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tirsynni · 9 months

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Years ago (crazy to think about how many years, honestly), I started Sands of Time as writing practice to see if I could get into the practice of writing on a regular schedule (it failed). I had a bunny inspired by thinking too much about Ganondorf and his role in OoT and WW, decided it was as good as an excuse as any to work on writing regularly (failed so hard), and it ended up becoming a love letter to a game series which I've loved almost my entire life.

That fic kept going and going and taught me so much about writing, both in general and fanfic-specific. It ended up being far longer than planned, more detailed than planned, and even when I was distracted and tired and side-eyeing this massive WIP, it reminded me of how much I loved the Zelda games and the many details, overt and subtle, in them. Writing was more than just putting words on paper: it was translating the things I was passionate about. Even if there are some definite issues in the fic due to the many distractions occurring during its creation and how sometimes I wrote less because I was passionate to write and more because I was just stubborn about seeing the fic through, it's still a fic I'm very proud of. It is also, without a shadow of a doubt, my most popular fic. It is a fic that someone refused to rec because they wanted to hit lesser known Zelda fics, and holy shit, I preened when I read that.

I have been struggling with fic and fandom in the last year for many reasons, including some serious RL stressors. The other big reasons have to do with the evolution of fandom itself. I'm not talking about the rise and fall of the popularity of certain things. For example, while I'm not a fan of "reader" fic, I feel like it's a fantastic example of the things that can be done with the fanfiction medium and also a way to explore how tropes/genres/random things in fanfiction reflect different cultural changes in the same way horror movies do. What I hate, though, is the rise of negative feelings and negative takes in fandom, transforming it from a fun, collaborative atmosphere into an arena full of witch hunts, deliberately bad takes, and people terrified to write because they are afraid of being attacked for their content, pairing, writing styles, grammar, etc. I love fandom as a love letter to canon, an exploration of canon, an exploration of self and writing styles, among other things. Now it feels like it's no longer that.

Back in the Old Days, people put disclaimers on fics because they didn't want to be sued. Now people put disclaimers on things assuring readers that of course they don't advocate these things, these things are bad, they know it, they aren't a criminal, they aren't a pedophile, they aren't a Bad Person. Now I see people skip summaries just to tell people to stop attacking them for their pairing and to just let them write what they like.

I see people indulging in deliberate bad takes of the original content, of the original creators, of other writers in fandom, of different tropes, of game mechanics... fucking everything. Sometimes it's just a nasty circle. Sometimes it's done to elevate something else, because we all know the only way to elevate something is to put something else down. I understand vent sessions. I understand going to a friend and going "Holy shit, did you see that summary??? Wow!" It should stop life as a quick vent. It shouldn't make up the person's entire personality. It shouldn't require a full online presence. Hate should never be detailed in the comments. Call-out posts should be left to actual nazis, terfs, etc., not to someone who wrote a "gross" or "unhealthy" or whatever pairing. Seriously. If you waste so much time on that, you need to look into some self-exploration and therapy. In all sincerity.

Fanfiction is not a published work. It should be fun. It is put online to be shared with fellow fans. It is something where someone gets excited about something or has an idea about something or wants to explore something or just wants to write some kinky porn and then share it with fellow fans. That's why writers post work and then sit eagerly .02 seconds later waiting for people to comment on it because they want to share their thoughts and love and happiness and excitement and sadness and grief and their general emotions with others and they want those others to respond and share their thoughts and reactions, too!

I just saw a post tearing into Moffat's Sherlock series because it lacked sincerity for the audience and source material and instead indulged in its arrogance, contempt, and self-righteousness. My immediate thoughts turned to the Lord of the Rings movies. If Sherlock is remembered, it will be purely in the critical sense, an example as to how a popular series was forgotten and dismissed. LotR remains loved. It is a classic. It is something people repeatedly marathon despite the lengthy watch time. LotR was a love letter to its source material. It wasn't just the writers and directors: everyone involved was sincerely, fiercely passionate about it, and it shows. It drags the watchers in, prompted people who had never read the original to pick up the books, inspired so much fanfiction. It was sincere and passionate and loving and, in turn, its fans are sincere and passionate and loving.

The LotR movies explored and loved the genre, the characters, the message. Even when characters faltered, it didn't make them terrible people. It made watchers hold their breath, it made watchers cheer them on, it made watchers hope. Check out people who do bad takes of Frodo and his struggle with the Ring and watch how many people come out of the woodwork to defend Frodo. There was no tongue-in-cheek humor mocking the source material. There was no critical analysis of "Well, you see, this is how the hero was actually stupid." No. It was sincere. It was loving. It still makes people cry and cheer and happy even when they're wiping away a sad tear or two.

I've read fanfics where the writers insist on the worst takes for the characters. It isn't done out of humor or a teasing love or an exploration into the characters/writing styles/etc. The writers want to drag the characters down, put themselves on a pedestal, and do it not through sincere analysis but by doing the worst possible takes on the situation. This usually relies on going into the source material with a negative mindset and desiring negativity in return, feeding primarily on the negative takes of others rather than looking into the source material or looking for positive takes, or just having a "bad faith" mindset. They go into it with an axe to grind and want to drag everyone else down with them. It isn't one or two fics: it's a growing, poisonous movement which is one of the things driving people out of fandom. It isn't a love letter to the source material. It is hate and disgust and contempt and Moffat writing Sherlock, patting himself on the back all the while and surrounding himself with people doing the same exact thing.

I'm a strong believer in people writing whatever they want to write. You want to write this character being evil? Sure! You hate this character and want to make them OOC to bash them even more? Go for it! I've written so many things testing how far I could go or feeling angsty and wanting others to feel angsty or even feeling happy and grinning like a feral gremlin as people wrote comments talking about how the angst in the story made them bawl. Want to write vore? Want to write character death? Whatever! It is fucking fiction, and it should be something you can enjoy doing. Hell, an asexual person can write two people fucking without wanting to get fucked. A lesbian can write two men fucking. A pacifist can write a murder mystery. It is fiction. Write whatever you want, and I hope that you feel better after doing so, even if it is only in the catharsis way of having a bad day and getting it out by making characters bleed.

Already, I can fucking hear people insisting that all of this makes you a bad person. No. No. If you truly believe that, it means you don't understand writing. You don't understand art. OR it's not a misunderstanding but a deliberate Bad Take, an extension of the poison I described above, because you want to attack someone and you want any opening. See: Republicans going after Drag Queens now, probably not actually believing that Drag Queens are harmful but recognizing vulnerability and knowing they can manipulate others through hatred. If you truly believed that, you would be wondering about Stephen King and other writers, but instead, you use conservative attacks and uncritically promote purity culture and are oblivious to the day when the leopard turns around to eat your face.

It's exhausting. It's a growing trend that is poisoning the water that is fandom and is not only playing a part in driving people out, but is keeping people from ever trying their hand in the first place. It is keeping people from enjoying what should be a fun thing. It is fucking poisoning minds, because this is a damned slippery slope. Hammer/nail and all that. It is seeing one thing as "problematic" and knocking over one tile and then seeing a full domino effect because they never bothered to analyze what "problematic" meant or why they found that "problematic." It is people grabbing a torch with the hope they won't find themselves on the stake.

Let people enjoy fandom. Try having positive takes. Let fanfiction and fanart and fanworks in general be something enjoyable again. Maybe some people use it as a way to vent current political issues. Maybe some people want to explore certain sexual kinks and writing these two (or three or five or seven) characters going at it is a great way to do it. Maybe they had a funny thought and want to share it via fanfiction. Whatever. We can't go online and bash people like Moffat and then casually do the same exact thing. We can't bitch about conservative politicians attacking people and then use the same exact thought processes and methods to attack others.

Let people be sincere in their enjoyment. If you don't like it, find something you do like. Maybe take some time with some tools and explore things which make you happy instead of indulging in deliberate bad takes to tear others down and use those takes to bind yourself to others and their bad takes like barbwire. Remember why things like LotR lives on and makes people so happy and why Moffat's works are going to be used in classes in the future as to what not to do.

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onebigbroccoli · 7 months

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As much as I dislike relating to media and or characters - I gotta say to a certain degree I can relate to Simon and have grown a lot of admiration and compassion for him, genuinely want things to work for him which for me its hard to illicit that kind of response from me. I never had a chance to finish the original series without interruption or more of less being told to move onto more adult shows so Ice King wasnt someone I thought I’d ever think this way about - given my attitude back then - like most folks I assumed the relatability to Finn. So much so I had a similar arc of dating someone that was destined to get back together with an ex (Marceline and Bubblegum) even thinking back to that makes me cringe that I was that delusional ANYWAYS: Simon’s self destructive drive to become Ice King is just so tragically beautiful? Its tragedy that has so much light behind Im like a fucking moth to flame here. Cringing again but I feel the same way about my significant other now in the sense that the likely hood of losing them or worse never being able to say goodbye again would drive me down a self destructive route for the sake of others. Obviously I’m reading too far into this shit because I’m a remorseful 30 year old that watched the original series and never gave it any deeper thought until now. Which in light of the passed few years of my life have had me confront my biggest regrets and trying to make things right leading me to post about it on Tumblr dot com for shitty little notifications of validations which I wont get thankfully. Its amazing that a show can make someone look inward and feel more than just the base level of stimuli of entertainment.

Also much like Simon - I got me a redhead at college that I fell in love with over dorky shit too so yeah relatability in media WOO!

#fionna and cake #personal shit #sorry to pollute the tag with bullsjit #i’ll delete this for sure becoz its not the place for it #im sorry #im sorry I never got to say goodbye or make amends #simon petrikov #fionna and cake spoilers #adventure time

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piglii · 11 months

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btw I have not finished Umineko (I’m literally on the last leg of Episode 8, shortly after an important jump happens) but I’m so gushing with things to say about that I feel like I need to type this all out now (will start with impressions that are non-spoilery and go into impressions that are big spoilers. there will be a dividing line which I earnestly recommend you do not cross if you have any interest reading it yourself.)

anyways

Non-Spoiler Section

Absolutely 10/10 for me. Can feel like a climb at times but that feeling increasingly goes away as you get used to the pacing. Any fumbles Umineko has for me personally are so small in the grander scope of what it’s doing that it doesn’t even feel worth acknowledging them. Literally a story that is going to affect my view on life. I really fell for the charm of Ryukishi’s goofy ass old sprites too after a while, it’s really compelling to me that Ryukishi was able to make such a good, earnest story while having kind of limited drawing ability. I’m dead ass serious, it’s really inspirational. The quality of the writing and voice acting especially is so good that after a short while you kind of don’t even process that the sprites look kind of silly-goofy at all. I highly recommend playing with the original sprites and voice acting if you can.

And the music! holy shit I can’t imagine getting through this story without the music! The fucking 1800′s pipe organ songs one minute, intense trance the next, distorted choir singing, a mellow beat that’s sampling that fucking ambulance siren! Probably my top faves are Infant Queen Bee, Golden Nocturne, far, Rain, Daydream’s End, Fall, Miragecoordinator, Melting Away, Dead Angle, Hope and probably like 15 more I’m forgetting. Absolute banger of a soundtrack. Virtually no misses and the ones that hit, HIT. I think I have spent nearly as much time listening to the soundtrack in between sessions as I have just playing the game itself.

I won’t go into detail about what the central messages of Umineko are because they could ostensibly be spoilers but they are pretty fucking hard to miss. If you have two eyeballs and a brain you will probably figure them out as you go because Ryukishi is NOT subtle about what he wants to say. He will smash you with a hammer making sure you get it. But it’s less of a giant metal warhammer and more of a little wooden mallet that he’s just hitting on your knee every 20 minutes to make sure you’re awake and following along.

The writing honestly can be very... it straddles the line between very straightforward descriptions and waxing very poetic about a particular topic. I won’t even say it’s particularly the best prose ever or anything - I think Ryukishi’s biggest talent is simply in how he’s able to convey the characters by always having a really solid understanding of how they react to things. Maybe his worst flaw is that sometimes he includes a scene or concept where I’m like “oh Ryukishi just thought this would be super fucking cool” but I can’t even hate because most of the time it is super fucking cool actually. Umineko is so dripping with earnest cheesiness in a lot of its delivery and character interactions that I can’t help but like it most of the time. Granted I am biased because I do enjoy stuff that is earnestly cheesy like 90% of the time. The goofy ass anime interactions characters sometimes have are used just sparingly enough and contrasted with the serious scenes that I found pretty much all of it enjoyable for what it was.

Be warned it is 150+ hours (faster if you are just reading but seriously those voice actors are top tier, big recommend) but it really needs... at least most of that time. I struggle to find a single exact point that I would shorten any part of Umineko because so much of it really is required to understand what the story’s going for but at the same time sometimes Ryukishi does love to sit you down and talk about the process of liquidating gold into cash money for 30 minutes. A lot of the worst of that is in the first episode to be honest so if you can get past that you’re probably golden. It’s got a hell of a hook by the end of episode 1. Go in as blind as possible and enjoy yourself.

And now, for the spoilers.

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Spoiler Section

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Don’t Go Beyond This Point If You Haven’t Read It, Seriously Holy Fuck!!!

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Seriously, The Author Wants You To Go In Blind!

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Alright.

All the losers are gone let’s partay.

Heads up I’m a little blasted so this might be a bit scrambled and all around the place so sorry, just writing stuff as I think about it.

I really adore the way that Beatrice is in literally every layer of this story. Like the concept of the masses being in such a rush to figure out what the truth of the Rokkenjima Massacre is that they end up literally trampling over the deeply embedded and sad story of Beatrice really gets to me. Like, the people who are looking at the Massacre from the angle that she even “exists” at all literally only see Beatrice as a piece in their own constructed games, an explanation that’s just one step to figuring out what was really important. But of course, Beatrice IS the heart of the story. The whole family is arranged around her like a web and she’s right at the center. She’s in every possible layer of this story that she can be, she’s the connecting fabric of everything important.

Also I really adored Battler and Ange as characters. It’s rare that a main character feels so relatable but I ended up really enjoying his personality by around episode 2 or 3. He’s just so stupid but also earnest and flustered. Try to give him a slight pass on episode 1 because he is supposed to be kind of dumb and immature on purpose... even if it probably could’ve been toned down maybe just a bit. He gets better, I promise.

(btw literally been here. so relatable.)

anyways moving on. Ange. absolutely enjoyed the hell out of her story in episode 4 and was so glad to see that she’s basically the conclusion to the whole Ushiromiya family story in the final episode as well. also, her being the focus of this really inspirational message of what it means to move forward with your life was really well done. it’s insane to me that people are still out there trying to “figure out” the mystery when Umineko tells you as bluntly as it possibly can that it doesn’t really matter - finding out what “really” happened can’t bring closure no matter what and holding and walking this tenuous tightrope between belief and non-belief is a better way to live. her goodbye with the family and battler was about where it got me pretty good I could not fucking hold back crying at that.

and speaking of the family at large, I really like pretty much all of them! even the stinkers are fun to make fun of. also, Eva in particular is the milf of all time for me, personally. in fact thinking on it the only character I can really think that still rubs me badly (even though it is of course entirely intentional that the reader feels this way) is Rosa. good fucking lord the moments of episode 4 with Maria and Rosa’s relationship being explored (or rather, the complete lack of it except for the spouts of child abuse) really hit me. that... is probably the most I’ve ever been emotionally effected by a piece of media in a long ass time, it was a rough chapter to get through. that said ryukishi’s understanding of domestic abuse is fucking incredible, does not surprise me that he was a social worker before working on VNs. beyond even just that dynamic he clearly has an understanding of the kind of broken adults that come out of highly abusive households. the final game of episode 8 with ange getting to see this world that could theoretically have been real had kinzo chosen love in the future versus love in the past was so sincerely sweet to me. sorry I am a sucker for sappy shit, it got me.

anyways let’s talk about the illusions. loved them all too. feels obvious to say but Beatrice is one of the characters of all time. also really liked Ronove, his and battler’s occasional moments of being bros out of nowhere were really enjoyable to me. also sorry gamers Virgilia is another milf of all time. loved her tender and sweet personality. but as for beatrice and co as a whole - I do enjoy what Ryukishi has to say about fiction. Indulging too much of your life in fiction is ultimately harmful but it can be a valuable crutch to people who are dealing with life or even just people who could stand to learn and grow more. it’s also such a loving letter to mystery as a genre, you can really tell Ryukishi was going hog for mystery at the time. and it does work as a completely conventional mystery too - figuring out stuff as you go and putting the pieces slowly together is a huge blast! I loved the scenes where he’s clearly celebrating that with the readers who tried their best to understand the story.

