the confines of a duelling ring — Musaad was free-range and relentless!

Ron’s breaths came in ragged gasps as the shield's surface flickered, its strength waning with every spell Musaad hurled his way.

‘Move it, Weasley!’

With a surge of determination, he threw the shield towards Musaad and cast a Conjunctivitus curse, temporarily blinding the man. Ron tried to bolt deeper into the building, but the floorboards creaked with each heavy step and Musaad quickly spelled him through an already crumbling wall, inches away from hitting a brick fireplace. Damn, he needed to avoid hard surfaces… Or did he?

His body ached and protested, but he pushed himself from the ground and ran further into the building. Ron managed to send a few spells back at Musaad. One spell grazed Musaad's shoulder, leaving a searing mark on his robe, while another sunk Musaad’s feet into a swamp-like mire, buying Ron precious seconds to widen the space between them.

If he could get Musaad in close quarters with hard surfaces, Ron might be able to beat him. If he missed with a precision spell, at least Musaad might get thrown into something that could incapacitate him.

"Where's... A... Fucking... Bathroom?!" he muttered to himself. his frantic search taking him from room to room.

Musaad's spells pursued him relentlessly, each one an intimidating reminder of his adversary's expertise. The gap between them was closing fast. Musaad prowled after his prey with precision and didn’t even seem winded, while Ron flailed and felt his lungs burning to shreds.

For an instant he dared to look back as he ran up the stairs.

“Weasley, you can’t keep running,” said Musaad, a glint of mirth in his eyes.

Ron burst through another door, finding himself in yet another narrow wooden hallway.

And then, at last, he found it.

An old, tiled bathroom stood before him, complete with a porcelain tub and sink; it was the perfect battleground.

Musaad sent a quick series of hexes Ron’s way, and he narrowly blocked them, but was forcibly thrown into the room across from the bathroom.

The room was cluttered with overturned furniture and shattered remnants of what once might have been a bedroom.

His breath came in ragged gasps as he regained his footing. With unsure movements he began to cast the unfamiliar spell. He’d just finished swiping his want through the air, when it was wrenched from his hand.

Musaad had taken up the doorway and disarmed him, easily catching Ron’s wand.

“Looks like you’re disarmed, Weasley.”

“Looks like it,” said Ron, slowly rising as Musaad’s wand was pointed at his chest.

“Hands up,” said Musaad, doing a small indication with his wand. Ron complied, slowly raising his hands, his fingers trembling with fatigue. Blood trickled from a small cut on his forehead, mingling with the sweat clinging to his brow.

“You’ve been a worthy opponent,” said Musaad, raising his wand and taking a deliberate step forward into the room.

Musaad’s foot landed on a floorboard that twisted and whipped him across the hall like a slingshot. Musaad crashed back-first into the porcelain tub, a loud groan escaping his lips as the wands slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground.

With a ferocity born of desperation, Ron ran at him. He didn’t bother going for the wands— he let his fist fly. Pain seared through his hand, and he was fairly certain he'd broken a knuckle, but the satisfaction of seeing Musaad's condescending smirk wiped away was worth the agony.

Musaad finally lay still, face punchdrunk and unfocused.

Ron tapped the shield badge on Musaad's chest with his trembling fingers, activating the portkey spell that would send his adversary to the same unknown destination Harry had been sent earlier.

As Musaad disappeared in a snarl of magical light, Ron spat a glob of blood onto the floor, his chest heaving with exertion and triumph.

He tiredly bent and picked up his wand.

There was a calming chime, like a muted gong. A disembodied female voice, much like the lifts in the Ministry Lobby announced, “The third Combat Readiness Exam is now over. Prepare for evacuation.”

He only had time to blink before he felt the twist and pull of the vest taking him back to the Auror Department.

He expected to see a room full of recruits and Aurors. He expected to see Harry and Kevin and Claudia waiting. He expected the mirrors watching him and quills recording his every move. He expected someone there to help with his plentiful, but thankfully minor, injuries.

Instead, Ron was met with a dingy dark grey room with a lone bed against the wall, a side table and a toilet in the corner. He tried the door, but it was locked.

He performed a series of spells but Anti-Apparition spells were in place and nothing he knew would work.

“Hello?” he hoarsely called through the door, hitting the door with the fat of his fist. “Anyone there?”

No one answered him, but a pitcher of water and a cup appeared on the small table.

Suddenly, the disembodied voice was back: “Greetings Recruit, Interviews for the Fourth and Final Combat Readiness Exam have begun. When your interview time is near you will be released into the antechamber.

“Fucking ‘course they think locking us in solitary is a good idea,” Ron muttered.

He glanced at his watch but it was dented and the time was stuck at one sixteen in the morning.

“Do you have any injuries, Recruit?” asked the voice.

“I don’t know.” he rasped. Only the sound of ‘no’ must have registered because no one responded to his answer. It took at least a minute before he felt in his body enough to know if he had any injuries. He had a series of splinters up and down his left arm

Ron went to the pitcher and poured a glass. It was then he realised his wand hand’s finger didn’t want to bend around the glass. He must’ve either jammed it or broken it; he’d never quite been sure how to tell one from the other. He could do spells with his left hand, but didn’t quite trust the non-dominant hand to do something like heal bones.

Too tired and angry to worry about the interview, he drank his fill, took a piss, then sat back on the bed, picking splinters out of his arm. He was filthy and in dire need of a shower. His clothes began to cool and stiffen with sweat, and soon he was shivering.

The grime of battle still clung to him, and he felt a desperate need for a cleansing shower.

Restlessly, he attempted to find solace in a thin blanket. It offered little comfort or warmth. Micronaps, brief and fragmented, beckoned like distant islands of respite in a sea of exhaustion. Each time he slipped into the realm of sleep, he awoke with a start, the remnants of his nightmares with the Boggart dust haunting him.

He couldn't discern how much time had passed when the door to his cell finally swung open, its hinges creaking. With wary caution, Ron edged closer to the doorway.

The room he entered was a stark contrast to the cold, featureless cell. Warm wooden panels adorned the walls, radiating a sense of comfort that felt foreign after the ordeal he'd endured. His gaze fell upon Neville and Ramona

"Hey!" Neville greeted him, offering a weary but genuine smile.

Ron nodded in acknowledgment. "Were you stuck in a grey cell too?

"They let me out a moment ago," Neville confirmed, his voice tinged with relief.

“What time is it?”

“Search me,” Neville said, holding up his own damaged watch. “Got smashed and I’m rotten at repairing anything with mechanics.”

Ramona held up Vyse’s lucky coin and a bit of string. “It’s not a watch anymore.”

“Who made it to the end?” asked Ron.

“We’re all that’s left,” replied Neville.

“They okay?”

Neville gave a helpless shrug. “I have to assume so. Vyse got hit with a spell, then zipped away. I don’t know what happened to Theold.”

“The Squid got loose and pinned him, then he disappeared,” said Ramona.

Ron walked around the room checking each door. He was concerned for everyone, but most of all Harry. There was no sign of life beyond long-abandoned beds and drinking glasses with sips of water left.

“I’m sure Harry’s okay,” said Neville.

Ron shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust the Aurors with the care and feeding of a rock…”

Ramona gave a small snort.

“Are either of you any good with episkey? I think I broke my knuckle on Musaad’s chin,” he said, holding up a purpling knuckle. His finger could only marginally wiggle, but couldn’t hold anything or go into a fist.

“That’s not the same hand as earlier, right?” asked Neville, holding up his wand.

Ron made a hardy attempt to temper his glare. “No.”

Neville said the spell, and Ron’s knuckle gave a gross ‘pop.’

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Ron hissed in pain, but soon it was only a dull ache. “How about you? Any broken bits you need healed?”

Neville shook his head. “Surprisingly unscathed! Bruised as all out, but I have some okay bruise paste at home.”

Ron gave a grunt of approval, then looked to Ramona. She was wane and pale, but had a foreboding glare clearly telling him ‘fuck off and die terribly, if you please.’

“How about you?” Ron asked, despite himself.

Her glare softened the smallest amount. “The same ankle I hurt in the second exam is sore.”

“Need me to wrap it?”

She bit her lip, then nodded in assent.

He worked quickly and quietly. The ankle was swollen, but not nearly the purple mess it had been a few days prior.

“Thank you,” she quietly said as he was midway wrapping her ankle.

He nearly dropped her foot in surprise.

“Er… You’re welcome.”

Thankfully he had set her foot on the ground when she continued surprising him.

“You…” she began. “You helped me today. And the last exam.”

Unsure of what to say he opted to say nothing.

“That’s pretty par for the course for Ron and his friends,” said Neville, words more weighty than he let on.

A door opened and out came Sealy-Pearce, posture as straight as ever.

“Weasley. It’s time for your interview,” she said, face devoid of any emotion.

Neville gave his shoulder a squeeze and Ron promptly stood.

“Good luck,” said Ramona. She was unsmiling, but he could tell she meant it.

The corridor they went down was narrow, and his shoulder nearly caught on a torch as they passed by.

“Is Harry okay?” he asked her.

“He’s uninjured.”

That wasn’t the same as being okay, he wanted to argue, but he held his tongue.

Sealy-Pearce said nothing as she led the way, which was fine by Ron. He never was good at small talk with authority figures— not that they typically took much time with him anyways. Perhaps he hadn’t had the chance to practise.

Either way, he knew the simmering rage he felt towards the whole department wouldn’t be able to kept in check for long. It was best he held his tongue, grit his teeth and pushed down every swear and insult scrambling to break free.

They finally entered a small room that looked more like a place of interrogation than an ‘interview.’ It probably was an interrogation room. Behind a long wooden table sat Musaad, Robards, the Auror he had taken out on the roof, and another female Auror he didn’t recognize. They left an empty seat on the end Sealy-Pearce promptly filled.

“Take a seat, Weasley,” said Robards, waving a hand to reveal a wooden chair behind a small table with a pitcher and glass of water.

He sat, and immediately realised the chair was terribly uncomfortable. The back was too low, and the seat managed to slide back in an angle that made his tailbone hurt.

Ron stood, waved his wand and made it more his size and sat back down. If he was going to be fucked with, he’d at least do it without a sore arse.

“Water?” asked Robards.

“No thanks,” said Ron, trying to figure out where to lay his hands. On the table? In his lap?

“That was quite a show you put on in the exam,” said Robards, a wry smile on his face. “Quite a show… Musaad and Sealy-Pearce had said you were good, but I was impressed. We hadn’t heard much of you before this. Usually there are rumblings if someone has potential, but I didn’t hear anything about you from Hogwarts. Why is that?”

