#such a simple question but it brings an answer filled with holes :(

[fluffypotatey]

Someone PLEASE explain how every freaking Druid and their familiar can recognise Merlin as Emrys, but not one, not two, but T H R E E High Priestesses of the Old Religion are like, "and who's this chucklefuck?"

short answer: hubris

long answer:

okay, imagine you're this badass powerful mage who's been given the title of Priestess of Avalon. you're hot shit and you know you're hot shit. you're the equivalent of magic royalty, so for the concept of Emrys (big, powerful, wizard said to hold ancient magic or is magic itself) to be this scrawny, lowly servant of Camelot would not cross their minds.

how come they never sense his magic???? idk anon that part escapes me

maybe they just went "oh what great power! can't be coming from this guy"

#'who's this chucklefuck' I'M SCREAMING #tbh morgana not recognizing merlin as emrys makes more sense than nimueh and morgause #she's lived with merlin in the castle for a couple years before 'falling to evil' and declaring camelot as her enemy #so whenever she finds merlin his signature/aura/whatever sixth sense thing she has would only recognize it as merlin and not emrys #i feel like nimueh realized too late (as in when he confronted her in the questing beast episode and she got hit w/ a blast of lightning) #morgause....idk if she ever did know #although one could argue she almost did but idk #one easy way to chalk up why none of the priestesses knew was would be merlin using a glamor or something to hide his magic signature #but then...how come other druids could still detect it??? #is there some emrys magic learning class the druids had???? #such a simple question but it brings an answer filled with holes :( #bbc merlin #merlin emrys #in conclusion: i'm sorry anon i am unable to provide a precise answer to your question but i hope it helped #i enjoyed trying to figure it out tho #asks #Anonymous

[nexility-sims]

Hi, there! Love your story!! Any advice for a first-time simmer looking to do this sort of thing?

i'm gonna say from the outset that you surely did not request an automobile manual's worth of expounding on such a simple question, but ... that's what i've given you :^) partly, i wanted to cover all the of the bases of what you may have meant, so there are three parts: "general advice for thriving," "specific advice for knowing when you're ready," and "specific advice for doing what i do." hopefully these are useful and not completely derivative of what other people have said recently. beyond that, i'll just say i am always, always happy to talk about storytelling, to answer questions, and to give feedback on anything and everything. thanks for the question—and the kind words, too !

ONE - general advice for thriving

JUST START TELLING YOUR STORY ALREADY. maybe it’s obvious, but the best advice is to dive in. it’s like going for the first swim of the season and knowing you’ve got to take the plunge but dreading the cold of it. once you finally submerge yourself, you’re having fun. it’s easy to get caught up in endless preparation. planning is important, whatever that looks like for you, but you’ve got to know when it becomes procrastinating. being ready to start is not the same thing as being 100% confident and 100% polished. i’m willing to bet none of your favorite storytellers, people whose stories have been ongoing for years with dedicated readers, started off confident and polished. it may not be universal, but i think there’s a common reaction when a new reader likes your very first story post: cringing because it’s your worst work but knowing it only gets better from there. storytelling is something you have to practice, and the basics of it become more intuitive and effortless as you go.

continued and continued and continued below ...

BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY. to feel satisfied and stay motivated, prioritize your passions. you want to tell this specific story for a reason; you want to do simblr storytelling, specifically, for a reason. the former is likely because you’re inspired by your plot/characters. the latter could be because you enjoy taking screenshots, you enjoy writing dialogue, you love reading simblr stories, or any number of technical reasons why the medium speaks to you. there are probably things you don’t love as much—posing sims, filling plot holes, realizing your skills don’t fully line up with your ambitions. in my experience, being able to name why you’re doing this translates into being able to crafting a story around those priorities. that, in turn, means having the motivation to power through the parts you like less. 

i hate making poses, so i approach my work from the perspective of, “i’m not going to get hung up on having the exact right poses, and i don’t want to slow my story down by wasting time in blender.” other people love making poses or decide having the right one is what’s important to them. being purposeful saves you the trouble of agonizing over things that aren’t actually necessary or, worse, that eventually lead you to burn out and abandon the work altogether. we have to make compromises to tell good stories—maybe you hate writing outlines but know doing it will make things easier later—and it’s invaluable, imo, to know why you’re making those choices. there are jacks-of-all-trades with infinite free time and buckets of inspiration among us, but you’re likely not one of them. don’t worry, though, because neither am i. 

FALL IN LOVE WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES. this one is huge, albeit ostensibly a step removed from the immediate task of storytelling. something i’ve noticed is that people who genuinely engage with other people’s work get more love for their own. it makes sense when you think about it. ideally, if someone is taking the time to catch up on my story, to ask me questions about my characters, to demonstrate that they see what i’m doing, then i want to reciprocate that. to me, it’s actually off-putting when someone only ever publicizes or discusses their own story. that being said, it’s easy to get caught up in our work—using our finite free time to make sure our project gets done—and not allocate time for getting to know other people’s. it’s no crime or even a bad thing. yet, to me, that defeats the purpose of joining a community like this one. it also makes our stories weaker, to reference the wisdom that writers must also be readers. talking to someone about their characters, their writing process, how they stage a scene in the game (or observing those elements while reading their posts) makes me reflect on what i’m doing. paying true attention to other storytellers is a practice of reciprocity that builds community, and it gives you solid examples to learn from as you go. 

FOCUS ON GROWTH, NOT WEAKNESS. relatedly, the learning element is so important! a common pitfall, especially for someone just starting out, is getting hung up on what you think you’re doing wrong and comparing yourself to others. maybe their stories are more visually pleasing. maybe their plots have better pacing and impact. maybe their characters get more engagement from readers. step one is to not compare, but i suspect most of us will cop to failing that step. step two, then, could be turning those negative feelings into motivation. if your options are getting down on yourself and abandoning your story versus pushing through and improving ... well, it’s clear to me which is the better option. step three is figuring out how to push through and improve. my advice is the above tip: make some friends whose stories you admire and who are willing to give you encouragement and feedback. most simblr folks, i find, are generous like that.

IT'S A HOBBY AND A CRAFT AND A COMMUNITY. that leads me to my final point, which is basically a bundle of generative contradictions. simblr is a hobby, which means you can’t take it too seriously. storytelling is a craft, which means you have to take it seriously to get better. story simblr is a community, which means the best way to have fun and get better is by doing it with other people. if your goal is to have a hugely popular story that hundreds of nameless followers adoringly read, then, statistically, you’re going to fail. a more reasonable goal is becoming part of a collective who are working on stories they mutually enjoy. maybe you’re in a writing group or have a beta reader. maybe you’re collaborating with another simblr. maybe you have a handful of mutuals with whom you interact exclusively through likes, reblogs, and replies. having done all of the above, my experience is that i’m most excited about my story, most motivated to work on it, most likely to get the positive engagement i want when i’m actively trying to have fun, get better, and be part of the community. from someone who is not infrequently stymied by social anxiety and perfectionism: you can’t reap benefits you don’t sow. 

TWO - advice for knowing when you’re ready:

TURN YOUR IDEA INTO A CAST AND A NARRATIVE. i say narrative instead of “outline” for a few reasons: 1) not every story is event-driven, 2) the traditionally imagined outline structure doesn’t work for everyone, and 3) pre-defining everything doesn’t work for everyone either, plus 3a) frontloading too much detail is a lot of work and 3b) can dampen creativity. maybe you have a bulleted list, an illustrated storyboard, a well-organized playlist … regardless of what it is, you should know roughly what the sequence of major experiences or events is, how they’re connected, and what you want them to convey to the reader. i did a ton of winging it when i started my main story in 2021, and i did a lot more planning with this current project; as you go, you’ll figure out what kind of preparation makes the most sense for you, and that may change, too.

MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT THE LOGISTICS. it’s important to emphasize that you can and perhaps should change your mind / experiment later, but some things are nice to have settled before you start posting. among them, i would recommend several. one is figuring out if you do scripts or screenshots first. another is knowing if your story is more gameplay-based or will rely on poses. you should also have a sense of the locations you’ll need and whether those will be existing in-game lots, builds you download from others, or ones you build yourself. are you editing your screenshots visually, in canva, photoshop, gimp, photopea, etc? are you using reshade / gshade in game? are you writing dialogue, prose, or both—and are you then putting it on the screenshots or as text below them? what’s your posting schedule going to be, if you choose to have one instead of posting as you go? these are just some considerations, but i would say they’re significant. for every combination of ways to tell a story, there’s almost certainly a simblr doing it. there’s no right or wrong, only what’s right for you.

RUN YOUR PLANS BY SOMEONE ELSE. it’s not essential or always feasible, but feedback can make you feel better about the whole thing. having someone give you constructive criticism, whether on your outline or your planned posting schedule, is helpful. even more helpful is knowing someone is already familiar and enthusiastically waiting to see more of your project. an added benefit is that, if you’re nervous about how your story will be received, this can be a practice run at sharing it! 

THREE - advice for doing what i do:

i describe my story as historical drama, as an anti / decolonial worldbulding experiment, as being about intergenerational family and the exercise of power. so, if you’d like to enter the royal simblr genre (or thereabouts) and do something that is—i think i can say—unique, then here’s my anecdotal advice.

HAVE A STRONG INSPIRATION BASE. if you’re not faithfully basing your country on a real world location, then you should at least have a solid idea of where your inspiration is coming from. i consider my story an indigenous story, and my inspiration is mainly histories and cultures in the western hemisphere—primarily but not exclusively in what’s currently mexico and central america, plus from what’s currently the united states and also some histories of the iberian peninsula. i’m not trying to recreate any particular nation or culture, but knowing the origins of influence both helps my creations feel more cohesive and gives me a reliable source when i need inspiration.

DO YOUR RESEARCH WHEN IT MATTERS. relatedly, you can’t be inspired by the real world—by real everyday people’s real cultures—without using them respectfully. more often than not, that means doing research. i suppose i think of it as, “if someone sees themself in my story, how is that going to make them feel?” i don’t let that thought discourage me or make me fearful; i use it as motivation to ensure i’m producing good representation. i know where my expertise and personal experience end, and i’m willing to put in the work to make sure i’m not being careless. that being said, research isn’t just about cultural sensitivity! doing your research—especially for historical settings or with institutions / processes you haven’t personally dealt with, like royalty or executive governance—makes the story stronger. you don’t have to bore your readers with reams of findings or shoehorning details into places they don’t belong. understanding the context in which your story takes place will help you intuitively and subtly render the world more realistic and immersive, write characters who are more believable and engaging, and craft plots that make more logical, interesting use of the setting in which they’re unfolding.

FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR PROTAGONIST. this is obvious, but it’s especially true when you’re writing a story the way i do. my storytelling is character-driven in the sense that, more than the events of the plot, i like to focus on moments that develop the characters and their relationships. it’s also character-driven in the sense that i choose a character or two and let them drive the narrative. i just don’t have the adeptness for ensemble casts; i can’t handle the moving parts, and i naturally close in on a particular character’s emotional world rather than zooming out. to make these inclinations work, it’s key to really know your lead characters(s) and feel comfortable working inside their mind / heart. i’ve harped on this before, but motivation is the single most important thing you can know about a character. it puts you on the path to answering so many other key questions, from what their desires are to how their backstory shaped them to how they struggle in the present to what their next move is. if you love your protagonist, then thinking about these questions is more fun than burdensome. 

EMBRACE THE MESS. there is a tendency to avoid messiness, one that is well-meaning but can undermine the story. if you aren’t comfortable with thematic gray areas, with unresolved loose ends, with lingering emotions, with conclusions that aren’t definitively happy, then i think you miss opportunities. these are all issues that have two sides: one is the dreaded plot hole or some equivalent writer’s mistake that leaves readers disgruntled; the other is challenging your readers and giving them intrigue to chew on, to dissect and debate, to feel as they read. my advice is that you can have contradictions and complexity and even ugliness in your story, but you have to purposefully put it there—or take control of it, if it arises on its own.

DO IT FOR YOURSELF, NOT FOR OTHER PEOPLE. at the end of the day, the story that you pour your heart into just won’t connect with or excite everyone. the characters, the plots, the world, the genres, the way you post, how you talk about the story ... it won’t always resonate the way you hope. being okay with that is what makes storytelling sustainable. sometimes i wonder why i put so much effort and thought into what i’m doing, especially when it seems like no one seems to notice. what i have to remind myself is that some people do appreciate it and, more importantly, the process brings me joy. to reference earlier advice, i’m putting effort into the parts that are my priorities, and i’ve made connections with a handful of people who give me the enthusiasm i need on days when simple enjoyment isn’t enough. “being okay with that” isn’t a permanent feeling; it’s a decision you, as a hobbyist storyteller in a casual community, have to make and remake.

it’s okay to do it for other people sometimes. i’m including this caveat because my current project is a collaboration that i started for an audience of one, and i do make a habit of trying to put a ton of effort into all of my few collaborative enterprises. one of the reasons i gravitated toward royal simblr is that it’s a very collaborative space, but i think the best ones really do build reciprocal love for someone else’s story. if you’re going to care what other people think of your work or make choices with their opinions in mind, then i suggest doing it for people who are involved—who know what your priorities are, who love your characters, and who understand what you’re trying to do well enough that their opinions actually do make the story better. like i said, we're here to have fun, to get better, to be part of something.

okay, that's it, whoever read this far down is an angel possibly with too much time on their hands. as i said at the top, happy to be a resource or a supportive voice in whatever ways are helpful ! ♥️

#idk what my tag is for this kind of thing but #thank you for asking !!!!! #love to share my opinions prompted <3

[vacantgodling]

i wrote a Ridiculous thing (the narration style is definitely Out There) to poke at red and hel a bit so have… whatever the fuck this is.

gently tagging @void-botanist

If you were to go into any tavern in any village in (country), and asked someone how the Wolf Queen came to be, if you weren’t arrested first, their hushed whispers would vary. Some think she is a trickster sent far from the west, sent by the goodness of light to punish the old king’s wicked ways. “He gambled and lost,” a farmer would tell you. “And couldn’t live with tha shame n’ died. She sits on tha throne now but that throne’s well n’ cursed, and it’d do ya good not to ask more questions than you need to.”

Others would point out that it wasn’t a divine plot; that the king simply wed her, and in doing so he lost. “That’s why you don’t believe things that are too good to be true.” A barmaid would tell you, as she divvied out stew. “Like that rumored half off special. Pay up for your brew.”

Travel further to the east where the cities are grown; tall buildings of stone that kiss against the sky, and they’ll tell you she killed him, it’s as simple as that.

“Drew her talons cross his neck, and can’t be deader than that.”

Still others might blend a variety of the story, until it’s hard to discern, what parts are true and what’s legend; embellishment or propaganda.

The one person you should listen to, if you ask your peruse, is the one who quirks his brow, with a smirk beguiling and slow, simply looks you in the eyes and asks

“What will you pay to know?”

For that, dear reader, is how our story begins. For one Rosmarin Red, bloody scythe in her hand.

The blood dripped onto the tavern floor; plip plip; and yet the tavern raged on around them, as though neither of them spoke at all. From a contract she came, to put food in her stomach and a warm pillow under her head. The killing kind; of course, any one you who earned your ire. Petty mistresses in their beds, or off with landlord’s heads. As such and still, her dead eyes bore holes into this smart mouthed stranger, daring him to oppose.

The man didn’t seem phased; in fact, it’s as though he was expecting her. He leaned on his arms forward, with his boot, kicked out a chair towards her.

“Sit with me awhile.” He said, taking a drought from his cup. “And regale me. The Red Death, I presume?” The petite girl nodded, then dropped her scythe towards the floor, taking hold of the proffered chair in a dealthy tight hold. She eased herself into it, and if you noticed well; there was no clatter from the instrument’s careless discard.

The man knew it as well, still smiling, still sharp minded. He called a waiter up and ordered the young assassin a cup.

“On me.” He said gently, but the sparkle in his eye was knowing. “Who was it who taught you that rhyme?”

“I don’t know.” Red said back. “Not by name.”

“I imagine you kill many who you don’t remember at all?” He asked with a smile hidden into his mug. “No.” She did not smile, nor sip. She continued to bore holes in him; anyone else would squirm stiff. But the man knew his worth, and knew he was valuable at least not to kill, so he relaxed even further, swirling the drink in his hand and contemplating his fill.

