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itsbinghebitch · 1 year

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just as Moonlight Chicken comes to a close, i have the chance to find myself reading a book very relevant to its themes. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell, discusses the notion of what it means to be useful in free market capitalism and felt very poignant as I was watching MLC, both book and show placing emphasis on rootedness and responsibility to our home/ecosystem in a world where, increasingly, our space and relationships are determined by the logic of capital.

throughout the show, Uncle Jim’s arc deals with the impending closure of his chicken diner due to corporate development in the area. we soon find out the pandemic has taken a toll on businesses in this neighborhood, and that Uncle Jim offers unlimited chicken to his customers after midnight. this is later questioned by Wen, who thinks Jim could be making a bigger profit if he ditched the all-you-can-eat after midnight business model, and notes that “other diners do that.” Uncle Jim disagrees. he says: “I’m comfortable with the way I’m doing it.” he thinks in terms of the larger ecosystem of his community: of the food waste (where we know big corporate chains like Starbucks have to dump good food at the end of each day), of the usefulness of his economic role beyond bringing him a profit.

Wen’s profit drive and his participation to the development of the Marina food court is shared by a few others in the MLC world: from the neighborhood local landlord to Gaipa’s mom. throughout the show, we feel the pressure of smaller players having to learn to adapt to grow in order to survive.

related to capitalist growth, Odell’s book says, “in the context of health and ecology, things that grow unchecked are often considered parasitic or cancerous. Yet we inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and regenerative. Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”

economic growth in the universe of Pattaya, the Marina food court construction, Wen’s promotion, are all intertwined with the challenge of the same capitalist growth mindset at the level of interpersonal relationships: Wen chasing for a confirmation of his status with Jim, Li Ming’s struggle to determine his next step towards economic sufficiency, Heart becoming deaf and his parents’ reaction to essentially hide him away from society (with the implication that disabled individuals are a dissonant surplus in a society that functions by triaging its weakest).

the theme of leaving and starting anew is also important in MLC. Jim and Jam abandon their rural origin for economic prosperity; Li Ming’s wants to do the same with America. Wen leaves his relationship with Alan and Leng discusses the possibility of an abortion for his child with Praew. it stands out, therefore, that almost every character completes their arc not by leaving and starting anew, but by learning how to make use of what they have. Li Ming locks in his plans to leave not out of economic necessity, but out of the desire to help Heart. Leng and Praew stick together to raise their child despite economic difficulties.

notably, instead of cutting off ties, Wen and Alan leave room for friendship based on the mutual recognition of their past together and a relationship based on maintenance and care, which is important especially for queer people who may be estranged from biological family (it’s not lost on the viewer that Alan has no one but his sister-in-law to help with moving out). homophobic members of family are however muted and de-emphasized; MLC is much more interested in spotlighting Gaipa’s mom and Jam coming to terms with their sons’ sexualities.

it’s also no wonder that at the end of the show, we don’t find Uncle Jim overhauling his life to create a different economic reality for himself. he is instead content to be providing for his newly enlarged family, as well as the rest of the community, as he repurposes his diner into a food truck. he parts ways with us on the following note: “I choose to sell Chicken Rice because it’s a simple dish consisted of four components: rice, chicken, broth, and sauce. It might only have four units, yet everyone’s definition of ‘delicious’ differs. Some love to eat chicken skin. Some love chicken thighs. Some don’t eat it with the sauce at all. Some love the hot broth. That’s what makes this simple dish stand out.”

and in a world where capitalism tells us to disrupt and innovate, this is, in fact, counterculture: the idea that a simple dish like chicken and rice shouldn’t be changed. that it is already great in and of its own, though it can look differently for everyone; it only requires us to have the right perspective and outlook to see its value. as Jim contemplates this throughout the show, it could be that the ‘right person’ and the ‘right time’ is right there in front of you, or at least that’s what i think that is what MLC tells us. that instead of fleeing and searching for growth elsewhere, the most radical act you can take against capitalist displacement is to firmly plant your roots where you are; to renew, regenerate, restore and rekindle your relationship to those around you, to your community and, most importantly, to yourself.