Ron clenched his fist and tried to convince his face not to flush. His face gave him the middle finger and slowly began turning him red, one centimetre at a time.

“I don’t know much about how ‘rumblings’ work,” Ron said, a small shrug.

He found himself rather impressed with his answer. He’d sounded sort of cool and nonchalant, in a way he rarely felt. The feeling of calm abated when he saw the unimpressed look on Robards face.

“Would you care to expand on that?”

Fuck.

“I dunno…” he said with a small cough.

He didn’t know what to tell them. All he could think of is things he probably shouldn’t say. Ron knew he probably shouldn’t say it was because he’d never been noticed a day in his life. He probably shouldn’t say he was useless compared to everyone else. He probably shouldn’t say they were putting him on the fucking spot and could eat a bag of dicks.

“Have some water, Weasley,” said Robards.

He promptly took a drink, and used it to buy more time. The water had a slightly acrid taste to it that made him wish for better water to wash it down with.

He had done things at Hogwarts… He’d never done them all that well, but he’d done things! He’d helped Hermione and Harry get across the chess board. He’d gone to the Ministry. He’d fought Death Eaters… He’d tried. And he’d obviously done alright in these trials.

“Maybe ‘rumblings’ aren’t much compared to people actually doing things?” Ron asked, scrambling to put his thoughts together and finishing off his glass of water.

“I mean, Neville’s obviously good enough to be an Auror, but I don’t think there were ‘rumblings’ before last year with him. But he was bloody brilliant at the Ministry in fifth year, and in sixth year he was there fighting off Death Eaters too.”

A few of the Aurors nodded, but Musaad bent forward. “This isn’t about Longbottom. This is about you.”

“I know that,” said Ron, irritation growing. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to tell you why I was underestimated by people. That’s on you, isn’t it?”

He nearly slapped a hand over his mouth. He had to say the wrong thing.

Musaad leaned back in his chair, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Your performance today suggests you have the skills," Robards conceded. "But being an Auror is about more than skills. It's about dedication, teamwork, and a commitment to upholding the law. Do you feel you’d be capable of that?”

“Yes… I mean, I hope so,” said Ron with a shrug. “I’m… I try to be there for people. And if a law is a good one, then yeah, I’d commit to upholding it.”

“Sometimes you’ll be asked to uphold laws you don’t agree with,” said Sealy-Pearce, her face unreadable.

“Like the ones Voldemort put in place last year?” Immediately scowls turned his way. Ron averted his eyes. “If the Ministry has just laws, I’ll do my best. If it falls to hell again… That’s a different story.”

“What would you do?” she asked.

“Probably the same as last year,” he said, squinting at her and leaning back.

“Would you like to tell us more about your actions in the last year?” asked Robards.

Ron knew he’d have to tread carefully. The last year had more secrets than he thought himself capable of holding.

“Erm… What part do you want to know about?”

“We know you didn’t go to Hogwarts last year. Had a clever ruse with the ghoul taking your place,” said Robards, a genial smile on his face. “Was that your work or Arthur’s?”

“My idea, but my dad helped a bit with the spells.”

A few of the Aurors nodded in approval.

“So before you were captured at Malfoy Manor, what were you doing? I’m assuming you were part of the Ministry break in?”

“I was.”

“Why did you break in?”

“We needed to retrieve an object.”

Ron’s fingers tightened into the slight folds on the side of his trousers.

He wondered how much they knew of what he’d been up to with Harry and Hermione. Was this line of questioning about Ron and further proving his abilities by describing his record?

“What was this object?” asked Robards, genial mood slowly slipping into something more pointed and eager.

Were they fishing for more information about Horcruxes? If they were, they were a fat lot of idiots because he would never tell them anything. He’d rather bleed out on the floor and let them have an inkling of anything they wanted.

“A h—” Ron stopped himself. What the fuck? He hadn’t meant to say a thing and he’d nearly said Horcrux. He must have been more tired than he thought. “An object to help stop Voldemort.”

“Was this a Horcrux?” pressed Robards.

“I didn’t ask it,” said Ron.

Robards expression turned glacial.

“You were pretty gabby in the transcripts of your exams, Weasley. Is there a particular reason you’re reticent now?”

“I’m answering your questions,” said Ron, struggling to keep his voice neutral.

Robards leaned forward, his gaze sharpening. "Tell me, Weasley, have you ever had any struggles with your mental health? Stress, anxiety, anything of that sort?"

He knew Robards was trying to throw him with a sudden change in tack. Unfortunately, it was working.

Ron's heart stumbled and he hesitated for a moment, his voice less steady.

“Y-yeah. Sometimes. The last few years I’ve been fighting Death Eaters, I’ve lost people, and my family and friends were in danger… I think I’d be barmy not to have stress and anxiety during that.”

“But what about after? Today you had an extreme reaction to the Boggart dust,” noted Musaad.

“Everyone did,” said Ron, crossing his arms.

“Well, at least you didn’t dangerously blast one of your fellow recruits,” Musaad conceded.

“That wasn’t his fault!” Ron protested, struggling to keep himself in check. “He’s been through more than anyone.”

“Apparently…” Musaad with a small snort.

“Watch it,” Ron warned.

“You seem angry.”

“Of course I am. You’re a bunch of sadists who tortured my friend!”

“We didn’t put Boggart dust in the field,” assured the rooftop Auror. “The breeding den had been underground for years, it seems, growing without our knowledge.”

“Oh like that’s better! You put a bunch of people in danger—”

“None of you were in danger from that Boggart den you stumbled across. The only danger was from your friend,” Musaad added.

“Stop saying that!”

“You could barely restrain him when he was going mad. Are you really saying you don’t think Potter is dangerous under those circumstances?”

“He was but—” Ron cut himself off. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“Have you ever seen Potter behave dangerously before?”

He had to fight to keep himself from saying yes. Why was it so difficult?

“Under the right circumstances anyone can be dangerous!” Ron growled.

“The problem is, you can’t always be there to restrain him.”

“I know that, but—” Ron grit his teeth to cut himself off again. He felt almost compelled to speak.

“And while your loyalty is admirable, as an Auror you’d have to put the needs of your team and your government above your friend. Can you do that?”

Ron was about to snap back ‘probably not,’ when the realisation hit. He let out a bark of laughter and looked to the ceiling.

“Something funny?” Robards asked.

“You lot…” Ron said with another humourless laugh. “You’ve put something in my water and are trying to get a rise out of me. What is it, some sort of Veritaserum?”

“You’re not on—”

“I am,” Ron said surely. He could tell when he had been fucked with. It had happened enough times; the brains when he was sixteen, the love potion when he was seventeen, and then the locket… Add in Boggart dust and he’d had enough of it for a lifetime. His mind wasn’t entirely his to control.

The table mutely stared at him, but Musaad finally answered, “it’s a variant on Veritaserum. Makes you more suggestible to tell the truth, but leaves the speaker able to express themselves with full emotions, and able to hold back the truth if they are very inclined to do so. It’s less detectable than normal truth serum and less unethical as—”

“Less unethical?” Rons snorted. “You lot are nothing but unethical from where I’m sitting.”

“Oh?” Robards asked.

Ron could feel it— the need to tell the truth— the need to tell them off with everything he had. They said he could hold it back if he was very inclined to do so.

Too bad he had no inclination at all to hold back.

“This whole things has been needlessly fucked up. You didn’t properly check the place for dangers like the Boggart dust—”

“No one was in danger—” began Robards.

Ron had so many emotions going through his mind, it was hard to pick just one. He decided on livid.

“Mental stuff is dangerous, okay!?” growled Ron. “People’s heads being fucked with is dangerous! And you lot have done it every single exam.”

“As Musaad said, you can hold back what you want to say if you’re so inclined,” said Robards, jaw clenched.

“I’m not, but thanks for that reminder,” Ron said with a shake of his head. “Do you have more questions for me, or can I go?”

Robards gave a supremely displeased look.

“Do you even want to be an Auror?”

“After seeing how you treat recruits? Not really,” Ron curtly replied.

“In that case, do you have any final questions for us?”

Ron thought and stared at the floor before letting his eyes meet theirs.

“I’ve known three great Aurors in my lifetime, and they were all in the Order. Where were you lot? Why didn’t Dumbledore trust you? Were you even helping fight in the war?”

They stonily stared at him, except Musaad who looked away.

“There were many ways to help in this war,” Robards quietly said. He had a glower that should have made Ron nervous, but he didn’t care anymore.

“Right, well, I’ll take my Order of Merlin and shove it, shall I?” he said, rising from his chair. “How’s that for ‘rumblings?’”

“You haven’t been dismissed,” barked Robards.

“You saw what I can do. Either you think I’ll be good at this, or you don’t. I don’t reckon anything I say will change your mind for the better when I’m on truth serum-light. I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.”

Ron went to the door and realised he had no idea how to leave.

“I’ll escort you,” said Musaad, a wry grin on his bearded face.

Ron begrudgingly followed the man out the door, and pointedly ignored the barbed looks the rest of the table were giving him.

He’d utterly ruined his chances of being an Auror, but he felt strangely lighthearted about it. Theold had said he would get money for the Order of Merlin— that could cover his expenses along with his pub job until he could get employment he enjoyed and was proud of.

They were a few metres into the hall when Musaad let out a laugh. Ron stopped walking and stared at him.

He’d let his temper ruin his chances to be an Auror and now Musaad was mocking him. It felt like a most fitting end to a most imperfect day.

“And Robards thought you gave quite a show in the exams,” Musaad laughed. “I must say, Weasley, you’re one of the most interesting recruits I’ve ever met.”

“I’m on truth serum or whatever so you might want to shut up,” said Ron, fists beginning to clench.

“I am not trying to provoke you anymore,” said Musaad, putting his hands up.

“Okay…” Ron crossed his arms and looked down at Musaad. He’d seemed an intimidating figure, but Ron realised just how much smaller Musaad was than himself. “How was Harry, really?”

“I can’t reveal anything from his fourth exam, that’s confidential,” said Musaad, but he continued before Ron could protest. “Right before the exam it was reported to me that he was quite distraught. They sent someone in to check him over for any remaining spores of Boggart dust. He was able to gather himself after knowing Kevin Gunther was fine.”

It wasn’t fully relieving news, but it was better than not knowing anything.

“Thank you…” said Ron. He gave a forceful exhale through pursed lips. “Have I… Did I ruin my chances back there?”