“News of you has reached my ears.” He tried for another approach. “Heard you would come looking for me, one day or another.”

“Then you know why I’m here.” The assassin said tersely. “So what do I owe you.” The man clicked his tongue, for the game had just begun.

“Impatience, my dear, is a virtue on occasion. But not now, at least. I’ll offer you a deal—you offer me your finest possession and I’ll give you the answer you seek.”

Red considered this. Considered it well. So hard in fact that it was near dawn when she answered.

“I have no money to offer you, nor children to sell. I have no clothes other than the blood covered ones that hang to my back. No riches, nor connections can this deal between us bring. But I do have myself, and any services you ask of me.”

After saying it soft like a midnight chime, Red pressed her face to the table, hiding her eyes.

“… Please.” She whispered finally, though elaborate she did not. At the heartfelt display, the man would admit he was touched.

“Raise your head, sweet Red, no need to grovel just yet. The night is older than we shall be. Come, I will give you lodgings for the night, and then in the marrow, our exchange we shall write.”

#writing is an art form and i’m getting experimental #ren writing #s: red and hel #it’s supposed to have a sing song kinda cadence but #that’s hard to do outside of my head LMAO #also there are so many typos in this it’s insane LMAO #s: rdof

[septimusmoonlight]

Anonymous: (brain fucking ahead) imagine laying your head down on someone's lap and they get a hard on. you can feel their bulge pressing against the side of your face, they shift uncomfortably so you try to sit up but they hold you in place. you realize they're actually grinding against the side of your head, and you wonder why they don't just ask to use your mouth. your question is answer when you feel their dick poke out of their underwear to prod directly against your ear. freaked out you try to sit up again and think you can before they slam you back down forcibly inserting their cock into your skull. stunned, its easy to keep fucking you like this. plunging in again and again that eventually they're deep enough that their tip just barely pokes out your other ear. when they cum some of it ends up sloshing around inside your well fucked brain but the last of it leaves their dick as its pushed all the way through, causing the cum to dribble out over your cheek and down onto your lips <3

Ooh, yes~

My head's right there, so I half-expected them to want my mouth anyway, but the ear is a new target for me. Of course, I'm not exactly sure about this, considering that the ear isn't designed to have things like the human dick inside, but my companion here clearly isn't giving me any choice in the matter. They don't even take their pants off all the way, desperate to get into such a tight hole, and it's easy for them to seal the deal by lodging their cock inside of my brain. I don't really have the ability to resist if my gray matter is being rearranged, after all.

It's a simple matter to use my head like a fleshlight. The act itself makes me stupider and stupider by the second as my brain learns to mold around the forceful intrusion, and I lose all will and ability to resist when the opposite ear canal is spread open and the head of their cock pokes out of the other side. With cock taking up all of the space in my skull, literally and figuratively, all I can do is moan in pleasure and reach down to masturbate as it forcefully severs all of the neural connections that once made me a self-aware and thinking human being. It's just so easy to fuck all sense out of someone whose brain is right at your fingertips.

I cum over and over again around the cock inside of me, but my cunt remains empty. It's all the work of the person fucking my pleasure center directly - or maybe not. They don't even know what part of the brain they're currently turning into mush, and it doesn't matter because it feels so good for them. Plus, it looks like it might have the bonus effect of turning me into a permanent, cock-obsessed toy without even the ability to think of anything except getting more and more dick into my skull. Perfect. Maybe they can rent me out to their friends who want a mindless fuck in the most literal sense.

It doesn't take them too long after that to cum, riding out their orgasm with quick thrusts right into my brain matter. Seed floods the crevices and holes inside, dousing what little humanity remains in hot cum, and I reach another explosive climax as excess fluid fills my cranial cavity. As my companion slows down, they slide my head up and down the length of their shaft to bring themselves back to earth, allowing their slick cock to again spear all the way through into my other ear canal. The last few spurts of their orgasm slide down my cheek and towards my lips, and I immediately lick it off, grateful for the opportunity to swallow cum.

I'm perfectly happy to remain right there, but my companion pulls out, much to my disappointment. Luckily for me, they have plenty of plans to keep me satisfied.

#Originally posted April 3rd 2023 #asks #anonymous #my writing #nsft text #patreon.com/septimusmoonlight #brainfucking #dubcon #mindbreak

[askbeannuts]

I got to work with the leader of that new Shaymin Guild recently. They're very nice, very smart and is “articulate” the right word? Well, either way, they needed some assistance with a guild base of operations and we settled on Yggdrasil first and foremost, but their concerns were response times too, I could get behind that mindset, but I didn't want to waste resources or spread myself super thin with multiple sites, instead I suggested a squad system, like older exploration guilds, except the teams station or live in areas away from the guild, it's what I was doing!

They took my suggestion to heart from the looks of it, but made some modifications, considerations for small sub-bases? So one in each section of the skies… it sounds doable, but would take years beyond them to set up correctly I'd bet… not to mention running them all would be a nightmare in my opinion. I think my squad system works effectively enough but maybe a mini base idea isn't bad either… ah, but I got sidetracked! 

Unlike our guild, which had huge numbers now, they were still getting off the ground and receiving a request to follow up on a prior abduction case in the Southern Isles was odd, but exciting considering it was our first proper teamup.

The Shaymin Guild's Guildmaster and their “Co-Guildmaster”, a Smeargle, accompanied a few members of my Guild, and myself of course, on this trip. We returned to an island sparsely populated, where in the recent past an outlaw, attempting to extort a small-time merchant during a resource collection trip with their child, took that child hostage. Initially, we were able to find and bring the child to safety, but never found the outlaw. Apparently they ran off to set up a trap for us, but never came back… the child mentioned weird wind-like sounds and rumbling not long after and then my team arrived. We weren't skilled at exploring dungeons like this, simplistic as it was, it ended up being a “one-floor” dungeon, but the team decided against investigating further. While it was a simple cave bearing random berries and fruits on occasion along huge vines and bushes and whatnot, we didn't want to risk it back then. 

The Shaymin Guildmaster gave it the title “Berry Caverns” when we ventured in and the team with me took note that the small cave paths were different than they remembered… The dungeon had “shifted” recently. The reason we were investigating this place again was because of a report of strange voices coming from behind a wall… maybe a “Wild”, we weren't sure at the time, but dread did fill my and my fellow Guildmaster's hearts at the idea that… the dungeon shifted when we rescued the child back then… and the missing outlaw…

We found the spot, a huge hole where a vine reached down… this was supposed to be a wall, it wasn't far from where we found the child-and that path was now a wall with bushes growing various weird berries… I’ve explored dungeons before, mind you, both before and after the Cataclysm… just… this new way things worked was weird, I’m certain if a dungeon had a dramatic change with someone inside, who happened to be in the “right” spot, they’d get flung out by an intense wind… at least that’s how my parents described them.

My thoughts aside, we carefully took the time to climb down this vine, following it in the hopes of finding this “voice” alive still. It was a long climb-and walk-downwards and we didn’t have those new “Pin” things the Research Guild came up with yet, and were still carrying around hunks of metal on our necks like charms, and they worked… But I could feel it. This place was dense with that Miasma, why? I asked that at the time, but my question was answered immediately… The massive amount of Miasma we passed through was like a “door”... once we passed through it, the environment we found… was devoid of it. It left us all speechless… a massive tree was growing underneath this dungeon!

Before anyone could say anything in sheer amazement, the Shaymin Guildmaster acted, anxiously telling us to contact both the Research Guild and the Landorus Guild’s leaders and get them here as fast as possible. That request reminded me of why we were originally here as well, and we discovered a-thankfully-unconscious outlaw, it appeared they had fallen down here when the dungeon shifted slightly and injured their leg so much that they weren’t walking or climbing out for some time. They survived off of whatever fruits and berries grew down here and the juices they could get from them for hydration, I’d imagine… it’d been nearly two weeks since then after-all… that’s how often dungeons were shifting of late…

After making sure a communication was being sent, we nervously left the Shaymin Guildmaster and their co-leader there, to escort the outlaw out. At some point, hours later it seemed, the Guildmaster and Co-Guildmaster of the Shaymin Guild came out to talk with us. They figured the path we took led us to a spot directly above where the Beanstalk’s vines branched out, the dungeon was underneath one of these points, allowing us to venture that deep… we weren’t in Berry Caverns anymore at that point. Knowing that, it was a sheer miracle that the only thing broken on the Outlaw was a leg…

After a few days of discussing how we’d go about documenting this, the leaders of the Landours and Research Guilds showed up… and we once again ventured back down there…

It was decided I could document the discovery in my own journals, including an image that was drawn at the time… though what we discovered after this point, I was asked not to disclose, but what I can say is that a new push to find these types of dungeons and study them was what likely led us to venturing into the Lands Below for the very first time… 

Though, I remember the issues it caused when we started just… digging up holes everywhere when no dungeon was found to be linked to the beanstalk in Yggdrasil… urgh… the sinkholes we created still bother me to this day…

An Excerpt From: "The Founder’s Book: Xerneas Guild"

#Chapter 2 Part 2: The Shift #Documents Update #The Founder's Book: Xerneas Guild #This may also be a tease for Chapter 3 things... because the idea won't leave me... we'll see ;D

[etherati]

Taproot - (5/25)

Things start to heat up.

Chapter content warnings: Decapitations, vague mention of anti-Romani racism, and Alucard kind of losing his shit because Trevor is just too delicious because of the Solstice.

🎵 Music pairing: Red - Sister Machine Gun

< -- Back | Next -- >

Go to part: one | two | three | four | five | six

The stone is smooth between her fingers, dark and cool and heavy, the starry expanse contained in its depths as inescapable as the spangled darkness spread overhead. The winter sky is the clearest sky, cold brightening the stars and blackening the spaces between, and from her perch here on top of the caravan, Sypha figures she could just about see forever, up there.

Cloudless. Bright. The eve of the solstice. Tomorrow, the shortest day, and then the night that follows…

She rolls the stone against her palm, wills her questions into it, wills it to answer. It remains maddeningly silent. 

A wolf. Cold, icy blue eyes. A chase, a swell of grief. Tomorrow? Or some time in the further future? The wolves are circling, she remembers from the woods, that night months ago—archaic French, a warning in a vampire's hand. 

The timing of her vision. Her father's impossible talents. That spiny, blue-eyed beast Trevor had gotten torn up fighting in Acasă, that had seemed almost designed, and Adrian had locked up the forges just about the first day after Dracula died but they never saw any sign of the men themselves, did they? 

Acasă. Enisala. Braila. Desperate days spent in a dank cell, waiting for Carmilla to figure out who they were, the thought of her still sparking more than simple fear. Larger than life, a figure of nightmares, and then, impossibly: she was gone, undone, just like that.

None of it makes any sense, when she tries to cram it together. That's why Sypha's up here, away from everyone, away from the warmth of the fire—she's seeking clarity, and there's something about cold that sharpens the mind, focuses the attention. Her logical mind cannot make sense of these pieces, how they fit together, and she's had no more dreams to help out, no visions. But there is something tugging at her subconscious, a feeling that it could all be made to make sense, if only she could find the missing fragment, the keystone. She can see the shape of it in her mind, the hole where the last piece should fit—it looks like a spray of flower petals or blood, smells like cold steel and old books, feels like sadness—but she cannot fill it. 

It’s been four days since her missive went out, since she watched the creature carrying it take flight. She knows that it took her a week to walk the same distance—it should have arrived at its destination by now. They should have found her with the mirror, opened the way, brought her home. 

The pigeon might not have made it. It might have fallen prey to the cold, or a storm, or the jaws of a wolf or a wildcat, hunger winnowing a predator’s choices down to whatever is opportune. It might have just been delayed by poor weather, might still be on its way, spending this cold night sheltered under the eaves of a barn outside of Acasă.

Or it might have arrived—and found its destination empty and cold and in ruins.

The stone feels heavier when she indulges thoughts like these, feels more full of whatever it is it carries. It wants her to think about it, wants her to consider destruction, devastation, the worst case scenario. She doesn’t know if it’s just the nature of the thing, or if that’s truly what the future holds and it’s balking against her stubborn refusal to hear it.

One more sunrise, one more sunset. 

They’ll be okay. They’ll bring her home and she’ll maybe have to pull their behinds out of the fire but they’ll be okay. There is no other way this thing can end.

Shivering hard, Sypha closes her fist around the stone and swings herself down over the edge of the caravan, quietly eases the door open, slips inside.

The winter solstice of 1476 dawns late, as it does every year—but only in the strictest sense. There is no sunrise to speak of, and the weather is dour and grey, the cloud ceiling low. The snowfall has ceased, at least, but just breathing the air outside feels like sucking down ice crystals; the temperature dropped precipitously overnight, and Adrian doesn’t make enough heat on his own to warm the air on its way in. 

Hours on now, well into afternoon, and the wind is picking up, gusty and rolling in from the north. Overhead, the clouds roil.

To say the day had broken ominously would be an understatement, and understatement has never been in Adrian’s nature even at the calmest of times—right now, as tense as they are and with the inevitable approach of nightfall rattling the blood in his veins in ways he isn’t used to? It’s fair to say that it feels like goddamned doomsday, out here.

“Wow,” Trevor says, coming out onto the balcony behind him, two fistfulls of cloak crossed over his chest. His heartbeat is like a kettledrum, pounding in Adrian’s ears; it’s hard to hear what he’s actually saying. “This is the most miserable sky I’ve ever seen.”

“Have you been to the north, at all?” Adrian does his best to keep the quaver out of his voice. “Scandinavia and the like?”

Trevor laughs. “In the winter? Do I look like that much of a glutton for punishment?”

That conjures thoughts that are definitely not helpful—and Trevor really does make these things too easy. “...should I actually answer that?”

“God no,” Trevor says, quickly; it’s hard to tell if his face is red from the shame or the cold. “Never know who might be listening, out here.”

“I don’t think your ever-so-slight proclivity for pain is the secret we actually need to worry about guarding,” Adrian teases, beating the attendant mental images down hard. He pulls his own coat closed against a sharp gust of wind. “In any event. In northern Scandinavia, at this time of year? The sun doesn’t rise at all.”

Trevor steps up to the edge of the balcony, shoulder touching Adrian’s, the contact sending a shock of heat through him. “I’d heard that,” Trevor says, and that makes sense; sunrise patterns would be important in his family’s work. “We never hunted that far north, though, so I was never sure if it was just a bunch of bullshit or not.”

Adrian laughs, to cover the swell of affection. “No, it’s definitely true. The earth sits on a tilted axis, and…” he trails off, eyeing the distant clouds. There’s an energy gathering in them, a quietly mounting tension not unlike the approach of lightning, but the season is all wrong for that.

An animal scream, from the woods. A murder of crows explodes up from a huge, gnarled old tree over on the edge of the Belmont grounds, wing their way gracefully if noisily toward some undefined point on the horizon.

The wind dies, and it’s suddenly far too still, too tense, the air full of potential, all his senses wired up to respond to the first drop of blood that hits the ground—waiting, waiting. Expectant. Anticipating.

“Never mind,” he says, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. This isn’t the time. “It’s true, but I can explain why later. Just be grateful we still have the sun on our side here—as lackluster as it is today.”

“No shit,” Trevor grumbles, low. “They could just attack now if they wanted. I don’t think there’s enough sunlight in    Wallachia in a year to melt off those clouds.”

A suggestion of motion, off by the edge of the forest. Person-sized? Hard to tell; no frame of reference. The motion itself is alluring, makes him want to investigate, to give chase. The distance is deceptive. With these winds, their voices could be carrying frightfully far.

“Don’t give them ideas,” Adrian says, dour. No sane vampire would take that chance, not without good reason, but most of them are far from sane right now.

They have a few moments of respite, falling into a comfortable, companionable silence.

Then that motion again, just a flicker—a figure emerges from the treeline, and another, and another. He feels Trevor tense up next to him. 

“That’s bold,” Trevor murmurs. “Not even trying to be sneaky.”

“If they’re an invasion party,” Adrian agrees. Bold, yes. Suicidally stupid. They’re coming out of the woods single-file, some of them in hooded cloaks and silent as the breeze, some of them bare-headed and noisier, clumiser, not at all bothered by the scant daylight. Almost as if…

“Huh,” Trevor says, narrowing his eyes. “Are there humans in that group?”