#some thoughts on the anticapitalism/community care in mlc #moonlight chicken #moonlight chicken meta #long post #bl.txt

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big-trouble-in-little-eldia · 9 months

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A Definitive Deconstruction of God: Materials, Methods, and Results

An epistolary fic in which Bertholdt survives in Shiganshina and Hange writes to Zeke about how they can put him to good use. Delves deep into worldbuilding, in-universe science, and shifter biology.

This was written for AOT Kitchen Week’s prompt Like An Animal, specifically Experiments, and for @warriorsunit’s Warriors Week’s prompts Canon Divergent AU and What If [Character] Lived? prompts.

Summary:

A series of tests was conducted over the course of three years to measure the regenerative, transformative, and translative function of the Colossal Titan (Titanis colossus). A total of 422 tests were carried out on the Colossal Titan’s holder, a male Eldian of 17 years at the start of the study, to better understand the titans, to determine their use in the medical world, and to find a method to transfer an intelligent titan without human consumption.

While we were unable to attain our ultimate ambition, we believe that innovation is within reach. We must simply keep trying.

In which Zeke Yeager and Hange Zoë write to each other about the voluntary experiments carried out on Bertholdt Hoover and the Colossal Titan.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan

Relationships: Zeke Yeager & Hange Zoë, Bertolt Hoover & Hange Zoë, Bertolt Hoover & Zeke Yeager

Characters: Zeke Yeager, Hange Zoë, Bertolt Hoover

Additional Tags: Titan Shifter Biology, Alive Bertolt Hoover, Canon Divergence, Epistolary, Science, Research, Titan experiments, Human Experimentation, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Science, Manipulation, Dehumanization, Cognitive Dissonance, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Jargon, Worldbuilding, Hange Zoë's Experiments, Character Development, Enemies to Friends, Developing Friendship

Read it here!

#Zeke Yaeger #Zeke Yeager #Zeke Jaeger #Hange Zoë #Hanji Zoe #Bertholdt Hoover #Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK #Attack on Titan #AoT #SnK fanfiction #nonship #spoilerless #safe #zeke #hange #bertholdt

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mintyimperiatrix · 5 months

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people are so determinded to hate bigeneration and pre-hartnell doctors that they throw around silly phrases like "it ruins the character" or "breaks canon" when really they both make the character so much more interesting from an in-universe perspective and if you use your imagination a bit they both actually fix various plot holes in the canon.

in fact i'd go so far as to say that there's precedent (or good as) for both ideas so claiming they ruin the character of the doctor is just factually incorrect. nine says he could have two heads, in big finish regenerative dissonance has been a thing for years and if you look at the original concept of regeneration itself it was never intended for hartnell to have been the first face the doctor wore, it just sort of happened that as more doctors came in people assumed that our first was The first.

i think in general people just like to get a bit funny when regeneration lore is explanded on. changing genders, romana's body wardrobe, the explodey new who effect, they've all riled people up before and now that we have a couple of Bigger ideas cemented into the tv show i think fans have just gotten a bit pearl clutchy lol. much like regeneration itself it doesn't change the things that came before, it just adds more to what we already knew about it

#regeneration #doctor who eu #doctor who #fourteenth doctor #doctor who spoilers #the giggle spoilers

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delgado-master · 1 year

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Time Lords are naturally plural and it's fucking great

It depends. Time Lords are naturally plural in the sense they’ve got echoes of past regenerations floating around in their head, but usually, outside of exceptional situations, only their current self fronts. However, there is a condition called regenerative dissonance that can cause proper plurality. Unfortunately Big Finish is horrifically ableist about this, making the only character with the condition (the Eleven) evil and saying that everyone else couldn’t live with the voices. Some writers make it so that the Eleven is evil for reasons unrelated to his plurality, while others write him as The Evil Plural. I really want to write a character with the condition that’s Not Evil though.