“Oh you want to talk to me now?” asked Musaad.

“Might as well.” Ron shrugged and waited.

Musaad continued down the hall a few paces before he spoke. “Your performance in the first three exams was excellent. The only red flags we had for you were a wild case of insecurity, and you have a tinge of disrespect for authority. Nothing too major, especially given the circumstances… You were probably a shoe-in after exam three.”

“And now?”

“Well, Robards is a proud man… Deserves to be. He did quite a lot to help our side win this war, but from the inside. He has an impeccable record. And you chose to question it in front of his peers and throw your Order of Merlin in his face…”

“So I’m fucked,” Ron said, rubbing his left arm.

“Well, it’s hard to say how he’ll react. We are very hard up on recruits, and it doesn’t hurt that your best friend is one of the most politically powerful people in the Wizarding World. Potter was a bit of an upstart too.”

“He saved everyone’s arses. He deserves to be.”

Musaad nodded, holding Ron’s gaze. “One could argue you deserve to be too. We’re alive and able to interview you both because of the steps you took to end this war. That won’t be forgotten. And I won’t let your very fair reaction to our tests affect your chances if I can.”

“Do you have anything to do with this decision?” Ron asked, a tiny bit of hope scrambling its ways to the front of his mind.

“Yes. I do,” said Musaad before giving a laugh. “And despite how much you very obviously disdain me, I find I like you.”

Ron narrowed his eyes.

“I like what I saw in the field,” Musaad continued, not the least bit intimidated by Ron’s glare. “You’re the kind of person I would want beside me in a battle, and nothing you said in the interview convinced me otherwise. But, at the end of the day, I’m just one vote.”

He stopped walking, and looked Ron in the eyes.

“If this somehow doesn’t work out, feel free to contact me. I want to make sure you have a position somewhere for your skills. I could, perhaps, write a letter or talk to someone. That’s the least you deserve.”

Musaad put out a hand for him to shake, and despite everything, Ron found himself shaking it.

“You’ve got a good nose for tactics. It’s a pretty rare thing in someone so young. It’s been a privilege,” said Musaad, firmly shaking his hand before letting it go and leaving Ron in the locker room.

He changed, but the whole time he had unsure footing similar to when he’d just played a Quidditch game and finally landed on the ground. Everything felt slow and unsteady as he took each step and changed his clothes. The world around him felt like it was vibrating. The tensile pulse still rang in his ears, but he had no idea of where to move and nowhere to walk.

He felt the inexorable urge to run and run until he was far from this underground torture chamber.

He didn’t know if he even wanted to be an Auror anymore… But he didn’t want them telling him he couldn’t be one…

He wished he could say goodbye to the Recruits. He wished he knew how they all did on the exam. He wished to go home and check on Harry, to throw himself into Hermione’s waiting arms, and to maybe have some of his Mum’s cooking. He wished… He wished a lot of things, actually…

But most of all, he wished to sleep in his own bed and wake up not regretting a thing.

“Fat chance of that,” Ron mumbled to himself as he stumbled towards the lifts.

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

author's note:

Thank you to everyone who reviews- you all really help motivate me and make me feel tied to other people. Sometimes it's hard to feel a sense of community in my life, but you really give that to me and it means so much!

Next chapter Hermione's POV again.

#waking up #my writing #ron weasley #romione #harry potter fanfiction #auror #fan fic

[colossal-red]

TinyHunt Chapter Three:

The Muffin Head

Tw: angst, torment, swearing, vague abuse of a certain cat, threats, and Muffiny. WC: 5K-ish

“Shhhhh, don’t worry Ant, it’s okay!” Bad reassured his cat Antfrost. Bad had received a call a few hours ago from his son Sapnap who had left a few days ago to live on his own with his friend George. Apparently, they were being tormented by a borrower, most humans weren’t aware of what they were actually called, but Skeppy had told Bad when they became friends.

Yes, Bad was a friend of a borrower, who was heading out to capture a borrower. Thankfully, Bad thinks he might know who this one is. After he received the call and had asked Sap what the borrower (Bad had called them ‘tinies’ on the call) looked like and ran the description by Skeppy. Skeppy told him that the borrower sounded like his friend Dream, who was similar to how he was back before he and Bad started living together.

However, Bad couldn’t let on that he was sympathetic for borrowers. Although he was a bit annoyed at Skeppy when he laughed at hearing that Bad’s son’s hair was set on fire. ‘Classic Dr-r-eam!’ He was stuttering through his laughs. But Bad was pulling up into the Driveway of Sap and George’s house. He got out of the car holding Ant, he went around back and grabbed his suitcase. Once he rolled it over to the front door, he knocked a light quick knock.

It took a second, but Sapnap finally answered the door, Bad looked at him and audibly gasped, his hair was singed. But regardless Bad embraced him, and looked over his shoulder. Inside he spotted George on the last step of stairs looking a bit awkward, he saw a shelf to his left, and a couch to the far left. On the right he spotted the kitchen. But on the shelf he saw a hint of green and orange. Bad instantly knew that it was probably Dream.

Dream was wondering why Bad looked like he knew who he was. It was bewildering to see someone recognize him, no human knew who he was. (Except for George and Sap of course) So he was intrigued. Callahan tugged on his shoulder, Dream turned to see new writing on paper, “We should go now.” Dream shook his head, “No, you go back into the vents, I’ll keep an eye on this new guy.” Callahan drooped for a moment. (Dream couldn’t see if he was frowning or not, his reindeer onesie covered his mouth.)

So Callahan retreated into the vents, but Dream stayed behind. Bad was talking to them about their living arrangements and was sad to hear that the other rooms available were all small (for a human anyway…) This fact only made Dream smile, he still believed a decent amount into The Arctic Academy motto, ‘To put the human’s in their place, we must stab ‘em in the face.’ It wasn’t the most clever motto, but it got the point across.

Sapnap’s dad ended up living in the room next to George’s, Antfrost got to sleep in the empty room that George hadn’t furnished yet. Thankfully Bad had a decent amount of things to fill the void, including a fairly large cat tree. “Here you go Ant! Go run free!” Bad let Antfrost get acquainted with the house by dropping them off in their main room. Bad looked to the left, “Woah George, you have an outdoor patio/ balcony?” “Yeah, there isn’t anything out there yet though.”

Bad hummed in approval, and went to the backyard downstairs. “So, what have you done with this place?” George squinted, which was when Bad noticed that his glasses were cracked down the middle. “Not much, I’ve mostly been preoccupied with the Tiny in my house, he calls himself ‘Dream’.” George seemed to think for a moment, “Actually, it’s been a bit since I’ve last heard from him…”

Dream was still contemplating what his next move would be, he heard later on that Bad was planning on having a barbecue to make George and Sap feel better, and he sent Sap to go and get groceries. This was a good opportunity to introduce Bad to what he could do. He slid down the vents to the backyard, and got out. George was out here setting up a grill that Bad had brought from his own home. He looked around from the porch, thankfully George hadn’t noticed him yet. Bad meanwhile was inside talking to the wall, presumably trying to trick Dream into coming out, little did he know that Dream was outside.

Regrettably there wasn’t much that Dream could use to disrupt George, but he did see a spade. Heh, it wasn’t much, but it would do it’s job. He attached his hook to the Spade, and swung it around over his head. He’s always been thankful for the training that Techno and Purpled put him through, it made him incredibly strong. Once he had built up enough momentum he let the Spade go by releasing the hook and launched it at the grill, damaging it, to add insult to injury, it ricocheted and hit George in the knee.

“Owwww!” George grimaced after the Spade collided with his knee, he looked in the direction that the Spade had come from and saw just who he expected, “Dream!” He he quickly grabbed a stick ready to beat him up, that was when Bad came outside. “George what happened?” George needed to warn Bad, “Bad! Watch out!” He pointed in the direction where Dream was. But Dream had already swung around Bad, “Hey Bad! Nice to meet you!” He swung straight onto Bad’s face underneath the hood and held onto his nose. “Oh you have glasses! Here we love glasses!” He swung away again before Bad could react and took Bad’s glasses with him.

“Ay! You Muffinhead give those back!” Bad tried to get the glasses back from the swinging Dream but couldn’t reach, meanwhile the borrower was laughing from the top of the porch. “‘Muffin Head? What even is that?” “It’s what you are!” The little muffin smirked up there. “Bad! Get the b*tch!” “Hey LANGUAGE!” “Now’s not the time for language!” Bad frowned at George, “There is always time for no swearing!” “Whatever, just get him!” Bad thought of what his approach should be. “Hey Dream, if you come down I’ll, uh, bake you some muffins?” Dream just laughed again. “You won’t be able to trick me that easily.”

"But, it's not a trick..." Bad replied awkwardly. Dream wouldn't be fooled though, "Welp, I'll see you two 'MuffinHeads', later!" He retreated into a second-floor vent. After returning to their Home Base above the living room, Dream discovered that Callahan was cooking up a soup. Now, the old Dream would've called this behavior 'reckless' and 'dangerous'. But after The Arctic Academy, and the discovery of Borrowers, it was pretty exciting. "Callahan, that smells delicious, what'd you make?" Callahan held up a sign asking him if he had any injuries, Dream shook his head and repeated the question.

Callahan didn't want to upset Dream, but the truth was that Badboyhalo had given Callahan the ingredients to make this. Yes, he knew that Dream was set on tormenting the humans, for… some reason. But it wasn’t Callahan’s fault, Bad was really nice. Bad chatted at him through the wall for a bit, and while Callahan didn’t respond, Bad kept talking. Eventually Callahan step outside of the wall and used his sign to write a message that he was a mute. Bad completely understood and talked with him. It was, a nice change of pace. It made him think back to the last human he’d revealed himself too.

“So, what’s Dream’s deal?” Bad asked after a bit, “What do you mean?” Callahan wrote. “Well, he’s really been tormenting my son and his friend…” Callahan took a moment to think after that, eventually he wrote: “I think he just has fun doing it, especially because of their reactions.” Bad nodded in understanding. “Yeah I know. I have a friend who’s a borrower who was just like that.” Callahan’s eyes widened, “Yeah, he was a bit of a memer.”

After that they heard George scream outside. “I assume that’s your muffiny friend, right?” Callahan nodded staring down into the face beneath the hood. (Freckles with glasses. Short hair.) “Well, I’ll go and try to negotiate with him, see you around Callahan.” Bad waved bye and left to go and confront Dream. It didn’t seem to work though as Dream recounted what he did this time. Callahan thought of asking him why he thought it was important to fight the humans, but thought better of it. “Oh you should’ve seen me Callahan, it was amazing.” Dream’s voice brought Callahan back to the present.