Adrian leans forward a bit over the balcony, watches the group reform into a knotted cluster, now that they’re in open space. Twenty at most. Possibly as few as sixteen. The wind shifts, carries the distinct smell of humanity up to him, the earthy, blood-tinged smell of prey. He quells a shudder, nods. “Good catch. That’s either our reinforcements, or our enemy is more desperate for forces than we realized.”

“My money’s on reinforcements. Look at the grouping—that’s not any kind of attack formation,” Trevor says, tone musing. “They’d be completely vulnerable to us just splitting them up the middle.”

They would—there aren’t enough of them to survive being split into smaller groups, not with experienced fighters standing against them and the night not yet truly begun. But vampires aren’t very strategic at the best of times; it’s a mistake they could easily make, right now. Adrian finds himself staring intently down at the group as it approaches, calculating vulnerabilities, weak spots. Considering how to take out the weakest links first. All of a sudden a fight sounds like a wonderful idea—he thinks he might be smiling, can feel his breath coming harder.

“Do you see anyone you recognize?” Trevor asks, snapping him back to the present, to reality. There’s a cautious note in his voice; something is making him nervous.

Adrian closes his eyes, opens them. These are likely their allies, not their enemies. He focuses in on the leader, scours for what details he can gather at this distance: female, green and gold cloak like the one Isabel had worn when they’d met at the castle, but this one with a hood, which fits for a vampire on a desperately cloudy day. It all lines up. “...yes. I believe so,” he says, turning to look Trevor in the face, and there it is—a little twitch around his eyes that would have been a full-body jump in anyone else.

So, correction: He is making Trevor nervous. There is a perverse part of him, one he immediately despises, that finds the notion thrilling.

A loaded moment passes in silence.

“Well, that’s my cue I guess.” Trevor says, breaking it, pushing away from the balcony and heading toward the inner chamber. “...right. I’ll just—”

“Take no chances,” Adrian says, to Trevor’s retreating back. “And make sure they’re here because they want to be. The humans, I mean.”

A grunt of assent, and then Trevor disappears into the castle’s interior. 

Adrian folds his arms on the stone balcony, sets his forehead into them. Groans low and long, pure frustration. He should be better than this. He is better than this. He has not felt this disoriented by the pull of this night since he was a child; it’s something he had thought himself grown out of. If his father had taught him anything—and he’d taught him quite a bit—it was control: control over impulse, over instinct, over the kinds of urges that promise immediate, incredible gratification but would, long-term, bring nothing but regret.

The air around him still smells like Trevor, like oiled leather and clean sweat and rich, love-spiked blood. His shoulder still burns from the few moments’ contact. When he tries to redirect his thoughts, they land not on the reality of defenses and danger, but on the thought that he might have Sypha in his arms again tonight—on the imagined feel of her body against his, small and taut and fierce, rippling with fire. On the smell of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the taste of her—and he lets his head slip past his arms to thud on the stone ledge between them, because this is not the time.

If all things were equal, strategically, it would be best if he stayed far away from both of them tonight. But all things are not equal, and splitting up would be tantamount to suicide.

Below, the mechanical groan and creak of the castle’s doors beginning to make their ponderous way open. The group from the forest is nearly in speaking range.

All right. For now, he will just stay here, he thinks; he can watch the entire interaction from this ledge, can be down to the ground in a second or less if any of the strangers try to pull anything, try to hurt Trevor in any way—

No. Trevor can take care of himself. He doesn’t need protecting, no matter that Adrian’s drive to shield him from any and all danger is overpowering right now, is flooding out all his more logical impulses. Trevor can handle himself and he is due that respect.

But as Adrian well knows, humans can only take care of themselves until they can’t. Vampires, too; this isn’t an issue of species pride or ego. Anyone can make a mistake.

And he will be here, watching.

Trevor goes ahead and trips the mechanism to throw the main doors open, heads down the outer staircase two steps at a time. Under the fur-lined cloak, he's wearing his own gear, not that stupid jacket; this is his show today, and they will respect him as a Belmont or not at all. Can they trust these people, he’d asked—and if they survive the night, then he’ll have his answer.

Assuming the only danger tonight comes from outside. Assuming Adrian doesn’t—no. Trevor shakes his head, dismisses it.

The contingent approaches, and his instincts on the balcony were right: about half the group appear to be decently armed and armored humans, breath puffing visibly in the cold, leathers up to their chins. They’re mostly carrying swords, but there’s an axe and a few crossbows in there, too. The leader has something swinging from her gloved hand, heavy and wet, and it genuinely takes a moment for Trevor to identify it as a messily severed head—hair twined into her grip, fangy mouth hanging open in a silent scream. 

The leader—Isabel, probably—tosses it into the snow between them, once they’re close enough to speak. She tips her head. “Belmont.”

“You know, ” Trevor says, eyeing the offering but not really taking his eyes off the vampires. “My sister's cat used to bring dead things home, too. This some kind of fucked up gift? ”

“A mob in the forest,” Isabel says plainly, a twist of a Spanish accent in her voice, “waiting for nightfall.” He can’t really see her face, under the hood, but people put too much emphasis on that, not enough on body language. She’s not standing like a liar. “We routed them from their hiding places, but they knew the forest better than we did and were able to escape. But,” she says, nudging the head with the toe of her boot, as if she means to roll it toward Trevor. “They no longer have a leader.”

“At least we know we’re not just jumping at shadows, now,” Trevor grumbles, crouching down to inspect the remains, one hand wrapped warningly around the hilt of his sword while the other turns the head onto its side. Under the crusted frost caked onto the skin, there are no tattoos, no jewelry, no distinctive marks; bastard didn't even have the good decency to write his own name on his forehead. “The rest of him somewhere?” Trevor asks, thoughtful; he’ll thank them in a minute, but if there’s a lead on who or what is behind all of this—

“They took the rest of the body. I don’t honestly know why,” Isabel says, tone faintly amused. “Perhaps they’re planning to eat it.”

That was a joke, whether he can see that she’s smiling or not, and Trevor laughs before he can catch himself—finds himself warily, carefully beginning to like this one. A bit. Enough to keep talking to her, at least. He stands back up, leaves the head where it is; maybe it’ll unnerve their attackers, when they pass this way. “That bad, huh?”

She shakes her head, frustrated. “No better than animals. They’re young, and they indulge their hungers freely. Neither of those things help, tonight.”

Indulge their hungers, huh? Interesting, that that plays into this, and the images it conjures make his neck itch—but he puts it aside, for the moment. “While we’re on that topic. What do we have to work with, here?” 

“We’re not fighters,” she says, and damn but she could have fooled him. She’s about as fierce as pacifists come. “We have no soldiers to offer to Lord Alucard’s service. But we’re no strangers to defending ourselves, even under these... conditions. Which I know is the crux of your question.”

“Generally not a great night to have you people around, no.”

She inclines her head, huffs a laugh. “Does a Belmont actually suggest that there is a good night to have us around?”

“Maybe during the hippogryph migration,” Trevor counters, flashing what he knows to be an irritatingly smug grin. “Seem like you’d be good at pest control. Or being bait.”

A pause, then a shine of teeth visible under the hood that he can tell is either a snarl or a smirk. “I see now why he keeps you around,” she says. “You’re fearless.”

Trevor narrows his eyes. This is a fiddly game she’s choosing to play, all posturing and perceptions of power, and he needs to be careful to neither underplay nor overplay his hand. “I’m a Belmont,” he says, aiming for pride just shy of arrogance. “I’ve killed more vampires than you’ve ever met, and I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. So this group of yours backstabbing us? It’d be inconvenient. But I’m not losing sleep over it.”

It isn’t strictly true. It’s going to be enough of a hell night as it is; damned if he’s going to let these fucks make it worse by crawling inside his sphere of trust and then going bloodthirsty as soon as the sun goes down. But this isn’t about honesty, not right now.

“Noted,” is her only response, though her voice has an edge of respect, now. Good. “The vampires among us are all either elders of the clan or come from old, stable bloodlines—they’re in control of themselves. And the halfblood will be no trouble, of course.”

Halfblood? Trevor’s attention sharpens at that; they brought a dhampir? Hell, another dhampir even exists? He scans the faces in the group, anyone not wearing a hood, looking for that inhuman shine he’s so used to, that glimmer of otherness that he could never describe or explain but nevertheless knows when he sees it.

There. A young woman in fighter’s leathers, taller than Sypha, dark brown hair cropped close, eyes a touch too luminous to be called hazel. She’s making a valiant effort to be nondescript, a plain short sword on her hip and a calm, reserved demeanor that somehow fails to fully meld with the nerve-riddled silence of the humans around her.

“You,” Trevor says, nodding in her direction. He can hear the vague sense of wonder in his voice; to read the old Bestiary, he’d thought his family had wiped them all out in the cradle. He isn’t used to being grateful that the Belmonts of old failed at something. “You’re a dhampir.” You’re a child of two worlds; you’re like him.

“Good eye, Belmont,” Isabel says, approving. “Jeanne?”

The young woman nods her own head in acknowledgement. “A pleasure to serve,” she says, a glint of fang showing as she speaks—and oh, Alucard’s going to want to have a word with her later. If they both survive.

And Trevor really, deeply hopes this one survives; there are few enough of them left in the world. He glances up to where he knows Alucard is watching and listening from the balcony above, can feel the intensity of his gaze from here. 

Which reminds him. “What about the humans? You all want to be here?” Trevor turns back to them, addresses them directly, watching for any antsy tells. For all their obvious nerves—which he expects, in the circumstances—all he gets are nods all around. Infusing command into his presence, he asks again: “Anyone who’s been enthralled into being here against their will, raise your hand now.”

Common wisdom would have him believe that this is a fruitless exercise; you can’t just ask an enthrallee if they’re enthralled. But real glamours—the kind that bind their subject to their master’s will alone, make betrayal a physical impossibility—they’re expensive. They require a lot of energy, a lot of magic, a lot of pricey materials, and this doesn’t strike him as a group with resources to spare. The quick and dirty way, the one that most humans don’t know about, isn’t much more than simple hypnotism. All it does is compel the victim to respond to any authoritative enough command, from anyone, with obedience. 

Trevor can be plenty authoritative, when he wants to be. 

Not a single hand goes up.

“Good,” he says, turning back toward the castle. He’s already done a headcount: seven vampires, nine humans, one dhampir. He runs strategies in his head, as well as probabilities of certain types of attacks, given what he knows of their enemy. Which… isn’t much. There’s a mob of uncoordinated vampires involved, leaderless, with who knows what motivations. They’ll be sloppy and direct, rely on their enhanced speed and strength tonight.

“Okay. I want four people with ranged capabilities on the entry here—two on each side, as concealed as possible while still being able to cover the door. There are service entrances here and there around the perimeter, so we need a runner at each one, to alert the rest of us if we’re getting anything other than a blind, stupid frontal assault—which I doubt—so we can relocate defenses. Probably want about six people inside, guarding the entry hall and the main stairs heading further up. No vampires in the castle.”

“You don’t trust us, yes,” Isabel interrupts, matter-of-fact. “You’ve made that clear.”

“No, I don’t,” he says, because he’s not going to play coy diplomatic games. “But that’s not the issue. Do you know what plumbing is?” he asks, dropping his voice close to a whisper. This is not something he wants the wind to carry away.

She shakes her head in the negative. 

“Yeah, neither did I. But there’s pipes all through the castle that pump water around,” he says, gesturing vaguely above his head, “and we’ve spiked the supply with holy water. If we have to blow it wide open, we will, and any vampire that’s in there is going to melt, no matter what side they’re on. Fair enough?”

Her head crooks to one side, face still obscured by the hood. “I underestimated you, Belmont. Based on our conversation to this point, I expected you to be motivated solely by prejudice and hostility.”

“I did mention that I don’t trust you, right?”

“Yet here you are,” she continues, “concerned for our well-being.”

He isn’t sure if it’s sarcasm or deadpan sincerity, but he doesn’t have the energy to argue about it. “Yeah, well, I don’t like losing people on my watch,” he says, then pauses, a little surprised by his own honesty. He scrambles to reel it back in: “And allies are more useful when they’re not steaming puddles of liquefied flesh. That’s it.”

“Of course,” she says, infuriatingly knowing, and fuck, turns out it’s  not just Alucard who’s a smug arsehole. It is, apparently, a species trait. “I’ll talk with my people, decide who should go where.”

And that should be that—there will be enough time for him to check on distribution of forces later, make sure they’re not doing anything stupid. But there’s something that’s been nagging him, has been since their first meeting in the castle—has been prodding him with guilty old memories and stoking his antagonism toward Adrian, toward them, toward their mysterious tree letter-writer, toward everything. And that’s not a good way to go into battle.

“One more thing,” he says, words slipping out before he can lose his nerve. “Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You barely know us,” he says, “and you came here pretty sure that I was out to get you as much as any of our enemies. Your people could die here tonight. So: why are you here?”

Isabel takes a moment to consider her answer. Before she speaks, she reaches up, pulls the hood back just enough that he can actually look her in the face—under this cloud cover, she should be fine for a few minutes at least. She’s as collected and determined as he remembers, a dignified sort of elegance, dark skin flawless, deep burgundy eyes focused on him like she’s analyzing every breath and every blink, and maybe she is.

There’s a faint rim of brighter red, around the wine-colored irises. Adrian’s have had something like that too, ever since they woke up this morning. It’s not reassuring.

“We have travelled very far and very long to get here,” she says, repeating what she told them that first night. “It was not a safe journey. We lost people on the way—to hunters, but also to the intolerance of our own kind. Understand: evil is a choice. But it’s a choice our people make with sickening frequency.” She takes a steadying breath, something Trevor’s never actually seen a full-blooded vampire do, and looks up at the castle. “We kept coming because we hoped we could find a leader we could believe in. Should we now let his court fall, mere days after our journey’s end?”

“Word’s really travelled that far?”

“Oh, yes, Belmont. The golden dragon, risen from the ashes of his father’s court? Who keeps untamable humans as pets, and allies himself with the human world? There’s little else anyone talks about.”

Trevor finds himself smirking, feels like maybe he should be insulted but all he can think is what a wonderful thing it is, in battle, to be underestimated. “You think we’re pets.”

“No. I know the difference between a general and a guard dog when I see it. But the others do. More importantly, they see Lord Alucard as a presumptuous, disobedient halfblood that should be put in his place.”

“You mean killed.”

“Yes,” she says, unflinching. “And if that happens… nothing will ever change, will it?”

Trevor sighs, looks out to the cloudy, obfuscated horizon. He can still feel Alucard’s watchful eye on all of them, too intense, too much the stare of a wolf on prey, and he remembers talking about this with him, down in the ashy, ghostly Belmont ruins. Breaking the cycle. Preventing these tragedies from coming around again. 

If vampires are capable of not choosing evil; if hunters are capable of seeing them as people who have that choice; if both can stop seeing each other as prey for five goddamned minutes...

“No,” he agrees, quiet. “Without him? I don’t think anything will.”

Trevor takes some time to walk the grounds, spare boots going soggy in the snow, getting a feel for the place. It’s something he’s done countless times leading up to this, but a landscape can be mutable, can bend to the will of weather and time of day and other, less definable things. Energy. Hostility. Intent. He stays away from the woods; there’s no point walking into an ambush and making things easy for them.

Somewhere out on the far side of the ruins, he catches a smell of spice and wood smoke that makes him think of the marketplace in the town below. If the wind is coming from there, and is moving briskly enough to carry odors the entire way, that puts them all decidedly upwind of the forest. Which means that their forces—number, composition—are no secret to any creature in those woods.

Trevor sighs. The weather is what it is; not every disadvantage can be mitigated.

On his way back, he cuts along the western edge of the castle, raising a hand in greeting to the first of the service entrance guards—a human man, middle-aged and Mediterranean, with a surprisingly easy smile and a steady hand on the sword he’s sharpening. 

“You never really introduced yourself,” the man says, as Trevor approaches. “What should we call you?”

“Just Belmont is fine. I’m the only one left to answer to it. That a Damascus blade?”

“It is.” He turns the blade against what little light finds them; the watery rippling in the steel is deadly and gorgeous. “It was my father’s—he was a royal guard. His father’s before him. Not sure where it originally came from. The east, obviously.” He sets the whetstone down on his leg, offers his hand. “Luca Gregori.”

Trevor takes it, considers. “How’s the son of a royal guard end up travelling with a bunch of vampires?”

