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kucherovv · 3 years

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Character Motivations on the DreamSMP

I know I’m an ARG Wilbur account, but analyzing the DreamSMP has always been super interesting to me, so I’m gonna take a crack at it. Here are, from my perspective, the motivations and interests of each plot-relevant character. (PS: analyzing the DreamSMP is just like analyzing the ARG, except a lot less frustrating because we actually know things.)

Tommy: His motivations have always, always, been his friends, most notably Wilbur. Throughout everything, he never left Wilbur’s side despite everything Wil did. He followed L’Manberg because it was Wilbur’s dream, not his. He allows himself to be thrown around a little bit (”When I said you’re never gonna be president..,” The pit) to keep his friendships/his friends safe. Now, his motivation isn’t keeping L’Manberg safe, it’s staying with Tubbo Another interesting view of Tommy’s motivations is his hero complex- He just wants to be seen as the hero, and does everything in his power to do that. Either way, I feel like his motivations are going to be severely tested in the coming days.

Tubbo: I think Tubbo’s motivations are really interesting because there’s two. It used to be Tommy- which makes sense because they’re best friends- but it’s slowly warped to be L’Manberg. I think this mostly changed when Wilbur and Tommy were exiled and Tubbo was left in the Schlatt administration, and he realized that he needs to fight for L’Manberg in order to keep Tommy safe. This then shifted further to just protection of L’Manberg, to the point that now he’s willing to exile Tommy from the country to keep it safe from Dream.

Wilbur: One thing: Power. Everything he’s done has been to get, or keep, power. The Revolution was to have power over Dream in the form of their own country. He tried to rig the election in his favor by preventing everyone else from running to keep power, and when he was exiled he fought for L’Manberg so he could be President again. Even in the end, he blew up L’Manberg because he realized it would never be his again. This is where the “When I said you’re never gonna be President, I meant it.” quote comes back- Wilbur would do everything in his power to keep power over L’Manberg and its citizens- no matter who, or what, he hurts.

Techno: These are some of the most simply motivations on the SMP. Techno wants anarchy. He hates governments and wants to end them all. He joined Wilbur and Tommy because he wanted to take down the government, and ultimately betrayed Tommy in an attempt to end L’Manberg’s government. His motivations might be shifting towards Philza, but I’m not sure.

Philza: I think it’s a bit too early to tell these but I have two ideas. First, safety. Phil wants safety for him, his kids, and his friends. He goes out of his way to rescue people (See: him travelling hundreds of blocks to rescue Ranboo from lava) and performs rash actions to protect people/keep his kids happy (killing Wilbur..?). Another potential motivation is just his kids. He killed Wilbur to keep Wil happy, and wants to bring Wilbur back to life. His whole thing with Ghostbur and with Techno fits into this. His friendship with Fundy kind of does, too. Again, it’s way too early and there’s too little RP with Phil involved to truly tell his motivations.

Dream: Every single war has been caused by Dream. He wants chaos and control. He was the one behind the revolution, the disc wars, and every betrayal of L’Manberg, He even caused the election drama by allowing Schlatt back on the server, and provoked fighting by giving Tommy and Techno gear. Dream wants to be the one who causes chaos, in order to give himself full control over everyone. This recent arc is gonna build on- and potentially destroy- this motivation, as Dream is probably going to lose all of the support of his friends, and Tommy has realized that Dream doesn’t care and just wants to fuck with him.

Sapnap: I would definitely say that at the moment Sapnap is an anarchist with no true side. He has dual citizenship in L’Manberg and the SMP, and, though he might be willing to do things for both of them, he just wants to cause problems and kill peoples pets. Sapnap is literally the cause for the first war when he burned down Ponk’s lemon tree- he literally just wants to cause problems.

George: There are few motivations for George. He just wants peace, honestly, but won’t do anything to stop wars, so he just leaves. At first, he was a loyal, right-hand man to Dream, but became disillusioned with that when he became Quackity’s running-mate, and just stopped caring about anything. He just wants to live peacefully in his cottagecore mushroom house, but he keeps being dragged into things. I think that George just doesn’t really enjoy RPing but they keep writing him in, lol, but I am going to say that his motivations are that he wants to live a quiet life.