Callahan wrote on a paper asking Dream what his next idea was. Dream thought long and hard about what it should be as Callahan finished the delectable soup and passed a bowl to Dream. “I think that I’ll try to tie them up and lock ‘em in a closet, like I did to George a little while ago. Maybe I could even go with them when they travel and get them thrown out of somewhere.” Dream cackled. Callahan did think it was a bit much, but he was intrigued about how these things could go. Before they went to bed, Callahan gave Dream a reminder that while he could heal Dream, he couldn’t bring him back from the dead.

Dream just nodded sleepily, and hit the sack. Callahan could only hope he wouldn’t put himself into even more danger…

The next day…

“Sapnap! How could you forget the meat you muffin head!” Bad berated his son after checking over the groceries that Sap had brought home from the store. Sap tried to chime in, “No you know what Sap? Let’s all go to the Grocery store together.” George wanted to argue against that, “But Bad, what if he trashes the house? Bad nodded in his direction, “Don’t worry George, we have a cute kitty cat! We’ll be fine.”

Of course, Bad didn’t know that as he was speaking, Antfrost was being tied up by Dream. The tiny person made a noise at Antfrost, but as he was a cat, he failed to understand. This was not the first time that he wished he understood English. While Skeppy was nice, this little person was mean. “Meow!” Ant yowled as he was strung up in the closet. Meanwhile the tiny man let out something akin to a laugh. But Ant could only frown at him as he closed the closet door.

Dream laughed after closing the door on the kitty. Normally animals were harder to defeat in battle, but Antfrost was extremely easy to defeat. Dream quickly swung around the outside of the house to Bad’s red car and snuck inside through a crack in the roof. He hid in a hole under the seats of the Car. He could hear the humans taking muffled. “I call Shotgun!” “Sapnap no, I want the front!” “Now calm down you two muffin heads, both of you go in the back.” The car doors opened. Dream tensed just a bit, he wouldn’t be able to maneuver in this small space that much, and he couldn’t distract Bad.

Although he’s never admit, he came to enjoy the humans company and speech. If he didn’t hate their entire species, maybe, they could be… never mind. He just didn’t want them to die yet, that was all, if he did feel anything other than hatred for their kind, he didn’t want to know that his mates would say. After approximately 20 minutes, the car rolled to a stop. “Okay, George I need you to go get some meat to cook. Sapnap, I need you to get some drinks that we can have. And I will get some baking supplies for muffins.” Bad ordered, “Do we got that?” George raised his hand.

“Yes George.” “Why are we going through all this work to have a barbecue for ourselves?” Bad sighed, “Because you muffin, maybe our neighbors might see the smoke and want to join in our barbecue.” “Oooooh, that makes sense.” Then the three of them set out to get the stuff. Now Dream had to decide which one he’d go after first. He looked over his three options, and smiled in the direction of George.

He swung about the top of the shelf’s and aisles watching George for the perfect moment. He ended up chilling above the containers with the meat on a light fixture that George was perusing. He chuckled just a little, but it was enough for George to turn around and spot him to the right. George glared at him, but didn’t say anything. Dream saw that their was a woman with their back to George, and George was facing in their direction and was pretty close.

What happened next isn’t really that good to describe, but let’s just say the hook grabbed onto something which resulted in the woman turning around and back-handing George. “Ow! That wasn’t me, it was that tiny up there!” He pointed at Dream to which the Lady turned around, but Dream was already gone. After the lady beat George with her purse and got him kicked out, Dream went to find Bad. It didn’t take that long to find him, after all, it doesn’t take a genius like Dream to know that Badboyhalo was in the bakery area of the store, more specifically with the muffin supplies.

“Alrighty then, which is the best muffin recipe to use?” He scanned the many boxes of muffin mixes to determine which would the most delicious to bake. He had perfected the art of baking Muffins, the craft of them. He hoped to one day teach it to Skeppy, if he ever stopped messing about trolling him. But at least Skeppy had boundaries! Unlike Dream, who didn’t have any from the looks. Skeppy had briefly explained over the phone, (He had a hard time using the phone Bad got him, but he managed.) that his specific group of borrowers had a deep hatred for humans and would like to ‘put them in their place’. Bad, although he was sympathetic for their kind, couldn’t imagine how they would pull that off. He could only hope they wouldn’t hurt themselves too much.

That was when he noticed Dream in the corner of his eye. That little Muffin Head followed them! That was when he also received a phone call from George that Dream had gotten him thrown out of the store. Bad reassured him that he’d get the meat himself. He started openly talking to Dream, but he tried to be subtle about it. “Hmmm, I wish I knew what type of muffin Dream would most like to eat…” He continued to say things of this nature in the hopes that Dream would attempt to communicate. Granted, he already knew which Muffin Dream would most like.

“Oh yeah, Dream likes Chocolate Chips…” Callahan had said when Bad asked him. (Well, he actually wrote… ok, I think you get it by now) “Well, guess I’ll just get these chocolate chip ones, they’re pretty good.” He then kept a close eye on Dream to make sure no Muffiny occurred. He just had to hope he could avoid whatever Dream might do while he left to go get some beef. He perused the aisle and waited for whatever Dream might do, eventually settling on burger meat and grabbing some bacon as well.

Dream followed Bad, he wondered why on earth Bad would try to be… nice to him. Eventually he came to the only logical conclusion. Bad was trying to poison him. I mean, it made sense right? Like why on earth would Bad want to be friends with a borrower when they were only viewed as pests? Dream rolled these thoughts around in his head and steeled himself to the anger he should feel for their kind. Meanwhile Bad was selecting the meat to make and ‘wondering which one Dream would like best.’ He went up to one of the higher up shelves and started stringing it up.

Once he got all the strings attached and winding around all of the cans that were up here, all he had to do was pull it. He actually had to cover his ears from the clanging and clattering that landed on Badboyhalo’s head. “Auhhhh!” Bad yelped as the cans domed him several times over. An employee did rush over to help him, meanwhile Dream cackled and decided that now would be a good time to go harass Sapnap. He swung around searching, struggling to recall where Sapnap went. Eventually he caught sight of his white bandanna in the cold area with the drinks.

Sapnap was perusing the drinks, trying to figure out which one the two of his friends would most enjoy. He eventually settled on getting a variety. (After all, if other people from the neighborhood would come they might like different things.) He grabbed the Coke, the Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, you know, the works. He, hesitated for some reason on picking up the Big Red. It felt, a bit strange like he was compelled to pick it up.

So he grabbed it and added it to his cart. That was when he spotted that little muffin, b*tch, he means b*tch! Dream up on the rafters. “Hey!” He shouted up at him, and the people in the aisle looked at him strangely. But he didn’t care, he just threw the Big Red bottle at Dream. And he missed, and somehow it opened and sprayed everywhere.

“AURGG!” He shouted as he got drenched. Then security came by, “Hey! Let go of me!” He struggled against the Security Guards, “Sorry sir, but you’ve caused a disturbance and spilled Big Red all over the place.” The Security Guards informed him as they carried him to the front door. “No, wait! There’s a Tiny up there!” He pointed up the rafters, but Dream was already gone.

“Yeah sure buddy, this store is Tiny free, now please, get out.” Sapnap continued protesting as they essentially threw him out of the store. Dream just couldn’t stop laughing and thought he might piss himself. He did eventually get back to his senses and snuck back to the car, and rode back home with an upset George, angry Sapnap, and an extremely irritated Bad. “You two absolute Muffins!”

Bad started berating them like children, “How did Dream manage to get both of you thrown out of the store!?” Sapnap shouted back “I don’t know okay! All I do know is that that green b*tch, (“Language!”) is probably in this car with us!” George started looking all over the car in pure paranoia. “Y-you guys don’t th-think he’d try to crash the car, right?”

Dream knew he wouldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be very fun, and although technically speaking killing them would help complete his mission, enslaving then would be the best way to go. After tormenting them a bit. Bad and Sapnap blanched for a moment, before Sapnap shook his head, “No, I don’t think he will, not as long as we’re still fun for him to mess with.” Well, he isn’t wrong. So once they got home and Bad fretted around with Antfrost after finding him tied up, Dream went and chilled on the roof.

He thought that getting an idea of who the neighbors were would be helpful if any of them decide to come for the barbecue. To the left of the house he spied a single Dad who was rather tall with a pink-haired toddler, okay, shouldn’t be too hard to mess with if Dream wants too. To the right of the house is a new family that just moved in, he spied a brown haired with a beanie unloading band equipment. Alongside that he spotted a child racing through the house with a woman who had vibrant red and a nice ocean-y dress. Ok, coolio. That was when he realized that it was time for the barbecue.

Bad had set up the grill and had already got Sapnap to make burgers, meanwhile he was inside baking muffins. Dream spied the tall single dad noticing the smoke and coming over with his toddler. Dream grimaced, it would be difficult to do a prank to everyone, especially when he saw the family of three also coming to check the barbecue out. Dream decided that he’d probably be better off just observing the celebration and settled to go hang with Callahan for a bit, maybe explore the other houses as well. He hear the door knock, “I’ll get it George yelled at Bad as he went to open the door, and lo and behold, it was the single tall dad, Dream really needed a better name for him.

“Hello neighbor, what’s your name?” George asked the new guy, “Oh, I’m Ranboo.” “Cool.” They both stared at each other awkwardly. “So can I come in?” “Yeah sure.” “This is Micheal by the way.” Ranboo gestured toward the child he held in his arms. They went to sit in the couch together and engage ins some small talk while Sap cooked. “Sooo, umm, wh-why has this house been pretty loud, ahem, recently?” Oh, so this was a noise complaint, it’s reasonable to assume that the neighbors would be upset with the noise these guys make as Dream torments them. The door was knocked on again, this time though, Bad answered as he just put the Muffins in the oven.

“Hello neighbors! Come on in! Ah, I see you have a young muffin!” Bad gestured for the family of three to come inside, for some reason though there was some water on her arms. “Oh, you’re wet, here let me get you a towe-“ “No.” The two adults said. “It’s fine,” the one in the yellow shirt continued, “She likes being wet.” “Okay…” Bad responded confused. “So what are you guys cooking?” The red head changed the subject. Dream was getting bored though, so he decided to head over to Ranboo’s house to see what was going on over there. He headed up to the roof and swung over and into the house via a crack. He roamed about the house until he was confronted by a voice.