It’s a question that could be tossed right back in his face: how’s a Belmont end up living with the son of Dracula? But instead, Gregori only laughs. “By falling in love with the beautiful Romani maiden always playing music below my balcony at night, and not realizing until it was too late that there was a reason she was only ever there at night.”

“Too late because she glamoured you?”

“Too late because I was too in love to see straight,” the man corrects, laughter in his eyes.

“Hm. She still with your group?”

If he’s thrown by Trevor’s casual acceptance of his answer, he doesn’t show it. “Of course. She doesn’t like fighting, though—didn’t want to come. Didn’t want me to come either.”

“Why did you?”

“That question again. Did our leader’s answer not suffice?” He picks the whetstone back up, draws it along the blade in long, light passes. He knows what he’s doing. “Your Lord Alucard could be the key to finally changing things. And that’s the only way people like Mireli and I can ever live in peace. That’s worth fighting for—for her. We take care of each other,” he says, tilting his face to glance pointedly at where Trevor’s collar is drooping. “I can tell you know all about that.”

Trevor feels heat threaten to rise up his cheeks, smacks it down hard. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, here. This man for damn sure feeds his own love—but there are appearances to maintain, for the sake of respect. He is one of Alucard’s generals, not his convenient midnight snack.

“I guess we all look after the people we care about,” is what he finally settles on, shrugging his shoulders to resettle the fur of his cloak closer around his neck. There. Sympathize, admit to nothing specific.

Gregori just looks at him for a long time, weighing that. “Indeed we do,” he finally says, cautious. “And protect those that need protecting.”

And it’s strange—that’s something Trevor’s always thought of in terms of humans needing protection from the creatures of the night, the dark forces intent on sowing chaos in their lives. But it’s not Sypha and him that need to be careful in Acasă, and supernatural complications aside, he’s seen firsthand the frankly bullshit way the Romani are often treated, back when he was travelling in the south of the continent. Protection, and the need for it, are a much more complicated picture than he used to think they were.

He glances over to the estate ruins, hovering so closely with all of their ghosts and memories. Maybe that’s why they stood and fought, even though they must have seen it coming—because the people needed them, needed their protection, from the church more than from any vampires or werewolves that night.

And they lost. But maybe it’s enough that they tried.

“I do hope none of those are fresh,” Gregori muses, between long scraping swipes of the whetstone. 

“Of course not,” Trevor lies, effortless. He remembers Isabel mentioning it, too: the vampires in the woods, indulging their hungers, and how it’s doing them no favors. He could use some clarification on that. “There a reason you’re asking?”

“Oh, just, you know what human blood does to them, tonight. Isabel keeps them all off it for a few weeks, before the solstice.”

Oh. Oh.

It’s likely that none of the shock that ripples through him is visible to the man in front of him. Open book he can be at times, Trevor’s good at masking these things when it matters. But it still does shake him—heart suddenly hammering inside his chest, a wash of cold passing through him like there’s ice in his veins.

Human blood. Hell, forget that Adrian’s been nibbling on him here and there—that’s not enough volume to worry about. But game’s been scarce, so Trevor’s fallen behind the curve on replenishing those canisters with animal blood. He knows for an absolute, immutable fact that Adrian’s had to dip back into the human supply again, and as recently as this morning.

“Of course,” he says, casual, leaning sideways against the castle wall. “Everyone knows that.”

Inside, though?

Shit. SHIT. We're fucking idiots.

Adrian has holed up in the study, both because that is where the transmission mirror is, and because it is a place only he ever comes to, so it does not smell like anything except books and himself and the lingering fury and sadness of his father’s time. So it isn’t a pleasant place, but it’s a safe place; it quiets his nerves, cools the heat in his heart, soothes the ache in his fangs.

It’d frightened him, overlooking Trevor and Isabel earlier, that he’d found himself wanting Trevor between his teeth as much as he’d wanted him in his arms. He can only hope that when he needs the man around later, the adrenaline and rush of danger will keep his instincts focused in other directions. The solstice has never affected him like this before; he wonders if it would have, had he had a lover in other years, someone so skilled at stirring his baser instincts that he does it without even trying.

For now, he touches the glass of the mirror, traces his fingers along the fault line where the shards don’t line up perfectly, letting the edge slice finely into the pad of his thumb. It’s a bright shock of pain, satisfying in the way it gives him something purely outside of himself to think about, the way it grounds him.

The door to the study swings open noiselessly. The smell of humanlovepreysexblood slams into Adrian, just about chokes him. He catches himself on his knees, hands braced there white-knuckled and nearly tight enough to dislocate his own kneecaps.

“All right,” Trevor says, sweeping into the room, and his voice is all I’ve fucking had it with this but he still sets a hand on Adrian’s back, steadying and gentle. The proximity, the contact, the feel of his pulse, hammering through his palm— “Wasn’t sure if I was out of line bringing this up, but you just answered that for me.”

“I can control it,” Adrian grits out, straightening up, because it’s true, because it has to be true.

“Really,” Trevor says, disbelieving, challenging. There’s a spark of trouble in his eyes. “So, you could hold it together if I were to…” he trails off, crowding up into Adrian’s space, sliding his hand up from the middle of his back to the back of his neck. It’s heavy and hot there, with no fabric in the way, and it twines into his hair—insurance, Adrian realizes. A way to get a solid grip on him, if it becomes necessary. Trevor’s wary, in a way he hasn’t been for months, but he still leans in recklessly close, the heat of his breath boiling over Adrian’s cheeks, the wet curve of his lower lip, the hollow of his throat. The scent of him is intoxicating and disorienting, inflaming, strikes Adrian dizzy with lust. The taste of him, too—his mouth soft and combative under Adrian’s, his body tense and hot where Adrian’s arm at the small of his back has dragged them together in a close press, binding him there in a predator’s grip, inescapable. 

It wouldn’t take much to just have him, right here and now. They’re both hard, and the collar of the hunter’s shirt is already loose, exposed, and Adrian doesn’t know which his body wants more—to fuck Trevor blind or drink him dry, or both. What would that be like, to feel that strong body jerk and writhe in pleasure even as the life drains away from it, completely at Adrian’s mercy, heat and arousal thick on his tongue—

It’s not until there’s a jolt through both of them—Trevor’s back hitting the wall, the impact kicking a pained breath out of him—that Adrian comes back to himself enough to realize where they are and what is happening. To realize that Trevor’s fist in his hair is trying to pull him away, sharp but completely ineffectual in the wake of Adrian’s strength; that Trevor’s eyes are wide and urgent, not the languid half-lidded picture of lust he’d been imagining. That his own mouth is frighteningly close to Trevor’s pulse.

“...Adrian,” Trevor breathes, and Adrian can feel the vibration of his own name through his teeth. Trevor gives his hair another tug; it’s an attempt to get his attention, Adrian realizes, not an attempt to actually stop him. For that, Trevor has his weapons, which he has not even made a move to reach for. “Stop for a second, here.”

Adrian closes his eyes, pushes through the feeling of Trevor hot under his hands, through the sound of his heart thudding like a primal drumbeat, through the full-body ache that’s spreading through him, demanding he chasehuntfuckbitefeedkill—pushes it all aside with more force of will than he’s ever had to muster, grasps desperately for lucidity. He feels his head fall forward, forehead coming to rest against Trevor's collarbone.

“Hey,” Trevor says, relaxing his hold on Adrian’s hair, scraping his fingers against the scalp instead. “You back with me?”

Fuck. This was a test—obviously it was—and he’s failed it miserably. He wants to be angry at Trevor, because Adrian could have killed him, but maybe he shouldn’t have been so prideful about being in control when he clearly wasn’t.

This is his fault. If it had ended badly, that would have been his fault too. He backs away without another thought, hands up in placation. “I’m sorry. That was—”

Trevor coughs, rubbing at his neck self-consciously. His color is high, breath a little ragged. “Honestly? It was hot, except for the bit where I really didn’t know if you were going to kill me or not. That was sort of a mood-killer.” 

Never. Never. Fantasies are just fantasies, even if they’re the unspeakable, fucked-up products of his own twisted and tainted and monstrous blood; he would never—

“Jesus, Adrian,” Trevor continues, sounding shaken. “Have you even seen your eyes?”

His… eyes? Adrian puts his internal diatribe on hold, turns to the mirror—he’d been looking at it before, not so much into it—and scrutinizes his own reflection. It doesn’t take much effort to see what Trevor’s talking about: a blazing ring of brilliant red, bleeding into the whites of his eyes and into the gold of his irises. It pulses and swirls like liquid fire, and even his pupils look brighter than they should be, a dim flame burning in the black. 

“That’s… probably not good,” he says, transfixed. “When did that—”

“They were a little red earlier today, but nothing like that.”

He swallows tightly, ignores the way his body screams, hollow and empty. “Trevor, this… this has never happened before. This isn’t normal.” He shakes his head, trying to clear it. “This—this isn’t me.”

“I believe that,” Trevor says, and thank God—if he didn’t believe him, if he thought that this is what had really been lurking under the surface this entire time…

Trevor comes up behind him so that he’s visible in the reflection too, giving him a face to speak to but stopping just short of actually making contact. “Because I know why it’s happening.”

“It’s because of you,” Adrian says, weakly, but no, that came out wrong—it’s not that it’s his fault, but him being here—it would have been the same if Sypha were here, it’s nothing Trevor did…

Trevor laughs, though there’s no real humor in it. It’s pure showmanship. “Fuck you, you bastard. I’m not the idiot who decided to dip into the good shit right before the solstice.”

“The good… what?” he asks, suddenly confused. Is Trevor talking about the rare, aged bottles of wine they bring up now and then? “I haven’t been drinking—”

“Yeah, you have. All that human blood on ice?”

Adrian draws his brows together, gives that some thought, or tries to—things are still muddled, shocky-feeling. “That causes…”

“Apparently, that takes whatever solstice crazy you already have going on and makes it worse, yeah,” Trevor sighs. “Kind of obvious, to be honest.”

It’s… all right. That makes sense. He’s never heard that, never had it crop up as an issue before, but it makes sense. He lifts his eyes, meets Trevor’s reflected gaze. Digs his claws hard into what clarity he has, for the moment. “Do we have any animal blood on hand?”

Trevor shrugs, shakes his head. “I dressed a hare this morning—it’s not much, but it’s down there.”

Perhaps if he can dilute what’s in his system. Perhaps if he can gain back just enough control that they can survive this—both of them. All three of them, if they retrieve Sypha, and he’s giving serious thought to just doing it now and damn waiting for the attack to actually come. He wants her here, beside them, wants to be able to touch her and know she’s alive and press his lips to her throat and—

Trevor is looking at him with that same nervousness again, that look of Am I going to have to kick your ass?

He ignores it, scratches a few quick sigils into the glass to focus its vision on the front entrance of the castle, where Isabel’s people are lying in wait with crossbows and longbows and spears. All quiet, at the moment. Good enough.

“I’ll be back,” he says, sidling past Trevor in an attempt to make no contact whatsoever. “Just… keep an eye on things. Use your judgment.”

The hare’s blood is as rank as animal blood always is, but after a few minutes sitting on the cold floor of the storage room, letting it work its way into his system and displace some of what’s already there, his head does start to feel clearer—not clear, but clearer. He can, now, think about what happened in the study, what almost happened, and feel more guilt than arousal. Guilt is the only thing he should be feeling, but as things stand, this might be as good as it gets.

Chunks of magical ice grow organically out of the floor all around him, branching crystals, chaotic and natural looking; mist rolls off of them, chilling and soothing everything it touches. The cold of it is intense, bites through his clothes and sinks into him, grounds him like the pain did earlier.

He counts to ten forward and backward, first in his native tongue, then in Latin, French, German, Arabic. He runs through all the medicines his mother taught him about and what they’re each used for. He curls his fingers against the floor, clutching at the mist, and when he thinks of Sypha and of Trevor, it is more with worry and fierce, overwhelming protectiveness than it is with desire. 

It isn’t ideal. It will, however, have to be good enough.

When he feels stable enough to return to the study, he finds Trevor pacing in front of the mirror, hand on the haft of his  Morning Star, collar fastened up more securely than Adrian thinks he’s ever seen it. Through the far window, he can see that night has just about fallen, the last curling wisps of orange and purple glowing through the cloud layer. 

“Oh hey,” Trevor says, frustration in every syllable. “Thanks for showing up. Where the hell were you?”

“Stabilizing.”

“For an hour?”

That throws Adrian; he hadn’t thought it much longer than fifteen minutes or so. He shrugs, steps to the mirror. “That’s how long it took. You’ll take comfort in knowing that your mere presence is no longer enough to make me want to tear your clothes off with my teeth.”

“Well, that’s good at least. I mean, hey, that could be fun, right? But not right now.”

God damn Trevor, and his complete lack of filters. That wasn’t a suggestion he needed. “Not right now, no. If you could refrain from—”

He never gets the rest of the request out, because there’s suddenly a fluttering noise by the window, like a rustling of wind through tall grass but with more weight behind it. Wings. They both whip around to look, and Adrian is expecting to see something deadly clambering through the window frame, a night creature or some other supernatural entity, blood of their allies already dripping from its toothy maw—

He’s not expecting an innocent, unassuming black and white pigeon, perched in the sill and idly cleaning its wing feathers. It’s dingy and drooping, obviously exhausted, and there’s a tiny roll of parchment tied to one of its legs. 

“Huh,” Trevor says, crossing to the window. “Hey there, is that for us?”

The bird doesn’t answer, obviously. But it also doesn’t startle away as Trevor carefully reaches to untie the bit of paper, turns back to the room with it in hand. The pigeon, missive delivered, flutters clumsily into the room instead of out of it, and no wonder; it’s warm, in here.

“What is it?” Adrian asks; clearly from someone with access to enchanted beasts, which isn’t encouraging—a black magician, a sorcerer—

“It’s from Sypha,” Trevor says simply, eyebrows raised. “I almost forgot that the Speakers do this, with pigeons. Here.”

Adrian takes the note, unrolls it again, the paper wanting badly to stay curled. 

A, T — I need to return home, as soon as possible. You’re in danger.   I think you might be I’m worried about you b Use the mirror. I will see you soon. —  S

“Well, that settles that,” Trevor says, once he’s sure Adrian has read the whole thing. “Let’s get her the hell here, now.”

“Agreed,” Adrian says, a little distracted by the feel of the parchment in his fingers, the smell of the ink. It’s very physical, very visceral, and all of his senses are on high alert right now—and there’s something about all of this that’s bothering him. He doesn’t doubt the veracity of the note—he can smell Sypha on it, even after days clutched to a bird’s breast. But there’s something…

“Adrian?” Trevor prods. “I can’t actually work this thing, you know.”

“Right, of course,” he says, pocketing the slip of paper, stepping up to the mirror. This is complicated, shaping the sigils correctly to point not to a place but a person—to find Sypha wherever she is. He has to take his time, inscribing them with care, but something is driving him to hurry, hurry.

Trevor is getting antsy next to him. Up near the ceiling, the pigeon has found a perch, is fluffing out its feathers noisily.

A scraping sound, against the stone wall outside. Below the window. The sigils are nearly done, and there’s still something—

Trevor makes for the window, to investigate. Adrian desperately wants to stop him but he couldn’t begin to explain why, just knows that he wants Trevor anywhere but by that window, anywhere. It makes no sense, the wards should be sufficient to protect—

The pigeon burbles from its perch, oblivious to the tension, content.

The pigeon.

The wards.

“Trevor!” he shouts, the last sigil sinking into the mirror glass, the surface starting to shimmer as it hones in on another place, a life and a world away—he catches a glimpse of a bonfire, of colorful fabric and blue robes, of a sky black as pitch—

Then the mirror doesn’t matter, because the night sky outside the window is abruptly blocked out. In its place, the bloodied figure of a vampire, crouched to fit in the frame, hair matted and disheveled, eyes wild. It hisses at them like a sick, starving cat. At other windows, more figures appear, all mad with bloodlust, all intent on very particular prey.

Trevor stays composed. He takes a step back. He reaches for the grip of the Morning Star.

The vampire isn’t interested. He leaps into the room with an effortless grace, sweeps Trevor bodily aside with a strength he’s never seen—is on Adrian before Trevor can even shout a warning.