Schlatt: He just wanted what he believed is best for Manberg. IMO, he was never really the villain, and was rightfully elected, but no one realized that until Wilbur did. He realized that Wilbur and Tommy were pretty much war criminals who tried to rig the election, so he exiled them because that was what was best for the people, and then gave Tubbo a job so that he didn’t have to worry about leaving. Even the taxes were to improve Manberg. His policies and laws were not always the best, but he was doing everything he could (in his mind) to improve Manberg.

Quackity: Wilbur said that Quackity just wants a kinder, more peaceful world, and that’s definitely true. I tried not to base too much of this on Wilbur’s perceptions but this one is 100% accurate. Quackity ran for President to create a kinder world, and ended up leaving Schlatt to join Tommy and Niki after Vilbur happened. I think Mexican L’Manberg might end up changing this one, but I’m not sure.

Fundy: He just wants a dad. Everything he’s done has been for this, pretty much. Obviously, he followed Wilbur into the Revolution when he was a kid, and then wanted to be like him so he ran for President. After Wilbur’s exile, Fundy saw Schlatt as a kind-of father figure, but still spied for Manberg. The explosion was a wake-up call that made Fundy realize how shitty his dad was, and how much Wil doesn’t care about him. Fundy is unwilling to form a relationship with Ghostbur, instead attempting to be adopted by Eret and getting closer to his Grandfather. He’s realized that Ghostbur does not really remember Fundy for who he was, just that he was Wilbur’s son and Ghostbur should care about him because of that, so Fundy seeks out other people to be his father figures.

Eret: They had a huge swap in their motivation like.. halfway through the story. For the first half, Eret wanted power- so she betrayed L’Manberg. Dream promised him kingship in exchange for the betrayal, and that was all Eret really wanted- until Dream took it away from him. At this point, Eret realized that she really misses her friends, which is when she joined them in Pogtopia. TBH- I don’t really like these motivations and I think Eret’s character would be stronger if they stuck to one side, and at some points I think it was just to be involved in the RP again, but it kind of makes sense I guess.

Niki: First, she cared about Wilbur, joining him in L’Manberg and wanting to stay in Pogtopia with them. However, when Vilbur started, she realized that what she really cares about is L’Manberg, not Wilbur. The big shift could’ve also been when she saw the flag being burned. Either way, she realized that L’Manberg means more to her than Wilbur.

BadBoyHalo: Bad’s motivations are my favorite. He wants chaos, just like Dream, but he’s planning to do it from the inside. He wants the Badlands to ally with everyone, only to spark infighting and create wars. This is why Sam is always the one to help people- he wants to gain everyones trust so the Badlands can incite chaos. This is an incredible arc and I really hope they go through with it because- unlike Dream- its not expected that they’ll be villains. Also, the speech where Bad explained this was so scary, he’s a great actor and I want to see him and the rest of the Badlands in RPs more.

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dr-nero-is-god · 3 years

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i felt the urge to riff on the hive streams for a little bit since discussion came up on the hive discord, namely, holding issue with the idea that the alpha stream is inconsistent in that it is about leadership when otto is the only leader, and that it’s also possible that the alphas are just kids with specialized skills, and not actually bonded by any particular unifying element.

and, in response, @vulpix-sinistre brought up a quote from the abridged hive fanfic, that goes something like: “there are four streams: main characters, stereotypical bullies, ?, and nerds.”

and i disagree with the first two ideas, but almost completely agree with the abridged fic quote. that is pretty much how the streams work, and it is IMPORTANT that that is how the streams work.