“Oi Bitch! What are ya doin!” “Tommy shut up!” “You shut up Tubbo this guys got a cool ass looking hook!” Dream swung into the kitchen counter which is where these two borrowers were. It was obvious immediately that these two had not attended The Arctic Academy. “Hello Tommy and Tubbo,” he said awkwardly taking their names from what they just said. “Ayup Prick, how do ya know our names!?” The blonde one, Tommy asked him. Dream just stared at him until it clicked, or more specifically the brown haired Tubbo made it click. “Oh right.” Tommy said after Tubbo reminded him that they had just yelled each others names out. These two idiots bickered a bit more while Dream stared around the room, seeing outside the window that a woman was knocking on the door to his house. Dream took notice of her brown hair and pink eyes, that were almost glowing.

She had a white shirt that was tucked into a black skirt and a necklace with a purple, almost pink, jewel at the end of it. Interesting. That was when he realized that Tommy was still talking to him. “Hellooo bitch, are you there!” Dream shook himself, refocusing on these two. “Yeah, I’m here and my name is Dream, not Bitch.” “Sure whatever you say,” he turns back to Tubbo, “He sounds like the kind of guy who just goes mimimimimi, you know?” He loudly whispered to Tubbo. Dream just scowled at the two of them. “I don’t have time for this.” He leaves them with that to go get some food. “Hey! Wait a minute! At least let us show you to Ranboo!” Ranboo! We’re these two traitors or something!? Willing to give up their own kind for survival, disgusting.

Dream turns back drawing his needle and points it directly at Tommy’s throat. “What did you say, Tommy?” He asks almost in a whisper. Tommy seems utterly stunned, until he responds. “Get that fucking needle out of my face, Ranboo is a friend of mine who is kind to borrowers, so calm down if you think you know who I’m talking about-“ Dream cuts him off. “Friend? Did you really just say that? I am part of The Borrower Rebellion, and if you honestly think that humans could be our friends than there is something seriously wrong going on here.” He extends his hand to Tommy, “Whatever this Ranboo has done to you, I will take you away from here and protect you.” Tommy took a step back. “What the fuck are you talking about, me an Ranboo are friends, he’s been taking care of me and Tubs, no way is he a bad guy.

Dream grimaced, he was more brainwashed than he thought. “Well if your gonna be living with this human and being their plaything, than be my guest,” Dream informed him, “But you better be ready Tommy, because theirs a storm coming, and humans like Ranboo will be put where they belong.” Dream swung away with as much flare as he could to prove his point. He was still pissed off, but decided to not let it get to him too much. He just had to hood that those two were saveable from their mindset, and that they’d still be alive once the rebellion starts making some actual headway. He really should go back to The Academy to find out exactly what their current plan was and how he could help.

He got to the backyard of George and Sapnap’s home and watched from a tree as the festivities continued. He could’ve sworn that he saw something hiding by a gutter, but when he looked again there was nothing, must’ve been a trick of the light. He thought about what he could possibly do to prank these humans today, he remembered that Callahan informed him that there was a special type of leaf that could give any creature horrible indigestion, and that there was a few in the backyard hanging from the tree. Grinning mischievously, he pulled a few off and swung just over the grill in some hanging lights. He spied where the lettuce would be and swiftly replaced a load of it with the leaves.

Sapnap prepared the burgers, the fool not realizing that the leaves he was using wasn’t lettuce. Everybody got their burgers and sat at Picnic tables, Kayla, (Dream had heard her name whilst spying,) had chosen Big Red, Wil had chosen a Diet Coke, and everyone else had either a Pepsi or regular Coke. Dream thought he saw Kayla listen to something, but he couldn’t see what she appeared to be listening too. She started looking up and around the place as if she was looking for something. Or someone. How could she know though? Eventually everyone had started eating and were excusing themselves either home or to the bathroom. George, Sap, and Bad all looked confused and in a bit of pain presumably from the indigestion.

Bad spied Dream as the little green muffin was laughing his butt off from a tree in the backyard. “Guys! Look up there! The little green potato did this!” George and Sap were understandably very upset at this, but Bad tried to calm the two down. (Man it’s like they never changed…) “Hey Dreeeaam?” Bad called up to him, “I have something for you, Dream!“ Bad presented the Muffin that he made especially for Dream. It was green with chocolate chips. Dream looked at it questioningly, “What? Is that meant to represent what you’ll do to me when you catch me? Because if so than that’s creative I’ll admit but a rather stupid sentiment on your part for believing you’ll catch me.” Now it was Bad’s turn to be confused, “Wait, Dream this isn’t a trick! I want to just bury the hatchet!” “Yea, right into his back…” George whispered.

Dream laughed, while Bad scowled at George. “You’ll never be able to trick me Muffin man, and whoever Sapnap’s calling on the phone won’t get me either!” Bad turned his back on Dream and saw Sapnap in the phone with someone. “Sapnap, who are you calling!?” Bad realized that it’d be a good idea to absolutely make sure that these two ragamuffins wouldn’t kill Dream so that he could negotiate, you know, for Skeppy. “Only the best exterminator in Essempi Bad. I’m done trying to negotiate with him.” Bad came to the realization that he really needs to up his convincing game, before Sam or those other two kills him. Because if he dies, Bad’s not sure Skeppy will forgive him.

Awesamdude was sitting at his desk trying to find a connection between the Tiny Attacks (TA’s) that had been occurring recently, there weren’t a lot of them, but they were still significant. Then his phone rang. “Sam Nook’s Extermination service, how May I help you?” He recited as if from a script, his brother Sam Nook was the founder of the company. “Sam it’s me.” Came Sapnap’s voice, “Sap? What do ya need dude?” He asked dropping the formal voice. “Me and my friend have a tiny problem, literally.”

Sam’s face darkened, “Have you been harassed by a Tiny that has a different hook than usual?” “Yes, how’d you know?” “Because you aren’t the only one who’s been experiencing this problem Sap, I’ll be right there.” He hangs up the phone and takes a moment to look through the glass near his desk. In the other side lies a few rows of tinies in jars, and a equal amount of hooks on display. “Time to add another to my collection…”

@baka-monarch @funtimemoth @eiscreme135 @squishys-soft-stories

#mcyt g/t #tinyhunt au #tiny!dream #tiny!callahan #tiny!tommy #tiny!tubbo #implied tiny!squishy #giant!george #giant!sapnap #giant!bad #giant!wilbur #giant!fundy #sizeshifter!sally #sizeshifter!kayla #giant!ranboo #giant!michael #really long tags

[homemade-ghosts]

Thinking about two things rn: 1. how Casey told Derek that his stuff is still in her basement, implying that she willingly took most of his things (or at least what he brought to/left at uni) with her when George & Nora moved out of Ontario, despite the fact that G&N clearly have ample storage space at their new home (see: their giant garage) and 2. how, if they ever do a Life with Luca series, Derek & Casey’s scenes in the first episode could involve her telling him he needs to go through all the crap that’s in her basement after he & Skyler move into the guest house (he, of course, ropes Casey into helping him sort through everything because he knows organizing things is her weakness).

While they’re going through all his old stuff and reminiscing, they think of the last time they remember being in a basement together. The first episode of the original series.

It’s all come full circle. Derek moving into Casey’s (guest) house like she moved into his house all those years ago. The two of them back in a basement (this time, choosing to be there instead of being forced to be). Thinking of everything that’s changed...and everything that hasn’t. 

#take me back to the startttt #feel free to ignore this i just needed to get it out of my head and put it somewhere else #life with luca #life with derek #casey x derek #dasey

[zacki0gaming]

My Opinion About Season 1, Episode 2

(MAJOR SPOILER WARNING. WATCH THE EPISODE BEFORE READING MY OPINION ABOUT THE EPISODE ITSELF.)

Before I Start

Hello everyone! Today, I will be reviewing Season 1, Episode 2 to see how much it's gonna give me a damn "mental breakdown". :) After watching the pilot episode, I wanted to see if Season 1, Episode 2 would improve for me. Well... if only it did marginally.

Lets Discuss The Episode

After the events of Season 1, Episode 1, the story continues as Cube, Cyan, and Lythorus escape from George and his family, who have become infected with the Pink Corruption Virus (for no fucking reason). Cube assured that they will be safe for now. Cyan is confused and devastated, wanting to understand how the citizens became corrupted.

Lythorus started to think about the situation of Cube and Cyan, mentally mapping it out. Cyan responded that Dub must have been fully sealed. After figuring out the situation, Lythorus was shocked and asked Cube if they sealed it from below. With a feeling of defeat, Cube face palmed and replied, ("I don't think it did."). Lythorus is clearly upset by this despite being a little bit unsympathetic here.

Upon hearing this, Cyan becomes extremely disappointed by this and transforms back into his original form. He then hides within Cube's cloak. Lythorus persists in asking for more information, but Cube decides to leave and declares that he knows the way out. Lythorus, confused, follows his friend and jokingly calls him "Mr. Hexahedron.". I don't think this implies toward Cube's full name, but whatever, most likely a name call. Anyway, the intro starts.(Let's pause here)

The Seal Situation

I cannot comment much on the situation between Cube and Cyan. I know the duo were directly responsible for partially sealing Dub up. This is an unintentional consequence of holding Cube and Cyan responsible for the events that will occur later on, as a result of the previous episode. Considering that "nobody" can fucking see and know if they actually seal up the bottom... We could've gotten something different as a way to bring Dub free and cause chaos.

I am surprised that, throughout the series, neither the other caretakers nor the heroes have questioned Cube and Cyan about this.

It was pretty bonkers ngl.

Back To The Episode

As the trio venture further inside the cave, this is where it's going to be the beginning of a massive trend where Cube and Cyan's characters are basically going to get each other into shit later on.

As Dub's arm digs through the cave, he contaminates the water and a fish transforms into "Acrilimus", a giant fish slime creature. The creature emerges from the water and shoots a laser towards Cyan's hiding spot. Cube, acting on a paternal instinct, quickly pulls Cyan out of under his cloak to protect him. Unfortunately, Cube is hit by the laser and thrown into the cave wall. Ultimately, this leads to Cube getting infected. This is where the Cubic plot device comes in to play. (I'm gonna talk about this for a better context in the next episode. Plus, I think this plot device was enough for Cube's development in Season 1 and I don't find any excitement of continuing this further in Season 2).