I managed to avoid most spoilers - the ones I saw beforehand were really minor and didn’t really help me in putting the mystery together - that said, I really only figured out that Shannon and Kanon were being performed by the same person not terribly long before the game revealed it pretty directly - I think only a few hours ahead of time. that said, I really did give it my all, I’m just not super good at mysteries. I did pick up on some hints early on, like being able to figure out some of the early closed rooms but I didn’t have enough context to join them all together and realize the Truth before the game spelled it out for me. and tbh, that’s fine! I loved how the game congratulated people who simply try to figure it out for themselves, regardless of if they’re successful.

btw it also took me so fucking long to read because I was reading it side by side with a friend (who had read the manga but not the VN) and we basically set it up to auto play (with japanese voice acting + the original sprites of course.) we’d play intermittently roughly every few months in leaps and progress little by little. I can’t fucking believe I wasn’t spoiled on any of the major elements playing like that, it’s a fucking miracle. we started reading it on and off like that nearly two years ago now but honestly it was worth.

god I have so many thing I could spend rambling on about this manga but it genuinely is up there with, like, War and Peace and Crime and Punishment and I’m not even joking. there’s some of what I would call “Goofy Anime Bullshit” that happens (and it’s especially coated in that layer of stuff you only really got in the late aughts anime communities) but even that I found pretty enjoyably silly after a short period of time and just ended up rolling with it. if you know someone who can see past that layer of Goofy Anime Bullshit and enjoys reading 150+ hour long visual novels, this is the thing for them.

and speaking of the length boy fucking howdy. it’s worth it. the amount of time dedicated to fleshing out every character and making me understand what kind of person they are underneath everything else really makes me appreciate everybody in this fucked up family unit. it’s not something you could replicate in a movie or any reasonably lengthy manga. the magic of getting to know the whole family, flaws and all, really sells you on what a tragedy it is regardless of what happened. there are so many early scenes where I was like, “okay what’s the point of this” that I look back in hindsight and I’m either like "oh that was actually super fucking important and I just didn’t realize it” or “oh this was giving me time to become familiar with this character.” fuck man, I even liked Hideyoshi and he almost didn’t do shit!

btw I got the culprits in bernkastel’s game figured out in one try (with the help of my friend bouncing ideas off of eachother)

feels good, feels organic, thank you, etc

anyways... I think that about wraps it up for me... honestly just a stellar game. It feels like one of those things where I’m going to catch myself thinking about the themes and what it was trying to say, just like Disco Elysium or a lot of Wildbow’s works or EEAAO. It almost makes me wish this story was in a more conventional book form because I think you could tell the core of what’s there but at the same time I don’t think it’d be worth losing all the other aspects that make it so memorable. It’s going to have probably 1/100th the readers it could have just for being a long VN rather than a long book series but I’d honestly rather have it this way. It’s such a weirdly specific gem of that era of internet-anime culture that I think the time has already passed that anything quite like it could come out. What a special little piece of media. If I have more to say after finishing out the ending proper I‘ll probably just edit my impressions on to this post and reblog again at a later date.

EDIT: It is now two days later and I have finished everything, including the last “????” segment. My thoughts on the ending - I liked it. It’s very sweet and depending on how you want to interpret certain facets of what you see, it can be read several different ways. Of course the way the narrative is set up, it very much wants you to pick the most optimistic interpretation but I like that there’s always room to explore just a bit. The point of whether Beatrice as a witch is real or not is entirely beside the point almost - there was a woman named Beatrice who brought happiness to her family (at least, in one world) as well as she could given her fucked up circumstances. That’s honestly all there really is to say on it. I can very much vibe with that message.

I was also earnestly expecting the last scene of Umineko to be even more bittersweet than it ended up being - I was really waiting for the very last scene to be Ange literally throwing away the key to Eva’s diary into the ocean. That is kind of what happens in a way, and the scenes in which they do explore Ange opening the diary and reading it are left deliberately obscure (as they should be) but I was really expecting it to be even more poignant than that. I was thinking Ange would literally never see the diary in any part of the story the reader saw at any point. It would’ve been very Titanic-esque in a way - Ange throwing away the only way for her to even possibly know what happened on Rokkenjima. The story does effectively do this, kind of, anyways, it’s just a lot more roundabout.

But yeah. Supremely sweet story. I will probably be thinking about it for much of my life.

#my posts #umineko #umineko spoilers #spoilers: I liked it #I'm thinking I'll have the last little bit finished literally sometime this week or maybe the weekend

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uhohbestie · 3 days

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hey besties i have fanfic-themed but not directly plot-related questions! well, mostly

question 1) do yall have any favorite zombie media? was there anything in particular that yall are drawing on for your fic?

personally i've been scared of zombie movies all my life lol but because of tamn i've finally been trying to finish the world war z audiobook? (the last time i tried getting thru it was pre covid which has been. a weird experience) it's fully voice acted and i like it so far! super different from the 2013 movie with brad pitt

question 2) :3 do you guys think you'd be up to talk about the no-apocalypse au where scarian get to have a normal breakup someday? :3 it doesn't have to be now or anytime soon but i'd be into hearing about it!

anyways hope yall are having a good day lock and key ^_^

These are some really REALLY good questions!!!

for starters! for me (Lock) I actually didn't start watching zombie media until Key introduced me to it! We watched the Korean series All Of Us Are Dead together, and then followed it with Last Of Us (the tv adaptation) and the first seasons of The Walking Dead, so I've have a very curated window into zombie media (actually! We watched Walking Dead as research for TAMN, because Key wanted to make sure I understood what hordes of zombies in cities look like!)

As for Key's zombie exposure (lol): I (Key) WAS BIG INTO ZOMBIES GROWING UP!! Constant zombie media consumption--probably one of my earliest hyperfixations ngl I feel like what we're drawing on while we write TAMN is an amalgamation of all our favourite bits from the things we've seen together, as well as some of my favourite formative zombie medias while growing up.

The Walking Dead Season 1 remains like, one of my all-time favourite seasons of any television show ever, so that's definitely a big influence. (Some of the later seasons get a lot less of my love LOL) The Korean movie Train to Busan is also a popular one you may have heard of--I'd definitely recommend giving that a go if you're okay with zombie media that veer on the side of tragic. When The Last of Us (Part One) came out, it quickly became my favourite zombie-oriented video game, though a lot of its predecessors (Resident Evil series esp.) really gripped me (even though it took me ages to play-through cuz they would scare the shit out of me LMAO) Its TV show is also an excellent adaptation, so if you're not into playing it or watching a Let's Play, the show is a good bet! The UK series In the Flesh was also an interesting look into After™ the apocalypse, and though it was cancelled after it's second season, it's also worth a watch for a fresh perspective on zombie media. 28 Days Later was an excellent movie and ofc Dawn of the Dead is a classic. And then the usual comedies like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, etc.

I saw World War Z as a movie but never read the book! I should def give it a try--idk why I never did! God, honestly I could ramble about zombie media forever if given the chance 😂 None of this even begins to cover the sheer amount of zombie comics I read. I was very much a "webcomic" era kid, so a lot of my favourite old original zombie comics are either offline now or I simply don't remember what they were called anymore, so I have no way to track them down :( I did recently enjoy the webtoon Boyfriend of the Dead as a light-hearted, humourous read, but there were a lot of gripping, nuanced, plot-heavy original comics like a decade ago that I loved and I wish I could link. ANYWAYS. I'LL STOP MYSELF HERE AND LET LOCK ANSWER QUESTION NUMBER 2 LMAO

HI IT'S LOCK. I'M BACK. Now, as for a non-apocalypse Scarian scenario, we've actually thought about this a LOT! One of our favourite things to do is make an AU, and then multiple "what if one key things was different" spinoffs of the same AU.

We're gonna put this under a read-more, in case you'd like to keep the "what if" a mystery forever, but to sum up:

In an alternate reality where Scar and Grian break up and then the zombie apocalypse doesn't happen........ they stay broken up! Scar gets what he longs for in the fic: time away from Grian to hurt and grieve and heal with the support of his close friends who care about him.

It takes him a while until he feels ready to date again, but Scar does eventually start a new relationship with someone he knows really well, and has loved and trusted for a long time. They get engaged and start planning their wedding..............

............. and then Grian comes back and says he's sorry, that he misses Scar, that he was wrong, and that he doesn't want to be without him. And Scar................... takes him back.

It's-- listen, it's not the best possible outcome! But we're basing heavily on the Life Series Scarian dynamic, which is itself incredibly nuanced and complicated and tragic and a little bit "you're both bad for each other." It's part soulmates, and it's part codependence, and it's partly killing the person you love with your bare hands alone in the desert, and how that guilt ends up haunting you into every other subsequent timeline. Grian's not the best person for Scar as he is, and Scar's not the best person for Grian, but they want to be with each other, and unfortunately that desire often overrides common sense.

As for what happens after that.... we don't know yet! It was a thought experiment we worked through and ultimately realised "oh, it's WAY better for them that the zombies DID happen in the long run, 'cause without them this would be awful." (Not that the zombies are great, but woof......... Scarian, c'mon.) In this version of events, they lose a lot of friends when Scar takes Grian back, and the isolation suits Scar poorly. It takes them a much longer time to work through how to be good for one another. If the zombie apocalypse was good for anything, it was forcing a reckoning of what they wanted and how to get it--the only other option was death. Without that hanging over their heads, it takes Scarian years to reach any sort of resolution, which (no spoilers but) takes TAMN!Scarian a much shorter amount of time to get to.

Hope that answers your question! The 'what ifs' are our favourite, so we love to ramble about them hahaha <3

#asks #anonymous #tamn #also love that you referred to us as bestie HAHA #I know it's in our username but it's so cute to hear used and directed at us #HOPE YOURE HAVING A GREAT DAY TOO!

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pandorafallz · 4 months

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Vampire AU | Chapter 24

Quaritch once again eyed the new report from the newest repaired dozer to…the new downed dozer and second AMP suit that had been recalled due to damage. Another failure that was chalked up to poor maintenance but Quaritch could feel something was amiss and it felt like it was good old sabotage.

This was not the work he had wanted to do the moment he returned for a full debrief from Frontier West and even then, his work there wasn’t yet complete. He had more important things to do than this. He had put in an inside man to help with the repairs; to ensure the repairs weren’t done to be faulty. He had swapped out the patrol teams and gone over reports and video logs of the shift and they already had scans of the area on the system so there shouldn’t be problems. If that failed to draw anything, he couldn’t call it sabotage on their end.

With the dozers without internal scanners anymore—Selfridge had ordered to remove them entirely as they would shut down dozers at every ‘interesting’ thing the scanners picked up—they had fewer ways to update the terrain unless it was hand-scanners. No one had time for that shit in Selfridge’s book and Quaritch was too busy to give a fuck about it too. They were dozing blind.

Selfridge seemingly looked to be reading his report but even Quaritch could see the guy’s eyes weren’t rolling across the text a lot.

“I’ve got Mansk currently acting as Head of the base until I decide who runs the base. Walker is his head of security until then as well. I’ve got a few men in places but… We’ll need a lot more to fill out the ranks.” He wasn’t thrilled given he wanted Mansk back with his team here but...he was making do.

Selfridge exhaled deeply, rolling his head back. “How many more?”

“A hundred or so more.”

“A hundred!” Selfridge exclaimed, “That…too many! And I’ve seen the number count, you don’t need that many people.”

“I will. Once arrests have been made.”

“Arrests?”

“Next page,” Quaritch nodded to the report Selfridge was slacking on. He waited a few moments, as the guy skim-read through, tapping to the next page then pulled a face.

“You gotta be kidding me…”

“All evidence that we could get shows that…Mercer created the TAP program about seventeen years ago with Cortez. It became actuality a year later. Kidnapping Na’vi children and committing full-out genocide of a Na’vi clan and chemically contaminating the area with toxins to destroy the bodies and evidence. They wiped the TAP-1 Facility so we couldn’t find the back-up saves; someone got to it hours before we did. Someone did leave us enough to work with. Now, I’m not here to preach to the Na’vi and you know that normally, I couldn’t care less given how far away from me they are” Quaritch started, “but…the Frontier West SecOps committed war crimes, an uncalled for genocide attack and poses a huge threat to the safety of those bases. I’ll round up anyone alive that was part of the slaughter. That’s twenty-seven men and women still alive out of the fifty that were listed, six returned back to earth over the last few years, and the rest were killed by animals, wildlife and stupidity.”

Quaritch was honest in his words. Originally, he couldn’t care less. They were heading down to force the Omatikaya out of their home for the human’s greater need. One clan was in the way of it and…well if he was a complete warmonger, he’d be gunning for failure if Sully had been a good boy in his mission and burn the people out if they refused to go. He used to have the same goal with Selfridge but… it was becoming more apparent the guy had no loyalty to anything that wasn’t green or with dollar signs on which had become a pressing concern given the oversight it put onto his department. Quaritch was trying to be patient here which was more than what he was used to giving.

Mercer was his own RDA leader and ran his resources collection with passion but…his oversight had got the man killed. He had taken too much from a lot of clans in the area and…Quaritch did not like the weight it put against the RDA in that sector. They needed more to keep it secure but they also needed more with less Na’vi blood on their hands to…seem less of a threat.

War crimes had their degrees and Quaritch was not innocent. He knew that. But…it crossed a line in his book when there was needless reason for it. This…saren-something clan had no cause; the RDA was not defending themselves or their technology, nor was the ground the clan on holding anything of use to the RDA. No build-up of an attack either. They killed the adults and the teenagers and took the ones small enough to be useful.

Sooner or later, the Na’vi clans were gonna find out…and he couldn’t imagine the base being safe with as much red on their crew as it was. Na’vi liked vengeance when it was called upon. They needed a fresh roster of SecOps that he could trust to run a base than these shitheads that Mercer liked to have around.

“Miles, look, the chances are they’re just doing what they were ordered to. Mercer’s dead and Cortez is dead. There’s no one to punish.”

“Everyone uses that excuse to justify themselves from crimes they’ve committed as a unit. It’s an old reason and I won’t stand for it in these circumstances. Their very presence puts a target on everyone’s back. We need a new roster and I won’t have anyone who was part of this remain on that soil. It’ll undermine RDA authority.”

“What about Colonel Harding?” Selfridge asked, setting the tablet aside tiredly and his hands coming to rub his face.

“Unfortunately, someone got to her records first before we arrived and wiped any involvement she had in the genocide and following years. As I said, I had Mansk running a team into the TAP Con-1 facility to sweep for intel but they’ve found squat. The team believes Harding also runs a black market of Pandoran animal parts which have been shipped off as Na’vi artefacts and put a good amount of money in her pocket and the RDA’s. We can’t remove her without evidence as we have with the others, so we’ll be trying to get witness statements from the SecOps guys to be enough to charge her with their crimes and get her shipped back to Earth for the same trial.”

“The RDA won’t make it a public sceptical.”

“I know. Don’t care.” Quaritch shrugged. “But my point stands; new people. I want SciOps to help back the SecOps up, Avatar Drivers and try to settle negotiations of truce with the near clans.”

“That’s a lot of money you’re gambling.”

“The only avatar driver they had was for the TAP purposes, nothing useful for science or research like Cortez was actually trained for. I checked her records. A new area of the world means more plants and shit that might be beneficial for humans. Pandoran samples are still sought after on Earth. I did my research into Madaki’s family on Earth when I was learning more about his defect possibilities. It seems the plants they have are actually helping Earth. We’re still making money and humans are still benefitting. It’s worth the cost.”

Selfridge seemed to glower but he had a point. They might as well be useful while they had a base there.

“Run it through with Augustine on the…most suitable people to go. No more than four drivers. She’ll be gone to Site 26 soon. I know she’s in the Avatar compound right now sorting shit out still.” Selfridge waved in the vague direction of the compound. “How’s the search going for those who defected at West Frontier?”

“Non-existent.”

“What?! Why?! They killed people to escape, Colonel.”

Quaritch gave the puny excuse of a human with a solid stare. “They have killed which is one of the reasons why I’m weary about bringing them in but the case and reason why I haven’t is because of the six Na’vi teenagers that they’re with and no doubt still looking after. I won’t bring the kids in with the same reasons why I won’t bring the assaulted deserters in. The chances are they’ll be getting the kids to a clan for safety but will no doubt ally themselves with a clan for their own protection if the kids vouch for them. Not worth my trouble or the lives of my men. Pandora is not kind and sooner or later their numbers will be cut down.”

Grace thumbed through the tablet Everdeen had handed to her as the fellow avatar checked through the sampling kits. Grace was ninety per cent sure in this body that Everdeen’s avatar wasn’t being controlled by Lilith Everdeen but rather and most likely, Grace Everdeen who Grace was familiar with the schedules and scientific tools to pose as her own sister.

It was known, more publically known due to Jake that identical twins were able to navigate their sibling’s avatar given the matching DNA and neuro links that were mirrored between bodies. That was a welcome surprise for the RDA who could no doubt invest more for one. Quadruplets, like the Everdeen four, were currently unheard of into connecting with a single avatar before now.

Only Grace and Maze knew as they had caught the subtle differences in their scent when one of them was already linked up. All four Everdeen’s had linked up at some time or another. Thea and Amanda Everdeen were SecOps. Lilith and Grace were SciOps. An even ground of skill range which made the Quad a very desired group and why they made it into the RDA as a complete set but the fact that they were an identical and tried to dress the same as much as possible made them…uneasy to be around for those that didn’t have a greater sense of smell to tell the difference.

Grace found she didn’t mind the SciOps two to switch, as they both had areas they studied in that differed but were still important to her department. Both had different views of their work and it was interesting to see how far one would try to stay in character to be ‘Lilith’ when out and about.

The Two SecOps Everdeen’s had returned from West Frontier after helping with Quaritch and had conversed heatedly at night, which had sprung up the topic that all four were gonna bounce given the…aftermath of the RDA’s actions in regards to the Sarentu Clan.

Grace knew a little from overhearing at night, and didn’t like the growing picture that had formed as the four discussed their experience from the other base and…well as much as she didn’t blame them for leaving on those accounts, it was still gonna fuck a lot up and she had already tried to plan forward but… she needed to get ahead of this more directly.

“Dr Everdeen,” Grace decided to bite the bullet on this one, going for opening with work first. Grace Everdeen was…the more nervous type out of the four and would be more susceptible to listening. “Have the Na’vi artefacts from the Sarentu clan been dropped off yet at the Compound?”