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gotyouanyway · 1 year

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Ok because people are putting doctor who asks in your enclosure i personally am so into regenerative dissonance as a concept and its INSANE to me that there aren't like a million fics where the doctor has it. time lord specific mental illnesses my beloved <3

i never heard of that i had to look it up and ohhhhh my godddddddd that’s REALLY GOOD i also can’t believe there aren’t a million fics about this.. i would personally write 50 where the master has this like there’s NO WAY

#sorry if this doesn’t make sense i’m half asleep but YEAH #time lord mental illness!!#how sick can you get from dying and dying and dying all the time but staying alive. that’s what i want to know #asks #dw

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gear-project · 2 years

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How did Sol felt when he used Dragon install for the first time? Did it hurt him?

The first time he used it was during Guilty Gear Begin's events against a giant Gear Grizzly Bear who had regenerative abilities comparable to his own.

Prior to this he had very "hot / painful" sensations in his neck (where Asuka had lodged a bullet containing the Flame of Corruption Seed) whenever his powers felt especially strong whilst fighting Gears.

There was even a point when he passed out from blood loss, only to wake up fully regenerated (during his fight with some Gear Owls).

He was concerned about losing his humanity and giving in to destructive urges all the while, while trying to find a way to escape the facility he was in.

But, a certain incident pushed him over the edge when he was fighting the Bear.

The phrase "Dragon Install" simply appeared in his mind.

Part of his body became semi-engulfed in flame.

Prior to this he had been evenly fighting the Bear, but now he had the strength to overpower and eventually killed the beast with his own bare hands.

(It is actually here, where Asuka confirms that Frederick cannot die by normal means…)

Shortly thereafter he continued his pursuit of Asuka, only to be betrayed and abandoned.

After escaping the ruins of the facility (after it was destroyed)… he left before authorities could question him.

His physical appearance changed a great deal and he was forced to go in to hiding afterwards, and build his Gear Cell Suppression device.

As a Gear, he had to fight his destructive urges and instincts whenever he fought other Gears or had to deal with "Noise Dissonance" sensed from certain types of Command Type Gears.

But no matter how much pain or fatigue he experienced, he would always regenerate.

Dragon Install would bring out the very utmost of his powers, which always left him very drained, disoriented, and tired afterwards.

Still, if he had kept using Dragon Install, it would have encroached his body and transformed him in to a Giant Anti-Matter Gear (because of the accumulating Magic Energy gathered by the Divine Seed in his neck).

Part of the result of his struggles caused his personality to become much rougher than it initially was (he originally had a somewhat cowardly personality, but that changed a great deal when he had to struggle to survive fighting other Gears over the years).

#Sol Badguy #Frederick Bulsara #Frederick #Flame of Corruption #GG Begin #Dragon Install

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pudgy-planets · 2 years

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The body Fuko/Dissonance inhabits currently is not her own, rather it is that of a deceased ship found in [REDACTED] when the trio split up in their decades long search for someone they only refer to as 'Princess'.

Her conscious has the ability to transfer between deceased bodies, only restoring them to functionality and to the direct point prior to death. It only works with bodies that have strong emotional remnants. Sadness, anger, vengeance, envy, hatred. The stronger those emotions are, the better control and reanimation she has over the vessel.

Fuko’s true body is frozen in stasis underneath the ice cap, perfectly preserved and will remain that way until they melt or she ventures there and unfreezes it herself.

She cannot overshadow bodies that have died peacefully or joyfully, they’ve accepted death and moved on peacefully. Once she possess a body, she can live in it for as long as she desires, accessing its memories and emotional connections as a guide or viable source of information. The downside, once she leaves it, the body automatically degrades and is unusable.

If it sustains too much damage beyond her regenerative capabilities, then her conscious will be evicted from it. Though she only needs water occasionally, this doesn’t prevent her from eating normal foods, but the organs are non-functional and she has to ignite the metabolism.

#muse: Fuko #planetary lore

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mr-boundless · 9 months

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Welcome Michael Maloney to the Collective Club!

Great to hear another incarnation of the Eleven, the Two! The Charming, romantic, convincing, reasonable, lying and manipulative incarnation of that brilliant crazy Time Lord!