in the end, you may conclude that the streams system still doesn’t make sense. you won’t be like “well clearly dr. nero was just logically dividing the labor of his students to reflect a specialized training program” because it’s more complicated on that. i hate to do this to y’all, but a lot of everything streams-related requires an out-of-book explanation to get where you’re going, but i can promise that i will at least try to go

first, let’s think about why h.i.v.e. would have streams at all

on the one hand, it’s inescapable to consider that one primary reason that hive has streams is because harry potter had houses, and for the same reason that percy jackson had cabins, the 39 clues had branches, hunger games had sections (or counties, idk), divergent had factions, and so on and so on. the rise of fandom spaces on the internet was concurrent with a big ya/mg boom in the post-2005 world (after twilight was published), and within those fandom spaces it became important to identify with an aspect of the fantasy world as part of your personality. that became a very marketable thing for a while, and so separating children into streams would, to a publisher, seem like a pretty solid storytelling choice.

however! the alpha stream is not the same as gryffindor house. on the one hand, it seems easy to make an alpha/gryffindor and henchman/slytherin parallel, because one group is good (relatively) and one is bad (or at least antagonistic). but it doesn’t work because while slytherin has a reputation for constituents of poor moral character (which has been largely revised in fanon), being a henchman is where you go, according to the books, if you are unintelligent and burly. it’s not a really sexy stream, is what i’m trying to say. and though there are undoubtedly some readers who would look at the henchman stream and see themselves, i think the majority of readers would likely find the henchman stream a completely undesirable stream to be in.

and, given how little importance the role of streams have after the first book, i will go out on a limb and say that mark walden knows that the henchman stream is unsexy. we aren’t interested in the hopes and dreams and motivations of the henchman stream; as we learn in book two, the ideal henchman is weak-minded and easily led—so what dreams would they even have? this leads me to conclude that while mark walden might have sold h.i.v.e. on the “there are personality-based groups in the school!” idea, he had something completely else in mind when he started writing and that, I think, is actually far more interesting.

but really, why would h.i.v.e. have streams at all

a few things about mark walden: 1) he studied english lit in school, 2) he has a background as a video game producers, and 3) he likes james bond. i know the first two things because i have read his bio and i know the third thing because i have read his books in conjunction with seeing all the james bond films. so we will call 1-3 facts.

if you are wondering what a lit degree, video game production, and the james bond franchise all have in common, then let me connect those dots: all three of those things depend heavily on the study and understanding of repetitive structure in storytelling as an interpreter and creator of meaning. each one of these fields requires an understanding of how stories and words work to create meaning in order to be successful.

and, to quote mr. walden here directly (sourced from this here link):

“So, I was playing with this cat one day and it got me thinking that those old-school Bond villains always just seemed to appear out of thin air with very little back story and that got me thinking about how they became world- conquering megalomaniacs in the first place. It was only a short mental walk from there to HIVE.”

so, imagine you’re a writer trying to tell a story about a school for villains like those in james bond—you’ve studied storycraft and you have a lot of experience in a job finding believable and compelling obstacles for people to interact with in video games. you have noticed patterns. and you need to make those patterns work for you.

enter: streams

i have watched all the james bond movies (all of ‘em) (i mean it) (just not the unreleased one yet lol) and you know what?

there’s probably just about four kinds of villains in those movies.

henchmen include the likes of jaws, oddjob, and tee hee. often physically disabled in a cinematically interesting way, these guys are the muscles and the machines in every bond film. they are the ones who tail bond as he takes long train rides and who try to personally throw him into shark tanks. they are the hands and feet of their evil masters and they don’t have a lot of emotional depth or backstory.

politicians/financiers abound in the james bond franchise because he is a government employee who often hangs out with other government employees (he has no friends). these people are like colonel rosa klebb, georgi koskov, prince kamal khan. there are a lot more, as a matter of fact, because the whole point of james bond is that they are in the cold war and even people without titles have political and financial motivations for screwing around with stuff. these types of villains depend on being well and truly embedded in an existing infrastructure or hierarchy, somebody who worked their way up from being a foot soldier or clerk into a powerful leadership position that gives them a lot of state-sanctioned trust and authority.