Everdeen looked up and then nodded after checking another tablet “About ten minutes ago, doc”

“Go get them and put them in the longhouse. I want us to look over them before we decide on our next course of action.” She knew the likes of Selfridge would certainly see to him attempting to sell these artefacts off so this gave her another opportunity to protect them from his greedy corporate hands.

With a nod, Everdeen peeled off from organising the samples and Grace assigned Louise to take over for their absence.

Grace would rather do her samples but she knew her priorities. There were other things to sort out in the next few days and this new load of RDA shit certainly was filling up her day more than she had planned. Upside of not sleeping, her evening was put to use in catching up on work and she certainly used those hours to keep them all on track before her departure so they weren’t too disorganised by this new wave of change. Current samples were a little more delayed and the preservation was harder to retain on them and yet…humans had to sleep.

Grace picked up a travel case as she headed to the longhouse, getting the case prepped onto the table and with the tablet ready for proper documentation and for scans for digital records and recreation should she find…a better home for the artefacts.

Everdeen appeared hauling two massive boxes on wheels with help but looked a little surprised herself and she finally got to the table. “I thought we were getting trinkets.” She muttered.

Grace raised her eyebrow at the box as well. “Me too. I wonder what they recovered.”

“Maybe they’re bigger than anticipated?” Everdeen wondered, her head tilting curiously. “We don’t know what the RDA recovered from the Sarentu Clan, could be a lot of it fit in these two?”

“Let’s open up and see. No point daydreaming about it, Everdeen.”

The first box was… comprised of weapons. Mostly. Grace counted 8 Sarentu blades, only four with covers. Two bows, four arrows, a small collection of arrow heads and three spearheads, there were also tools as well which looked to be a resin axe head; its handle long gone. Arm guards, Na’vi shoulder padding for their hunts. None were put away lightly.

There was a lot of detail and beauty to take in the craftsmanship of the tools. Everdeen seemed to coo most was the arm guards; inspecting them under the light as Grace took 3D modelling scans.

“Look at the detail. The guard was made from material tightly woven with…different patterns to the Omatikaya’s weavings despite similarities.” She touched lightly over the hardened side, “but…I think the material was soaked in resin and hardened.” Everdeen’s with her ears high in delight. She turned it in her hands.

“What’s your assessment?”

“Female’s arm guard, left-handed so most likely a companion piece for her bow.” Everdeen said, “Could be one we have here? That one with weaving looks like it could be part of it?”

“Unlikely,” Grace remarked but didn’t outright dismiss the notion as the guard was placed into the travel case along with the blades. “We can’t assume matching sets without evidence. This looks like a grab and stash so it’s most likely all mixed up.”

“I know.”

“We’re scientists. We can’t make up stories without hard evidence.”

“Sorry, Dr Augustine.”

Grace opened up the second box when the first was organised and fit well into the travel boxes, aside from the bows and arrows but she requested them to be wrapped and put into the Samson’s cargo supply ready in advance.

The second box contained…more clothes and personal belongings. Toruk Toys, loincloths that...looked small and probably for kids. A few necklaces, chokers, decorative pieces and some more body armour. There was a blanket that was a multitude of finely crafted coloured fibres and thick platted edges of what looked like an Ikran’s head guard. At least, a partial one. All were beautiful and certainly, the Sarentu were skilled in their craft despite their nomadic tendencies.

“Banshee?” Everdeen tilted her head at the head-piece still in her hands. “I had no idea they even had them for a nomad tribe. Nomadic tribes would tend to use Direhorse to aid in moving their tents and equipment.”

“Hunters or clan envoys use Ikran. The Olangi Clan are the clan in this region that only have one Ikran rider at a time as an envoys. I met Akwey, the clan’s leader once.” Grace said. “The other clans use them for hunting mostly.”

“The Olangi priories their Direhorses more than anything. It’s their speciality over the grassy plains.” Everdeen remarked, “but… I suppose it makes sense. Banshees are faster than Direhorses when emergencies arise and can cross difficult terrain. They don’t need many.”

“It’s most likely the Sarentu had one for an envoy if the Olangi is anything to go by,” Grace remarked, finally setting it down into its new case but her attention turned to see…one little thing that caught her attention the most. A cord of string and beads.

Her blue fingers gently lifted the cord from the bottom and laid it out on the wooden surface.

“A songcord?” Grace tilted her head in concern, “Why did the RDA take someone’s songcord? This isn’t…” She felt a spike of anger as she examined it. It was rows of blue beads, a few yellow and red but what stood out was the carved crystal that…was made to look like a symbol; it was curved in shape that looked like a small abstract, tidal wave, and four deep holes were carved into the bottom. No Na’vi would abandon their songcords nor hand them over. The cord here…she had to assume it was from one of the killed Sarentu in the conflict if Mercer wanted these things to be taken and sold. Disgusting, really.

“That’s a Sarentu symbol.” Everdeen gasped in wonder, “They… I read in an early report the Sarentu use ritual scarification; every Sarentu gets the marking after birth under their left eye or gets given one if they’re accepted into the clan in later life.”

Grace held a hand out to stop the woman from picking it up. “No. I’ll handle this one.”

It felt….disrespectful as she took the scans of the cord but by not doing it she’d come across as being emotional and non-objective. This was science; respect for artefacts was always going to be in the grey area. Once the scans were done, she set the cord into a little bag and tucked it into the last travel case.

“Dr Augustine.”

Her head turned in mild exasperation as Colonel Quaritch of all people seemed to appear at her waist with a displeased expression

“What do you want? I’m busy.” She let herself sound annoyed. “You’ve brought a lot of shit I need to organise before I’m bounced off to the mountains.”

“Someone has to and you can handle it.” Quaritch remarked, “I’m getting new people put into the West Base and flushing out the waste and I need SciOps. If you can spare some drivers, I’ll be happy.”

“You want my avatars?” That was new. Quaritch didn’t tend to give a fuck; she had heard enough he thought avatars were creepy and pointless.

“Yes. Four.” He said in a tone of ‘matter of fact’. “Pick whoever seems best fitting and the link technicians you can afford to lose.”

Grace stared at him for a moment. “You couldn’t have bothered with just…normal scientists? Those without Avatars?”

“Avatars are less likely to be shot on sight so….no.” Quaich shrugged, “It’s simply safer for science teams to have avatars so the natives don’t shoot first and questions later. They distrust humans but they will trust something that looks like them.”

“Not always the case.” Grace pointed out. “The Omatikaya know enough to be just as weary of avatars. Most clans are aware of Avatars, even if they’ve never met one. Clans are connected, so news travels.”

“Better chances than without.” Quaritch gave her a look. “I’m not here to sit about with discussions. I’ll get Selfridge to assign the four if you don’t and leave tomorrow.”

“Back the hell off, Miles.” Grace gave him a deep glare. “SciOps isn’t your department and it ain’t Selfridge’s either.”

“Hasn’t stopped him before, Grace, and won’t now.”

Grace tisked, shaking her head. Asshole. She had planned and got assignments ready in advance for all of the current avatars for when she was gone. Losing four avatars… she was going to have to freaking change all of it, especially when they’re gonna be down another avatar.

Sampling probably had to come tomorrow then. Fucking…

“Fine, but it’ll be a few days for they’re set to go. I have everything on a tight schedule without you messing it up for shits and giggles. Ugh.” She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, her tail swishing irritably. “This is the last thing I need night now.”

“I’ll wait for your report on who’ll be coming.” Quaritch gave a lazy salute.

Grace glowered at his back as the human left but her annoyance only grew as she realised that Everdeen had also vanished off elsewhere.

Damn.

Grace figured out a plan before they unlinked for ‘dinner’. She only made a vague appearance but didn’t stay for long as she pulled Jocelyn into her empty lab to help with her plan on who to choose to go to Frontier West besides their abandoned meal.

“Look, the Quad is gonna bounce regardless. If we move them to West Frontier, it delays them but it’s…probably better that they bounce from Frontier West than Hell’s Gate anyway and less heat on you for oversight. It’ll delay them enough for them to get a lay of the land and locations to link shacks and lab sites that Frontier West established and abandoned.” Jocelyn pointed out, going over her notes and it didn’t surprise Grace that the Technician knew about the Quad’s plan.

“I was going to talk to them but—”

“Don’t. That’ll put you in an awkward spot if they see you on camera if you go to any of their bunks about it.”

Ah, good old-fashioned plausible deniability. She had a point but… she wanted to reason with her team here; get some goddamn control established so that Selfridge wouldn’t get his panties in a twist and pull the plug. Sure, she could certainly motivate Selfridge into not closing the program but she, like the rest of the vampires, did not want to touch Selfridge with their gifts and it wasn’t due to his position in Hell’s Gate.

Kamath had said it was unwise to stick their minds in trash.

Grace concurred with that opinion. Subtle intimidation so far had worked without the need for hypnosis or compulsion.

“I’ll inform them last minute. They’re planning on bailing in a week and are already packed so it shouldn’t take them too long to leave. If we tell them too soon, then they’ll bail as soon as possible.” She considered.

“Maybe, maybe not. Hell’s Gate is much more secure and Amanda Everdeen has her own ship. Since Reza stole her own ship straight from the airfield, the security’s gone up. If they’re taking the avatar, they clearly have a plan to get it out with them. Frontier West is less secure and with a lot of open gaps in security given the downed manpower. They’ll have an easier time escaping there and be less likely to be caught. The terrain of the Kinglor forests around Frontier West isn’t as familiar to the RDA.” Jocelyn remarked after a moment.

“I’m not sure if it’s worth the risk. I don’t want to help them here, you know.”

There was a flutter of feet at the lab door, the faint scent of Kamath wafting through the gaps before it opened. Grace didn’t bother to look her away as she took the tablet from Maze’s hand.

“If you want, assign me to go to the other base,” Kamath said with enlightened enthusiasm.

Grace looked to her fellow vampire in surprise. Kamath had been very… passive about shit. Went with the flow and had very little care if shit that wasn’t her work. “You want to go to Frontier West?”

Kamath nodded, smiling a little with passion burning in her tone. “It’s a new location, new science and more forests to enjoy. I don’t mind Hell’s Gate but doing dozer patrols are boring as hell. I may be a SecOps AMP suit pilot but I am still a scientist. The Kinglor forest is named after the insect called Kinglor. I want to study that species and I can’t do that here.”

Grace considered her thoughtfully. Kamath would be an asset and she could see the usefulness of having her there. AMP suits were heavily used in that region anyway so she’d fit right in.

The only problem Grace saw was…the fact she was a vampire and that alone made it hard to see if it was worth the risk. Kamath gave her a look, sensing her train of thought with ease. “I know the risks.”

“How many humans are stationed at Frontier West?”

“About three hundred but there’s going to be a small overhaul. Quaritch’s thoughts are harder to read but he’s going to do a mass extraction of bad seeds. Even if he has Mansk and Walker stay, there should be plenty of humans to feed from between us all.” Kamath said, “They have their own medical bunk and own blood supplies.”

“You don’t have Dr Solis to cover your ass.”

“But the doc there, Dr Malik can be persuaded. I can get him on our side with ease.” Kamath said confidently. “All I need is a face-to-face with him. Mansk can give that to me. As head of SciOps and the fact that I was contracted here as a scientist, you can put me on a ship. Put me on the Quad’s ship on the way there and I can keep them on base for at least two weeks before they pitch a tent into Eywa’s big bush.”

Jocelyn couldn’t contain the snigger at the last bit.

Grace thumbed the numbers briefly, the amount of people; the typical human recovery times between feeding between three vampires… It wouldn’t be a huge strain, especially if they got a few humans as part of the blood donations. If the human Mess had a garlic incident again… that would be bad.

“I don’t see any garlic part of the food supplies. I can call Mansk and see if they have any there. We shouldn’t be starved out again.”

“Stop reading my mind” Grace gave her a look of annoyance.

“You barely use your gifts, what’s the point of having this ability if I don’t freaking use it. Plus… your mind is quite loud.” Kamath waved off causally. “Proximity.” She gestures around on that one.

“She’s not wrong, you really should use your gifts more.” Daniel of all people seemed to appear, full speed onto a stool…only the force and speed caused the stool to slide six meters down from his original spot like a running cat trying to stop on a glass table. The sound dug straight into their ears and they collectively a shared group wince. “Sorry.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Says the woman who wants your ‘being a meal’ memories back.” Kamath pointed out. “Telepathy is more than just reading minds and wiping memories. Vampires have Ancestral Memory, you might benefit from learning from our Foresires, you know.”

All vampire heads stared at the woman.

Kamath looked at them and then rolled her eyes. “How do you think Mansk knew to keep it all a secret from the human population after he turned? Or why we know turning kids is a big no-no? How we instinctively how to channel our shticks when we’ve never done weird shit like that to start with?”

Grace stared but…opted not to open that can of worms. Nope, not today. That was not a rabbit hole she needed to dip her head in and get suckered down when she had to focus on the here and now.

“Kamath…” Daniel stared but Kamath just gave him a look but turned her attention back to Grace.

“Just... please put me down for the West Base.”

Grace stared but…nodded after a moment. “Okay.”

She gave her a grateful look, “Thank you.” With a final, displeased look at whatever Daniel was thinking, Kamath left.

“Kamath! Ava!” he called after her. “I’ve been a vampire for almost five years! You can’t just drop all that and then bail!”

“She just did, Choi.” Jocelyn chuckled.

Daniel spun to face her with a mildly offended look then lent straight into Grace’s personal space as she tried to review her tablet. “Sign me up to the other base.”

“Just so you can bother Kamath?” Grace leant away with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes! And I can see wonderful new things. Mostly the second because I’m still a scientist and the West has a lot more new things that I wanna poke with a stick and see what happens.”

“Did you discuss this with your girlfriend?” Grace asked, “Because it’s a two and a half hour run back and forth because I am not adding another vampire to West Frontier by bringing her along.” In all honesty, her patience was wearing thin now. She wanted to get to work, not worry about all these details that no one else had to deal with.

Oh, the small things she didn’t have to deal with if she was still human. Ignorance was truly bliss…

Daniel paused, “I’ll…get back to you on that, Doc.” He rose to his feet and hurried at a human pace before Norm seemed to appear in the lab.

Norm blinked in surprise as Daniel passed him without a backward look then to them. Grace didn’t do anything but she was sure her expression of exasperation said it all.

“Bad time?” Norm asked.

“No, just…finishing some side projects. Gotta lot of things to move around now.”

“Need any help?”

Grace pondered her tablet for a moment then nodded, “Help me reschedule. I’ve gotta put four avatar drivers out and this opens slots and closes some.”

“How are the kids?”

The question was…loud in the vastness of the Refuge. Lots of people were asleep; hammocks and cheap futons were spread around as everyone still tried to make sense of the space now that the core building was complete. Including the secret compartment where Alma’s human body lay in cryo-sleep. Tucked away. Hiding. A few were awake, still trying to create or finish things off before bed.

Hajir didn’t know why but couldn’t bear himself to ask but he knew it was important if Alma had asked. Perhaps to spare them the sight of seeing her human…or perhaps sparing them seeing her dying. He didn’t know how close they were but he had a few of the Na’vi kids ask about her often.

“They’re…adapting. They’ve found a location for the Aranahe clan and want to make contact. They’re uncertain if they should.” Alex answered, barely looking up from his soldering. “They… want Alma to weigh in since they know her and she briefly met the clan years ago.”

“Oh dear…” replied Anqa wincing.

“Now you see the problem. I think Nor will go ahead and do it anyway. He wants to…meet a real Na’vi anyway.”

“I don’t see why not. They’ve got to learn from their roots somewhere. Another clan will be what they need to learn to be Na’vi.” Anqa mused.

“How did the raid go?” Hajir asked after a moment.

“We got what we came for. The base was really creepy and very run down so we didn’t explore much. Also, we downloaded all the data we could from the bases black box but we’ll store it for now given how…corrupted it seems to be. The RDA wiped all the original servers but not the back-ups. I’ll ask Priya to get a program to reconstruct the data but that’ll take time to work.” Anqa shrugged, “It was fun.”

“How’s the tank?”

“Currently undergoing UV sterilisation. It’s… the best option we got. We did a solid wash when we got it but UVC’s working for when we pump the water in.” Alex said, “It’ll take time to treat all of the water to make it safe for Alma’s avatar but we have the time. Ri’nela’s been concerned about her getting bed sores and weight loss.”

“How long can we tank her Avatar?” Anqa asked curiously, “Like… I figured there’s some stock limit we have, right?

“Eight weeks, unless we can get our hands on more Avatar nutrient packs,” Alex answered for Hajir.

“If we all work to plan, the Cryo-link pod should be ready in good time,” Hajir said, hoping to get the group back to business. “I’ve gone over the scans but… the avatar needs its own implant while Alma’s in cryostasis. If she’s gotta stay in that big blue body, she can’t rely on auto schedule link and unlinks.”

“It’s not like there’s other options.”

“No, but I’ve been running a few scans of Alma’s avatar the last few days since I came up with an idea.” Hajir couldn’t help himself as he set his tools down, grabbed his tablet and moved close to Alex to show him his findings. “The Avatar’s brain picks up sounds and touches to their form but, as there is no controller, there’s nothing to be done about it. There’s a basic response, like turning the head away from the too-loud sound, or in gestation, thumb-sucking. Basic reflexes.”

Alex looked curiously at the data, “You want to tap into these simulated responses to activate the link time?”

“Yes, like… humans wake to loud sounds, a general body clock or to a stimulus in the environment. If we put an implant in the avatar, it’d be useful for her to relink when morning; it’d follow Alma’s human circadian clock if the crown you are making remains active constantly.” Nodding to Alex’s project where he was crafting a head-piece that.