#doctor who #doctor who fanart #dr who #time lord #big finish #sketch #the eleven #big finish audio fanart #regenerative dissonance #the Two #Michael Maloney #once and future #Doctor Who Once and Future #Two's Company #gallifreyan #art #artwork #sketch book #the nine

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the-worms-in-your-bones · 7 months

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Relistening to ravenous and I really wish we got to see more about regenerative dissonance from a time lord who wasn’t an evil criminal (or the one guy he mentioned that killed themself because it was too much). Like please, if you’re going to make a time lord version of did can you not do the whole ‘people with did are evil and dangerous’ thing

#could it be a cool concept #yes #did big finish do it well #definitely not #the eleven is certainly a character #doctor who #ravenous #big finish #eighth doctor audios

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gallifreyinstituteforlearning · 7 months

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Do you think Timelord-specific disabilities exist? Like Timelords who always regenerate into the same body, or something else?

Time Lord Disabilities

Absolutely. Time Lords already deal with some unique disabilities or conditions:

👽 Existing

Regenerative Dissonance: Imagine your past selves just won’t shut up. Multiple personalities from past incarnations do not shut up when you regenerate, resulting in a constant board meeting inside your head. This condition has such a severe impact on mental health that afflicted Time Lords end up committing suicide, although there is Gallifreyan technology that can help control it.

Regenerative Vulnerabilities: The few seconds in which they are regenerating are extremely vulnerable, compromising their immune systems and leaving them open to viruses, paradoxes and other forms of biodata corruption through foreign materials, resulting in severe allergies or even changing species.

DNA instability: A complete artron deficiency, AKA 'I need to constantly consume energy or else I'll wither away.' This life energy may or may not come from other people. 😵‍💫

Whoops, that regeneration went wrong: Can be sub-categorised into areas including (but not limited to) - Whoops, I only have half a new body now; - Whoops, I regenerated my body but not my brain; - Whoops, I've turned myself inside out; - Whoops, I've gone back to being a time tot; - Whoops, I've turned into a creature from Stranger Things.

Regenerative infections: Multiple regenerative illnesses exist, one of which is the Dogma Virus, which is a condition that lies dormant until a Time Lord regenerates, then turns the new incarnation into a violent, mindless being.

Dark Design: Dark Design is a rather special form of insanity reserved for Gallifreyans only. This renders the Gallifreyan unable to stop thinking; hampering their ability to sleep or take care of themselves, causing severe irritability and anger, hallucinations, and an inability to process reality. It is usually suffered by exceptionally clever Gallifreyans and results in them becoming corrupt geniuses. It is incurable, and sufferers spend their lives in Gallifreyan mental institutions (or you know, being President).

Retro-regeneration or Degeneration: Reverting to previous incarnations can happen and has its own set of potential issues. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling we may find out more about that as the weeks go by ...

+ many more besides.

💭 Speculative

Given these existing complexities and potential pitfalls, it's entirely feasible that there could be lots more Time Lord-specific disabilities. Some speculative examples might include:

Chronic Regenerative Inhibition: A condition where a Time Lord can't regenerate at all despite having all the necessary physical gear, living just one mortal life.

Regenerative Looping: A condition, as you suggested, that forces the Time Lord to continually regenerate into the same form, never moving on to a new one.

Retro-Regenerative Confusion: An inability to correctly channel past incarnations even when they are needed. Maybe this is a skill set, or a set of memories. And we're not just talking 'I can't quite remember what happened on this planet last time' to 'wait, how does walking work?'

Environmental divergence: Maybe regeneration is required in an atmosphere with no Oxygen. If the body successfully adapts to this environment, then maybe the Gallifreyan can no longer breathe Oxygen and requires exclusively space dust-9 atmospheres to live?

Chrono/psionic dementias: Maybe a Time Lord can no longer perceive time in linear order? Maybe they can no longer control their psionic abilities, hearing everyone's thoughts all the time?

These are just a few ideas - the list is potentially infinite.