technicians and inventors include folks like henry gupta and boris grishenko, who use technology as their primary weapon. they are often inventors or innovators and are really good at making high-tech stuff. however, i think this stream is also a direct result of the character Q, someone who is actually on James Bond’s team and who runs an entire department of people who test sometimes outlandish gadgets for Bond to use in the field. (but we love the gadgets. they are fun.) in other words, Bond arguably has a technical stream at his disposal in MI6, which means the idea isn’t necessarily evil, but, likewise, our James Bond School also needs Qs. it’s the rules. if you are familiar with Q from James Bond at all then you understand

and that leaves us with alphas... the “supervillains.” these are the famous ones. dr. no. mr. big. scaramanga. le chiffre. blofeld. max zorin. emilio largo. goldfinger. these are the ones with the master plan, the dreams to recreate the world as they see it, the passion to see their desires to fulfillment and the resources to make them happen. they are rich. they are fancy. they are larger than life. is it weird that karl stromberg tries to incite a nuclear war between Britain and the USSR so that a lot of people can die so that he can colonize the ocean? yes. but by god, it’s fancy and dramatic, and that’s what counts.

are there other kinds of villains? oh, definitely. lots more. but you have to understand, that those kinds of villains generally don’t appear in Bond. sometimes! but it’s not a staple. for example, not many people in the bond films are motivated by revenge because each movie is kind of designed to function as a one-shot. villains don’t come back and so there is no revenge. the villain who gets the most notable reprise, jaws, actually ends up finding his true love in space.

compare: every movie is going to have henchmen. every movie has government stooges making morally questionable decisions. (almost) every movie has Q, or some gadget stuff going on. and every movie has a big bad that has to be better than the last.

so that explains why the streams are what they are.

it was a jumping-off point for mark walden to figure out what this universe might look like and how different character types need to function. consider that while the core four are all alphas and are kind of insulated as a group, the teachers all kind of roughly align with one of these groups. colonel francisco, raven, and chief lewis are henchmen types, doing on-the-ground work to get stuff done. ms. tennenbaum and the contessa are political af, they are all about the corruption and infiltrating institutional power. ms. gonzales, ms. leon, and professor pike all have technical skills that help keep an organization moving forward. and over them all is the singular alpha, dr. nero, who is coordinating and monitoring it all for his own evil plan: to run a high school.

honestly, dr. nero’s hive idea operates just like a james bond villain plot! it works, or it does when pitching the idea. the problem is that the books continued after the pitch did, and with worldbuilding came some complications. namely, the fact that the megastructure of james bond villainy does not replicate well into a small friend group on which the narration focuses. so let’s return to the question presented at the beginning:

how can alphas really be alphas when not everyone on the field trip can be a mastermind?

i’m gonna give this to you in two ways. one, the way i personally interpret it as an in-universe explanation, given the background premises we have already established. and the other, why the stream system kind of ruins the structure it sets out to create.

so, for me, the alphas can be alphas because there is more to villainy than being a mastermind and there is more to being a mastermind than being in charge. as i think about it, this novelization is actually the backstory for every one of the students, who will go on to do great and scary things. they will manage big projects and come up with interesting ways to terrorize the British government, because that is what James Bond villains do (and James Bond does canonically exist in their universe). much like your actual teenage years, this is not the main event.

as students, the core four need to learn to do a little bit of everything. you gotta learn some lock-picking, that’s essential. everyone has to be able to climb a rock wall. it’s the rules. and everyone needs to be able to do some programming. that’s just the way school is. though everyone has a different personality and a different way of looking at the world, their education has to cover the basics because the fact of the matter is, none of them are villains yet. will they become one? that remains to be seen. but they are being given the tools to become the greatest villains if that is something they choose.

the main problem that remains when holding this attitude is that the specialized skills of otto and his friends might be better suited to other streams, in which case, what is an alpha anyways?

here’s the facts: if everyone were assigned to a stream by talent, then there wouldn’t be an alpha stream.

franz? political/financial stream.

nigel? laura? otto? technical stream.

shelby? wing? henchman stream.