Lythorus hurries to Cube's side to check on his well-being. As the signs of corruption start to show, he begins to sweat excessively. Determinedly, Cyan, now transformed into his secondary form, charges towards Acrilimus and the boss battle sequence commence. (I want to bring this part up for Cyan again in a larger context once I talk about Season 1, Episode 4...).

After defeating Acrilimus, Cyan was exhausted and flew to check on his caretaker's condition. Cube is still sweating heavily, with occasional flickers of pink before returning to its normal state. Cyan for some reason explains to Lythorus that part of the Tree of Life, he cannot be corrupted. However, due to Cube and Cyan being connected, it will take much longer for Cube to be fully corrupted.

Cyan is so unnaturally intelligent for some reason... After becoming a hero for at least 2 days now from the amount of days as passed, so far, still no explanation of how Cyan is being given with this knowledge. Remember what I mentioned in my pilot episode review? I questioned if Cyan had any information on the virus that would cause me to start laughing out loud. As it turns out, Cyan does have knowledge that the virus will take longer to fully corrupt Cube's system. How in the fuck... Cyan says this about it:

Do not worry Lythorus. Cube and I are connected, and since I'm part of the Tree of life, I cannot get infected by the virus. "In his situation, it will take longer to infect him". Cube? Will you be able to be bodyless so I can lift you up?

Remember this statement that I underline here...

Cyan asks if he can disembody himself in order to lift him up. However, due to his damaged body, he is unable to do so. Recognizing the urgency to reach the Tree of Life, Cube confidently leads the group towards the exit.

Brief Thoughts On The First Boss Level Sequence

If I could keep it as simple as possible, the first boss level sequence (Acrilimus) that was introduced in the series was well-handled and had nice fitting music from the video game, especially for Adobe Animation standards.

Back To The Episode

The story continues with a picture of "Orange" and "Iris", which was presumably taken when Iris first received Orange at the 3rd Tree of Life Anniversary. Also, Iris and Orange are one of the main characters, who are the 3rd caretaker and hero. (I'm seriously going to talk about Iris very soon... I'm not taking this lightly.).

Minor Plot Hole: Iris Sadly Looking At A Photo Of Him And Orange. Anyway, Iris sadly takes hold of the photo and gazes down at it. The reason behind this is so ambiguous that it is possible it has something to do with their relationship. Although this entire series never explains this section. I assume that Iris is concerned about the well-being of his hero, or possibly something else entirely.

Back To The Episode

Iris then notices The Pink Corruption outside his home, already knowing that it has finally arrived. "Pentellow", another main character who is the 2nd caretaker. She says to Iris that it's their chance to help out and also mentioning the last hero (Cyan) from The Tree of Life was born.

Iris informs her that he is already aware, as Pentellow has asked him to go and assist the newbies (Cube and Cyan), while she goes to search for Pyrare in the Poly Forest.

Following this, Iris should've been introduced in Season 1, Episode 3. The deleted scenes from that episode had a better direction.

As Pentellow leaves Iris, he glances at the photo frame once more with the same sad expression. (Pretty much, still no explanation for why that's even established for possibly between him and Orange's relationship or not).

The story now shifts toward the trio (Lythorus, Cube, and Cyan) after they have left the cave. Cube's infection symptoms worsen. He begins to see his corrupted counterpart, Cubic, in his mind and sweats even more profusely than before. The others, surprised, stay close to him and ask if he is okay.

In the distance, Iris approached and asked for the hero of the Cyan Tree, who was Cyan himself. He confirmed his identity and inquired about the stranger (Iris). In an attempt to intimidate them, Iris used his powers to darken half of his face and declared himself as their "worst nightmare". (Lets pause here about his phrase).

Phrase: "Your worst nightmare!"

"I'm your worst nightmare" can be used as a characterization trope. Iris saying "I'm your worst nightmare" as a characterize phrase, which applies to some of his personality traits that were introduced here. It is evident that Iris's initial greeting towards the trio is both intimidating and darkly humorous, but he is clearly faking it. This basically shows his sense of humor that he shows occasionally throughout the series. Considering that he is one of the good characters and was joking around, I find these traits in his character to be very tiresome. (I will explain about this later on).

Back To The Episode

Iris's words startled the trio briefly, but they were not amused (If I was there, I would be extremely unamused too by this and shout out a fucking "BOOOO" so loud because Iris's sense of humor is straight garbage...). Anyway, as I had mentioned before, he was only joking. He then walked closer toward them. Cyan rushes towards him, explaining that they are in a hurry. Cube attempts to persuade Cyan to act rationally in this situation.

Ok, first of all, Cyan is still greatly concerned about his caretaker's infection with Lythorus. However, at the same time, his actions toward Iris ARE completely understandable given the urgency of reaching the Tree of Life before Dub.

Cube's infection suddenly turns him pink for a split second once again, rendering him unable to speak. Iris acknowledges the urgency of the situation, although he does not expressively show it (How about you "actually" express concern for Cube's situation like the others you grapehead BI...). He takes note of Cube's state, as he is on the verge of collapsing.

Remember This Line Of Dialogue: Cyan: In his situation, it will take longer to infect him. (He said this back in the cave).

For some reason, this "Pink Corruption Virus Resistance Power" that the caretakers have is working out very well for Cube here...

Iris states that he will assist as soon as Cube collapses to the ground and starts glowing pink, as if it is taking over him (working out VERY WELL...). Iris then retrieves his orange purification triangle from his cloak and uses it to heal Cube.

Cyan expressed bewilderment as to whether Iris must assume the role of a hero or caretaker. In response, Iris divulged that he shares the occupation as his caretaker, Cube and proceeded to disclose his own name. Subsequently, Cyan disclosed the names of his friends, Lythorus and Cube to him. Iris assumed they were going to the Tree of Life as he says that they'd have to pass the forest and make a left.

Iris mentioned that he would distract the monster (Dub) while telling the trio to go to the Tree of Life. They all responded with "OK". Cyan thanked Iris, and returning characters from Season 1, Episode 1, Copter and Ketches, watched them as they presumably overheard their conversation.

In the next scene, the trio runs towards the Tree of Life before Dub can catch up. The focus then shifts to Iris, who is gazing at a monster (Dub) on a nearby hill. He draws his sword out and quickly disappears from view. Meanwhile, the trio stands at a lake, with the Tree of Life in the distance.

Cyan makes an actual dumb plan to get across the water, so he requested Lythorus to carry Cube across the lake to get the Tree of Life.

Cyan's Dumb Plan (Laughs out loud and clapping my hands). OK SO, your telling ME that Cyan decided to act all very intelligent all of a sudden for having all of this knowledge since Episode 1 and now creates a stupid and meaningless plan to have Lythorus carry Cube?! First of all... Cyan's brain-dead plan to have Lythorus carry Cube across the lake to reach the Tree of Life is ridiculous. I know this is another one of Brittany's attempts to put boring humor here, similar to Iris's introduction.

Back To The Episode

Lythorus refused Cyan's request, stating that Cube weighed about 200 pounds (I don't really know if it's confirmed that Cubes weighed that much or not). In response, Cube got angry and yelled that he doesn't weigh anywhere near that much, right before Lythorus gets clocked in the face by him.

One of Dub's arms flies in from a mountain, infecting the river surrounding the Tree of Life. Meanwhile, the islands nearby are turning grey and the trees are turning red. (Brief mental breakdown incoming from this situation).

CYAN FUCKING GRAB CUBE AND PUT HIM OVER YOUR HEAD LIKE YOU DID FROM THE PREVIOUS EPISODE AND SUPER ZOOM YOUR WAY TOWARD THE TREE OF LIFE!! ISN'T THAT EVEN HARD?!

(But no, Cyan didn't do that, like he's going to remember that because the story needs him to not know that method because of what's going to happen next here...). Anyway, there is another option for them to reach the Tree of Life, but Cyan could have completed it faster. Ketches approaches and asks if they need a ride. Cube is confused and asks how they knew. Ketches and Copter explain that it is their duty because they help the previous caretakers before them.

Lythorus leaves Cyan and Cube so that he can evacuate his citizens. Cube says to Lythorus to be careful while doing it.

(Heavy sigh...)

Lythorus's Entire Characterization Let's finally talk about Lythorus because this brat wasn't around that much for the past at least 6 years so far, right? :)

I know some of you like Lythorus (I get it) but, you got to look at this from an objective standpoint. If I had to briefly describe him considering he wasn't around that much, Lythorus is this "generic and cardboard cutout protagonist's childhood best friend", who shows a level of incompetency as a leader who has no "fucking reinforcements" to back him up. He doesn't even look like an actual leader, as he looks like a normal teenage student you randomly find at your high school. It is perhaps unsurprising that he was unable to save "one single flower" due to him not wanting to be smart enough to have more backup. He is generally passable at a certain extent, especially having my respect for his loyalty and care for his citizens. However, he is not a particularly memorable character in ths series because due to how incredibly damn forgettable for most of these fans, including me who watched this show.

To both of the creators, if your not gonna do anything with Lythrous's character, what's the point of adding him then in the main narrative, only to leave him largely undeveloped. You basically add him in just to be Cube's childhood best friend before being unceremoniously interred in a coffin for the past six fucking years, seemingly without any further plans for his involvement in the story. It would have been fine if they had saved his sorry ass in Season 1, Episode 4 from the Lycanthropy fight and had him stay for the rest of the series at Poly Village. Unfortunately, the story does not allow for that. Recently, Lythorus is just "a character who only gets his name mentioned, particularly Cube, but only rarely".

Back To The Episode

During this time, it goes to the conflict of Iris cutting a section of Dub's hair which infuriated him. He avoided his attacks by warping around. Dub then called out to the infected citizens by touching the ground, surprising Iris as he hangs on a tree.

We are now at the conclusion of Season 1, Episode 2. The four characters (Cube, Cyan, Copter, and Ketches) spot the corrupted citizens in the distance. Suddenly, Cube also becomes temporarily corrupted, presumably from the infected wave.

And unbelievably, this shit happens... He uses his claws to throw Cyan and Copter but while Cyan is being thrown, he hits the Cyan Tree of Life. This triggered the "sudden mature form crap" that I will talk about for Cyan's entire characterization later on. I could make another claim about this, as it will demonstrate more future struggles for Cube's character as a caretaker. However, I am not very invested in this aspect.

The Concept Of Sudden Maturity

"Sudden Maturations", also known as rapid maturity or mutation is a phenomenon when a Hero starts to mature into a more unruly, aggressive, and short-tempered version of themselves without experiencing a proper developmental process, thereby becoming uncontrollable in nature. The only cause we saw from this was if a hero gets collided with their own Tree of Life, which most likely is filled with "tree pieces", resulting in the transformation starting. Furthermore, this event can also make the hero become drastically stronger and gain new abilities.