Hope that helped! 😃

→🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (WIP) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine/Monitoring Guides →📝Source list (WIP)

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#doctor who #gil #gallifrey institute for learning #dr who #dw eu #gallifreyan biology #GIL biology #ask answered #locheye #whoniverse

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doctorwhich · 3 months

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being a fictive with a weird grasp on identity is fun sometimes. for example;

[learns (technically re-learns) the term regenerative dissonance]

[several very distinct versions of my own voice with varying accents going “ohhhh” and murmuring in agreement]

#doc’s in #4️⃣

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andiinaraethtash · 1 year

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Chapter 20: I Can hear the Sound of a Heartbeat Before It Goes Out

Notes:

Two weeks! It has been two weeks! AS promised, here is a chapter. Enjoy. Tw: continued graphic violence and some gore. Chapter title from Goodbye by League of Legends.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Katherine’s hands shake as she readies another slowness arrow, but she pushes through, aiming, exhaling, and releasing as fluidly as she can. The arrow narrowly misses, but only because Exor is dodging and weaving as he charges her.

Joey moves to intercept him, but gets batted aside like a bug, just like Scott before him.

Pearl is stumbling to her feet, nursing a stab wound to the leg that Gem has thrown a regen potion at her for. Gem herself is just clearing the cliff's edge, Scott in her arms as he struggles to reorient himself. That blow must have really messed with him.

But Katherine has no time to wonder if they're all going to be alright, because Exor is on her, swinging fWhip’s sword, the twin to Gem’s, and she only barely manages to spin out of the way.

She drops her bow (her archery teacher's voice screams in her mind, telling her to never treat her weapon with such disrespect) and draws her sword, fluttering up a few feet before dropping back down to deal a heavy blow against Exor’s sword, managing to knock it away for a split second, but she has neither the speed nor second weapon to take advantage of the opening.

Exor spins around, sweeping his sword in a broad arc that forces Katherine to jump back, then throws a fireball at her before her feet even hit the ground. It grazes the side of her arm, making her scream as she automatically clamps a hand over the burn, which is a mistake, because the sweat from her hand stings harshly in the wound, and she quickly releases it.

Pearl is suddenly behind Exor, limping but still moving quicker than the eye could follow as she and Exor trade blows. Katherine takes the opportunity to pull out a regen potion and down about half of it before pouring the other half over the wound itself. She might regret using her first regen potion so quickly, but that burn was on her sword arm. She can't fight if she doesn't heal.

The moment the pain fades enough for her to focus, she takes off, flying up before swooping down and scooping up her bow from the ground right behind Exor. He whirls around, swings heavily downwards--somehow deflecting Pearl's sword ant the same time--and she only barely dives out of the way, coming up to her feet and firing off several arrows in quick succession. Exor deflects the first three, but he isn't expecting the fourth, which buries itself in his shoulder, making him roar in frustration.

"If I didn't need you alive," he growls, "I would gut you where you stand."

His words send shivers down Katherine's spine; try as she might, she can still hear fWhip in his voice, but the words are so full of malice… the cognitive dissonance is giving her whiplash.

Still, she does her best to ignore it, and curls her fingers in a clear, 'come get me' gesture. Exor smirks and charges, and she dives off the cliff, spinning around on her way down to fire off several arrows, none of which hit, because Exor hasn't followed her down.

She pulls up--a tricky manoeuvre to do when facing upward--and swoops back up to the top of the cliff, where the fight is slowly moving away from the Forge and toward the Manor. She's not sure why; Exor’s not giving ground, and neither are they, he's just directing the fight subtly away, and she wonders why for a split second before noticing that there's still a forcefield inside the Forge, trapping Lizzie, Joel, and Sausage inside.

Crap.

________

Sausage knows they're screwed; he just hopes he didn't screw them further.

That sounds vaguely nasty. But he knows what he means! They're stuck inside a forcefield, with another forcefield around the altar holding the corruption he was supposed to switch out, so he couldn't even do his one job!

So he did what he does best: he improvised. Hopefully it'll pay off. He’s not sure what he’ll do if it doesn’t. Probably die.

Lizzie hurls her trident at the forcefield trapping them inside the Forge, but it bounces right off and nearly hits her before she fumbles and catches it. She swears, and Sausage nods.

“Ain’t that right.”

Joel casts a glare his way before grabbing his wife’s arm. “You okay?”

She flashes a brilliant, toothy smile at him and nods. “Fine. But the others—”

“Sausage! Lizzie! Joel!” Katherine calls out from the opposite side of the Forge, and as one, they turn and run over to the archway she’s standing in. “Oh, thank the Overgrown. You all okay?”