< -- Back | Next -- >

Go to part: one | two | three | four | five | six

#castlevania #netflix castlevania #fanfic #fanfiction #sypha belnades #trevor belmont #alucard #adrian tepes #trephacard #taproot #wellspring #post s2

[sigmashuffle]

I have a question!! So I’m a long-time BSD enjoyer but I haven’t read nearly as much of the manga as I would like. I’ve seen all of the anime though, most of it multiple times through. I didn’t realize until looking at the comments on Danny Motta’s video at how much people fucking hate Fukuchi and his sword. Up until this point I’ve thought it’s cool as hell and he, along with the sword, bring something kinda new and fun to the series.

HOWEVER, I know BSD is FAR from perfect and there’s a lot of dumb shit that faithful manga readers have a better perspective on. Would you mind explaining why Fukuchi and the sword are such a sore point? I hope this isn’t too much to ask. I just really want to know.

Hi anon! Its not too much to ask at all!

Unfortunately the answer to that is best explained in the context of ALL the issues I have with the manga/show so... this is going to be v long... and im done giving this show more credit than it deserves but don't take it that seriously lol I hesitate to even consider my pov to be on par with the average manga reader but ig we'll see how my opinions hold up after i post

And disclaimer: I don't mind answering this but ONLY with the context that this is 100% my opinion (as of late, bsd as a whole has just been REALLY bugging me so im just gonna take this opportunity to explain my gripes since most of them apply to or tie greatly into fukuchi's character/design/motivations/development)

I simply don't want anyone to come for my head bc of anything I say here tho, bc I feel like I may disagree with a large portion of the fanbase but WITH THAT SAID...

***from this point forward there will be a few spoilers from s5e11***

Here are my gripes with BSD...

1. BSD and its "magic system"?

bsd powers suffer from what i like to call a "lack of scope"

granted this could be due to the fact the story isnt complete HOWEVER im sure any anime fan can tell you this story doesnt feel like it is leading anywhere its just... going... (ill get to the awful pacing later)

for comparison sake im going to also talk about The Case Study of Vanitas since it is the world I have the most experience in

what does BSD not have that VNC does?

simply put, the magic system doesnt reinvent itself character to character

in VNC if you have an ability it is EXCLUSIVELY connected to "manipulations of the world formula" which is essentially elemental control (fire, ice, gravity, etc.) based on a sci fi version of chemistry (alchemy, if you will) and this rule applies to EVERY CHARACTER in VNC

its a structure that starts developing from the beginning

BSD however introduces a WHOLE NEW magic system for each character

some character abilities are similar, yes, and can be classified as such, but many cannot be classified

again a magic system doesnt NEED to have strict rules (its actually more boring that way if the rules are too simple) but it DOES need RULES... and solid ones

otherwise its tempting to use the MAGIC system to fill in PLOT RELATED gaps

and if that system isnt defined, well, to me that looks like lazy/sloppy/illogical writing

if you like the whiplash of not knowing whats gonna happen next, fine, (i did for awhile too!) up until the unpredictability started to come from powers that as a whole look like an authors way of trying to write themselves out of their own plot hole

ie: time travel

specifically time travel that isnt introduced FROM THE BEGINNING...

2. Fukuchi and his "deus ex machina" sword

time travel is NOTORIOUSLY difficult to pull off and especially by my standards

I have watched Doctor Who since 2008, before I even knew what tumblr was I was doing my own solo fandom stuff (basically just watching a LOT of youtube video essays) but basically I have high standards when it comes to time travel in stories

Amenogozen has the POTENTIAL to be a great weapon if used in a logical context... but theres one thing the sword (and BSD as a whole) does not follow

RULES

time travel is TRICKY mostly bc it has consequences... in BSD fukuchi gives nothing in exchange for his powers

lets even toss time travel aside for the moment

what is Fukuchi's innate special ability? Mirror Lion... (read below)

its essentially an attack multiplier of x100 at CLOSE RANGE

lets say your average untrained human punch is 150psi (pounds per square inch) which is the pressure equivalent of a point 100m below the surface of the ocean...

with Mirror Lion's multiplier you get 15,000psi which would be 10,000m or 10 kilometers

a pressure equivalent to the deepest part of the ocean (i dont need to remind you how powerful water is... we all know about oceangate)

MY POINT IS HE'S OVERPOWERED AS FUCK

dont even get me started on his motivations too

im glad we got backstory for him in ep 11 and im sure we are just supposed to sum up his motivations into "he was willing to pay the high price for world peace" but tbh royally fuck that

dont TELL me thats what he believes

PROVE to me how you made that conclusion

also the only reason he even dies is becasue he wants fukuzawa to kill him... we dont have any sense of accomplishment for stopping his scheme because NOW the scheme has been PLOPPED right into fukuzawa's lap which fukuchi intended to do from the start... apparently

and this seemingly retroactive decision-making is a problem A LOT of bsd characters have, especially the one and only character i hate THE MOST... *drumroll*

3. Osamu fucking Dazai

oh boy...

I have thought long and hard about Dazai... im not going to lie, after ch109 and ep10 I was about to admit Dazai might actually have grown on me BUT

this was all erased after 6 minutes into ep11 when he was confirmed to indeed NOT be dead

Dazai just *knows* everything thats gonna happen

Chuuya was never a vamp... he knew this... and somehow his ENTIRE escape plan was just hinging on that? bc yknow... hE kNeW fRoM tHe bEgiNniNg

OSAMU DAZAI IS A PLOT DEVICE USED *ONLY* TO FILL IN NARRATIVE HOLES

HE IS A WAY TO FORCE PROGRESS ON A STORY WITHOUT EVER GIVING A REAL EXPLANATION

HIS CHARACTER IS AN INSULT TO INTELLIGENCE

His character is paper thin, with motivations that do not translate to his actions

and frankly... im tired of it...

additionally... if sigma doesn't survive, all of Meursault was literally useless... so why pick him for nikolai's prison break game?

even if he does, it means the ONLY thing we get out of the arc is information about fyodor... as to WHAT information, who knows... but regardless, a villain arc that has been going on for TOO GODDAMN LONG (40 chapters?) should have a resolution that isnt "i knew what was gonna happen all along"

we spent the whole time being SHOWN that fyodor and dazai were of equal intelligence levels... or at least higher than what dazai was used to dealing with

if dazai could just predict shit like this from the beginning why was fyodor a villain for so long? makes ZERO sense, dazai would've defeated him AGES ago... what makes THIS time any different?

also... why is he even suicidal? yeah ok the author was... but like... why make it such a present character trait?... so we can fake kill him over and over? idk

can you tell i dislike him?

4. THEORY vs PRACTICE

I am a "show dont tell" girlie

ALL BSD DOES IS "TELL TELL TELL" ...its infuriating

almost every power/special ability has an element of "trust me bro" ok SOME OF THEM DONT but most of them do

ie: atsushi is a tiger (what does that even mean), kenji gets strong when he's angry (ok hulk?), and THIS JUST IN we STILL don't know how fyodor's ability works... and now he's DEAD?... we also dont know almost any detail about sigma's ability and he might ALSO be dead

but thats only regarding abilities...

when it comes to writing stories using people of high intelligence it is VERY difficult to not get into the aforementioned "trust me bro" mindset which BSD does REPEATEDLY

im not listing off every example but off the top of my head is one scene from s4...

ranpo explains his plan for saving yosano loosely involved "replacing the engine [of an armored vehicle] with an electric motor and playing engine sounds over the speakers so no one noticed" ...and only i can pick this claim to shreds lol (i engineer electric vehicles for a living) but this is so wrong on so many levels...

Internal combustion engines and Electric motors are IN NO WAY EQUIVALENT

ranpo would never be able to power a vehicle the size of an armored truck with a motor that he installed an hour before the truck was put to use... he just wouldnt... the vehicle is too big... ugh *facepalm*

and dont even get me started on batteries...

MY POINT IS

if you want to write some *genius move* at least TRY to do some research to make the action believable

thats like saying "oh yeah i ran out of gas so a threw a couple AA batteries into my gas tank until i could make it to the station"

BUT THAT WOULDNT FLY BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE KNOW THATS NOT HOW CARS WORK

*sigh*

5. Manga Readers' POV

the.chapters.are.too.short

especially for a monthly released manga

i am relatively new to anime and manga... like late 2020, so I am part of the "new gen" I guess you could say so i know i dont have any right to complain about pacing in comparison to like... the dressrosa arc of One Piece

with that said, not enough in bsd BUILDS on itself

it all feels like a self "one-up"

its been too long since any of my large questions have been answered

honestly its rare that any of my questions are ever answered because the narrative rarely follows logical progression anyway and any scenes thats ARE useful are cut from the anime

characters do not *develop* their powers, they just simply ARE

whatever ability you are born with limits what you can do and thats that... which leads me to...

6. Types of Ability Users

the most coherent thing i think i can speak on so this will be short lol

there are 3 types... i think (excluding lightnovels, i have not read 15, Stormbringer, or any others)

(1) natural abilities (ones that can be nullified by dazai or stolen like in Dead Apple)

(2) human/god fusions (chuuya) -> but this can ALSO be nullified???

(3) when an ability isnt an ability (it CANT be nullified) -> ie: whatever the fuck Lovecraft is

Sigma -> ??? (he could be part of the natural ability category but like... it feels weird to put him there)

but... there is never a comparison between these types so im not even sure of this "list" is exhaustive

this is just another way the story is leaving open ways to dig itself out of a plot hole... which isnt fun... bc now there are no stakes... there are no rules... its disorganized chaos where anything can happen

everyone will always be fine because there is a way out of everything

and thats BORING... and for me, downright infuriating

fukuchi likely falls into the first category... but then again he's also using a tool from another ancient ability user... so does he even fit there?

7. Anime Adaptation

rushed

rushed

RUSHED

and i know why...

BSD is so thin on STABLE plot the story would feel like its dragging if Bones wasn't animating at the pace they are (see Manga Readers' POV)

so to try and counteract the feeling that nothing is happening they are cutting "irrelevant" scenes BUT ALSO important portions relevant ones (ie: aku's death)

do all the plot points from the manga happen? by definition, yes... but the nuance the manga has is lost almost entirely

Atsushi doesn't physically throw an injured Aku's arm over his shoulders... Aku doesn't smile upon his demise... Aku doesn't reach out through the fog of the fire extinguisher (the adaptation of this scene was personally my last straw)

and then we have the new anime content...

why did we tack on an additional fight? zero context... didn't even tie up loose ends from fukuchi like...

is sigma alive?

are chuuya/dazai/nikoali still in france? europe?

is fyodor going to return in some way? (we know nothing of his motives, ability, or MOST importantly, what information did he learn from Sigma??? his ability is an EXCHANGE so why even have that happen if they are both dead anyway?) why would you fucking kill off a character like this

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS ENTIRE ARC??? The mere reason I'm asking this question is, in and of itself, unacceptable

we MAY get an answer later... but its been 20 episodes... why the fuck dont we know anything about the arc we just completed? ...ludicrous

Final Thoughts

BSD does not have enough reliable rules in its magic system to form a solid foundation of... anything

Fukuchi is a disjointed character trying to do too many things at once, he doesn't have solid motivations, and his arc provides more questions than it answers

Osamu Dazai is not a character... he is a plot device used like a saving throw in DND

BSD frequently insults my intelligence to cover it's ass in its storytelling

being a manga reader is like taking 30 days to rip off a tiny band aid... the pacing is unbearable

even with the end of fukuchi's arc now known, there was no sense of accomplishment in defeating him bc technically we didnt… he gave himself up... so the sword was just to make him overpowered... it was pointless

the anime adaptation was rushed, scenes cherry picked, and plot narratively thinned into water... there was no depth this season

In my opinion...

There are very few redeeming characteristics about BSD now

The few meaningful scenes we do get in the manga are overwritten by later context that negates any emotion initially associated with the scene

even with the end of fukuchi's arc now known, there was no sense of accomplishment in defeating him bc technically we didnt... he gave himself up

Dazai is the worst written character I have ever read

It is very likely i drop this story entirely

If I seem salty/upset/etc. its because I am. However is NOT directed at you, it is simply a manifestation of my disappointment in this story.

...

And there you have my opinion... in way too many words... thanks for sticking around if you made it this far im impressed bc i am salty as hell lol

fin

#i hope this helps? #In all seriousness you have likely been following bsd for longer than I have (my first manga chap I had to wait for was ch101 #before then i was anime only #so like... early 2022? i think... this sideblog was born soon after) #long post #bsd discourse #asks #opinion #my post #bsd spoilers #god ok this was in my drafts for a bit #and this post likely got significantly out of hand #however i think i just needed a place to write down my thoughts #these arent even all of them by the way #i could write a whole post on dazai alone #...and not good things

[clusterduck28]

Analyzing one line said by a gag side-character in a kids' cartoon - An Owl House Essay

Belos is supposed to know everything, but why should he know what the Titan wants? Maybe the Titan doesn't even know what he wants. Maybe he's just some normal guy, you know?

I'm just sat here, still endlessly contemplating this line delivered by Steve and its implications on the nature of religious belief in the real world. I feel like there's a pretty nuanced take that is implied there, that I don't see brought up often, not within the online spaces where theist topics are usually discussed and especially not within the context of kids' TV animation. So I'm going to try and extrapolate the implied meaning here while adding some of my own thoughts in a way that would hopefully be comprehensible but I can't necessarily guarantee that :)

Okay, so you guys know how often discussion of religion is exclusively framed around the question of Theism vs. Atheism? It always seems to boil down to the question of god's existence, he either is or he isn't. Every participant in a discussion is supposed to place themselves in one of the two camps and go die on the religion hill in the name of either god or science. This is, to my knowledge, the most common way people conceptualize all of religious discourse for themselves: there's the main question of god vs. no god and then many auxiliary questions that are less important and largely stem from your personal position on the main one.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be like this. You personally, don't have to reject and abandon your religious beliefs in order to be critical of religious institutions and recognize the historical and ongoing harm said institutions have done to society.

Bringing this back to Steve's words, his question is not necessarily about whether the titan exists, he's literally standing on its corpse, in his case it would be silly to question that. But what is not silly to question how Belos, the titan's prophet, is even able to be certain about the titan's will, if the titan himself actually has a definable will and if it's even worth following it. Because ultimately, these things are unknowable and if anyone is to claim to know them, the burden of proof is on them, especially when they stand to personally benefit from everyone taking them at their word. Belos has just as much actual proof for his bullshit about the titan as Steve does for the titan being 'a normal guy' so why does Belos get be emperor?

It's not as if Steve here independently came to some ultimate truth that is unambiguously more true than what he was told by the system he was indoctrinated into. Instead, he has just accepted and embraced that some things in life are just unknowable.

This is, of course, easier said than done because we, as people, are known to be terrified of uncertainty. In fact, many theorize that all religious/supernatural belief is a consequence of people trying to fill in holes in their understanding of the world. Why does it rain sometimes? Gods pissing from the sky. Where did we come from? God created you. Why do our loved ones have to die? It's God's will. Why the world is so cruel? God is testing you. What happens when I die? God decides your faith for the rest of eternity. And so on and so forth.

Religion is a natural consequence of human curiosity, our brains are inclined to get anxious over existential questions and religion provides simple and comforting answers to them. There's nothing wrong with that in on itself, everyone likes to feel comforted but, of course, as we al know from the real world, providing comfort is not the only thing religious institutions are capable of. In fact, they are responsible for all kinds of war, genocide, minority group persecution and other kinds of oppression. Religious leaders are known to often push their personal beliefs through the authority or their institution, justifying all kinds of horrors with the notion of 'god's will', which is not to be questioned.

But like maybe you should question it. After all, the titan didn't personally tell you his will, you only ever heard about it second hand from that Belos guy and he certainly doesn't have your best interests in mind, just look at the inhumane conditions you and your fellow scouts have to work under!

Anyway, so the point here is that it's absolutely necessary to question the authority of religious institutions, regardless of if you are religious not. Faith is an important part of many people's understanding of the world, but this shouldn't, however, be a justification for supporting harmful things practiced by religious institutions. You have the moral right to disagree with things done in the name of your faith.