you can debate me on the specifics of those assignments, but the point is this: all the other streams are based on hard skills. franz can manage a ledger and that is a financial skill. laura can build a computer from scratch and that is a technical skill. wing can do martial arts, and each martial art is a physical skill that can be taught and performed in a measurable level of proficiency.

the idea of being a “mastermind” is a much softer skill—which is to say, there’s no one recipe that will make it work. my manager at work has coached me by saying that leadership is often about having a “style,” and working at it that way. leadership requires interpersonal flexibility, being able to stay organized and to make important decisions rapidly, it is about being able to prioritize and delegate. and it’s very much open to interpretation, every day, all the time.

let me tell you something else about james bond: there is a lot of classism, racism, and sexism embedded into every aspect of those films, but that goes for double when it comes to the villains in the show. to vastly oversimplify that very concept, it shows up in the bond films like this: henchmen are working class folks, the villainous equivalent of “the help,” and the supervillains are (usually) rich and glamorous and powerful. henchmen are uneducated (read as: stupid) and ugly and poor. no one cares if they die. (there’s more complexities, as always, but this essay isn’t actually about james bond so we’ll fast forward through My Opinions to the end)

the problem with replicating james bond in your villain school universe is that some of the biases of the james bond universe get replicated in there, too. poor and uneducated folks get turned into disposable henchmen whose lives are irrelevant. people who are educated and talented get fast-tracked to a more glamorous and interesting stream that will catapult them to the top of the ladder as soon as they graduate. if you look at the dialect with which block and tackle are written, they are clearly meant to be seen as a different social class than otto, despite the fact that otto is coming from basically nothing. and we understand that when otto graduates, he will be able to do basically anything that he wants to at all.

so, if you’re asking why wing has a role in the alpha stream when he doesn’t seem as leader-y as otto, there’s a simple answer: because dr. nero believes that wing can be more.

the climax of book one is dr. nero explicitly telling otto, wing, laura, and shelby that they are in his school because he believes in them and he wants to see them grow. they are given an elite status other students do not have despite the fact that they have just literally tried to escape. as we see in the case of duncan cavendish, the main way to get on that highway to a guaranteed career is to convince him that you’ve “got it.” for those who are not believed in, there is no way to make up for the special grooming. you’re stuck with the stream you’re placed in, doomed (perhaps) to be a second-in-command at best.

is all this intentional? probably not. but it is implicit in the structure of the story and, alas, that’s the way it is.

all i can think to say in conclusion is that while the stream system tends to replicate some of the unfair and classist realities present in other media and the world we live in, i think part of the reason we read h.i.v.e. is because the alpha stream is so appealing. imagine! you are competent and you have a desirable, specialized skill as well as a proficiency in many general skills and you are certain you are going to do good things—and all because someone believes in you. to receive someone else’s support and confidence can be life-changing. the magic of h.i.v.e. is that yes—lives are changed and ordinary, boring people were elevated to the level of supervillains. we are only left to wonder, are they the only people who deserved that honor?

#meta #spoilers #streams #alpha #henchman #political/financial #technical stream #technical #james bond #hive #h.i.v.e.#higher institute of villainous education #the higher institute of villainous education #otto malpense #max nero #streams post #musings

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jowritesthingss · 4 years

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Partners in Pranks

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): Moceit (Patton | Morality + Janus | Deceit)

Rating: Teen (for one sexual mention)

Content Warning(s): pranks (fairly harmless ones), food mention, sex mention (a teeny one in passing)

Length: 2,139 words

Brief Summary: “It’s just a prank,” Janus says as he makes a Valentine’s day card for Patton. “I’m trying to outdo him,” he says as he plans a fancy dinner for Patton. “I just want to beat him to it,” he says as he prepares to propose to Patton.

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Janus has a...prank war of sorts going on with Patton.

Like with many of the sides’ exploits, it starts simply and quite by accident, if Janus is to be honest with himself—but now, why would he do that?