Alex blinked in pleasant surprise. “So she’d effetely be…living inside her avatar day in, day out? Even when her avatar body goes dormant to rest; they’d still be linked?”

“Just…theory but yes. But to be linked like that, the avatar needs a connection to the human body otherwise there’s no…independence. Automating sleeping and waking and relying on us to do it… I’m not sure she’d like that.” Hajir didn’t know Alma that well but… he could imagine how frustrating it would be if it was him in her situation.

“I never considered that,” Alex looked genuinely impressed. “We could imbed the implant at the base of the queue and stimulate from there. That’ll save us a lot of surgical hassle. Bind it under the braid will protect it as well.”

“Will you need to modify the headpiece?” Anqa asked, looking a little lost but trying to be helpful.

“Probably but… it’ll be more of a software thing to deal with than a hardware.”

“I’ll draw up some sketches tomorrow on a few ideas of what the Avatar side should look like. Can someone get me a scan of Alma’s queue? I’ll be helpful to know the measurements and all.”

“I can.” Heads turned to see Priya coming in with a tray of coco from the open space of a doorway “Ri’nela knows more about queue maintenance than the rest so she’ll probably help me if I ask.”

“Alright.” Hajir nodded his approval. There was no mistake that the young Na’vi had a caring nature; even for something as Dormant as an avatar. But… a familiar face was all she knew that needed help. It took three humans to turn the avatar over due to their scale differences. Having a Na’vi assist was always a great relief.

Masterlist

#avatar #avatar au #avatar james cameron #grace augustine #avatar the way of water #avatar rda #vampire au #vampire #priya chen #alma cortez #frontiers of pandora #avatar frontiers of pandora #norm spellman #miles quaritch #parker selfridge #jake sully #ri'nela

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eemoo1o · 1 year

Note

Shadow has never been stated to be 18 or 20 though, he has only ever been stated to be physically 15 /nm

(Long post ahead. Tags are also important in advance. I will admit this post spirals into a tangent on how this matter started as well as stuff about other characters, and despite all linking together under the same theme-gazebo, it kinda derails, so feel free to read at your own pace.)

I don’t know much about the games—and that may make you feel “oh then why are you..” yeah, I mean like I don’t check manuals or have played them but I watch analysis videos, avidly Google shit and revisit the wikis now and then.

Just putting that out there.

The Sonic News Network wiki page merely renders him as ageless, whereas the Sega Wiki wiki page (where I got my information from last post) stated three (kinda) ages for the character:

(Please note that the Wiki is themed in a darker grey to what the image is here. Same with the following. I turned the exposure up on each for visual clarity.)

Oh, look, they even included a canon birthdate!

Oh…

Well, I know Wikis aren’t always accurate, so to back up the apparent evidence I had, if I’m just to Google his age just to double check—

Hey! That’s the game, damnit.

Think this was my mistake in the previous reply, so I suppose I should apologise. And I do. I think my train of thought was: “He’s 18 years of age (y), with some range in other games (17-22y respectively)”, which isn’t right—but every source I could find on the character’s age came up with 18y and not 15y, so I stand by the claim that even though he’s “ageless” (immortal, basically) he’s physically 18.

It also doesn’t make much sense that he is “ageless”—perhaps due to his origins of being put into stasis like some sort of autobot, or something—when a physical age for him has been stated to be 18 (which makes sense, as Knuckles was, by technicality, the original Shadow, having been invented seven years before Shadow was, and as far as I remember is meant to be a year or two older (16 or 17) than Sonic (15)—it also makes sense because Rouge is also 18, apparently, and I’d have imagined them to be of very similar age). Technically that should just let him do an Edward Cullen and be 18 forever.

(I will note that I’ve never liked the prospect of Shadow being immortal. Or the duration it took for him to come out of stasis just to link to Dr. Robotnik somehow. Perhaps I’m just biased, but to me it feels heavily unjust—I wanted Shadow and Sonic carrying their rivalry all the way to the old folks’ home, damnit. And now that vision is ruined.)

Overall, being immortal really doesn’t suit Shadow’s character, in my opinion, and just feels like a plot point now simply discarded and forgotten. It really wasn’t necessary in the first place, and making him 18 (immortal or otherwise) would have been much easier, rather than the oh-so-enigmatic “ageless” genotype we all know and love today.

To remedy this, I like to think red-eyed Shadow is different to brown-eyed Shadow in the sense of age and therefore backstory. I made a post on it—in fact I think it’s probably the post right before this one on my blog—but currently my main focus is going to be on Prime, which is why I’m now so bitter about Shadow’s age, and Sonic character ages as a whole.

None of it really fits, and I think they all need to be updated (Sonic and Amy’s, especially). I mean, I know Amy’s was back in the day, but with how she’s depicted now as opposed to back then, even post-redesign (she went from an 8yo Sonic recolour to a 12yo what-we-know-now). I mean, I know her main, more “well regarded” character arc is learning how to mature, but with her literally being fucking 12 is just a pisstake.

Sonic’s age is less annoying as opposed to Shadow and Amy’s (respectively) because I don’t think too much into it until I notice it doesn’t suit him due to the situations he’s in. Yes, he’s young and he’s a teenager—a cocky one at that, which is one of the many good things Hardcore Sonic Fans (aka the “bronies” of this fandom, for lack of a more adequate word) praise Prime for depicting—so it’d make sense for him to be such (15yo), but to me it’s make much more sense for him to be like 16.

I’d be willing to say “maybe even 17”, but 16 just seems so perfect and on the nose. It’s such a nitpicky little detail but to me Sonic’s age wouldn’t seem so absurd if they just made him 16. It’d both make an immense difference and yet basically none at all that would force any impact on his characterisation.

Amy’s the most absurd—her age still hasn’t been updated from 12 and even though it’s an improvement from her being 8, it’s still ridiculous. If you’re (and by that, I mean the creators, not you, the anon) not going to change Sonic’s age, at least change hers. To me, she seems like she should be a year younger than Sonic at least.

Same could be said for Tails. To me he feels similar to Amy, or at least in the terms of arcs. He should be younger than Sonic, and either the same or younger than Amy, too. He’s still eight, and with how his character has evolved over the years, especially in the modern era, he needs to be just a mite older, like 12 or something.

I feel like Shadow’s age, I most have a problem with for literally being 50 (I don’t care if he’s “physically” 18 or whatever. He’s not Edward Cullen, although that too is also pretty creepy) and as for the coma thing, put it like this: if Timmy fell down the well at 8 years of age and woke up from his head-trauma-induced coma 50 years later, he isn’t automatically excused from picking fights or relationships with kids.

I added the “relationships” into it because this (the thing with the coma) seems to be the primary excuse for Sonadow shippers (I suppose with Rougeow it isn’t so bad because she’s canonically 18, probably to make her past sex appeal to humans somewhat legal, but still). I mean, I’ve seen the same being said for other ships, but not really. The primary ship seems to be for Sonadow, seeing as Amy’s age is always disregarded anyway, especially in the Sonamy side of the fandom.

Shadow was my favourite part in Prime, I’ll admit—I liked his banter with Sonic, and I liked his voice actor (oh, Ian Hanlin, how I love your vocal range so)—which is why my anger for Shadow’s age and backstory made a resurgence (it was either mid-last year or the one just before, where I went through a Sonic phase on my blog after revisiting Boom, and somewhere during that I’d said the same thing, although not to this much feedback from an anon/anons).

I also made the post about Shadow’s eyes because if noticed they were brown in Prime but didn’t really pick up on what exactly was off until I’d googled it. One could argue they’re red for TV as opposed to the games, but in Sonic X they’re red, like in the games, and in Sonic Boom they’re a more saturated colour, making them mostly dark red, borderline brown.

So, I assume as the modern era of Sonic-based media progresses/progressed, they’ve turned from brown to red. It’s subtle but I hope it says a lot. Mostly for his backstory, because god, do I hate Shadow’s backstory.

#i assume you’re the same anon as this morning? /gen q #asks #anon asks #anonymous #answering an ask #sth ages #shadow the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog #ages in sonic are fucked #this is a very /nm and /lh post/reply posed in an opposite manner I do realise so apologies if it comes off as seriously defensive #it isn’t I just like theatrical flares in my posts sometimes /gen #tangent #lol maybe I should make a sonic side just to organise this stuff #/gen thoughts on the matter #sonic prime #sonic boom #sonic x #amy rose #knuckles the echidna

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bunny-hoodlum · 2 years

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Almost done binging Netflix's Dark and Some Updates on hiatused Fics

Okay, I deleted my cringey post from however long ago, two days ago, whatever. I mean, in a way this blog is dead. I don't reaaaally feel like posting anything on here in particular, and I kinda never have. IDK when I will be drawing again, and I'm pulling away from social media in general becuz it's actually making me less inspired and more distracted.

Okay, I'll just quickly touch on Dark and move on. If you've read my fic "Powerless", which I stupidly deleted becuz I was worried readers were gonna feel ship-baited (becuz I didn't know when the NaruHina was ACTUALLY gonna happen) but for the past 3 years I wish I had left it up, it's been nearly 5 years now since I started it... AGHHHH!!! Okay, recurring angst out of the way, Dark S3 reminded me of what I was going for with Powerless. So... While time travel will not be involved at all, cosmic-level mysteries are definitely part of it. And I'll be working on the official plot again on the side. (it's still probably going to suck though, haha, what a reason to never update something, it never gets to suck if you don't let it. :P )

Fanfic Updates:

*more pained screaming* AHHHH!!! Had to get the cringe out of the way. Trying really hard here to get back to 21 Days but I feel so embarrassed, I don't know why. I just looked at it and had to click away, guhhh... T _ T Must be my writing, it's almost 3 years old. Where does the time go? I'm so sad. I have to retcon shit by 2 chapters. I totally forced the plot point of Sasuke taking his police test too early. I'm no longer attached to that development, which is good, because by holding onto it, I was staying stuck. Ch 20 is fine in of itself, but it's so, so short and not amazing. Totally a transitional chapter but whatever the new chapter is, it's going to be like... Ch 20's content plus more, and then Ch 21 is going to be something else entirely.

I know that there's nothing wrong with AWY in its current state, and even with the way it is right now it's like an arc has ended and I have to start a new arc, but I'm not feeling the last chapter anymore either. I think the way Kurenai is and how they kinda made up was totally accepted and even enjoyed? But it's not working for me. So I'm adjusting all of that.

As for Runner's High, I've written several new different outlines and such, so far I'm leaning on... and this is because I watched Run with the Wind last spring precisely for research... I'm leaning on Naruto being a college athlete and his team goes to a resort for training and it happens to be the one that I originally wanted him to work at -- maybe he will still work there at some point, I'm still figuring that all out. But I'm abandoning the 'hotel/hospitality management' major aspect because it's not really a necessary degree to move up the hierarchy. He can be a front desk boy and already be on the path to hotel owner, give or take years and years of experience, and then, y'know, not even know if that's what he wants until later. I still think Uzushio can be like a bankrupt country that he wants to go back to and revitalize and whatnot. Maybe. I've totally disconnected from my old plans and the previous version of the fic, so whatever becomes up the reboot is gonna be whatever it's gonna be, and it's not going to be the same lol. It literally cannot be the same. Lightning in a Bottle. But it's still a fun story that I want to write either way. It's a niche that needs to be filled, among other things.

Alright, I think that's all. Sorry, I'm not more succinct with this stuff, I know it's rambly as hell lol.

#I don't know what to tag here #naruhina fanfiction #updates #writing journal

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c0rpseductor · 1 month

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rambling about plans for my ffxiv fic

doing another round of reading about writing blind characters for y’shtola purposes and i feel much better about the resource i found this time compared to last time, which didn’t have a lot of highly specific day to day information and seemed to forget very often that other disabilities exist. there was a very frustrating post for me as a cane user due to injury/nerve damage where that person was listing little habits people have carrying a white cane, like tapping their fingers against it or leaning with it and saying that sighted people will never experience the feeling of having an extension of themselves like that, which. Holy shit other people use canes too! this one is good about acknowledging comorbidity and intersecting disabilities and stuff.

anyway. i think there’s really so much to unpack when it comes to making decisions about writing y’shtola’s blindness in a way that’s not totally fucking stupid, especially as a sighted person, so i’m happy to be armed with both generalized “here is why x trope is annoying” and “here is how xyz thing actually works in real life” type information. it gives me a lot of detail to think about and try to incorporate, which is important in a novelization with a tone like morningstar’s especially.

it’s frustrating that there’s not much to go off in canon, too. they do the annoying “this blind character has special powers that negate her blindness” trope, and they also don’t seem to be very consistent about how much vision she has left, if any, and kind of handwave it with aethersight because it’s treated as like…functionally identical to sightedness if not better. except for when they remember she’s blind for character moments. i feel like the bit in endwalker where she can’t see the blasphemies because they have no aether implies she’s TOTALLY blind, but the way she interacts with the murals in rak’tika suggests she has vision left, because she doesn’t ask for anyone to describe what they depict and the only distinction she gives about paints is like, that the paint is old. and i think “her aethersight can tell the difference between the aetheric makeup of paint colors and ink and paper and so on” is fucking dumb.

i can’t decide whether i’d rather have her retain some vision or be totally blind. retaining or having some vision is far more common, and there’s no reason she couldn’t. additionally, that would mean her aethersight could be an assistive technology integrated into her remaining vision rather than something that “makes up” for her blindness. that bit in endwalker Does rely on her being totally blind, but then i feel like there’s less wiggle room to write a less offensive version of the aethersight because we’re back to “it’s a replacement for vision.” i’d also been thinking that emet-selch’s soulsight is more like a separate, more conceptual sixth sense with no real mundane corollary that he simplifies to “color” bc linguistic limitation, and given aethersight is essentially the same ability, applying that to y’shtola’s experience of it might…mitigate that?

it’s one of those things where i think there’s going to be some residual ableism no matter what. :/ i want to avoid as much of it as i can, but trying to change too much about her character or removing her aethersight entirely does pretty drastically change the trajectory of the original story AND remove the few moments where it actually does have the potential to intersect with her ability in an interesting way. if i were writing a less canon-compliant fic maybe i’d remove it altogether, but this is really an adaptation to prose with changes as opposed to a totally new narrative. i don’t want to potentially fuck everything up.

i think one big consideration is going to be her relationship with books, because she’s a huge reader and scholar. braille or some equivalent Should exist in the FFXIV universe and i think y’shtola should certainly be literate in it, but i think it’s also true that she’s probably not going to be able to find braille versions of Many of her Dusty Ancient Tomes. i like the idea of a spell that reads books aloud to her in her own voice, but specifically her inside-her-head voice, because that just seems like a fun detail to add to a magic spell like that. (i saw something like that in an emetwol fic i read except it was the sighted MC listening to an enchanted book urianger gave her that read in his voice. y’shtola is not typically a character in those fics so much as a vague amorphous force of stern disapproval and/or dispenser of noncanon soulbonding exposition, but it did kind of feel like. Hey. Why were audiobooks not the blind woman’s idea)

i could probably work her sorceress staff into having a dual function as a cane, maybe by making it lighter? i think any mobility aid she uses has to be something that can be seamless in combat. if her aethersight is like residual vision or if she has some level of residual vision, then it’d probably suit her okay to transition from cane to staff, she’s gotta stay in her ley lines and she has other ways to remain in touch with her environment. a familiar is also a possibility. i think with very few exceptions (like asking someone to describe a specific sight to her), she would reject any kind of assistance from a human guide; it’s not that she’s above connections with others or interdependence, i just think she plays her emotional cards really close to the vest in the same way matoya did and doesn’t particularly like engaging in that sort of vulnerability. but just like her asking urianger to describe the sky as a moment of emotional resonance and demonstration of trust, i could see that being relevant in other ways in morningstar, like maybe her intending to lead by example for pfeil.

i think their relationship is actually far more important than i initially gave it credit for given their relationships to disability. thancred is also real life disabled in my fic in that he has no vision in one eye, but i think he just has a less intense relationship with disability compared to the two of them if that makes sense? they have different motivations for what they’re doing to themselves but pfeil and y’shtola both take inordinate risks and completely wreck their bodies as a reaction to disability. i think for y’shtola it’s more a sort of dignity of risk thing, where she’s willing to do absolutely anything to get to where she wants and doesn’t necessarily have any internalized negative impressions of her own blindness by shb — maybe part of this is her relying on a variety of assistive technologies rather than JUST residual vision and aethersight and being reckless in other ways. for pfeil it’s actively a “moral” (read: obsessive-compulsive and fawning response) thing; he thinks he’s obligated to hurt himself because his physical disabilities represent a failure to live up to the role of Warrior of Light.

that’s a big source of tension between the two of them, bc pfeil thinks she’s still operating on the internal ableism he’s operating on (and even immediately after being blinded i think hers was never so intense as pfeil’s). conversely y’shtola recognizes that the way he thinks of himself is INCREDIBLY fucked and alarming and that his relationship to risk is actively and intentionally self-destructive as opposed to incidentally like hers. y’shtola didn’t jump after the antidote with the thought of martyring herself; pfeil in her shoes would’ve considered martyring himself the only morally defensible choice, because he’s got worms.

i also think that y’shtola is a person he deeply admires and respects, even though they butt heads not infrequently given she’s a lot more pragmatic and brusque and pfeil is a very bleeding heart on his sleeve type. i mentioned earlier there’s a lot of like, “oh no y’shtola knows i’m banging emet and doesn’t approve!” in m/f emetwol and it’s usually kind of weirdly misogynistic and racist (we HAVE to shit on the WOC for not supporting this deeply white couple!), so initially i wanted to avoid pfeil asking for her take on the relationship after they’ve broken up, but i think actually that’s very in keeping with their relationship and my instinct was correct. y’shtola is more or less a member of his family whose opinion he holds in very high esteem, of course he’s going to want to process something like this with her. i don’t really want to center it on her approval because of course they both agree it was a stupid decision, more on the insight that she has into people that he doesn’t as someone with both autism and limited/stunted social experience due to the horrors.