“Joel took a bad hit,” Lizzie answers, and Sausage raises an eyebrow, glancing over at Joel, who, sure enough, is scowling and rolling his shoulder like he’s trying to ease some stiffness. He hadn’t seen him take a hit, but he doesn’t doubt Lizzie’s words, or the quiet fear in her voice.

Katherine winces, looking around for any way to break through the forcefield. Sausage does the same on his side, but nothing catches his eye, nothing is out of place, but there’s got to be something.

From a distance, he hears Gem’s voice screaming for Katherine, and he immediately meets the faerie’s eyes. “Go,” he tells her. “They need you. We’ll be fine.”

They won’t, and they all know it. The hair on the back of Sausage’s neck is starting to stand on end, and he can feel the magic behind him gaining strength. A quick glance skywards through the now-open roof shows him that the void where the new moon is hiding is almost directly above the summoning circle painted in blood on the floor. They’re running out of time, and Sausage does not want to be this close to the ritual when it triggers.

Gem calls for Katherine again, panic evident in it, and Sausage shoos Katherine on. “Go! They need help, we can figure this out without you. Just go!”

Katherine gives them one more uncertain look, then backs away before turning and running in the direction Gem’s calling from. As soon as she’s gone, Sausage turns to Lizzie.

“Any ideas?”

She grimaces, then hefts her trident. “Cover your eyes.”

As the storm above them keeps raging on, Lizzie lifts her trident above her head, then slams it into the ground at her feet, and Sausage has his eyes closed, but even he can see the lightning bolt that rains down, giving way to another, and another, and another as more light pours in and the thunderclaps blur together in one big cacophony.

Sausage is suddenly thrown back, landing hard against a toolsmith’s table—at least, he’s pretty sure it’s a toolsmith’s table, he’s still got his eyes closed and even if he didn’t he’d still be blind—but as soon as he regains his bearings, he realises the thunder has stopped, and the vague tingling sensation that was encompassing his awareness is gone as well.

Rubbing his eyes vigorously, he opens them, blinks a few times, and grins when he sees that the forcefield is down. Grinning, he turns to Lizzie, only to see her lying on the ground near Exor’s altar, singed, bleeding, and oh-so-terrifyingly still.

Sausage isn’t aware of crossing the distance between them, he’s just suddenly by her side, on his knees as he tries to find the source of the blood. It’s a head wound, a gash along her hairline, and Sausage is yanking bandages out of his bag before he sees another set off hands pressing another bundle of bandages against the wound. Sausage looks up to see Joel, looking rumpled, dazed, and terrified as he tries to slow the bleeding.

Joel notices him staring and mouths something—no, he says something, Sausage’s ears are just ringing too much for him to tell what it is—and jerks his head in the direction of the exit. Sausage shakes his head slightly, trying to communicate that he can’t hear what he’s saying, and Joel scowls and jerks his head again.

“I’ll go get Katherine,” Sausage tries, his voice sounding muffled even to his own ears, and Joel shakes his head, mouthing another word, and this time, Sausage can tell what it is.

“Go.”

And Sausage understands. There’s no way they’re winning the fight outside, and they need all the help they can get.

But he’s torn. He doesn’t want to leave them, he can’t leave them, not injured like this, not dazed and confused or unconscious as they are, not unable to defend themselves.

Joel’s scowl deepens, but before he says anything, light catches Sausage’s eyes, and he turns to see the circle in the centre of the Forge lighting up in a bright, foreboding light, and he glances up again. The moon-sized void is almost directly overhead, inches away from its zenith, and Sausage comes to a decision.

“We’ve gotta move!” He shouts, grabbing Lizzie’s arm and using it to hoist her over his shoulder. It’s not easy, and she’s heavy, all ten-feet-tall-with-a-tail resting solely on his back, but he staggers forward.

A few steps later, and the weight eases somewhat as Joel comes alongside him to support her as they run.

The moon-void is overhead, and they’re at the doorstep, and the circle is all alight, and the blood in the phials around the base of the altars is starting to defy gravity, floating out in ribbons to attach to the pieces of corruption, and Sausage risks a glance over his shoulder just in time to see the egg in the middle of the arrangement emit a beacon so sudden and blinding that he can’t see what happens next, but he feels it.