For a lot of people, my younger self included, it can be quite difficult to decouple the concept of religious belief from the the religious institutions that are supposed to embody them. But separating them is actually quite important because belief is a personal matter, while social institutions are a public one. In other words, each individual is free to determine their own beliefs for themselves but the questions that have to do with determining what kinds of institutions serve society best have to be decided upon collectively. Thus, critiques that focus specifically on religious belief remain in the realm of philosophy, a field that is notorious for never having certain provable answers to any of the questions it seeks to answer, all is shrouded in uncertainty and frustrating to engage with for laymen. On the other hand, critiques of religious institutions rely primarily on historical and material analysis, they are way more grounded in reality, accessible and understandable to an average person and don't have as much ambiguity as philosophy does. It is way more productive to criticize the bad things done in the name of faith than the faith itself.

Basically, I think that this is what the creators of The Owl House are trying to get at with Steve's story and with the broader point it's building towards in general: the show is not against faith, instead it's against authoritarianism justified by faith.

#the owl houes #toh steve #the owl house analysis #toh analysis #religion #clustered writings #it's 3AM and I gave myself a migraine writing this x_x

[thirdrootwriting]

Staring at the Sun

The absolute worst thing - the thing Nicholas can't bring himself to even think about unless he's so drunk he can't even stand - is that Vash isn't actually naïve.

Of course he isn't. For all that fucker likes to whine and cry and put on a show of acting like the dumbass 20-something fool he looks like on the outside, Vash the Stampede has spent a hundred and fifty years on this hell-like dust hole of a planet with people trying to kill him on the regular. The guy is well aware what pieces of shit most humans are.

(Vash has even seen worse that what humans will do to each other. He's seen what humans would do to him.)

So no, despite what Nicholas, every gun-slinger, bounty hunter, and even Million Knives himself liked to spit at Vash in accusation, the guy isn't some naïve, sheltered little brat. It's just easier to think that than to acknowledge a guy could get filled with lead and greeted with betrayal near daily and still think all  lives were worth saving.

Nicholas gives a drunken, uncoordinated roll on the dirty floor of their motel room so that he's staring at Vash, who might be equally drunk. Even after several instances of them getting sloshed liked this, he still can't tell if Vash is really good at faking being drunk or really good at faking being sober, given how he'll seemingly snaps out of his woozy cheer the second it becomes convenient.  

Nicholas really hopes it's the first one, just for his own piece of mind.

"Hey, Spikey, you still awake?" His own voice is rough and quiet. Nicholas knows he's usually a pretty happy drunk, though he's got a tendency to get maudlin and dreary as the party winds down and the alcohol relaxes him enough to start thinking thoughts he usually knows better than to consider.

Vash, also laid out on the dirty floor, gives a little hum of acknowledgement, strangely melodic. He actually hums a lot, usually under his breath so quiet Nicholas - with his enhanced ears - is probably the only one that can hear. Sometimes it's something incomplete sounding, like a harmony missing its melody, sometimes it's a haunting but simple swooping, up-and-down rhythm, and sometimes just whatever crap they've been hearing over the radio lately.

He's never asked about that either, mostly cause Nicholas doesn’t want Vash to stop. Not so much a problem for tonight's alcohol fueled question, which is, "Why do you bother with all this crap anyway?"

He doesn't specify what crap exactly he means, cause Nicholas gives Vash  enough shit for all the stupid stunts he pulls that the guy oughta know what he's getting at - getting himself beat half to death to save some stranger, standing up to his terrifying brother, playing at being buddies with a spy and a traitor. It's a conversation they pick up and put down often, whittling away at each other trying to reach an understanding.

Vash actually sits up for  to stare at Nicholas for this question. His dumb sunglasses are who-knows-were, and his eyes are doing that stupid, faintly glowing thing in the badly lit room. Too bright, just like his teeth are too sharp and the way he moves is justly slightly wrong. Idiot.

Seeing that he's just being stared at, Nicholas clarifies, "You could just stop. You know most humans are awful if given half a chance, and we'll likely run out of resources and die in a couple more generations anyway."

Did it really matter if Knives killed them all in the next decade or so, or if humanity offed itself as they ran the Plants into the ground then starved on this planet that wasn't meant for them?

Did it really matter if Vash took his constant pitstops on their journey to save every murder, fool, and bystander that he happened to cross paths with? They'd all die someday, and the vast majority would deserve it.

Instead of answering right away, Vash scooches slightly across the floor then leans over so he's got his long lanky arms on either side of Nicholas's head.

There's a little voice in Nicholas's drunken head that whispers the best way to kill someone at close range like this is with his bare hands, to snatch one of the empty bottles from their early drinking and smash it against his target’s temple. It's easier than usual to ignore that urge, cause the person leaning over him is Vash. No need to kill him, and something like that probably wouldn’t do the job on what he is anyway. Twin comforts.

Far more pressing is whether Vash is about the kiss him. Nicholas would let him. Putting aside his own want, Nicholas would let Vash do just about anything he wants to him.

More than let actually, sometimes he'll look a Vash and the words, "What do you want? Can I give it to you",  will sit heavy behind his teeth. Nicholas's not sure if that urge is guilt, love, or a kind of pathetic thankfulness for the way Vash says, "Wolfwood”, like he's a person and a friend, even knowing what Nicholas is and how every moment of their acquaintance has been the lead-up to a betrayal.

So, no Nicholas would not mind being kissed right now. In fact, he thinks he's guessed right as Vash leans further over him, his eyes still too bright and everything about him just slightly to the left of human except for the scent of cheap alcohol they already share on their breaths.

Vash leans over and blows a raspberry on his neck, like a little kid trying to get a rise out of playmate. It sounds ridiculous in the heavy, expectant silence, and it makes Nicholas jolt with a ungraceful snort because it is goddamn ticklish.

Nicholas shoves Vash off him, and he falls back onto the motel floor with a quiet laugh. Seeing his pleased expression, Nicholas can't help thwacking him on the head, "Answer my question, don't play around, dumbass."

Still snickering softly, Vash responds, "I just did."

"Your answer is tat you bother with this pacifism crap because you like messing around?" Nicholas grumbles. He's too drunk to get angry, so the words come out more petulant than he meant them too stained by his disappointment Vash apparently won’t give him an answer -or a kiss- tonight.

Nicholas glances to his side at Vash, and instantly regrets it. Instead of snickering, he's relaxed his face into one of those devastatingly gentle smiles that he gets when he's truly happy. Being the sole focus is even worse than it felt to have Vash leaning over him, cocooning him from the rest of the world.

"I got to drink with you and hear you laugh, why wouldn’t I bother?"

Vash says with that with the same gut-deep sincerity he has that makes what should be cheesy platitudes sound like gospel truth on his lips, like several lifetimes of suffering are worth it to end up spending what is probably right near the end of his life drinking bottom shelf booze he probably can't actually get drunk on and hearing Nicholas laugh.

"Shut up and go to sleep."

Nicholas isn't drunk enough for this.

#trigun #vashwood #writing #this is somehow simutaneously set in trimax and tristamp #'i don't even really ship vashwood' i say like a liar as i write this

[antiresolution]

Killing a Ghost.

@chenosias @minseologs @liux14n

The funeral portrait of Osias disturbs him in a clinical way. Its glassy reflection mirrors the cold pose captured inside a simple wooden frame. What he knew of Osias had been built from words of others. Words alive with contradictions, rumors and facts alike creating the bold outline of an artist clever enough to outrun death after kissing its chapped lips. 

“Who’s body do you think it is?”

Wenhan’s hushed voice in a crowd of grim faces doesn’t stop the warning stab of Minseo’s heel into the leather toe of one shoe. Minseo’s hands go to his tie after she sets flowers on a table of offerings. He stares at the bouquet of gold chrysanthemums now decorating plates of food and handwritten notes. 

“It doesn’t matter, dear.” 

Externally they paint the picture of a well-fitting couple, and always circle each other in a silent dance of disagreement. Tension that would dissolve into bickering on the ride home before Minseo blew out speakers with tchaikovsky loud enough to rattle his fucking teeth. 

They lock eyes when she tightens the knot at his throat. 

“It should," he murmurs. 

Someone would always pay the price from an abandoned past, and part of that cost appears as dark circles under his brother’s curiously alert eyes. Wenhan entertains strangers with a facade of charm if only to give Xian and Jun a moment of reprieve from an unending line of shallow condolences and the weight of grief. Always lingering a few paces behind his brother like some ghostly shadow. He watches the pride holding Xian’s posture upright sink the moment they’re both out of the main room. Witnesses the shudder of truth cross Xian’s features from the reflection in the bathroom mirror. The moment Xian notices Wenhan, he straightens up, as if nothing had broken free. 

“Nice of you to show your face, ge.” 

Wenhan notices the knife edge on the tip of Xian’s tongue. Bitterness over his absence, maybe. Swelling anger with no one to give it to, more likely. But he doesn’t bother to return the blow. He stands beside his brother, fumbling with the other’s lapel. Xian stands stiff, but doesn’t move or protest as Wenhan pins a white lily to the front of his suit. The last time he’d held his brother’s grief, he’d been a child. They both were. Now the questions lining Xian’s face decorates a sharp gaze with the power to bring a world to its knees instead of a child’s eyes looking to him for answers. Now that he knew the truth, he chose to hide it.

“It’s not your fault.” Wenhan's voice shifts when he speaks in Mandarin. Losing such carefully masked control for a softer honesty. Xian’s eyes drift from his face. “Let’s eat together after, huh. All of us.” 

“How long are you staying?”

Xian is looking at him again. This time it’s wenhan’s turn to avoid a prying gaze as he spins on his heel to walk them both back into the funeral hall. The truth is he’d been gone in a week. It wasn’t safe to show his face publicly for too long. Not unless he wanted to give his father an idea of who to threaten, and where to strike. 

And the lie? 

“As long as you need me.”

– 

An oncoming chill from rain taps at his bones and forces him awake walking the Dongmun market just after dawn. He looks at lines of fish hanging like a rainbow of kites, then wastes time picking at mandarins wrapped in boxes for tourists. Following the scent of eggs and butter leads him to a display lined with steamed buns and walnut cakes. He hides his smile when the young woman working the stall ignores him. Yuqin had chopped her hair to her ears since last month after swearing this time she’d grow it out long enough for a braid. He could see the constellation of moles leading from her neck to her cheeks.

“I’d like three pineapple buns.”

She doesn’t even look up from rearranging the rice cakes to fill holes caused by hungry hands. There’s a plate of the desired crisp bread next to her elbow. 

“I’m all out, sorry.”

“Maybe some dried plums, then, jie.” 

Her eyes narrow on him when he switches into Cantonese. “How many…” 

“Just one bag.” Yuqin stares down Wenhan’s cat grin. “You owe me.”

“If I’d known I’d have your foot on my throat, I would’ve taken my chances staying in Guangzhou.” She tosses a few bags of plums into a basket, boxing random pastries and fruit. Inside one box would be a cz85 pistol. Another box would conceal a half full magazine. “Do you even have money to pay me? Heard you quit the circus.” Still, she lets him take it without a fight. 

Wenhan watches her use sign language after a group of men walk by. He pulls down the rim of his ball cap when one of them glances at the stall.

‘I won’t be here next time you need me. It’s not safe anymore’

“I thought you hated dried plums.” Yuqin’s gaze is heavy with unspoken questions.

Yet hate wasn’t the right word. Guns bored him. His mother taught him about concealing knives as well as ballet. Maybe he’d inherited her distaste for bullets like the sharp slope of her nose and eyes.

“I thought you swore you’d stop selling them.”

Yuqin swore she’d have her peace. Open a bakery, adopt a stupid dog, live a simple life. And here they both were, still running from the same fate with a different face. Wenhan smiles even knowing they might not see each other again. At least not alive. He lets his feet carry him out of the marketplace, filling his shoes with beach sand and rocks. Keeping his head down to escape curious looks from fisherman and divers. He wouldn’t have much time to search Osias’ boat, and he didn’t need Minseo hearing about his trip from anyone else. Anyone on this island could be part of her business, and he would never know everything. 

What free wall space the boat’s lower cabin has is decorated with few photographs and loose handed sketches. Xian would hate to see his face on full display, even if it was a smiling face next to Jun and candids of strangers. Still, the idea of his younger brother's annoyance is enough to tug lips into a half-smile that disappears when he kicks aside empty take out boxes. 

So this is what one face of peace looked like. Isolated in a dungeon by the sea with the comforting smell of shit to sleep next to. 

Wenhan knocks at baseboards, listening for a dull echo. Any clues to hidden compartments holding weapons, money, drugs. Anything more to look at besides useless sentimental nothings. Something to make it worth the paranoia that drove him here. Worth the decisive weight in his decision to erase the liability Osias had become.

Yet all he finds is a simple notebook. Its pages were already gutted with writing. Decorated with graceful words that didn’t match Wenhan’s opinion of a reckless junkie. He thumbs through confessions as if it were his own diary, ignoring how initial disappointment ebbs away. Replaced instead with curiosity he would deny. 

Then the floor creaks, and Wenhan sways to avoid the second body barreling inside the cabin. The diary is lost under two pairs of wrestling feet, and he feels the slice of a blade in his side before he sees Osias. They greet each other with the shock of widened eyes and spitting curses. Wenhan keeps Osias’ wrist twisted away from what would have been a lethal stab at his gut.

“What the fuck–” 

“I liked this shirt…” he bites into the complaint as his side throbs. He hadn't been stabbed in a while. How annoying. How– 

Fun.

“What are you even here for– shit. You fucking stalker.” 

“What for…?” Wenhan blinks, as if he were as innocent as a child. Then he’s sucking in a breath, hissing between his teeth as he clamps a hand over his side. He could only hope the wound was shallow. “You’re the one that said I should visit.”

“Maybe I was being fucking facestious, bro.” 

They stand there, mirroring a strange calmness in each other that doesn’t match the shed of blood pooling hot and slick under Wenhan’s palm. Osias had been shocked, but his face didn’t carry the same surprise. As if he had been waiting for a threat to manifest. It could have been anyone.

“Answer.”

“I came here to kill you.” The confession is said simply, without hesitation or a flicker in expression. It would be easy to snap that thin neck between his hands. Take the boat out far enough and dump a body no one would even be looking for. Simple to have its insides cleaned and returned to Minseo’s docks as if it had never been gone. Everyone back home was already mourning, and he’d just give them a good reason for the grief. 

Then, Wenhan laughs. 

“Could you imagine? That’s so stupid. Too anticlimactic.”

Osias doesn’t say anything, but gapes soundless pain when Wenhan launches a knee into his gut. The knife spins into a dark corner. He uses the brief shock to move out of reach and closer to the exit. Osias leans against the opposite end of the boat, hunched as if he were prepared to swing, but neither of them move. 

“I brought you something.” Wenhan tilts his head towards the basket of pastries and fruit.

“I don’t want anything from you... Jesus, you just can’t say anything straight can you.”

“It’s for when you move on.” Wenhan never believed this plan would work, not for long. “Somewhere Minseo can’t protect you.” Or when she decides this isn’t worth the trouble. 

Osias glances at the blood soaking between his fingers. There’s a beat of hesitation, then he rolls his eyes.

“Whatever… sit down, ya cryptic asshole. Or bleed outside if you want." Osias is already digging inside a small cabinet “--or bleed out if you want.”

If it’s pride that roots his feet to the floor and keeps him standing, he’d blame morbid curiosity for sinking down into a chair and pulling up his bloody shirt. 

Osias almost immediately presses a cloth into his side after the bored assessment. Wenhan feels the burn of antiseptic and grinds his teeth, nearly not catching the mutter. “Jie would kill me for this.” 

“She would, because she’s kind. You should worry about Xian when he figures out your stupid plan.” Wenhan watches Osias’ face carefully as he murmurs,  “for someone that writes so much about being better off dead, you try really hard not to die.” 

He half expects Osias to stab him twice if that glare was any sort of warning. But the other stays quiet as he works, and Wenhan focuses on the drawings over walls after failing to earn a reaction. For a moment, he could recognize the peace Osias chased in this sort of silence. Isolation and freedom could be one and the same. 

What was far more cruel than death lived in the consequences of free will. Neither of them would admit they recognized the same sort of cruelty in each other. An identical selfishness. The fact they would always choose themselves over anyone else. 

When Wenhan starts laughing to himself, seemingly at nothing, Osias threatens to throw him into the sea if he keeps fucking fidgeting.

Killing a ghost is knowing what it means to live under its skin. 