As a result, Dub noticed the glowing Tree of Life and headed towards it. As the other characters saw Dub approaching, Cube woke up from being unconsciousness and slowly opened his eyes. He immediately stood up and looked at the monster.

I have to bring this up. Did Ketches have a speech stroke here. 😂😂

Anyway, all of the characters see this, while Cyan is guarding the Tree of Life in his "Dragon Ball Super Saiyan Blue Uncontrollable Rage Matured Form". While in this form, solely focused on Dub, the two greeted each other before starting a laser beam clash with each other.

The characters watch Cyan fight Dub, but Cube is worried about the outcome. While the two of them fight using their 'lasers', Iris arrives quickly and lands on the boat, and asks Cube how Cyan transformed. Cube doesn't know what happened, stating that he "only just woke up" because of him being temporarily corrupted like seconds ago.

Cyan fires another laser, which is reflected off of Dub's chest mark. Dub quickly lifts it off his chest (this may be difficult to see, but it is true). The blast produces a wave that knocks Ketches to the ground and tips him and the others over.

Iris warns Cube that Cyan is not supposed to mature too fast, as it can make his mind and powers uncontrollable. He asks Cube to stop Cyan (Oh so you're now actually being concerned about Cube's situation). Copter helps by assisting Cube in getting higher.

As Copter lifts Cube to reach Cyan, Cube stops Cyan by gently approaching him and giving him a hug. As a result, Cyan returns to normal and Cube's chest begins to glow. His chest glow symbolizes Cube's bond with Cyan after he saved him.

Iris exclaims that they need to hurry to the Tree of Life before Dub does. As the three of them fly to the Tree of Life, Cube, for some unknown reason can "make a shield without Cyan's help while he's sleeping".

Unused Ability: Cube Can Use The Sealing Technqiue Without Cyan's Help.

For some reason, Cube used this ability once and I don't even know how he was able to make seemingly create a seal without resorting to synchronization with the Tree of Life and his hero, Cyan's help.

Back To The Episode

Cube's shield seems pointless right about now, as Dub could destroy it. Right before Dub was about to destroy Cube's shield, he scoffed and stated that he was aware of their previous use of this strategy and that they were all very unpredictable. Dub then readied himself to shoot a laser from his eye at the shield as the episode came to a close.

Final Verdict

In conclusion, my thoughts on this episode are rather critical. Regrettably, I felt considerably frustrated, more so than even in the pilot episode. At least the pilot episode wasn't as bad as this. It had bland comedic moments, the plot requirements are still contrived for me, and the beginning of the "frustrating character sidelining" starts here, firstly with Lythorus in this episode for the ENTIRE series so far.

On the other hand, there were a few redeeming factors that deserve a mention. The fight sequences were impressive for Adobe Animation Standards, especially with JSAB level fights such as the Acrilimus one with the fitting music, and it was thrilling to finally see Cyan in action, although I would have preferred if the scenes were longer. Additionally, I found the character phase for "I'm your nightmare" to be of nice quality, relevant to Iris's personality traits, which is a rare occurrence for me within this show's writing (even though like I said before, most of his traits in his personality feel very tiresome right now for me), and setting up the Cubic's plot device later on for Season 1.

Overall, I would give this episode a rating of 5 out of 10, same as the pilot episode. While the fight scenes were notable for me, my opinion of the episode is predominantly mediocre, given the many shortcomings I've encountered throughout the episode.

See you yall in my Season 1, Episode 3 that I'm currently working on!

#the pink corruption #tpc #brittcorruption #jsab tpc #pink corruption #Episode Rant

[bonesandthebees]

Listen, I literally typed out the all caps normally and I was like “this does not convey my emotions well enough because I’ve been doing this after a lot of glass chapters and this is worse” so giant text and caps it is. But I am genuinely bouncing with excitement. More random thoughts while I’m here:

Tomys is fine after falling and it’s heavily implied that he bumped into Wilbur right before the edge which broke his fall.

When these boys get found, they are going to be covered in dried blood and it’s going to look so much worse than it is because it’s not theirs.

Someone is going to be very upset after this contract.

I’m already trying to calculate the odds of you giving Wilbur a permanent limp after this.

When the guards started dropping I was like “Right Bee has been reading Game of Thrones” I have never read game of thrones, but it feels like it would be writing like that, I go whiplash, in a good way.

Also, trying to have the competition killed feels like a very ruthless idea. Seems more in Niki’s style given the war room, but Q is the one to warn Wilbur and the one who heard about the fact that he was going from someone else (aka Schlatt, which is why I think he’s behind this, maybe he’s just as ruthless as Niki), but it does feel like something that was either done behind Q’s back or something that was decided before they knew Wilbur would be there.

There’s also something to be said about Niki’s ruthlessness vs. This particular idea vs. How she was acting off around Wilbur but all of this is speculation and I will get to that when I actually analyse with lines.

What else… oh yeah, the foreshadowing! Or more like Wilbur using his dagger to cut the pears! I saw and I was like, she’s letting us know he has a dagger, we need this info for later when he needs it. It had me stressed. At least he didn’t have to stab anyone.

Oh and both these boys are traumatised now are they.

-🌲

while that carriage tumble was pretty chaotic and both wilbur and tommy were flying everywhere, tommy did fall into wilbur at one point and it probably is part of what broke his fall

literally just half their bodies are covered in that carriage driver's blood rn

...yknow if he had access to a doctor this is technically a medieval era so uh, healing that broken leg is gonna be ROUGH

I'll say my writing style isn't very similar to George RR Martins but having read GoT definitely has helped with the action sequences a bit (I'd say my writing style for rose so far has been most influenced by The Priory of the Orange Tree though and also She Who Became the Sun)

hm... so many possible suspects when it comes to who hired the bandits...

LOL I love that you picked up on that. I was like shit I need to mention wilbur has a dagger at some point how do I do that. oh yeah they're eating fruit-

oh theres gonna be so much trauma from this incident

#ask #spruce anon #rose ch 6

[nemetonisevilpassiton]

The Teen Wolf Movie, Scott McCall and regret

I suppose that I should start this meta with a disclaimer of sorts. I belong to a school of thought called the cauldron of story that presents the idea that every narrative you ever encounter in your life goes into a giant cauldron to make a sort of story stew, and with practise you can see the stories that inspired it. This isn't plagiarism because it's not the stories that are the meat and potatoes of the work but the mixture of them.

So for example Star Wars is Dune + Hidden Fortress + The hero with a hundred faces and through understanding those works allows you a peek into George Lucas' mind at the time.

Every creator is a giant melange of the narratives that they consumed, ones they liked and ones they didn't and ones they over heard of public transport.

So me shrieking about Jacob's Ladder does not imply Teen Wolf plagiarised it - it just stole from it, in the same way every creator has sticky fingers.

And to understand the teen wolf movie we need to talk about Silent Hill 2 - which creates a story cluster of it's own, if you crossed Jacob's Ladder with Blue Velvet and some other things, some of which are Japanese and I can't recognise [never having encountered them] you get Silent Hill 2.

Unfortunately Silent Hill 2 creates a sort of loop in that Blue Velvet and Jacob's Ladder also inspired Teen Wolf and so it's this sort of smear where we can say that the three of them are all inspirations but we can't say which is which. For example in 3b Scott and Allison hide in a wardrobe with louvre doors which is just like the scene in Blue Velvet where the main character sees the villain through the door of the wardrobe where he was hidden - but the same scene appears in Silent Hill 2 where James first encounters pyramid head. So which is the inspiration - I don't know. Which came first, the pyramid head or the oxygen mask?

Jacob's Ladder is incredibly intrinsic to Teen Wolf [props to weasley-detectives for the leg work on that one] and it defines bardo, and many of the monsters in Allison's narrative, for example, are lifted from that film entirely. Jacob's Ladder did not inspire Silent Hill [the first game] but it did inspire Silent Hill 2 and again they're all mashed together. In season 3, after the be a better Scott McCall program, Scott starts dressing like James Sunderland [the man character of SH2] who in turn is dressed like Jacob Singer in JL, but Scott's costuming is not the same as that of Jacob.

This blending of sources is normal and annoying, generally it is better to have sources that are distinct so you can dig better and explain one source and not two.

At first I thought the Teen Wolf movie was going to be inspired by Event Horizon because I knew it would be full of mindfuckery, and I was wrong in that it was Silent Hill2. It was a few days of picking at it before I realised that it wasn't inspired by Silent Hill2, it was what would you get if you rewrote Silent Hill 2 in Beacon Hills and then had to completely rewrite your script because you can't get the actors.

Scott's narrative is Silent Hill 2 - it's not "inspired by" it's an au but it also has a chronic misunderstanding of Silent Hill 2.

Remember how Gus Van Sant remade Psycho because he wanted to see how it worked and when he did it - it didn't work. It's like that.

In Silent Hill 2 [which is considered a masterwork and work of art in its own right, and is considered to be the very best video games have managed so far] James Sunderland recieves a letter from his dead wife asking him to meet her in Silent Hill. He finds the town abandoned and full of fog but there he meets an alternate of his wife, Mary, but sexy called Maria, a child called Laura [the sh2/twin peaks knot] a bully called Eddie, a girl called Angela who is seeking her mother, and twisted manifestations of James' own emotional turmoil - pyramid head, the sexiest version of nurses etc.

James was made impotent, both sexually and emotionally by Mary's long illness and death and the town forces him to face it. It is a purgatorial wasteland where water is seen as corrupting. This is the same as in Teen Wolf [and actually allowed us to unlock the symbolism and eventually colour theory]. The town is shrouded in fog to show how limited James' viewpoint is.

Now if we look at Scott's narrative, he returns to Beacon Hills to reunite with his dead girlfriend, finds the town almost completely abandoned, she is different and doesn't know him, and he is forced to face the one enemy that made him feel powerless and he gets the girl and the innocent child after someone else defeated the monster again.

Sound familiar.

We need to look at why Void, which the film specifically calls a nogitsune but then contradicts all the canon lore about kitsune we've ever had - but the same is true of Deputy Ishida. When Void possessed Stiles and Scott thought that the possession was quiescent he went with Stiles to Coach being shot, then the explosion at the Sheriff's station where Scott sucked up the pain of just about everyone he met, and Void revealed itself after stabbing Scott, and consumed all the pain that Scott had taken in, and he mocked Scott whilst doing it.