Jesus this post is long. drives me insane that I can do this but can’t just write the next chapter already

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staringdownabarrel · 4 months

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Alright, so I've just finished Talon of the Silver Hawk by Raymond E. Feist. There's no triggering stuff below the cut; I just put it there because this ended up being a lot longer than I thought it'd be.

I think this book curbs some of the world-building issues his previous books have had. While his previous books have largely neglected the Kingdom of Roldem and the other eastern kingdoms, this is the book that starts to amend that. This is something that's touched on briefly in one of the Riftwar Legacy novels, but I think they never really went as deeply into that as they could have.

It also adds some indigenous cultures to the book, which is more in line with what you'd expect to see in a world as large as Midkemia; especially in the distant, rural parts. The titular Talon is from a little village that's heavily inspired by Native American cultures.

This ends up being a double edged sword. On one hand, this adds a level of cultural diversity that the Riftwar saga desperately needed. One of my ongoing issues with the series is that I feel like it doesn't really have as many different cultures as you'd really expect, especially when you consider just how far away a lot of these places are from each other.

On the other, I'm not really sure if Feist is the best guy to be writing a character who's so clearly inspired by Native American cultures. When reading this, I got the sense that Feist knew about as much about their cultures as I do, which is to say jack shit.

Fortunately, he does sidestep this a bit by having it so that most of the book be more or less a revenge fantasy where Talon is being trained up to avenge his village. This sands over the issue of whether or not Feist knows anything about the cultures that inspired this book's protagonist by essentially cutting him off from his own culture.

Ironically, this might be one of the most true-to-life things that ever happened in one of these books. Especially when it comes to power hungry, empire building leaders like the villains in this trilogy, genociding indigenous cultures along the way is a common occurrence.

I don't know if this was intentional or not, though I suspect it probably was, the first half of the book where Talon was receiving his education was pretty accurate to what happens with real life genocides as well. Once separated and stripped of their original culture, an indigenous child--and by modern standards, 14-year-old Talon was a child at the start of this book--will be reeducated in a way generally acceptable to the imperial/colonising force.

So while it is debatable whether or not Feist knew a whole lot about the Native American cultures that inspired Talon, it also might not matter. The book never goes into detail about what his original culture was like because there was nothing left of it for him to save. From an in universe perspective, it would make sense if this is the kind of account written decades later by someone who didn't speculate about what that culture may have been like because, like most traditional historians, they only saw it as a quaint backwards culture; not the kind of thing worthy of respect the same way they might respect the courtly cultures of the surrounding kingdoms and empires.

Still, I feel like in some ways, a more interesting direction would have been to base Talon's original culture on some European indigenous cultures like the Sámi people in the far north of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. This would have side stepped some of the specific race-related issues associated with the indigenous people in the Americas, but the similar history of segregation and attempted destruction of cultures and histories would have remained the same.

I think this would have been better in some ways because it'd help explain why he was able to fit in with the white societies in the Kingdom of the Isles and later the Kingdom of Roldem. While he may have had some ethnic traits associated with certain cultures, a lot of the people he'd meet wouldn't necessarily be as aware of that, and some would probably assume people in the duchy of Yabon (where his cover story said he was from) had a similar look.

Of course, this kind of direction probably wouldn't be as clearly indigenous-coded to people outside of Europe as the Native American inspired culture Feist went with. I don't think it would have lent itself to a cool-sounding title like Talon of the Silver Hawk, either.

Really, I feel like this is the first book since Magician that managed to recapture the sense of wonder that the first book had. The stakes in this book aren't really as high, but it has that same element of a fish out of water that the first book had. I think this more than anything is why I liked it so much when I was sixteen.

Admittedly, I still agree with that assessment today. Even though I'm coming at this from a different angle than I was back then, I think this book is a lot better than some of the books that came before it. Whether or not it was entirely intentional, I think Feist did put a lot more food for thought in this book than he had in a lot of the books he'd written in the five or so years leading up to this.

Really, I feel like this book did more to revitalise the Riftwar saga than any of the Legends of the Riftwar trilogy books. While Feist's writing did noticeably improve because of having worked with some coauthors for a while, this is the book that really proved that the series could break away from the original characters entirely and still work the same way.

#talon of the silver hawk #raymond e. feist #riftwar #conclave of shadows #books #rant

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spewagepipe · 1 year

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On 2022

I got onto making my awards early this time, which has had the bizarre side-effect of making it a lot bigger and longer than usual. Anyway, let's see what cool stuff people managed to make in spite of the death throes of capitalism.

The Only 2022 Video Game that I Actually Played in 2022 — Warhammer 40,000: Darktide So, yeah, I still don't really keep up with new releases – I probably spend more time trying to pare down my backlog list than I spend reading headlines. But I played a fair bit of Darktide just at the end of the year here, and so far... uh, well, it's not exactly my cup of tea but it will probably do the job of "Left 4 Dead Clone" for a decent while. It runs like shit on my old PC, and the boltgun is the only weapon that satisfyingly kills things, but I've still had worse.

The Best Left 4 Dead Clone that I Played in 2022 — Remnant: From the Ashes At the end of the day, though, I'd still rather be playing Remnant. I don't care for the weird way that Remnant handles equipment, but it has a much wider array of satisfying guns than Darktide, and my PC can actually run it smoothly.

The Best Video Game that I Played and Finished in 2022 — Metro Exodus So I'm only three years late in giving Exodus its due, and I actually feel pretty good about that. I'm sure some of the franchise fans felt like Exodus lost too much of what made the original Metro 2033 unique – and I can empathize, since the Librarians remain my favourite enemies in any video game – but those people are mostly wrong. What it loses in perceived quirkiness, Exodus gains in its distillation and refinement of sandbox gameplay.

The Best Video Game that I Owe an Apology To in 2022 — Disco Elysium I started playing Disco Elysium this year, got a fair way into the game, and then life intervened and I had to set it aside for a while. Unfortunately, other games also intervened and I never got back to it, in spite of it being probably the single best game I played all year! An extremely close runner up for this one was Outer Wilds, which was also completely mind-blowing and which I did dirty in the exact same way. But as for Disco: the writing in this game is absolutely unsurpassed, even by its spiritual predecessor (and one of my GOATs) Planescape: Torment. But beyond that, it's just doing amazing things with fundamentals of RPG design, stuff that even the tabletop sphere should take note of. Plus it's an actual RPG – like, you role-play in it, it's not just a tactical/action game with a character progression menu.

The 2022 Video Game that I'm Most Hoping to Play Soon — Iron Lung So, this year wasn't... "great" for video games, but there were still plenty of gems in the rough, so much so that I actually had to give some serious thought to this category. It might seem odd to pick a game that takes less than two hours to play over giants like Elden Ring, but while I continue my internal debate over whether I even give a shit about FromSoft's latest exercise in masochism, Iron Lung has me genuinely gripped and excited to see how much fear can be wrung from a game where there's no risk of an instant game-over monster kill.

The Best 2022 Superhero Movie of 2022 — The Batman As various Batman stories continue to struggle to paint their fundamentally reactionary hero as... a hero, The Batman delivered a better and grittier mystery/detective story than we've seen on the big screen before. With Marvel tripping out of the starting gate on its next "saga", this film provided some blessed redemption after DC's own repeated failures to launch.

The Best Not-Superhero Movie of 2022 — Nope I had planned for this category to be the best not-superhero and not-horror movie, but I didn't see all that many new movies this year and I don't really plan to – seems they mostly look like shit anyhow. So instead I've got to widen up the category and hand this to Nope, which is as much as, or even more so, amazing movie about movies and spectacles as it is a horror film.

The 2022 Tabletop Game that I'm Most Excited to Play — ISS Vanguard I don't feel as guilty about being a few years behind the curve when it comes to board games, since it takes a long time for them to percolate through the community and establish any kind of consensus opinion that can be used to justify a purchase. But when my good friend started to describe this game he had backed, I was drawn in by the enthusiasm – here's hoping that the epic star-trekking campaign can live up to the hype.

The Best Tabletop Game that I Played in 2022 — Inis A close runner up was Nemesis, a game that so consistently generated great stories that every time I play it I feel somewhat compelled to redesign it as an RPG in the hopes of distilling that essence. But as for our real winner, Inis is a 2016 game that I probably never would have given a second thought to, but that has had me consistently cackling with glee every time I play it. Victory always seems to come from a stealthy surprise, even after long, brutal conflicts of attrition.

The Pandemic Legacy Season 0 Award for Tabletop Campaigns that I Still Haven't Been Able to Play Because We Live in a Plague-Ridden Hellscape — Pandemic Legacy Season 0 At this point, I think trying to arrange for a "once a month" in-person meeting is a fool's errand. I'm going to wait for a gap when the numbers are low, and we're going to play as many back-to-back games of this as we can in the hopes of powering through it before the numbers surge again.

#retrospective #2022 #new year #movies #video games #tabletop #awards

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earthstellar · 2 years

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turns out my local library’s online book loan system has the TFP Art Book so HELLLLL YEAHHHHHH

gonna go through it much more extensively when I’m not on my lunch break lmao

but real quick just some screenshots of sections of a few various pages, mostly Ratchet because of course lol:

I’ve seen the above concepts for Ratchet and Arcee before, but only as part of the full intro page and usually in a slightly lower quality, so I figured I’d provide everyone with this version

some quick notes:

-Ratchet’s original concept has heartbeat lines, which might actually make sense as we know that sparks have a “pulse” based on their energy oscillation patterns, so this heartbeat might be more of a sparkbeat and may not necessarily be specific to any adopted human ambulance livery.

-Arcee’s design is almost Seeker-like; Check out her abdominal structure and how it very much resembles a Seeker cockpit. Her “wing” features also seem more pronounced in this model, with a very different helm design that has a crest here which matches the more wing-like protrusions/kibble on her back and elbows. Her forearms are also somewhat long, and I wonder if they re-tooled her so that she would look less Decepticon-like, as

-These may also be their Cybertronian planet-side designs!

I haven’t read the book yet, just skimming it while I’m on break, so I don’t know if this is mentioned or implied anywhere. But it would make sense, if so; We know they ended up doing a full design for Orion Pax, so perhaps during the development of that plotline/those episodes, they may have experimented with Cybertronian designs for the rest of the characters as well.

Or of course, these could just be earlier concepts for what the Autobots would look like on Earth, throughout the series. These sketches aren’t accompanied by text aside from the intro segment of the book (unless I have missed something while skimming over lunch, which could be the case), but it’s interesting that they are included without comment!

ratchet stuff!

Because I am also old and tired, naturally I’m gonna go right to Ratchet’s pages first lmao, so here’s a few screenshots from his section:

Here’s the text above if it’s hard to read for anyone:

“We used elements to make Ratchet feel a little bit more square, not as dynamic. The way you break the shapes, he doesn’t have the small waist. We gave him a bigger jaw, a bit more square. Within the eyes, we wanted him to feel a lot softer. All those elements make him feel a bit older.” - Jose Lopez

At the top of the same page are three character turn around sketches, useful for reference (not the greatest quality but I’m working from library scans here lol):

I’ll be going through the whole book once I’m off work and will screenshot little bits here and there as I go; So far it looks like a solid art book!

I just wanted to share these to get started with, because I don’t think I’ve seen a lot of this content before and I’m not sure how many other people have come across it!

I also know this book is rare/expensive as hell, so I’m just impressed that my library has it tbh, holy shit yes.

#tfp ratchet #ratchet #tfp #maccadam #maccadams #concept art #transformers #transformers prime #tfp arcee #tfp concept art #analysis

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lord-explosion-baku · 3 years

Text

Trident Tale

Merman!Shinsou x reader, Kirishima x Reader

Warnings: adult themes (Minors DNI)

A/N: read the prologue on AO3

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

(Original image by @maewoahoah)

Synopsis: Moving to an island where everyone is big on the surf scene and other oceanic happenings might not have been the brightest idea for someone so afraid of anything that has to do with water, but you make do by spending your days looking after the Bed & Breakfast, trying not to burn the house down when you fry a few eggs, and obsessively scrolling through Eijirou Kirishima’s social media page. He’ll never notice you, and you think you’re fine with that, until a mysterious force washes into Ms. Shuzenji’s pool after a particularly nasty storm.

Hitoshi Shinsou is a pain in the ass from the get-go, but you put up with him, fins and all, when he promises he can help unite you with your soulmate. The catch? The fish is hellbent on taking back what was stolen from him, and he won’t lift a gracious finger until he gets what he came for.

You’re helpless to lend him a hand, so long as you stay dry. Unless, of course, he has other plans.

You know how the saying goes: you rub his fins, he’ll rub yours.

Storms have never really been your cup of tea. Though you keep yourself locked inside a good percent of the time, there’s nothing quite as suffocating as the compress of clouds overhead. It’s not like you always have to see them to be uncomfortable, but you definitely feel them pressing down, closing in, and caging you, even when you’ve got yourself tucked under a blanket on Ms. Shuzenji’s couch.

It’s been a little over a year since you first moved to the island. All you needed was a new beginning, and you got that, but you got that, and the tropical weather that you’re still getting used to. It’s currently typhoon season, and holy seaweed-on-your-doorstep, is it storming.

There’s little you can do to distract yourself while staying and working at Shuzenji’s bed and breakfast. There are currently no guests, aside from you, so all the rooms are made, and the old lady is on another one of her long vacations, so you’re basically being paid to lounge. You’re grateful for that, at least. But the only thing that’s keeping you physically separated from the terrifying weather is a thick glass pane that water sloshes on every time a wave laps over the backyard walls.

The things that separate you mentally are the old-timey recordings of Shuzenji singing alongside an ensemble cast, and the little device in your hand. If you didn’t have your boss’s haunting melodies echoing throughout the house, and some big, beefy, tatted eye-candy to gawk at during the storm, you’d surely go insane.

Eijirou Kirishima, one of the island’s best surfers, is out on his board, live-streaming his current fight against the waves. His whoops and hollers can be heard over the crashing tides, getting even you excited for what’s about to come. That’s the thing about Kirishima; he’s wild, you’re not, and it’s hot as hell. Oftentimes, you catch yourself daydreaming about joining him out in the surf—he guides you through the waves, maybe yoou impress him a bit with your sudden affinity for wave-riding, and the two of you wash up on shore where you’ll both share your first kiss. It would be feasible if you could swim. It would be feasible if you bothered to learn how to swim, but for now, you’re content with your imagination. At least he can make you hate the terrible weather a little less.

The conspiratorial smirk he shows the camera is borderline swoon-worthy when the swell begins to pull him further out. It’s impossible not to bite your lip every time you catch a glimpse of his arms forcing themselves through the sea. He makes this look easy—like the storm is child’s play, and as the winds blow Shuzenji’s trash bin into the sliding glass door, you welcome the delicious distraction.

As Kirishima stands up on his signature trident board and rides one of the biggest waves he’s seen all day, you’re once again struck with how much of a coward you are. He can fight the elements, while you can hardly bring yourself the courage to talk to him. Mind you, he’s constantly surrounded by a close group of friends—a close group of friends you find intimidating—and when he’s not with them, he’s out in the water. Where there’s water involved, you’re spoken for. Unless, of course, you’d like for the first time you guys actually speak, to be when he’s giving you CPR.

Not the most ideal “meet cute”, but if it works, it works.

A loud crash snaps you out of your admittedly salty daydream. Mango, Shuzenji’s orange tabby, yowls at the blanket of water cascading down the windows, and your stomach sinks. There’s only so many minutes you can pretend that the storm Kirishima is facing isn’t the one that’s destroying Shuzenji’s yard.

With a sigh, you roll off the velvet couch, and grimace when crumbs that were nesting in your shirt fall to the carpet: a mess to clean up later. Without any guests to mind, you don’t have to worry too much over keeping the place spick-and-span, so long as things are nice and tighty by the time the old lady gets back, which will be awhile.

You have an easy enough job—at least, when there aren’t bunches of thick seaweeds crashing over the yard’s wall, flooding the pool.

“Shit.”

Water sprays in every direction. The already trash-infested pool overflows as more kelp rolls in with the maniacal waves, and angry, white foam bangs on the back door. It's a disaster outside, and you’re not sure what to do about it.

Fingers wrapped around the back door handle, you struggle to think of a way to prevent a bigger mess, but even if you could manage to clean anything, nothing is stopping the tempest from wreaking anymore havoc. Best case scenario, you stop a plastic soda-chain from washing out to see and becoming a deadly necklace for an unlucky seagull. Worst case scenario, you slip, crack your head open on the pavement, and drown before you can ever utter the words “mahalo” to Kirishima.

Needless to say, you’ll take your life over a gull’s any day.

Another sigh.

A greater wave collides against the wall, bringing more of the Great Unknown into the pool. This is going to be a fun job to clean. Good thing you’ve got Shuzenji’s service boy, Denki Kaminari, on speed dial. You think if you sound particularly distressed in the morning, he’ll show up to help you out with just about anything in the matter of minutes. God bless desperate fuckboys.