He feels the explosion rip through his body, throwing him several metres through the air before he hits the ground and is sent into oblivion.

_______

The sound of an explosion in the Forge catches Gem off-guard, and she whirls around to see a beam of twisting red light emitting from the hole in the roof of the large building. At the same time, in front of her, Joey shrieks, and she and Katherine, who’d been tightening the bandages on his torso, whip around to see a similar light emitting from the place she’d last seen Scott, Exor, and Pearl.

Swearing, she stands, calling over her shoulder, “Get him on his feet if you can!” as she runs toward her friends. She stops at the edge of the cliff, looking down into the plains below, where the fight had moved while she’d been preoccupied trying to keep Joey from bleeding out.

Scott is scrambling to his feet far below her, his sword in one hand and a ball of ice magic gathered in his other. It takes Gem a moment to find Pearl, but she does spot her, crumpled in a pile of the spikes that had ringed the base of the cliff.

The second beam of light is coming from their opponent. Exor is glowing, lit up from within by a sinister red light, which twists and writhes through the air like it’s got a mind of it’s own. It meets up with the first beam, then in a sound like thunder rolling across the plains, the lights fuse and plummet downward, burying itself into the ground and vanishing all at once.

For a long moment nothing happens, nothing moves but the smoke from the hole created by the lights. Just when Gem is about to dive down to see if Pearl is okay, if they somehow got out unscathed, the ground erupts.

A hand, easily as big as she is, thrusts itself into the sky, before slamming down against the pockmarked surface of the plains. Lava spews out of the miniature volcano the hand had created, bubbling and spilling onto the dry grass as the figure the hand is attached to levers itself out.

The being is as tall as the distance between the plains below her and the Forge behind her, made taller by the pair of twisted horns on his head. His face, when he turns toward them, shifts rapidly between two she’s seen before, and one she hasn’t, before settling on one that is an amalgamation of all three. He’s got the stranger’s nose, but Xornoth’s jawline… and fWhip’s eyes, glinting red in the light of the nearby city.

She swears, because this is it. This is the end. They can’t hope to beat Exor now. At full power, with no way to kill him except to kill themselves—and that’s assuming he lets them do that, assuming that after he’s been in Exor’s thrall for so long, they can kill fWhip—

Oh gods. fWhip. If Exor’s here, in his own body, then he can’t be in fWhip’s body. He can’t be two places at once. There’s a chance—however small—and she has to take it.

She dives down, catching a glimpse of Scott pulling a bleeding Pearl to her feet as she lands where she’d last seen fWhip. He’s not there, and for a long moment, she’s paralyzed by the sudden fear that he’s gone, vaporised by the power of Exor’s summoning.

Then there’s a soft noise behind her, the sound of metal scraping against stone, and she has just enough time to turn and parry the blow meant for her head.

fWhip’s empty eyes, with a sheen of red over them, stare at her, emotionless and cold and dead, and she feel her heart sink as he readies his sword for another blow.

She scrambles to block it, barely managing to shove his sword to the side. If it were any other opponent, she’d have struck, because his guard is wide open, but she can’t, she won’t—she’ll never raise her sword against her brother. She knows that’s likely to be the death of her, that she won’t fight back, but she just can’t.

Gem doesn’t know how Scott did it, fighting against his own brother, allowing him to be imprisoned like that, but she doesn’t really want to know. As she ducks another (clumsy, so clumsy) blow, she realises she’ll die before she lets anything like that happen to fWhip. He’s her little brother; she won’t let him go.

fWhip’s swings are slow to come, but aggressive and wild, lacking his usual control. It’s the work of a moment to knock his sword out of his hand, once she concentrates, but contrary to expectations, he doesn’t growl, or otherwise show his frustration. He’s eerily silent, though he does pull out his crossbow and take aim directly at her.

She ducks, spins, and closes the gap between them. Silently praying that fWhip will forgive her when this is all over, she slices the crossbow in half and shoves fWhip to the side, leaving him to stumble as she races toward the main fight.