#On the special edition disk of this movie there's bts of minseo and wenhan arguing over chopin and girls generation #I've become a cryptid big foot

[slautertm]

everyone else her age tonight is at homecoming. everyone else is laughing, trying to sneak booze into the stupid school punch--- but not stephanie lauter. she has... a different sort of date in mind.

her phone was left in the car, the buzzing messages from brenda and stacy, even grace were too much - that had been too much and steph needed to focus- how long she has before someone comes wandering past the waylon hall, be it the people meant to repair this shit hole for the new owners, or cleaners or the cops, she does not have time for distractions, for half assed claims that they miss her, lies of it being lame without her ( lies - they won't even notice her being gone and that's exactly what stephanie lauter is banking on. )

every instinct in her head was arguing with her not to do this and if she thinks too hard, she can hear his hesitance and fear when they first had- she's tempted hell once, who the fuck was foolish enough to tempt it twice? not everyone, however, was desperate to grab onto something, anything to do other than sit in grief and guilt- she had done that for the past few days and it was solving nothing. she needed action. she needed a chance. she needed to try lest she hate herself forever-

-but try and try as she did, going from speaking to screaming the ritual over and over again, the void did not welcome her, it did not respond, it did not breathe or show a sign. at least it appeared to not have. at least until she heard a cold familiar voice.

it was more of a scolding and a scoff that she got in her head, not even a full appearance of the god though she could have sworn she saw something behind her--- pete was not dead, or rather, he was far from gone, the god had said and hope had oh so briefly filled her despite the scene she had seen with her eyes, but he was being taken care of- a tease, more than anything, for when she asked what she would have to do to get him back she had been knocked to her knees by the sheer loud laughter that seemed to echo the walls and then fade in to a slow, soft, tick before the answer came ---

nothing.

...then she was alone. or at least she thought she was alone. if she would have sensed that someone else was lingering she wouldn’t have had the less than pleasant outburst she had, tears slipping from her eyes for the first time since that night, these tears more rage filled and more pointed at herself and their his her choice at the fact that this thing wouldn’t even listen to her and was mocking, that her idea ( which she knew was sour in the first place )a simple trade, her for him, was not even heard, at her hunger to do something, anything about this- there had to be something that she could do, because she knew she would do anything for the split chance of undoing time.

and it was that hunger that she believes brought the other to give her an ear, answers to the questions asked and unasked, and an offer… or the tease of one, and the promise to linger-

just how far are you willing to go? and just how messy, how much are you willing to devour?

tldr — in the aftermath of nerdy prudes in which steph shoots pete, unable to ‘live her life to the fullest’ the late mayors daughter who holds possession of the black book attempts resummons the lords in black to make a deal to bring back pete. no deal is struck but two gods answer- one to mock. one to tempt. and they linger still

#{ V~ borrowed time } #pete dies timeline One #the Drama version #but yes i am dropping this on my ten then leaving muh hahaha #will try to do this with all my verses #nerdy prudes must die spoilers tw /// #npmd spoilers tw //

[n-amelessart]

Absconding Hero

[Fantasy, 1512 words]

When I came to it only took a moment to determine that I was not, in fact, dead. The Home of Lords would never be this bitterly cold, nor would I still be sore from my unfortunate encounter with the mountain’s wildlife. Sitting up against the violent protests from my body, I took note of my surroundings.

The room is small, hardly enough space for even one person to live in. The lower half of the walls are packed dirt and wooden restraining walls carved with holy words. The only things here are what could be called generously a door that stopped the wind and snow, the cot I was am laying down on and a wooden pack frame with a bedroll and neatly tied up sacks that presumably holds everything else a person would need to live on a mountain. Trying to stand proved to be a terrible idea, my whole body feels like it is getting struck by a hammer over and over in time with my heartbeat. Pulling off my gown which had been modified for the cold was an ordeal that left me sweating in spite of the cold, but I needed to see the extent of my injuries.

Bruises and angry red scratches cover most of my body with a single massive bruise that has turned the entirety of my left shoulder, chest and neck nasty shades of black, blue, purple, yellow and green. Considering the cause, I am in remarkably good shape. Something with the bruise on my chest caught my eye, a reddish brown pattern is barely visible amongst the more violent colorations. It took several moments of peering at the symbols before I realized that these are holy words, that knowledge immediately identifying the words even though I could only see them upside-down. That would explain why I am not dead. Figuring that what I need most of right now is rest, I slowly pulled back on my gown and arranged myself the best I could on the cot. It was perhaps fifteen minutes of doing nothing except for attempting to sleep while withstanding wave after wave of constant pain before the “door” to the have buried room opened.

“You’re awake,” it was said as a statement rather than a question.

Opening my eyes, I saw the man who saved me. Though he could have been mistaken for a burly mountain man, there are hints of a completely different man beneath the heavy coats and unkempt hair. His posture, gaze and stride are all too tempered for him to have spent his life in the wilderness. He stood out of arms reach checking my physical condition with a critical and I suspected he was calculating how likely it is that I jump out of the cot and stab him.

“Thank you,” my voice rough. “Relax yourself, I mean you no harm. Not  before you saved me and especially not now.”

He is clearly still skeptical but he closed the door behind him then crossed the room to the simple hearth, sitting on the ground back against the wall facing me in the cot.

“Who sent you?”

“The Servants of the Lords sent me and three other groups out into these mountains. I was separated from my group... How long have I been recovering? Three days before then was when we lost each other.”

“How many people per unit?” He asked, ignoring my question.

“Will you hurt them?

“I won’t kill them.”

“... each group was dispatched with three apprentices and two squires.”

He fell silent for a time, thinking. Eventually, he reached over to his pack frame and pulled out a handful of dry sticks which he tossed onto the embers. One after another, the wood caught fire, growing into a proper hearth.

“The answer is clear, but you must say it,” he said breaking the silence. “What is the Servants’ purpose for sending you here?”

He did not turn to face me when he asked this and he kept any emotion behind a face that would have been called expressionless if it were not so tired.

“We are tasked with bringing you back so that you can fill your role.”

Sighing, he stood back up and grabbed his pack frame, slinging it over his shoulder.

“You’ll fully recover by winter’s end so stay here until then. There is a hole under the cot with enough food to get you through the season if you ration it out properly.”

“You won’t stay? Is this not your home?”

“I’ll make another. Somewhere the Servants can not find.”

Craning my neck to watch him leave was horribly painful so I gave up, dropping my head back down to rest and instead speaking.

“Why do you run?” Immediately, I regretted saying anything. The tension that filled the small room pushed away my pain momentarily and replaced it with a nervous cold sweat. All at once, every warning I was given about this man came rushing back. Stories of his bloody escapes, rumors of his skill with a sword and the implicitly understood power he wields as the Chosen.

“Run?”

I held my breath.

“Tell me, young squire of the Lords,” his voice holding an edge I did not want to test. “Do the Lord’s Laws apply to all? Are there any exceptions to the Laws?”

“No, there are no exceptions.”

“None at all?”

“Not even the Lords can disobey the Laws.”

“Now tell me what the Gifts are.”

“I... I do not follow. Where is it you are going with these questions””

“Young squire, the first and greatest Gift the Lords bestowed upon their creations is Separation. Distinction of oneself from another. That is why the Lords number in the dozens, the people are millions and why I am not you and you are not me. If not for this fact, there would be no Laws to break or Transgressions to commit as there would be no Other to hurt. That is the faith I grew from child to adulthood with and the faith I held when I condemned myself to a life of war as a solider, to save Another from the wounds war inflicts upon the innocent. So why then, is there a Chosen? Why, young squire?”

“Being Chosen is a gift granted from the Lords,” my answer calculated but true to the teachings. “Strength beyond mortal man to quell Transgressors and divide the Lingering One.”

“Was that not what I was doing? Going to war to stop those very sins? To protect Another from Transgressors?” He moved away from the door and into my line of sight, his expression exhausted despite the hard strength in his voice. “I did not ask to be Chosen, it is not something I had decided for myself. Rather, the Lords themselves are the ones who burdened me with a fate, a life not their own to direct as they wish. Young squire, I am a devoted man but my Distinction has been taken from me by those I have no hope of freeing myself from. The Lords have broken their own Laws while I still cling to them. Let it be known that I am not trying to sway your faith, I only wish for you to understand why I must never take up this mantle of Chosen. My faith will continue as will my prayers, regardless the fact that who hears them now is not known to me. 

“When the season ends and you can return to the Servants, tell them that it is my unshaken faith that keeps the Chosen away. Label me a heretic, but I shall meet my end with more devotion to our faith than the Lords themselves. May your recovery be swift and painless. With luck, we shall never meet again.”

Again he stood and again he made to leave.

“Wait.”

“Did I not just make myself very clear?”

“As you refuse the responsibility, you should return the sword so that it may be given to another.”

“That piece of metal can be wielded by myself alone, though you are welcome to take it if you can. It is buried in a meadow directly east of here, at the foot of the boulder.”

“You... you buried the Sword of the Lady?”

“It never stays buried for long, the thing has a despicable tendency to move on its own. Again, please take it if you can.”

With that, he stepped out into the snow and cold, shutting the door to leave me in a tiny room with nothing more than a weak fire, a cot and supposedly a store of food beneath me. His words sank in uncomfortably, so I pushed them out with prayer. A prayer for my health, a prayer for the other squires and apprentices, a prayer for a swift winter and a prayer for summer to come before spring. I did not want to recount the Chosen’s words back the Servants, my stomach churning at the thought of it alone. May luck favor me, a demotion would be horribly embarrassing.

#character #character dialogue #chosen hero #chosen one #chosen one trope #creative writing #dialogue #fantasy #fantasy story #fantasy writing #fiction #fiction writing #hero #knight #original characters #original story #magic #magic system #magic words #reluctant hero #soldier #subversion #story #storytelling #story telling #short story #swords #swords and magic #warrior #world building

[popculturebuffet]

Watchmen Issue by Issue Finale: A Stronger Loving World (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

The clock has struck midnight. Armageddon has been prevented.. but it took armageddon to do it. But questions linger, questions that may never get a satsifactory answer as we enter the final chapter of one of the greatest comic books of all time.

This has been an intresting experiment. While Kev came up with the idea and bankrolled it, it was still intresting to go through watchmen again and i'm coming out of the other side with a new appreciation for the work: the style, the sheer beauty and mastery in Gibbons art and layouts, and just how precise the story is. Like a watch some guy throws out a window because he thinks nuclear physics is a better thing for his son to take up and isn't good with Subtely. It's been a long, intresting project and i'm sad to see it over, but happy I did it. This comic is everything it's built up to be and more. IT dosen't mean i'm done with Watchmen, as I still have a movie to get to and I may return one day to cover one of the sequels or prequels. We'll have to see how I feel and what time brings. But this is still the end of a project that while I wish was more cohesive I don't regret taking on. Taking a nice slow look helped me see all the intricate wonder of this comic and I won't trade that for anything. I AM glad that the next year long patreon project Kev has for me is, while once again a massive tonal shift, FAR lighter in both covering it and in tone, but that dosen't mean it's bittersweet getting to the end of this one. So let's watch one last time as our heroes have failed.. and have to decide what they can do next… and if they should.

We open with easily one of the most horrifying sequences i've ever seen in a comic, possibly ever: just six straight pages of horror as we see giant tentacles strewn about dozens of corpses. Half of New York, as Adrian later puts it, is dead. And in the middle a horrifying alien face… and a familiar blue one as Dr. Manhattan arrives just after everyone is dead. Turns out there was some interfernce, but it wasn't the bombs going off like he thought: something cough adrian cough kept him from looking here. Laurie for her part.. can barely look at it and given i'm just seeing it on page I can't imagine what seeing all this up close, the smells, the sounds… or possible deathly quite.. just thinking about it has me about to collapse in horror. Jon takes her away from this and to his credit, he actually realizes it may of been bad taste to pontifcate on the how while surrounded by horses. HIs character growth from realizing humanity's worth.. has stuck.

Back at the fortress our two heroes have taken diffrent approaches to the news: Dan is in DEEEEEEP denial while Shackles fully buys it: Adrian isn't lying. Even the holes all add up as Adrian gleefully fills them in: the brain was from a young psychic, simply bloated and weaponized by Adrians people. The assians bullet? Well he can catch those. How he did it? Simple: Lethal informatoin: alien worlds, sounds: anyone not dead of the psychic shockwave will be driven mad. And anyone who was involved.. is dead. Killed by assasians or Adirans own plans. That leaves dan in the uninveable position of asking "What happens to us?" which is NEVER a question you want to ask when your hip deep in a supervillian layer after the evil genius at the heart of it just laid out how he killed any other person who could possibly out his plan.

Thankfully hope arrives in all it's naked blue glory as Jon shows up outside.. and leaves Laurie out there because he's still a dick just only mostly a dick now. And he quickly lets himself in, leaving Adrian to soil himself as he tries to use a death trap and a kitty cat. He then murders HIS OWN KITTY BUBASTIS to trap Jon, using the same machine that made him to try and kill him.

Honestly out of all the horrible crimes he's commited, this one is up there. Seconds later Laurie confronts him with a gun and nearly shoots him dead. He DOES catch the bullet like he said he could.. but his next line is telling

He's lost control. He's gone from plans he know will work with deadly efficency.. to barely keeping ahead of his foes. He launches into yet ANOTHER monologue after dan understandably gets pissed about him shooting laurie and tell shim to grow up. That superheroics have no place i his new world and that he's the outer god and.. wait what's that your all looking at?

As satisfying as it is though, seeing Jon utterly wreck this smug bastards day…. it sadly dosen't last. In any other superhero story Jon would likely kick his ass, find some way to turn him in and our heroes, while living in a still tense would, would find a better one. Instead.. Adrian simply flips on his giant tv wall which is somehow also a massive chekovs gun, as it shows our heroes.. that his plan worked. Tensions have ceased between the US and USSR, focusing on a new threat instead. Adrian reacts with all the grace and subtley you'd expect at this point

There is some depth here: The tear down his cheek, a hold over from the previous panel, shows that there's some part of him, however arrogant that was worried this woudln't work. That no matter what he did no matter how many dogs he kicked and cats he murdered that this woudn't work. But i'ts quickly overrid by him sliding into how he's going to fix the world, and smugly assuming he's going to get away with all this. It shows Adrian's true colors: While he plays this as being for the world and what not.. he really did it for his own ego. He did genuinely want to save the world.. but he had to do it in a way that showed what a clever clever boy he is. It's the only reason he just didn't fire missles at Dan and Rorshach and be done with it: He needed SOMONE to gloat to. Someone to brag about how only he could pull this off. How he did all the pieces. To revel in his "genius". Sure he hid all the evidence.. but it meant nothing if he didn't get to lay it all out. His gloating comes off as well planned as everything else. Even Dr. Manhattan, as scared as he clearly was, had a counter ready for him.

It's what makes Adrian's plan and genuine hope ring hollow: to him those half a city's worth of people he gruesomely murdered, the islanders he slaughtered, the scientests he poisoned, even his good boy sweet boy kitty cat, they were all acceptable losses. All for his grand masterstroke. Adrian posed a question to day last issue: "What do you think I am, some kind of republic serial villian?"

Just because Adrian WON dosen't make him any less of a super villian. It's the great irony of the work: Watchmen was a world with maybe one super criminal but no one who could really stand up to dr. manhattan for long or who really deserved the title.. and when it got one he was too good at his job. He made the heroes seemingly obsolete. Adrian Veidt.. is a monster. And i'ts summed up all too well from some lyrics I love, from the Run the Jewels Song "A Few Words for the Firing Squad"

I used to wanna get the chance to show the world i'm Smart Isn't that Dumb? I Shoudl've focused Mostly on the HEart Cause I seen Smarter People Trample Life Like It's an Art So Bein smart ain't waht it used to be that's fuckin dark.

That's Adrian: Trampling life like it's an art and bragging about it like he just did his piscasso.

Our heroes though are stuck:

This again dosen't make Adrian right… it just means they can't stop him. They do.. and this was all for nothing. They don't and they still have to live with letting a mass murderer get away. No one wins. Rorshach disagrees.. but even then it's hard to take him seriously. So dan and Laurie find solace in each other, with Laurie just a sobbing mess… to her after seeing all that carnage nothing matters.. nothing.. except love. Except comfort. Except the two of them. She just needs something to make sense and to her, Dan does. She may of left.. but it was only to try and save us all. Now.. she has all she needs.