So, for now, you cuddle back up on the couch, watch Kirishima shake saltwater out of his thick, red hair, and pretend that his storm is not the same thing as your storm.

It’s early morning when you finally rise out of bed. You hadn’t gotten a whole lot of rest—something to do with the wailing winds shaking your bedroom window nonstop, but after you finally drifted into dreams about snakes and dragons, you woke to clear skies, and light seagull calls.

From the second story, you can see early birds have already gotten the jump on cleaning up the beach. The sun is shining, the ocean blue and vast. The only trace there was ever a storm is already being taken care of. There are lifeguards riding around on ATVs and younger civilians with trash bags and grapplers picking up seaweed and absconded debris. The respect everyone has for the island is something to be admired, and you half-consider going out there yourself, after you’ve dealt with your yard, which is sure to be a wreck.

There’s no interest in picking out a cute outfit for the morning you’re going to have, even if Denki might see you, so you throw on a already-worn-this-week crop top, some pink shirts, and you’re good to go.

The first thing you do after Mango’s fed is check your socials. Kirishima posted a picture of his breakfast: a hefty plate with three eggs, sausage links, bacon, cut avocado, and what seems to be low-carb toast. The post reads, gotta eat ur gainz 2 gain ur gainz, and it’s so ridiculous that you’re infatuated with this reckless himbo. You wonder if you’d ever be able to hold an intellectual conversation with him, if you could ever manage to speak to him in the first place, but conversation wouldn’t matter if his mouth was between your thighs.

Following his example, you crack two eggs over a frying pan, sigh at the mostly empty fridge, then agonize over the state of Shuzenji’s yard. It’s worse than you thought it’d be. The pool is a sickly green color, and from where you’re standing inside, its murky depths seem to be almost opaque from the seaweed and garbage stewing together. Kelp litters the beige pavement, and there’s trash hiding in the shrubs. There’s a chocolate donut floaty bobbing around in there, too, and Shuzenji doesn’t own any floaties.

What a drag.

Before you get too far in your head about everything you’ll need to do to clean up, you quickly dial Denki’s number. He picks up after a ring and a half.

“I know what you’re about to ask,” says the boy on the line, and from his cocky tone, you can assume it’s not going to be about the cleanup. “I am absolutely free tonight. If you wanted to grab drinks at the Salty Barrel, maybe go on a romantic rendezvous out on the beach, watch the sunset on or in a couple blankets, I wouldn’t complain.”

“I’m not calling to ask you on a date, Kaminari,” you say as you step outside. The pavement is cold underneath your bare feet, and you have to tip-toe around to be sure not to let any kelp touch your skin. Yuck.

“But you’re not, not calling about a date, either,” he counters. By the volume of his voice, you can tell that he’s in his van, talking to you over the speaker. Good. So he’s already out and about.

“I need you to tell me how to drain Shuzenji’s pool.” Call you cold, but you’re used to Denki’s flirty nature by now, and you’ve learned that the best way to deal with it, is to not acknowledge it. Of course, you can’t be too callous when it comes to him, especially when you actually need his help. You eye the dangerously complex-looking valves off to the side of the house, and grimace. “There’s too many twisty thingies! I’m not sure what to do!”

“Now, hold your horses, little lady! Don’t go twisting any thingies just yet. Draining a pool is a process.” There’s a long pause, the loud growl of an engine, then silence. He’d pulled over to talk to you. “How’s your TDL? And what kinda PVC pipes you got?”

“The huh and what?” You don’t need to pretend to be in distress—you have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Listen, don’t touch anything. You’re calling because the pool’s a mess right now, right? You don’t need to drain it; at least, not yet. I can swing by in an hour or so to clean it, but I’ve gotta make some stops first. You’re not the only single woman who wants to watch me do my thang, especially not after yesterday.”

“It’s so bad, Kaminari.” The water in the pool sloshes around, like there’s actually something in it causing the water to ungulate and burble. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Don’t worry your pretty, little head over it. You've got me, okay? It’s my job to protect and serve.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“Nope, I’m better than a cop. I’m a pool guy.”

He goes on to ask you to check out what kind of drain the pool has, if you can find the drain, then loses you when he starts talking numbers and gallons. While still on the phone, you send a few texts to Shuzenji, explaining the predicament, then Denki mentions rates. You’re getting the cutie pie discount, doubled because he counts Shuzenji as a “cutie pie” too—something you mention to her because she’ll get a kick out of it—then he drops all business to ask about food.

“I’m cooking my breakfast,” you say with a wary glance back at the house.

“But is your breakfast fries and a shake from Tiki Burger?”

You bite your lip as your stomach growls its empty sorrow. “No.”

“Would you like it to be?” His knowing grin is heard through the line.

“…I’m not gonna go out with you.”

He chuckles and you’re grateful that he can’t see your answering smile. “We’ll see how you feel after you see me work my magic. And hey, if you’d like me to wear a Speedo while I work—“

“You’ll be here in an hour?” You cut him off, because Denki in a Speedo is the last thing you need on your mind. The thought of Kirishima in a Speedo, however, gets you a little hot, which is saying a lot, since you’re a part of the Speedos and Dolphin-shorts Are Abominations To Swimwear belief system.

“Maybe sooner. I think my next client just needs me to check out their chemical levels. Inside pool and all. Everyone else knew to put a tarp out.”

The tarp you had blew away, but you don’t bother explaining that to Denki. Let him believe you’re the dim-witted “little lady” he wants you to be. If it means Shuzenji gets a discount, not that she can’t afford any bill Denki’s company throws at her, then let him believe you can’t open a pickle jar without a man’s help for all you care.

“See you then,” you say, and end the call. There will be time to work on your charm once Denki gets here. Until then, you figure you could do some investigating so you’re not completely helpless.

Leaving your phone on the pavement so you don’t accidentally drop it in the water, you make your way around the pool to where you think you remember the drain being. You can’t say you’ll know what kind of drain it is, but if you remember correctly, it’s circular, and like, kinda meshy? That description simply won’t do.

Dropping down to your knees, you peer down into the pool, squinting, as if that can help you see through all the muck. There’s definitely a lot of kelp and algae, sand drifting through the water, someone’s wayward brazier, and oh. A school of fish—little babies circling about. It’s wild, but you suppose it could be possible if all the chlorine washed out and there was enough salt water to sustain marine life.

The fish move together, bopping into each other, mouths gaping open to eat whatever they find in their temporary home. You don’t know enough about marine life to know what kind of fish they are. Silvery little things. Maybe Denki has something that can help transport them from the pool to the ocean. It’s not far—Shuzenji’s house is on the beach. It would be a shame if all the little fish had to die. You don’t particularly care about touching or feeding fish, but a life is a life, and if they can be saved, you’d at least like to try.

But all your thoughts of saving fish life stop when you catch something moving in the water. It’s not the fish—they’re not that big, but it’s definitely fishlike. Fish plus. It moves like a shadow, serpentine and fluid. You catch a glimpse of scales, so it’s definitely not a dolphin—even then, it’s bigger than a dolphin, and more graceful than a shark. You begin thinking of leviathan, and other mythical creatures, as ridiculous as that is, when you see a long flowing fluke.

Okay. This thing is not just big. It’s gargantuan, and to see this much of the creature without seeing its head makes your skin crawl. You imagine falling in and being swallowed whole, suffocating in the dark, drowning in a monster’s belly.

The thought spooks you static, just in time to meet a pair of eyes in the water. This is your overactive imagination—you’re scaring yourself insane, but you don’t look away, and those eyes, almost human and curious, don’t disappear.

You’ve consumed enough media to know how these impossible interactions go. The creature is inquisitive, but keeps its distance. It often has to be coaxed out of hiding, and even then, the thing is skittish and untrusting. You’re certainly not one to go “pspsps, hey little guy, I’m not gonna hurt you,” but even if you were, you don’t get the chance, because this thing you’re looking at isn’t the least bit skittish, and in one second, you’re making eyes at at it, and in the next, the thing is exploding out of the water.

A large, broad chest towers over you. The thing pushes itself up with arms, human arms, but it’s anything but human. Sure, it has hair, although an odd purple color, framing its angular face and jaw, which are both human enough. Also framing its face are a pair of long, pointed fins sticking out from where human ears should be. Water dribbles down its chest, down to its navel—its navel. Your brain screams mammal, but underneath its navel are scales, rippling down to where its legs should be. Not human. Not fish.

Fish plus.

Man.

Fish plus man.

Fish-man.

Its eyes are almost the same color as its hair, only a shade lighter, and much sharper, narrowed in on you. It’s glaring. You realize this at the same time you realize that you're staring at it with your mouth agape. This would be so rude in any other setting. It’s also rude to pop out of a pool that isn’t yours without any other warning, but you’re not about to chastise the thing. You’re far too scared.

Then the thing reaches out to you, sprinkling water on your thighs and your shirt. Its hands look like a man’s hand, but its long fingers are connected by thin, indigo webbing that matches its tail. Its tail. You lose focus trying to find the word for this creature that’s barely on the tip of your tongue, when you realize the palm of its hand, its fishy, webby hand, is hovering over your cheek, the other carefully placed next to your knee to keep it upright.

You open your mouth to speak, but only a hiss comes out. The creature, wary, brings its hand back, but only slightly. Not enough to put you at ease, but enough to allow you to gain your composure, and scream.

“H-help!!!” You screech. “Help! Somebody! Help me!”

It claps its hand over your mouth, knocking you back. Water drips down on your shirt as it leans in, mouth curling up with distaste. Then, it does something impossible.

It speaks.

“So loud,” it growls in a low, masculine timbre.

It speaks, you think, it speaks and it has no manners!

You try to yell back, probably something with little thought, but you have a mouth full of fish-man hand, and the more you warble in its palm, the more apathetic it appears.

“Be quiet and still,” it commands, as if obeying it is supposed to be the most natural thing—something it expects from you. It catches you so off-guard that you actually listen, only trembling a little bit as those indigo eyes scan over your form. It’s uncomfortable having an unknown but cognizant creature observe you so closely. You shiver when its gaze roams over your belly, down your legs. You want to curl your legs up, move away, but you’re afraid if you even twitch more than it’s comfortable with, it’ll grab you and drag you into the pool. Your nightmare.

Instead, it does something slightly less worse. It moves its hand from your mouth to your cheek. The palm of its hand warms your skin in an unnatural way, like you’ve been laying in the sun for half an hour and it’s only your cheek that heats up. The creature's eyes widen as light begins to emanate, either from you, or from it, you’re not sure, but definitely from where it touches you. Tingles run from your neck down to your spine, and you wish you’d put a bra on before going outside, because this thing’s touch is making your body react in a way that it shouldn’t.

“So easy,” it purrs appraisingly, somewhat less insolent, but you’re still taken aback, ears hot with embarrassment.

Un-fucking-likely.

“Easy?!” You squawk out. “What do you mean by easy?”

It doesn’t answer you, and instead, moves its fingers from your cheek, down your jaw, to your chin. It begins leaning closer, heavy lids closing. You notice its lips for the first time: a defined line and a pretty bow. If you were in a less dire situation, you’d be able to admit that they’re very nice lips, but they’re getting closer to you, closer still, and you realize with a jolt what it’s trying to do.

Your foot meets its chest in a heartbeat.

“Nope!” You belt out, extending your leg so there’s more distance between you and the impolite beast. “Not today, fish-breath!”

Unperturbed, it lifts a lazy brow. Then, to your absolute horror, it presses both of its hands into your bare leg, and again you’re lit up, warm, and tingly, only far worse than before. Stomach tightening, you make a choked noise, trying to hold in the sigh that claws at your throat.

“Fish-breath.” It repeats your insult like it’s a balled-up piece of paper to be thrown in the trash. “I’ve been told that my aroma is quite appealing.”

“By whom? Other fish-breaths?!” You wriggle your leg out of his embrace, or whatever you could call that invasion, only to have it slip down so your foot rests in the fish-man’s hands, bright as the stars in the sky. “Eww ew! Don’t touch me! Get away!”

The creature scoffs, but let’s you go, and you both watch as the light disappears from the arch of your foot where he’d been touching. Fish-man slinks back into the murky water, hiding under a blanket of algae.

You have enough time to gather your composure, wipe the water droplets off your face, and rub your eyes. For a moment, you try to convince yourself that this has all been a sleep-deprived hallucination, but you’ve never really been one to delude yourself, unless your Kirishima fantasies were involved, and you know that you’ll have to try another tactic to accept the reality of your situation. Perhaps you can try to be civil with this creature, ask it if it’s…hurt, or if it needs a late night escort to get it back to the sea. But then, the thing resurfaces on the opposite end of the pool. It faces you, and leans back against the wall, arms spread out against the pavement, basking.

“You know,” he says, “your decorum is severely lacking. Don’t humans have classes that teach them proper etiquette—how to be more polite towards their guests and such?”

What’s lacking is your patience for marine life.

Standing up, you take in the thing, which you’re now pretty sure is in fact a man of sorts, in its entirety. His tail is long, longer than human legs, extending past the halfway mark of the pool, if your measurement counts his fluke. There’s a golden cuff on his right arm that spirals around, accentuating his large biceps. You stubbornly admit that it’s attractive—he’s attractive, at least, he would be for people who were into fish and not surfers. You brush whatever you’re feeling in the pit of your stomach off by telling yourself that you’re simply awestruck, and move on.

“Where I’m from-“ you begin, straightening your sodden crop top- “we offer our guests various beverages and snacks, depending on the time of day.”

Annoyingly, he looks interested.

“Since it’s the morning, I’d offer a guest tea, or coffee, and if I’m looking to impress, I’d maybe cook them a hot meal.”

The creature offers you a sardonic smile. “I happen to be famished.”

“However, with home-invaders, we’re more likely to pull a gun on them before heating up the earl grey.”

He loses the smile, and you’re glad that he might have an inkling of what a gun is. You’ve never owned one, and they don’t allow firearms on the island, but the threat stands. But if he was intimidated, even for a moment, he doesn’t show it anymore, and proves just that by turning his back on you, and resting his head in his arms. He has a dorsal fin with what looks to be a deep, x-shaped scar near his tailbone. You try not to wonder what that could’ve been from.

“Then how do you propose I go from a home-invader, to a house guest?” Asks the creature with little interest.

Cautiously walking around the pool with your arms crossed, you begin to list things off for the far-too-comfortable fish-man.

“You can start by telling me who you are, what you are, why you’re here, what you want, and why you think you can lay your webbed hands on me.”

“Oh, is that all?” He hums noncommittally. Content. Aggravating. “Why don’t you start then? Who are you, and why are you here?”

The back of your neck grows hot and uncomfortable. “How entitled do you have to be to—!” You start, but you’re swiftly cut off by the shrieking of the fire alarm. Smoke plumes from outside the house’s windows, and you curse under your breath before darting towards the door. You’d completely forgotten about your eggs.

In your haste to move the pan off the stove, you burn your fingers and drop the pan to the kitchen floor, two blackened egg crisps flaking off and diving in different directions. Mango yowls at the commotion and investigates one of the fallen egg crisps. Before you can tell him to buzz off, he loses interest in your mess, not bothering to give it a taste. You don’t blame him, but the eggs didn’t appear to be cat-bad. Ah, you can’t kid yourself. They are cat-bad. They’re completely inedible. Now you’re going to have to head to the market, while worrying about a man trapped in Shuzenji’s pool.

Your stomach roars at you.

After cleaning the mess as best as you could while desperately and ruefully wanting to return to your guest—no, not guest—invader, you get the alarm, half-heartedly fan the smoke out of the house, and return. Angry. This guy better start talking soon, or things are going to get ugly.

To your utter displeasure, he looks all the more amused at your newer, messier state.

“Was that supposed to be the hot meal,” he asks, cocky. “Because if so, I’ll pass.”

Instead of biting his head off like you’d like to, you present him with the still-dirty frying pan, pointing it at his head like you intend to use it.

“Start talking, fish-for-brains.”

The beast snickers, raising his hands in the air in mock-surrender. “Easy there, tiger shark. You know how to use that thing?”

You refuse to humor him. Instead, you keep your scowl tight, your arms steady. If he’s not threatened, he’ll lose interest in this game, then he’ll have to talk.

Lo and behold, you’re right. The fish-man rolls his eyes, and looks at you, again, with apathy.

“My name is Hitoshi Shinsou,” he says, lackadaisical, like he’s already bored of himself. “I’m one of Ryūjin. What humans have learned to call merpeople are actually descendants of the sea gods who lived centuries ago. I’m here, simply because the storm washed me here. What I want is to retrieve what’s mine. I thought I could lay my webbed hands on you—well-“ the corner of his mouth tilts up-“darlin’, it was because your body reacted to me.”

Mouth forming the beginning of a question that never comes, you stare in disbelief at this myth. Then the last thing he said dawns at you.

“I did not react to you!” You rebuke, steady hands now shaking.

“Oh no?” He says, but it’s not a question. It’s a challenge.

Hitoshi grabs the flat end of the frying pan and yanks it, and you, closer to him, closer to the water. You cringe and whine when a wet, webby hand closes around your wrist. Inadvertently, you drop the pan, but he pays it no mind as it sinks past his tail. Your skin begins to glow underneath his palms, and the tingles come back, shooting up your arm, causing tiny goosebumps to appear.

“Would you look at that,” Hitoshi croons, slow and almost sensuously. His indigo eyes narrow on your index finger where you’d burned yourself. To add to this nightmare, he closes his lips around it, and begins to suck. Your stomach flips, and you’re not sure if it’s because you’re disgusted, or scared, or…enjoying the feeling of his warm mouth, his tongue, touching your skin.