Pearl is darting around Exor’s head, probably using way too many rockets to keep herself moving, while Scott is bracing himself on the cliff where Gem had been a minute—a lifetime—ago, throwing all his ice magic at Exor as the god laughs, sending out a stream of his own power, a blast of fire that scorches the earth around it.

Scott is slowly being driven back, his beam of magic getting shorter and shorter as Exor overpowers him. Gem is about to go help him when the air behind her shifts, and she whirls around, again, barely getting her sword up to deflect the blow, then the next, because fWhip has recovered his sword, has started attacking more quickly, more aggressively, and she knows, she knows, this is going to end with one of them dead.

She raises her sword to block another blow, only to have it twisted out of her hand the way she’d twisted fWhip’s out of his hand only a minute ago. She watches in dismay as it clatters to the ground, only a few metres and entirely too far away. fWhip doesn’t seem to register that she’s unarmed; he just attacks, and she stumbles backward, gasping as her foot catches on something and she falls onto her back.

Looking up, Gem feels her heart in her throat as fWhip towers over her, sword raised as he prepares to end her. She squeezes her eyes shut. This isn’t how she wants to remember him, and if this kills her permanently, she doesn’t want fWhip to see the fear in her eyes.

There’s the sound of a sword being swung, and the sound of flesh being torn open, but she doesn’t feel any pain. None.

Her eyes slam open, in time to see fWhip sway on his feet, his left arm just… gone, severed at the shoulder. She nearly screams, an aborted half-yelp escaping her mouth before fWhip falls, collapsing bonelessly to the ground, and Sausage is standing behind him, sword dripping with blood, with fWhip’s blood, and for a long moment he just gapes at her, disbelief written all over his face, before it slowly gives way to horror.

She opens her mouth, wants to say something, a thank you, a swear, a question of ‘how could you,’ of ‘are you alright,’ because he’s singed and bleeding and hasn’t done his one job, so something must have stopped him, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t say any of that, she just scrambles over to her brother, lying in the dirt with his eyes open and unseeing as he bleeds.

And there’s so much blood. She won’t pretend to know how many blood vessels were just severed, but she knows it’s a lot.

Ripping off part of her cloak, Gem presses it against fWhip’s stump of a shoulder, putting all her weight on it as she tries desperately to stop the bleeding. The good news is that it’s a clean cut, it didn’t nick his side or leave any dangling bits of flesh behind. The bad news is, well… his dominant arm is gone, without hope of saving it.

She looks up to ask Sausage to help, but his expression stops her. He’s in shock, looking back and forth between her, fWhip, and his own hands in horror, and suddenly she remembers what Sausage had told her: he’d promised himself that none of them would get hurt. And now he’s the one—oh, gods, he’s the one who hurt fWhip, crippled him permanently.

Swallowing back her own horror, she purses her lips. “Sausage. Sausage!” When he finally meets her eyes, she says, “I need you to go find Katherine, or Pix, or someone who can help him. He’s bleeding out; if we don’t stop it soon, he’s going to die.”

She’s blunter than a sledgehammer, but it gets the point across. Sausage flinches, then turns on his heel, dropping his sword as he takes off into the air. A healer is their only hope right now.

But only a moment after Sausage takes off, there’s another explosion from the Forge, and Gem whips around to see a ribbon of light, like the auroras that light up Rivendell’s nights. It’s beautiful, cold, but unlike Exor’s summoning, there’s no second beam. It just cuts through the sky, brilliant and uncontained, until it collides with Exor himself, who screams in pain as he stumbles back.

The rest of the aurora refracts, turning into a burning star, which gains in brilliance until it finally dies down, leaving a figure in white, gold, and blue that Gem for a long moment thinks is Scott, but then she catches a glimpse of his face, and she knows it’s not him. Scott can be cold, but this person is glacial, something sharp in his eyes where Scott has warmth.

Aeor. Sausage did it.

They might have a chance, after all.

Notes:

>:D

#empires smp #empiresblr #fanfiction #creative writing #tw: graphic depictions of violence #TW: some gore #sorry for the wait y'all I had to spend some time in hospital after all and that well and truly sucked

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