Rorshach.. does not get such a happy ending. Pun unintended. He plans to leave.. but Jon stops him. Even the faint chance of him threatning things is too much. And shockingly despite often being such an unlikeable pirck.. Rorshach's death.. is probably the saddes, most powerful in this entire work.

Yes he's being stubborn, yes he's not a great person… but at th eend of the day… despite all he got wrong over his crusade he's right. He's ultimately the only person willing to tell the truth, that as Adrian pointed out no one would believe anyway, and he's paying for it. What's one more corpse among the foundations? And while I don't like Rorshach I will admit his death.. was on his own terms. Pulling down the mask so Jon had to look him in the eye, tears streaming down knowing this was it and sad tha tthe truth seemingly dies with him. I haven't hid how much I hate this man, the fact he spews out tons of right wing propoganda and has only gotten more horribly relevant as a charcter with age as a result dosen't realyl help.. but I can pitty him as he explodes in the snow, cold alone and in his mind the only one who could do right. He didn't compromise in the face of armageddon, held fast to who he was.. and it amounted to sadly little: the conpsiracy he worked to unravel won, life goes on and he's just one last ink blot in blood on the snow to be washed away along with any legacy. His life is just.l.. a sad one.. a traumatized man who needed help, refused to take it… and ended his story in tragedy instead of moving on. We get a sweet moment as Jon heads back inside.. and smiles at Dan and Laurie. BEfore he was detached from the stiuation, ressigned to it.. but now.. he's just happy she's happy at last. He goes to talk to adrian, and while he regained his intrest in humanity he's leaving.. but leaves his "friend" with some advice

This is the true hell for Adrian Veidt and a satisfying conclusion: He WON.. but there's no guarnatee his peace is the eternal world peace he smugly thought ti'd be. That any of this lasts. He wanted to be a better alexander.. but there's no guarnatee it won't go up in ruins> And wether it does or not the possiblity will forever haunt him. And i'm going to enjoy it

We cut to a few months later: it's Christmas! Huh I forgot this ended on Christmas. We wrap up Dan and Laurie's story as they visit her mom under assumed identities. She reveals what she learned.. and as her mother apologizes she says.. it's okay. She gets sometimes the worlds messed up and you do things you can't admit to people. And it's okay. She never did wrong by her. It's a ncie message of not blaming a victim or blaming someone for a moment of weakness. Just letting it pass. Laurie and Dan baanter ab it happy while Laurie prepares to put on a gimp mask and gun like her old man.

I'll admit the message here is kinda.. fucked that Laurie will be more like her dad.. who was a pretty awful person… I can't tell if she's reclaming it for herself or their implying it's a good thing. And maybe tha'ts the point.

So the world goes on, the newstand is replaced by a booth, and at the fronteirsman… a clueless intern trying to find some content to fill for his asshole jingoist boss.. finds the journal. About to publish it. What does it do? Well.. that's up to you. As a wise naked man once said.. it's never over. What happens next is in your hand

Or in the sequels but.. we'll table those for now and I question why make them as this endings ambigiuity is what makes it work: We don't know if this Journal will destroy everything or just be dismissed as writing. If dan and laurie's new careers work out. What JOn's new life will be. And that's the point. As he said.. it's never over. life moves on.. and what happens next for better or worse. .is out of my watch

Watchmen is a masterpiece. That statment isn't at all new, but revisiting it has made me see just how masterfully i'ts put totgether. It's not to say it's without fault but most are with age: The sexual assault stuff is handelded very poorly, Laurie feels mildly underwitten compared to the male cast a lot of the time, the handling of gay people is bleh, and some of the language used is sur eis from the 1980s. LIke a lot of comic books, parts of it have aged like old tissue paper, but what keeps it despite it's issues.. is the central themes; of looming war, of what superheros can really do about it and of the beauty of just being alive and how it can be takena way from us. Watchmen has perserved for a reason. Like Dan and Laurie it may of aged a bit.. but it's still got a long ways to go. Did it need sequels or prequels? Probably not, but we can analyize tha tanother day. For now… the clock is ticking past midnight and while the comic is over.. there's one last show to catch. So thank you for reading this, i'l lbe collecting all these reviews shortly.. .I just have a movie to review first. Yes next time we take a look at Zac Snyders watchmen and see if it's that bad. Until then… smile, even in the face of armageddon.

#watchmen #dc comics #alan moore #doctor manhattan #ozymandis #nite owl #silk spectre #rorschach #dave gibbons #comics #limited series

[winterlovesong1]

Winter Rewatched Nancy Drew

Welcome to my first rewatch of my current favorite comfort show ❤️ Under the cut are my thoughts and a few insights I hope you enjoy - I’ll be going through each episode and posting these periodically with the tag winter rewatched Nancy Drew.

2x14 The Siege of the Unseen Specter

Onto my unofficial section - the unpacking of the episode title - 

We love a multi layer title here in this house and this one is no exception - it’s the isolation of Nancy and her unseen specter - this episode pushing her to the brink with her and the leech that’s attached itself to her back, making her feel more alone, and desolate, and questioning every decision and every move because it all feels wrong - it all feels like she’s going against the grain of who she is but at the same time she can’t help it - it’s like she knows the dark waters are dangerous but she swims toward them, deeper down, and can’t be stopped.

It’s the capture of opinions and biases - those unseen specters if you will - and pushing those to the brink - exposing them - showing them in the light and unequivocally saying change needs to happen.

And then it’s also George, it’s also Ace this episode, both literally inhabited by a specter - and trying to seize what is going on and how can we solve it.

Overall MVP

Nick and Nancy definitely owned this episode. And the actors respective performances were outstanding. 

Most Heartfelt Moment

I love when the unlikely pairings of this show get showcased and the George and Ace of it all just filled my heart with so much joy. Yes, Ace was inhabited by a spirit for the majority of the episode, but that hug and honest, vulnerable conversation at the end - oh my goodness. I cried. Already in an emotional state, that hug and George being open to say to her friend please just don’t tell anyone and Ace, of course, having the integrity to accept. Their friendship is something so pure - because they are sort of the outliers - they are the friend of the friend arguably. But sometimes that “friend of the friend” can be your most trusted friend - they are the ones that can be the most honest with you - and you feel comfortable being open with them because they don’t have the bias or preconceived notions that come with being your best friend.

Best Overall Line

Ok, you can guess from my writing style I love a simple, yet profound moment and this episode had so many. Scattered amongst the monologues and deep unpacking, there were quiet moments that really resonated with me.

Tamura: “I wasn’t here then.” Nick: “You’re here now.” It’s not about whether you were present in the past. It’s about the action you take in the moment, in the now. It’s also not dismissing it because you weren’t there. You’re here now. So what now?

Nick: “Please. Please, just tell us the truth.” I cried. Tunji slayed. Just the emotion - the plea - behind asking, begging for the truth. I can’t...

Nancy: “Are you ok?” Nick: “No” And then this - I cried harder. Even it’s toward the end, after the resolution, or quasi resolution because there’s really no finality to this episode, there’s just an ending, which mirrors this dialogue in a way. It’s a question and rather than your typical tied up with a ribbon answer, it’s the opposite - it’s the truth - as alluded to earlier - and it’s no, actually I’m not ok. None of this is ok. Again, crying...

Best Comedic Moment

Most of the comedy fell in the scope of Aunt Mei and while this line is funny, I also think it’s also poignant- which isn’t that life? The humorous and the serious intermingling in a concoction of wonder and truth.

“It’s not a path if it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a hole in the ground.”

Scare Rating

I mean, with the social commentary, I’d say arguably scarier than any supernatural ghosts. 

Side Note: I love when a supernatural show can bring some weight to real life happenings - you think oh fun show with ghosts, they can’t do this...but they do - and Nancy Drew does it pretty well in my opinion - it’s still a teen show so nothings perfect, but still...

Nace Slow Burn Rating

I always watch these episodes and go “oh this is THIS episode” and this was no exception - however my second thought going into it that I want to note in this section was “ok, but where’s my Nace locked in one room episode season four?”

So, Nace are kept apart for most of the episode, but I think that makes the ending when they are briefly together, the seperated, all the more poignant. 

This episode deals with unpacking those unseen things, those ideas or notions that crawl beneath the surface and influence our behavior and our opinions. And what a strategic theme to utilize in this back half of season two, the later half of the season in a post I couldn’t lose you world, post dangling off a ledge, post seeing each other with their corresponding persons they are dating and noticing, hmm, all those intense feelings that rushed up in a heated moment of panic and fear, yeah, those are pretty real and stagnant and don’t seem to be going anywhere. So yes, let’s unpack those unseen things and really examine what’s going on.

Nancy has lost herself completely. She’s adrift and even with last episode’s I just want to know you’re ok reach out on Ace’s part, it didn’t matter, she already pre-dismissed his worry, already calculated she didn’t need his help.

No matter how much she wants it. Because she’s not really deciding here...is she...

And as the pastor says at the end of the episode, “doesn’t seem like you” - it’s just another person showing a mirror up to Nancy saying what she’s been feeling. That she’s disappeared. But how? The mystery is, she doesn’t know - why or how to return to shore.

And then we have Ace who’s working through is own identify (really what the whole season is about) and so it’s comical yes he gets inhabited by a ghost, but it’s also just another layer in the who you are saga.

So with someone who’s asking a lot of questions of himself and the other who really is searching for where she went wrong, when they come together in the end, it’s him trying to be strong, to put up a front from all the occurred in the past two episodes, and say, let’s just make this moment great, let’s smile and hold her close and maybe that will be enough.

Being here will be enough.

But then she retreats because the comfort and ease of the moment are too much, they cut against the grain on her skin and she can’t - she can’t be here with him - with her family and friends - and act like everything is ok.

Not when she feels like falling apart.

Not when every decision she makes feels like the wrong one and yet she can’t help but say yes to them all.

Not when she’d rather make one wish on her birthday and have that wish come true.

I think we are above a rating system now but for argument sake, 10/10.

Favorite Fashion Moment

If I didn’t give it to Aunt Mei’s glasses, I mean…the shame…

Also I love when Ace wears his short sleeve shirt over the long sleeve - that man’s got some fashion choices and we love it.

Missing Moment Drabble

Posted here

#winter rewatched nancy drew #nace #tv: nancy drew

[ducknotinarow]

[NinaBrook] 👨 [or send father if no emjoi]

| Send 👨 to talk to my muses father [Previous]

"Brook stops with the face you're still recovering after all, and I've learned to be more careful now." Nina went to carry on about she wasn't even looking at her sister to see thier expression but she didn't in order to know that Brook had her brow furrowed up in a, not of concern. A sad gloss over those big wide doe eyes and her lips tugged into a pout. Ever since Nina lost her arm she hadn't been on a mission alone or without her dad or Brook. But Brook was still healing from getting that hole blown into her chest. Meaning no mission for some time. Dad was already off taking care of something else leaving the Stargent to fill in the Super soldier role needed. Trying not to focus too much on the fact of being a replacement or fill in for Steve as Nina was carrying one of the sakes full of supplies to the quinjet tossing it over to one of the agents without much care about how the heavy bundle in thier own hold made them stumble a bit, as she turned around to face her sister now. "Hey, worry wort I'll be okay alright? there ain't no big fights happening this time they just need muscle in case infiltrations to go wrong that's a simple in-and-out mission for me. I'll be back to prank you enough to wish I was still gone alright?" Brooklyn look a little more okay once that was all said and done Nina just sighed softly. "Sis don't worry I'll be fine I promise I'll be extra careful even for your sake will that ease your worries some?" Waiting for her sister to answer Nina just gently tapped her fist against her sister giving them a 'playful' punch there. "I'll see you when I get back so just keep track of everything that goes on well I'm okay," Nina said turning on her heels as she made her way onto the jet now waving her hand. ---- Timing for Nina on this mission had to be a god-sent however seeing how not too long after Steve returned from his own. Agents and Steve bring in a truck's worth of men with them, they had been helping to smuggle in weapons and likely more from a Hyrda operation. Ever since heroes like the Avengers became far more normalized in the world it opened up new problems. People scavenge battle zones long after the fights to claim items left behind or not taken care of by the new clean-up crews created by Stark Industries. A raising issue they have been needing to crack down on especially when people like hydra started getting on this hiring people to gather up stuff for them and help smuggle it around under the Avenger's eyes. People like Arturo. He got lucky once before when Captain America was part of a mission that involved one of his jobs but not so much this time. Seem they were better informed on what to look for. The Captian stepping out to help relay information on the mission part of Arturo felt like he was standing on a boat right now. He had run into her not too long ago so he knew now who the Stargent was..what if she was here now? She worked with Captian America after all right? Was it an Avenger? Was his first thoughts as they had the men standing outside the truck made to wait? They were going to question them all before turning them over to the cops to deal with from there. Arturo wasn't sure f he should count himself lucky when the only young woman to come towards Captian America was a blonde midget. But any sigh of relief to come from him to clue in that maybe Nina wasn't here was quickly sucked back in when the girl looked at the men lined up against the truck he recognized her from that day at the country fair. From how wide her eyes widen seemed she recognized him right away too. A shove against his back told him it was his turn to go, as Captain America glanced toward him now as well. He just kept his head low and looked to the ground.

-- Agent speaking to him across a cold metal table had a file set out in front of him. Accounts of previous jobs he had taken through Hydra not that Arturo was being all that corruptive to give over any answers they were looking for. Which was aggravating the agent dealing with him and he was aware of it getting him to snitch wasn't going to happen. he has been at this long enough to know one thing. when you do the kind of work he does you learn to fear who employed you over who is going against them. Mixing with Hydra was good pay a job here and there and he was set. Like he was willing to lose that meal ticket. The agent pushed away from the table and went to leave the room along with the file. Tossing over thier shoulder they may not answer him but they were sure a super soldier would get answers out of them.

"Great" he muttered under his breath as the door was shut "just what I need talking to blue glory himself. Blockhead likely don't who I am so maybe I can talk my way out again." out of the conversation no the room, being that his hands were cuffed behind his back and keeping him attached to the chair was going to make escape less likely. Turning his head left and right even leaning back a little to get a feel for where he was check for any blind spots or make a way out. A dumb thought in the first place but didn't hurt to try. When the door opened again he was expecting the Captian to stroll on in as he lowered his head down only to come face to face with the shrimp again. Shutting the door behind herself as she went to stand on the other side of the table giving a glance at the door before she settled her stance. Hmm, he was guessing she was sneaking in here to speak. "Ey Chica. your the one that was with my kid the other day aren't ya?" he watched how her shoulders squared and tensed from him wording it like that. Hmm, defense it seemed, her eyes narrowed his way a little. "What shock to find out your friend related to a crook? I ain't surprised she never said a thing about me. She always had her mind all set into the whole black and white system." he went snuff about "Don't know why clearly me being how I am lead her to where is now" He shrug his shoulder going on ahead to take credit for who Nina turned out as if he were around to directly affect her life in such a way. "Seeing how she ain't charging in here I'm guessing she ain't here?" he went to press. Thought confirmed by the girl. "So then what do you want? I'm guessing you not to press about why I got dragged her or are you just here to try and defeat my girl now?" As if he had any right to refer to Nina as his kid. Brooklyn's face said as much and he knew it, pissing her off was the goal after all. "She can deny it all she wants but yeah I'm the dad, pft she could learn a thing or two if you ask me but guess she managed to weasel herself into a cozy setup in the end." He held his smile seeming pleased with himself as if he had any right to who Nina became. "Gotta say though for a kid that liked gettin' into scapes least she found something that let her do it more. "Guess she is her father's daughter at the end of it all. Can't imagine your group will want that known to reflect on her image though right? You for sure wouldn't?" what was he working at now? "So why don't you give me hand here voucher for me and help me outta this and I just go away leave the state so the worry or fear of dragging Nina down to being a crooks kid don't come up." He offers a shrug of his shoulder "Or doesn't and it comes out when you could have helped her out. up to you."

#muse| nina rogers #aflockoffeathers #madamkezzie #[ star children till the end of the line - aflockoffeathers] #send an emoji prompt #stayed qeued #[ i've been watching you wanna be like you - aflockoffeathers] #((Tagging the steve nina tag as well since hes in this uwu)) #chica- girl #((if steve was around to hear is up to you but now Brooklyn can see why nina was so upset about when she ran into him and wanted to hurt hi #and why that upset her in the first place! also gives reason for Steve to connect the dots on how he was connected to what happened with #nina uwu))

[dfertrhgbv]