“Stop.” It’s a whisper. It means nothing. You think you want it to mean something, but your thoughts are buzzing into a blur. Knees growing weak, you descend, leaning closer to him, not caring about the water or the seaweed or the fish, and instead, entirely focused on his mouth. It’s glowing, his mouth. Faintly. Like a single candle lit in an otherwise empty room.

When he eases off of you, he runs his thumb over your now-healed finger, and let’s your arm fall limply at your side.

“All better,” he whispers back at you.

There are prickles all over your skin once you regain an ounce of dignity.

“What the hell was that?” You ask, breathless for no other reason than shock.

“The glowing?” He asks. “The healing?”

“Both.”

“Your reaction to me.” He’s cocky again. This is something sick. Mythical creature or not, this has got to be a game he plays, washing into people’s pools, causing problems, sucking on lonely girls’ fingers. He probably gets his kicks this way, and uses whatever other kind of magic he has to erase whoever he’s tormenting’s memories, if he doesn’t end up eating them when he’s done. Bogus.

You won’t let him get to you.

“Alright, Hitoshi Shinsou, how would you like me to get you back into the ocean? You healed my finger-“ although it’s essentially his fault you were burned to begin with, if you take into account the sequence of events-“so helping you out is the least that I can do.”

“I could use your help,” he muses lightly, turning his body back around to his chest and abdomen are turned towards the sun. You tell yourself not to stare like you know he probably wants you to. Though his eyes are closed, he peeps at you, sneaking a glance. “I don’t want to go back into the ocean, though. Not until I get what’s mine.”

With the might of a girl who just wants to go back inside and scroll through her phone, you swallow your bite, and ask, “what would that be?”

“Oh, this and that-“ he waves his hand around dismissively-“other things.”

With the might of a girl who just wants to go back inside and find another frying pan, you say, “alright, listen. Someone is on their way to the house to clean the pool. I don’t know what one of Ryūjin means, but I’m guessing people like you don’t always want to be discovered by people like us. So you either tell me what it is you need, or see how my pool guy reacts to a mermaid lounging around in my backyard! I wouldn’t put it against him to call the local news station. Get this place flooding with cameras. Does that sound like a pretty picture to you?”

Absolutely none of your threats penetrate Hitoshi’s cool nature. In fact, he laughs.

“When he gets here,” the merman drawls, knowing he’s got you hanging on every word, “invite him to swim.”

#bnha mermay #mermaid au #siren!shinsou #mermaid!hitoshi shinsou #hitoshi shinsou x reader #shinsou x reader #bnha x reader #bnha x you #bnha imagines #bnha reader insert #reader insert #trident tale

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tweetsongs · 3 years

Text

why orv rewrote my entire brain (and why it’ll rewrite yours, too)

(note: this is as much a rec post as it is a way for me to try to get down my [brain go vrrrrr] feelings about orv in a coherent way that i can actually use to talk to people about it without sounding absolutely unhinged. it will still sound unhinged, because me, but at least it’ll be ORGANIZED)

what is orv?

orv, or omniscient reader's viewpoint, is a korean webnovel written by author(s) sing-shong. it is currently complete at 551 chapters, and currently has an in-progress webcomic of the same name that’s in its early arcs.

what’s the plot about?

orv is about kim dokja (kdj), a 28-year old social maladroit who works as a contracted drone for a gaming company and spends all his free time reading webnovels. specifically, he’s been hyperfixating on an extremely long, deeply unpopular apocalyptic survival game webnovel for over a decade, to the point where he is the only reader who’s still reading the ongoing 3000+ chapters as they update. the story begins when the author announces the end of the novel and the beginning of the epilogue, and as a reward for being the only reader to make it this far, gives kdj a text file for the entire novel.

this file comes in handy when the apocalypse actually happens in the exact same way as it did in the novel, and kdj is the only person who has inside knowledge of what’s going on. to survive, he must make alliances with the ‘characters‘ from the original novel, and get through the survival games in order to reach the unwritten epilogue.

okay, this sounds cool, but i think i’ve seen a lot of other works with similar premises - what makes this one special?

you’re not wrong! orv’s plot initially starts off as a sort of reverse-isekai/dungeon crawl webnovel, a genre which has grown very popular in east asian media in the past few years. for the first few arcs, there’s a lot of worldbuilding, game mechanics, and a protagonist who gets overpowered skills as a result of his epic gamer reader skills. if you start orv and specifically enjoy the first seventy or so chapters, i’d recommend searching up other manhwas/mangas in this genre!

however, past the first few arcs, orv takes a hard turn into more complex themes and narratives, delving into more meta elements and grappling with so many plot threads that it would honestly make this post unreadable if i tried to organize them. suffice to say, while the first few arcs are fun and in-line with other works of this genre, it becomes more of a interrogation of its own genre and of webnovels and the act of creating media in general as it goes on. if deconstructing tropes, metanarratives up to your nose, and 4D chess-style time and multiverse shenanigans are your thing, orv is probably right up your alley!

that’s fine and all, but you’re neglecting the most important part - does orv have good characters?

oh, my sweet child. of course orv has characters! BOY DOES IT have some characters. orv has one of the most richly filled and developed casts i’ve seen in media in a WHILE, and nearly every character (of which there are a LOT, this is 500+ chapters, remember) has some kind of arc. there are some characters that are done with less justice than others, an inevitability of having a cast that large in a story that weighed down with shit that needs to get done, but even they usually have some sort of development. rarely does orv have one-note characters.

another note i want to make on this is that there are A LOT OF COOL GIRLS in this book, and pretty much all of them get their arcs in unique and interesting ways! orv tends to introduce characters in terms of tropes or stereotypes (the nice girl, the innocent child, the hardened warrior) and then slowly builds onto those foundations in ways that make them immensely interesting and complex. i’ve agonized about how to talk about the characters without going into a long spoilery spiel, but suffice to say that they are EXCELLENT.

okay, and what about their relationships?

i want to start off by saying that orv does NOT have any romantic relationships within its main cast, so despite whatever you see in the fandom, don’t go into it expecting romance! what we do have is a massive cast of complicated relationships, often completely separated from their relationship with the main character. the main relationships in orv are platonic ones, and much of it is spent on ruminating on found families and rebuilding broken relationships.

this being said, the emotional core of the story is built upon the (ambiguous) relationships between the trio that makes up the three main characters of the novel: kim dokja, yoo joonhyuk, and han sooyoung. their relationship is not stated to be romantic in any directions, but their interactions are what builds the backbone of the story’s themes, and they serve both as interesting individuals with interesting relationships with each other as well as points of analogy within the larger themes of the story. i will say that there is romantic coding in all of their relationships at various points, though i WANT TO REITERATE THERE IS NO EXPLICIT ROMANCE NOR LOVE TRIANGLE BULLSHIT HERE.

are there any caveats you have about reading it?

definitely! i don’t like to make recs without acknowledging the shitty aspects of a media, and orv definitely has places where it falters. here are a few trigger warnings/general irritations i had with the book:

while it’s not a romantic novel, there are some teases about romance between characters that are obviously not here for romance in ways that can get pretty eye-roll-y at times.

there are some implications of sexual assault in the early chapters that seem to serve little purpose beyond it’s affirmation of the early arcs’ grimdarkness. it’s not prevalent and gets dropped later, but it’s an aspect of its genre that i dislike

there are so many arcs in the novel that explore so many different genres that i’m pretty sure that everyone will have an arc that they’re not as interested in

the translations that are available online are of varying quality, as there was a change of translators in the middle of the novel. this means that some names and terms will change in spelling out of nowhere, which can be pretty jarring

if you’re not used to the prose of webnovels or translated east asian novels, it can take a few chapters to get used to the different style.

this is a big one: there are some transphobic elements in the novel - specifically three characters/bits that stand out particularly egregiously. there is a villain that is implied to be genderfluid that is treated pretty shittily by the mains, a group of minor villains that fall into the predatory transes stereotype, and a character that is a trans woman who, by a mix of bad narrative framing as well as translation error, is misgendered for a while. while the transphobia does drop off as the novel goes on and the trans woman, rocky beginning aside, has one of the best character arcs independent of her gender identity in the novel (as the authors realize that transphobia might not be great), it’s still perfectly valid if these portrayals turned you off. it certainly made me, an nb, annoyed when i was reading!

all of this sounds really interesting, but why should i allow orv to rewire my brain?

okay, if the past few paragraphs didn’t make you perk up already, here are some more miscellaneous things that made me read this stupid book three and a half times:

the book’s VERY fun to read. like, it gets heavy, and there’s a lot of complex themes in it, but it never gets bogged down in them, and it’s always a delight to just, sit down with it.

it’s really funny. like, EXTREMELY hilarious in both expected and unexpected ways. there’s a reason why the fandom tag has so many memes in it

the pacing is super brisk in a way that i internally refer to as ADHD catnip, and you never feel like the book really overstays its welcome on any particular arc. it’s why the book is so bingeable, despite its length

most if not all of the book’s arcs and themes, both character and plot-wise, are resolved in satisfying ways. i’ve read this book multiple times, and i’ve never felt like the book really missed any steps on what it’s trying to say. a great accomplishment, considering just how much it has to say

a reverse of one of my caveats: the book is so long that there’s almost certainly going to be some arc that you dislike, but similarly, there’s also almost bound to be an arc that you LOVE. do you like survival games? this is that! murim novels? has that! scifi? yep! historical fantasy? got it! this is a sampler plate of genres, people.

the book never takes itself or its plot mechanics too seriously OR too lightly, somehow managing to strike a perfect balance in tone that’s both self aware of how ridiculous it can get at times, and never undermines the emotional stakes of the characters

for all its darkness and tragedy, it’s never CYNICAL. orv feels like a distillation of how much FUN consuming media can be, and is a love letter to every person who’s ever loved a story. it rejects cringe culture and gatekeeping, and is an affirmation that every work of art that you’ve ever loved is valuable, if only because of the fact that you love it.

tl;dr psych! this WAS my tl;dr of how much i love this novel. please read it i am on my fourth reread and going bonkers

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #long post #look maybe i didn't want to do work so THIS IS WHAT YOU GET #i'll come back and make edits later maybe i actually do have to do things now aldksfasd #feel free to drop q's at me if you want to know any specifics tho! i am always up for trying to convert someone to this truly stupid book #rain's menagerie of unhinged webnovel recs

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bitsandbobsofwriting · 3 years

Text

Magic is legal, Arthur knows The Truth and Merlin is... shit at explaining things:

Arthur demands a trip to visit the Druids, who are far more qualified than Merlin, so they can explain this whole... destiny thing.

I’ve written a lot of angst and Hurt!Merlin recently, so I just wanted to write something short and sweet and fluffy :)

SO.

Magic has been legalised, Merlin is Court Sorcerer, all the knights are alive and happy, Morgana is good, and the only thing Arthur has to worry about right now is what the hell to do about the rapidly growing crush he has on his BestFriend™.

After the dust had settled, Merlin had tried to sit Arthur down and tell him the whole story; all about Emrys, and the prophecies, and destiny. The King already knew about Merlin’s magic, and roughly how powerful he is, but that’s it.

But Merlin went so long barely mentioning it at all, not even to Gaius or Morgana or Lancelot, that he’s still not entirely sure what to say. Years of hiding and lying and trying desperately not to think about it, mean his brain now blanks when he tries to explain it.

After far too long of Arthur looking on confusedly whilst Merlin rambled on about dragons and coins and mental links and names, The Court Sorcerer gave up, and decided to just not bother.

Arthur, of course, decided that giving up was stupid, and made the executive decision that they would just go to the Druids, and someone who actual knew what they were talking about could explain it thoroughly. Maybe even allow Arthur to read the original prophecies.

Plus, it turned out that Initiating a Golden Age took quite a lot of work, so neither of them had had a chance to leave the city for weeks. They could do with the fresh air. And if Arthur saw it as a good chance to be properly alone with Merlin for more than half a candle mark? No one else needed to know, least of all Merlin.

It was a pleasant journey through the woods. The silences comfortable, and the conversations easy and filled with smiles.

Magic had only been legalised for about a fortnight, and after over twenty years of fear, magic users were still understandably cautious, meaning the closest Druid camp was still a two days ride away.

But that wasn’t a problem. With Merlin now able to use his magic openly, and therefor more able to defend his King, he found he was far less anxious about the trip outside the city than he would’ve been before. And if his good mood bled into the environment around them? Well... it was spring... surely no one would notice the extra flowers and abundance of butterflies?

(Arthur definitely noticed. But Merlin was still... wary, of performing sorcery openly, in fear of scaring the people who had been sucked in by two decades of propaganda and fear-mongering. Meaning Arthur sure as shit wasn’t going to point it out, in case Merlin stopped.)

It was around noon, and the sun was shining down on them when Merlin pulled his horse to a stop. He dismounts effortlessly, and hands a confused Arthur his reins. At Arthur’s raised eyebrow, Merlin sighs and speaks quietly:

“The camp is about two minutes further on but... the change in the law was only recent, and...-”

He bites his lip and looks away, worrying Arthur slightly, before continuing:

“-well, chainmail and red capes still make them a little nervous. I’ve already warned their leader that we’re coming-”

He taps his temple briefly:

“-but I should go ahead and explain properly.”

Arthur nods in understanding, and gives Merlin a comforting smile:

“I completely understand, Merlin. How long do you want me to wait, or will you come back to get me?”

Merlin returns his smile, before saying:

“Just wait ten minutes then follow me, straight down the path. Bring the horses, there’ll be somewhere to tie them there. You shouldn’t run into any trouble this close to a camp, but you do have a track-record so-”

Merlin laughs at Arthur’s indignant expression, but continues before he can interrupt him:

“-if you do, just yell. We won’t be too far away, we’ll hear you.”

Arthur rolls his eyes fondly and shoos Merlin away. The Warlock laughs as he turns and continues down the path on foot. Just before he disappears behind a large bush, he turns around again, a slightly concerned expression on his face:

“I might look a bit... different? But don’t mention it, they’re quite fond of me... uh... dressing the part.”

Arthur huffs out a laugh before saying:

“I’m sure I won’t forget what you look like in ten minutes, Merlin. Go.”

Merlin hums thoughtfully, and turns back around, disappearing into the trees and leaving Arthur to his thoughts.

After a few moments, he removes his cloak, tucking it into a saddlebag. He also, after only a little hesitation, removes his sword, strapping it to his saddle. It was still visible and easily within reach, but not so threateningly on display at his hip.

He was entering these people’s home, after personally wielding the sharp edge of their persecution for almost a decade; the least he could do was make them as comfortable as possible.

He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even Merlin, but he had a feeling that this meet was going to end up being about more than the prophecies. Peace had been harboured, magic had been legalised, but like Merlin had pointed out, things were still a little tense. This meeting was a way to show the Druids that Arthur meant it, that his whole heart was behind this change. The he was not his father.

Arthur was a little nervous (not that he’d ever admit that), this was important. Not just to him and the kingdom, but to Merlin personally. He had to get this right. One of the only things that Arthur had managed to get out of Merlin, to do with the whole destiny thing, was that it was finished. It was done.

If Arthur messes this up, not only will it ruin the peace they had been working so hard for... then Merlin might leave. He has no reason to stay after-all, he’s done his job. So Arthur has to get this right, has to impress everyone, now more than ever, because if he fails and the Druids all leave Camelot, then Merlin would leave with them.

And that thought was... unbearable.

He counts down the minutes, getting more and more tense. He tried to distract himself by thinking about what Merlin had said, “dressing the part” what does that even mean?

But it doesn’t work. Soon enough his brain is throwing thought after paranoid thought at him, about all the possible ways Merlin could tell Arthur he hated him, and leave forever and ever.

Arthur rubbed his eyes harshly, muttering to himself about how he really should’ve accepted the “relaxing tea” Gaius had offered him before they left. Other than Merlin, the old physician is the only one who ever seems to know what he needs in the moment, Arthur should definitely learn to listen to him more.

He finally reaches zero in his mental countdown, and sighs before standing from where he’d sat on a fallen log. He’d allowed the horses to wander a bit but they were trained to stay close by, so he has no problem gathering their reins again and leading them slowly down the path Merlin had followed.

All Druid camps were different. Some moved around constantly, some stayed fairly still. Some were huge, acres large with hundreds of people, others were small, only ten people or so. Some were occupied by mostly the sick and elderly, others were full of the young and adventurous, and others were family orientated.

And of course it was rare, according to Gaius, that someone would stay in the same camp their whole life. The Druids were a nomadic people, always shifting, drifting, wandering. Following a constantly tugging thread in their hearts, going where nature beckoned them.

According to Merlin, this specific camp was pretty small (around twenty adults) but it was also a fairly familial group, meaning lots of children. And if that didn’t make Arthur nervous (it definitely did) then nothing would.

Arthur didn’t have much experience with children, and definitely had no concept of how to act around them, especially Druid children.

After about a minute of walking, Arthur could hear loud laughter and quiet conversations floating through the trees. He slowed his pace; trying to appear unthreatening and friendly, or to delay the inevitable, he’s not quite sure.

He finally breaks through the treeline to see that... no one is even looking in his direction.

It was the middle of the day, so the camp was busy, people milling about everywhere, most of the tents open, various jobs getting done throughout the clearing.

But what immediately drew Arthur’s eye, was the source of the laughter.

The King looked across the clearing to see Merlin, in a whole new wardrobe, and a whole new light.