None of the other villains really cared about Scott, they might have paid lip service to the myth, and monologued about him doing things he hadn't, before someone else took them from the picture with Scott there posturing, but only Void made him feel small. Just like Mary's illness with James Scott was made impotent, both sexually and emotionally. Allison's death rid him of his determination that they were destined to be together - even though she had chosen someone else.

Just like Mary/Maria Allison is robbed of any autonomy. Mary is defined entirely by her illness, something she resents. Maria is Mary but sexy and resents James' fixation on Mary. Allison is the twisting of the knife to Scott, she is also the one who died on his watch and the one who he loved - and chose someone else. Brought back via the nemeton she is robbed of memory and vacillates between the image of her mother sending her after the wolves and Scott's image of her. She does not remember that she broke up with him, why she broke up with him, or any of the times he manipulated and used her. She is unaware, under the stadium, that he is still manipulating and using her. He is so set on his own affection for her - which after fifteen years will be a very different creature to what it was when he was sixteen and she was alive, that he steamrolls over her arguments and rather than bring her to her father, who she remembers and trusts, he maintains the isolation until she remembers what he wants her to remember.

Allison might as well be a ghost in the movie for all the autonomy and ability to choose that she retains. She is a weapon to be aimed, first by the nogitsune-creature that is manifested [which looks so much like the green eyed fox in The Lost Tomb (series 1, which is not the first series but is the first one chronologically] that I actually cursed out loud that I can't even watch weird Chinese tomb raiding shows without Davis having seen them too. I am actually tempted to call it the Green Eyed Fox because it even shares powers and the fly caught at the end of 3b was a housefly not a firefly - you can make a solid argument that it was Scott's view of the nogitsune, and had nothing to do with Void or an actual nogitsune and why Deputy Ishida was a 900 year old kitsune who didn't know because it allowed Scott an easy understanding of how it had oni - the weaons it used to kill Allison]

Or to simplify a lot of the details in the movie might have manifested because they were Scott's understanding of those things.

And this is where the overlap with Jacob's Ladder comes in.

In the chiropracter scene Louie explains to Jacob about Meister Eckhart, a christian theologian who explains bardo really well. To summarise after death figures appear and start to burn away the things that hold people to life, if you're nto ready to give these things up the figures seem to be demons and if you are they're benevolent angels.

Scott, and his entire plotline being about wish fulfilment and regret, feeds into this because Scott won't give these things up. He is still working for Deaton, he has done everything he can to not be a wolf except when it benefits him, but given the opportunity to bring Allison back from the dead he leaps at it without questioning anything about the plan - which Deaton does.

He fixates on Allison, not as she is, but as she was and leaps into danger convinced of his own ability to sway her to his side - because he believes he loves her.

But he doesn't love her - she's been dead for fifteen years = he LOVED her.

Silent Hill 2 is purgatorial which is a term you see thrown about a lot in media, oh this did make sense it was purgatorial, or the reason that these scenes don't gel is because it's purgatorial. Often those things aren't, they're just shitty writing. Lost for example, it being purgatory made no sense whatsoever.

Purgatory is an old Christian concept which is also called limbo. According to catholicism Purgatory is where you went when you should have gone to heaven but for some reason couldn't, for example a new born baby who wasn't baptised was tainted by original sin [you're born damned in catholicism] would go to Limbo, good people who weren't christian went to Limbo, the wives of sinners who could belonged to their husbands but didn't deserve hell went to limbo. Some catholic theologians suggested that it was possible to pass through purgatory and ascend to heaven.

It's this version of purgatory that Meister Eckhart put forward and Teen Wolf calls Bardo. It is a series of between states that allows the subject to cast aside those things that held them in place - like regret, to ascend to heaven.

Beacon Hills does seem to descend into a purgatorial wasteland, like Canaan in canon, as the show goes on and Scott re-enters it to the collapse of Oak Creek [which is weird that it went from standing proud to building graveyard in fifteen years when no one demolished it], and the first person he meets is Lydia- who has been shown to be able to travel between the worlds and has one foot in the afterlife by her nature.

Yet he cannot give up the triumphs and losses of high school. His worst enemy is one that didn't care for him when he was a kid. He gets to play lacrosse in the state championship. His teenage girlfriend comes back to life. He wants kids and how convenient the only werewolf with a kid dies saving Scott.

Scott chooses to remain trapped in the past. He cannot accept the figures stripping away those things that hold him back. Even the one thing that can lead him forward -his wolf - is denied. He is still the person he was in high school - he's just older and has a car now.

In many ways that's much more tragic than killing Derek.

The movie had some really great ideas - it's a pity that the movie ended up like that with Derek beating up the green eyed fox in a location they stole from Deadly Premonition and that is one piece of media Davis can keep to himself because life is far too short to play Deadly Premonition.

#teen wolf meta #anti scott mccall #allison argent #i promised a meta about derek and wrote one about scott

[dhr-ao3]

The Gryffindor Princesss Self-Appointed Knights

The Gryffindor Princess’s Self-Appointed Knights https://ift.tt/zMYTPNy by sirsbrattyfox1997 Three years after the war Hermione has been with Ron for that amount of time but only engaged for the last two and when she repeatedly shows up to Grimmauld Place beaten and bruised to a pulp, 10 extremely handsome, angry, powerful, Hermione-obsessed wizards appoint themselves as her Knights in Shining Robes. But what happens when the alcoholic rage-induced Ron Weasley finds out and tries to get his fiancé back? All Harry Potter characters are owned by J.K. Rowling ⚠️TW mentions of R@pë & Seggsu@l Assault⚠️ ⚠️Warning: Pørñøgr@phįc elements such as, ⚠️tentacle impregnation ⚠️cumflation ⚠️futas/women with 🍆 ⚠️Bę@štįalïty ⚠️women impregnating women ⚠️polyamory ⚠️polygamy elements Words: 21802, Chapters: 7/?, Language: English Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Categories: Multi Characters: Hermione Granger, Sirius Black, Harry Potter, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Severus Snape, Viktor Krum, Remus Lupin, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Parvati Patil, Padma Patil, Charlie Weasley, Rubeus Hagrid, Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Abraxas Malfoy, Forbidden Forest Centaur Herd (Harry Potter), Acromantula Characters (Harry Potter), Giant Squid (Harry Potter), Grawp (Harry Potter) Relationships: Sirius Black/Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley, Hermione Granger/Viktor Krum, Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger/Charlie Weasley, Hermione Granger/George Weasley, Hermione Granger/Blaise Zabini, Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood, Hermione Granger/Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Hermione Granger/Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Neville Longbottom, Padma Patil/Parvati Patil, Hermione Granger/Rubeus Hagrid, Firenze/Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger/Abraxas Malfoy Additional Tags: Oviposition, Tentacles, Impregnation, Hermaphrodites, Multiple Partners, Twins, ABF, Lactation, Breastfeeding, Centaurs, Giant Spiders, Giant Squid of Hogwarts Lake, Egg Laying, Eggpreg, Milking, Lesbian Sex, Interracial Relationship, Adult Hermione Granger, Gangbang, Group Sex, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tentacle Rape, Tentacle Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Breeding, Babies, squid - Freeform, Anal, Magic, Polyamory, Large Breasts, Rape, Sexual Assault via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/9rmbtDv November 09, 2023 at 05:59PM

#IFTTT #Dramione #Draco x Hermione

[thewapolls]

I already sorta mentioned it in relation to the Adult Mag entry in the boss fight tournament, but it's fun to go over again,

BLUE BOOK is a fun reference to old English almanacs that implies a comprehensive collection of information, suitable for a magical autonomous book of magic.

NECRONOMIOCN taken famously from Lovecraftian lore, and a natural pick for a magical book enemy. Oddly despite the source material, it's not an especially threatening enemy in any of its appearances. Also it does not appear to be bound in human flesh, which is a shame because it could have made for a cool striking enemy model; although the pages of the WA1 model do have giant eyes in them.

TARGUM however is a much more obscure kind of reference. It's the term used to refer to the early translations of the Tanakh from their original Hebrew into Aramaic. I like the idea of it being used here to evoke a kind of ancient foreign magic of which this is the first comprehensible version of it written down for Filgaians. Also it's bound with a Japanese style sidestich rather than with a spine, giving a distinctly antique impression.

APOCRYPHA is a another fun one. Apocrypha can refer to a wide range of things in opposition to "canonical" texts. Probably most notable, or at least most familiar to people, would be the idea of biblical apocrypha; those biblical texts by subject and/or historical era not included in the bible itself, and considered by some to be heretical. It's neat as a magic tome as it implies something more secret, or rejected, or even forbidden.

DE RE METALLICA first appears not as an enemy at all but as the erroneously transliterated "De Le Metalica" dungeon, hidden within a magic book in Wild Arms 1, and subsequently Alter Code F. The real world De Re Metallica was a 16th century text written by Georg Bauer, cataloguing in 12 books all the details of how to find, mine, purify, smelt, and craft metal --a literally earth shattering development in mining and metalwork as it not only aggregated a long history of otherwise disparate and unwritten knowledge but also ventured into the then cutting edge of metallurgy and alchemy that would provide a groundwork for future developments in actual chemistry.

Then of course we have the ADULT MAG. Rather self explanatory, really. SUKEBEBONN[スケベ本]: "Lewd Book" in Japanese, it's a phrase that tends to refer to erotic manga more than the sort of adult photo collections we might think of in the west. In fact the first Dirty Mag model in WA3 actually has "ERO COM," as in "erotic comic", written on its cover. In fact something more in line with Hustler or Playboy would actually be referred to as a "Gravure" magazine.

The COMICBOOK which is again straight forward enough. It's just called MANGA in the original Japanese. If you're not familiar, Japanese serial manga are printed in magazine format, larger size, generally lower quality paper and print, but proportionally lower in cost as well(as little as the equivalent of 5.00USD for ~500 pages), but dozens of titles to an issue. Back when the Japanese and global economy were a little better, and when people still used phonebooks, they were often compared in size, although they tend to be a bit slimmer in recent years. In case it was odd to anyone why the comic book enemy was the size of a regular book. It's a shame this enemy didn't show up in other games.

and finally, STRATEGY GUIDE, which is a fun one. With Virginia and the title "WILD ARMS 3" on the cover. Another fun gag enemy with some 4th wall breaking fun for good measure. Again shame we never saw it make a comeback in any other games.

#wild arms