The man had changed from his simple travellers clothes (basically the clothes he’d worn as a manservant, just a bit newer and cleaner.) into a loose, white, lace up shirt (sleeves rolled up, which Arthur absolutely did NOT find himself staring at, thank you very much.) paired with slim black trousers.

But what was most striking, was the deep blue cloak billowing behind him, and the silver crown on his head. It was delicate, as if forged with vines and leaves and feathers, but it was oh so Merlin.

Arthur stayed at the edge of the clearing, glad that no one had noticed him; allowing him to stare in reverence at his best friend.

He was surrounded by young children, all laughing joyously as his eyes glowed golden and he waved his hands around. He needn’t mutter spells as he smiled widely, willing butterflies and bees to manifest in the air around him.

One of the younger children held his arms in the air and made grabbing motions with his hands. Merlin bent over and pulled him up into the air without a moment of hesitation, spinning him around on the spot (much to the kid’s enjoyment, who giggled outrageously), before settling him on his hip.

He used one hand to support the kid’s weight (when did Merlin get so strong??), and used the other to summon flowers around the feet of the rest of the children.

A fond smile spread across Arthur’s face as he saw them run around exuberantly, gathering the flowers in chubby hands to present to parents and siblings and friends.

Arthur laughed softly as he saw Merlin reply enthusiastically to something that the boy on his hip had said, and a second later, the child had a butterfly perched on the end of his nose.

Arthur is broken from his concentration, jumping a foot in the air when a soft hand lands on his shoulder from behind.

He whips his head around, just about managing to stop himself from yelping and reaching for where his sword usually is at his hip.

He calms his breathing as his eyes find the friendly face of a Druid, an amused smile on his face. Arthur returns his smile, a tad shakily, suddenly feeling the nerves again, and nods his head respectfully.

The man keeps his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, but looks towards Merlin in the clearing, before softly saying:

“He’s quite something, your Emrys, isn’t he?”

Arthur gulps, also looking back at Merlin as he replies with a chuckle that was only slightly forced:

“He’s more yours than mine, especially like this, but yes, he is something special.”

The Druid laughs disbelievingly, and Arthur turns to look, a confused expression on his face as he listens to his reply:

“Definitely not. He’s always belonged to you more than he’s belonged to us-”

He stops laughing to look at Arthur, eyes sparkling with friendly mirth as he continues:

“-prophecy or no, he had a... well... a pre-carved place among the Druids, but he still chose to carve his own space by your side. I think that speaks volumes about where he truly belongs, or at least where he wants to belong, don’t you?”

Arthur doesn’t really have a response to that as he stares at the man with barely concealed bafflement, but luckily, before the silence stretches too long, the Druid gestures to the clearing:

“Come. Everyone is excited to meet you, though I warn you, the children in this camp can be rather energetic, as you’ve already seen.”

Arthur gulps and nods, following him into the centre of the camp.

Everyone’s attention is quickly caught by The King’s presence, and someone comes over to wordlessly take the horse’s reins from him.

The adults bow their heads slightly in respect, giving him soft smiles, and the children fidget on the spot, wide grins on their faces as they whisper conspiratorially to each other.

The boy in Merlin’s arms wiggles, and he gets put down. He rushes over to Arthur, grabbing his hand with a toothy grin and dragging him over to Merlin and the other children.

Merlin hides a laugh behind his hand as Arthur’s eyes widen, and his face goes pale. He thought this was going to be meetings and serious discussions and apologies, not playing with children!! What do children even like?! Swords?? Can he talk to them about swords??! Druids are pacifists right? So probably not??

He gets pulled down to crouch, and the children crowd him, all babbling at once, wildly showing him flowers and butterflies.

Merlin laughs at his bewildered fear for a few moments, before he crouches next to Arthur and holds his hands up, saying loudly:

“Alright, alright, you lot. Remember what I said?”

The children still, and a chorus of “Yes Lord Emrys” resounds from the group. With that, they stay silent, but still grin widely and bounce on the spot in excitement.

Arthur gives Merlin a stressed, but grateful smile, before looking back to the children. He takes a deep breath, before smiling at them, and saying:

“My name’s Arthur. Thank you for having me, I appreciate your hospitality.”

Merlin snorts at his overly formal tone, and has to stop himself laughing at the shock and fear on Arthur’s face when one of the younger ones loudly asks:

“What’s hosp-ee-tal-it-ee?”

Arthur furrows his brows, but luckily one of the teenagers steps in, quietly saying:

“It’s when someone comes into your home, and you’re nice to them.”

Arthur smiles and nods, and Merlin chuckles in amusement.

Thankfully (for Arthur) Merlin then stands and announces to the children that it’s lunch time, and to get washed up. They all rush off, and Arthur lets out a breath as he stands.

Merlin holds in yet another laugh, but tilts his head in confusion as Arthur’s gaze is once again drawn to the crown that rests on Merlin’s unruly hair.

Merlin flushes slightly when he realises what Arthur is looking at, looking to the floor and mumbling:

“You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get them to just call me Merlin, but then they presented me with this a few months ago and I could hardly say no, could I?”

Arthur nods as Merlin looks up again, meeting his gaze. There’s a soft smile on his face, one that Merlin isn’t quite sure what to make of as he quietly replies:

“Hmm. Looks good on you.”

Merlin makes a surprised noise and his eyes go wide, the flush on his cheeks deepening as Arthur laughs gently at him.

Arthur puts his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, his thumb brushing against the skin of his neck in a way that was slightly more than friendly, but Merlin doesn’t pull away, so Arthur leaves his hand there as he looks around the bustling camp.

His smile falls into something more sad, and Merlin frowns at him curiously:

“Arthur? What is it?”

Arthur shakes his head slightly, not looking back at Merlin as he replies, almost whispering:

“Nothing. It’s just, last time I was this far into a Druid camp... I did terrible things. Look at this place, how could I ever have believed that magic was evil? It’s beautiful here.”

Merlin’s frown deepens, but before he can reply, a small hand tugs at Arthur’s sleeve, and the two of them look down suddenly to see one of the boys from before. He wore a confused expression, and whispered, as if he knew this was meant to be a secret conversation:

“What terrible things did you do, Mr King Sir?”

Merlin takes in a quiet gasp and widens his eyes, but before he can tell him off or lie, Arthur squeezes his shoulder, and crouches down in front of the child.

Arthur gives the boy a smile, and takes his hands, quietly saying:

“Well. When I was young, I was taught some things that are wrong, I didn’t question them, and because of that I did some really bad things. I thought I was being a good person, but actually I was being a bad person because I didn’t do my own research, and I didn’t know any better. But then I started learning how to be better, and now I do everything in my power to be an actual good person.-”

Arthur looks up at Merlin with a small smile on his face, before looking back down to the boy, who is hanging on to his every word:

“-Your Emrys is helping me with that. You see, he’s the best person I’ve ever met, and he’s helping me be more like him.”

Arthur resists the urge to look back at Merlin as he feels a firm, but shaky hand on his back, and instead looks at the child as he thinks over Arthur’s words. His face breaks into a grin, and Arthur returns the smile as the boy says:

“He’s the best isn’t he? I wanna be like him when I grow up!”

Arthur ruffles his hair, and replies quietly:

“Yeah kid, me too.”

The boy gives him a toothy grin, before running off once again, and Arthur lets out yet another breath he had been holding before standing up.

Merlin’s hand remains on his shoulder, and Arthur regrets meeting his gaze the moment he turns his head. But he also can’t rip his eyes away from the teary expression of awe and bewildered happiness on his face.

Merlin lets out a gentle laugh at Arthur’s apprehensive face before shaking his head, and looking back at him once again, this time amusement on his face:

“The best person you’ve ever met, huh?”

Arthur rolls his eyes and blushes deeply, pushing Merlin’s hand off his shoulder as he mumbles a flustered:

“Shut up, Merlin. I could hardly tell him the truth, could I?”

Merlin hums thoughtfully and replies with laughter in his voice:

“Hmm. That makes more sense, of course.”

Without waiting for Arthur’s reply, he grabs the King’s wrist and drags him towards a large tent in the corner of the clearing. Inside were two tables, one large, and one smaller and lower, both surrounded by benches.

Merlin directed them to bowls in the corner so they could wash their hands, before they sit at the larger of the two tables. Everyone over the ages of about fourteen joins them, the younger ones going to the smaller table.

Food appears, covering the surface, summoned from the cooking pots outside and the various food stores around the camp. Arthur tries to keep the wonderment off his face, but knows he failed miserably when he hears Merlin chuckle beside him. He punches Merlin’s leg under the table playfully, but that only makes him laugh harder.

He quietens when the man sat opposite Arthur stands:

“Today we have two honoured guests, our Lord Emrys, and the Once and Future King Arthur. We share our home, our food, and our welcome, for as long as they wish to stay. We raise our goblets to you, My Lords.”

At that, he raises his cup in the air, everyone else in the tent following him. Merlin smiles and nods at him, raising his own cup, and Arthur nervously copies his movements, comforted by Merlin’s reassuring hand on his knee.

With that, the Druid sits down, and conversation breaks out around the tent as everyone begins to eat.

Merlin handles most of the discussions, talking to everyone as if they were life long friends. Arthur is grateful for that, he answers any questions sent his way, asking a few polite ones in return, but Druid culture is so different to life in the city and Arthur doesn’t really know what he should be talking about.

Thankfully, the meal passes quickly, and after another announcement from the man Arthur now presumed was the leader here, the crowd dispersed, everything being cleared away with magic.

Not every Druid practiced sorcery, but they were clearly in a magic-heavy camp; Arthur could see it plain as day, everywhere he looked.

Merlin once again took Arthur’s wrist, leading him out into the sun. Usually, Arthur hated being led places, especially by the hand, but he found he didn’t quite mind it today. Whether it was because they were in Merlin’s domain, and Merlin was King here, or because of how nervous he was, or because of some other reason entirely, Arthur wasn’t sure, and frankly, he didn’t want to think too deeply about it.

This time, Merlin led them to another, smaller tent.

It had several comfortable looking chairs around a smallish circular table, which was covered in scrolls and parchments and old-looking books.

A few seconds later, they were joined by the Druid leader; he smiled softly at them and gestured for them to sit at the table. Merlin and Arthur sat next to each other, and the Druid kindly pretended not to notice them shuffling the chairs closer together.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur, Arthur having lost his nerves fairly early in the conversation. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that official meetings were his specialty, or maybe it was because Merlin’s hand once again found his knee, but stayed there this time. Who knows.

The Druid had introduced himself, and once more welcomed Arthur to the camp, before launching into explanations of the prophecies and destinies, and everyone’s roles in them.

Merlin knew most if it, and looked especially proud of himself when the Druid described in wonder how Merlin had changed the very fates of the Lady Morgana, Sir Mordred, and Arthur himself.

Arthur was definitely taken aback at that. Whilst Merlin had prattled on, making no sense, about his and Arthur’s destinies, he had never mentioned anyone else, and Arthur becomes increasingly glad he came here to sort it all out.

There were some bits that not even Merlin knew though. He wasn’t aware that the other knights, Guinevere, and Gaius featured in a few of the newer prophecies, and the Druid had an amused smile on his face when he admitted that he’d thought Merlin would have figured that out.

Arthur did laugh at him at that, and Merlin flushed before telling him:

“Shut up, or I’ll tell the others you said I was the best person you’ve ever met, and they’ll never let you live it down.”

Arthur narrows his eyes, and the Druid continues look at them in amusement as they bicker.

The meeting comes to an end just before dark, and Arthur thanks the Druid profusely, for welcoming him, and taking the time to go through everything thoroughly.

Another meal is had in the large tent, but when they leave this time, the clearing has been completely emptied. A large bonfire roars in the middle, and logs surround it, providing seating for everyone.

The evening is full of stories and music and magic, and Arthur once again finds himself wondering just how he thought any of this could be evil.

Even Merlin stands to lead a song. He moves around the clearing with yet another child sat sat on his hip, giggling as Merlin spins her around.

Arthur is surprised to learn that Merlin has a good voice, and stares in wonderment as he leads the melody as if it was what he was born to do. The rest of the Druids clap along, joining in loudly and harmonising and playing instruments in time with the tune.

When the song comes to a close, the crowd burst into cheers as Merlin looks back to Arthur, breathing deeply and cheeks flushed. The Warlock smiles widely as he settles the child back in her mother’s lap before walking back over to his seat, next to Arthur.

Arthur returns his wide grin with a soft smile of his own, and as the music continues around them, Merlin tilts his face in happy confusion:

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Arthur just shakes his head slightly, smiling slightly wider as he responds without missing a beat:

“You’re beautiful like this. And you have an exceptional voice.”

Merlin flushes in surprise and looks to his lap, quietly muttering:

“I wouldn’t know about that...”

Arthur doesn’t look away, huffing out a laugh before replying:

“I mean it, Merlin. You just look... happy. Like you belong here.-”

He does look away here, staring into the fire with a thoughtful, but slightly mournful look on his face as Merlin peers up at him, curious. Arthur continues, even quieter, before Merlin can question him:

“-You know, I wouldn’t be angry if you wanted to stay. Here, I mean. I know magic is legal in Camelot now, but you belong somewhere like this. I would never begrudge you a home like this Merlin.”

Merlin laughs quietly, and takes Arthur’s hand, holding it in his lap like it’s something precious (it is, at least it is to Merlin). Arthur looks back at him in surprise, but doesn’t pull away as Merlin replies, still smiling:

“Home isn’t a place, Arthur, and the Druids know that better than anyone. Home is... home is wherever the people you love are. You are my people, Arthur, you and the knights and Gwen and Morgana and Gaius. My home is wherever you are. No matter my magic or title or destiny; my home will always be where you are.”

Arthur doesn’t let the tears in his eyes fall, but he does squeeze Merlin’s hand, giving him a tender smile that's returned without hesitation.

With the exchanging of smiles that any onlooker would describe as loving, the conversation comes to an easy close, and they spend the rest of the evening hand in hand, smiling fondly at the antics around them.

It’s late when the festivities come to an end, and Arthur and Merlin are exhausted, struggling to hold back yawns as they’re shown to a tent that had been set up for them.

Their bags had been removed from the horses and left in there, and the floor was covered in various blankets and pillows. There was a small trunk, for them to store anything they wished to unpack, and a few candles were lit, filling the room with a soft golden light and pleasant smells.

Merlin charms the tent to be soundproof so they don’t have to worry about noise (he may be openly able to use magic, but the idiot was still rather clumsy, and prone to accidental bangs and crashes), before removing his crown carefully. His cloak and boots follow shortly, and they all go neatly into the trunk, before he starts organising a spot to sleep.

After a few minutes, he realises that Arthur hasn’t moved from his space by the entrance, and Merlin turns around to look at him questioningly. Arthur’s eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks deep in thought as he stares at the floor, fiddling with the hem of his tunic.

Merlin walks over, concerned, and takes one of Arthur’s hands into his own. Arthur looks up at him suddenly, broken free of his thoughts, and Merlin raises an eyebrow at him as he strokes his thumb across The King’s knuckles:

“What’s wrong, Arthur?”

Arthur looks into Merlin’s eyes searchingly, but seems to find what he’s looking for after only a moment, and smiles. Merlin tilts his head to prompt him, and Arthur takes his other hand, before softly speaking:

“You know, I used to find the idea of falling in love frightening.-”

Merlin takes in a subtle deep breath, but Arthur doesn’t notice as he shakes his head, huffing out a gentle laugh before continuing, looking somewhere over Merlin’s shoulder:

“-The possibility that someone could have that much control over me; that I would willingly give another person dominion over my heart, my soul, my... everything, was terrifying to me. But I find I’m not scared anymore.-”

He looks back at Merlin’s shocked face. Arthur looks an odd mix of disbelieving, and happy beyond words as he continues, confident that what he’s saying is right, for the first time in a long time:

“-Because it’s you, Merlin. It’s always been you. And how could I possibly find falling in love with you anything other than beautiful?”

Merlin gulps, seemingly searching Arthur’s face for any hint of a lie. When he finds nothing but sincerity, he launches himself forward, almost knocking Arthur to the floor.

He wraps his arms around the blonde’s shoulders tightly, burying a hand in his hair, and his face in the crook of his neck. Arthur huffs out a laugh as he wraps his arms around Merlin’s waist, running a soft hand up and down his back.

At Merlin’s muttered:

“I love you, Arthur, more than anything is this world. My magic, my everything, belongs to you.”

Arthur pulls back, smiling. He leans forward pressing his forehead against Merlin’s, and cups his cheek softly with his hand. They stare into the blue of each other’s eyes for a moment, not in any hurry to move the moment along, Arthur running his thumb over Merlin’s cheekbone, and Merlin carding his fingers through Arthur’s hair.

Arthur takes a deep breath, before whispering, so quietly it’s a miracle Merlin hears him:

“Can I kiss you?”

Merlin nods infinitesimally, and the two of them lean forward, meeting in the middle in a soft kiss that could only be described as tender, and full of love.

If the stars shine brighter, and the wind blows warmer, and the animals of the dark seem happier that night... well... it was spring... surely no one would notice (Arthur definitely noticed, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to point it out, in case Merlin stopped).

THE END!!

This is the first one I’ve written in aaaaages that didn’t involve a dizzy/exhausted/sick Merlin so... yay me?

I just really wanted to write something fluffy, where there were no high stakes. No huge battles, or angsty confessions or anything like that, just a soft love story.

I genuinely got no clue what I’ll write next. I do have a few drafts and ideas floating around, but let me know if you’re after anything specific, I live to please :)

Like always, you wanna write this up properly with paragraphs and fleshed out stuff, go for it, credit and tag me :)

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