Janus doesn’t fully intend to put jello in the showerhead before Patton showers—and for that matter, the culprit is actually Remus, and the intended victim Roman. But Patton is the one who comes stomping out of the bathroom and into the living room, green from head to toe and half-naked, and Janus is the one looking up from his book and trying not to laugh. And the lie that it was him slips off his tongue so naturally, just as so many others do.

And then Patton is staring at him, eyes alight with determination, declaring that oh, the competition is on, and, well. Why ever not? It’s just a spot of friendly competition, and of course Janus will win. It gives him another chance to show off his innate superiority.

Obviously the glee that Janus takes in seeing Patton’s eyes glint like that is pure rivalry and competitiveness. Obviously.

Patton is the one to incite trouble next, replacing all of Janus’ skin moisturizer with mayonnaise. Janus scrubs the sticky sauce out of his scales in the bathtub, brow furrowed as he tries to figure out what to do to get Patton back.

The opportunity presents itself when Patton gets a new pair of glasses. He wakes up one morning to find them in the fridge, encased in the same green jello that started the whole mess in the first place. Not even a day after he got the new pair, he’s going back to Roman, asking the creative side to conjure him yet another pair.

Next up at bat is Patton, who sneaks into Janus’ room one night and places googly eyes on everything in his bedroom—furniture, pictures, paintings, stuffed animals, everything. Janus wakes up to find everything staring at him—including Patton, who hangs upside-down and red-faced from the canopy bed.

He totally doesn’t shriek. He doesn’t. No matter what Patton tries to tell anyone.

In retaliation for the googly eyes, Janus enlists Roman’s help (bribing him with pics of Virgil snuggling Mrs. Fluffybottom in his sleep), and the two conjure and hide dozens of tiny speakers all over Patton’s bedroom. He programs them to blast Never Gonna Give You Up three times a day at random and takes savage glee in the ultimate rickroll.

(Patton still hasn’t found all of the speakers to this day.)

Patton, ever the lover of puns, is the next to request Roman’s help. Patton announces that he’s Janus’ biggest fan, and Roman enchants dozens of fans with Patton’s face taped to them. They follow Janus around for a day and a half before he gets fed up and takes a hammer to them (after carefully removing and saving the pictures of Patton’s face first, of course).

In response, Janus installs a fake roll of toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom (leaving an actual roll of toilet paper nearby, of course, because for all that he loves causing chaos, he isn’t that evil).

Patton simply puts pictures of Slash from Guns ’N Roses on Thomas’ tires, announcing that someone slashed Thomas’ tires the next time he and Janus are in the real world to “help” (translation: pester) Thomas.

Next Janus prints out a picture of a spider and hides it in the shade of the lamp on Patton’s bedside table.

That night a scream echoes through the entire mindscape, rousing even Thomas out in the real world, and bringing everyone running. And admittedly, Janus does feel bad about that one. He hadn’t realized Patton was that scared of spiders.

So as an apology for the whole spider thing, Janus makes brownies for Patton. Correction—he makes brown Es. (Also real brownies, though he hides those in the fridge and doesn’t tell Patton they’re from him, because he really does feel bad, but he’s not about to admit it.)

Patton uncovers the tray and sees the brown Es, and the watery smile he gives Janus makes the deceitful side’s stomach twist delightfully.

(It’s just the spirit of the game, he tells himself. He’s just relieved that he hasn’t lost a fellow prankster and causer of chaos.)

Janus knows all is forgiven when Patton brings him a bag of his favorite fast food back from the real world—and Janus opens it to find cucumbers where chicken nuggets should be, and carrot sticks in the fries container.

(After five minutes of laughing at Janus’ disappointed face, Patton brings out the actual chicken nuggets and fries for him, and hey, maybe Patton isn’t so bad after all. ...Just, not as cool as Janus. Duh.)

And the game is afoot once more.

Patton taste-tests a batch of cookies one day to find that Janus switched the sugar with the salt.

Janus spends a day wondering why everyone sounds like they’re hissing instead of speaking before he realizes that Patton bribed the others into helping him (even Thomas, how could he?!).

The googly eyes make their way out of Janus’ room and find their way into the fridge. In the process the dozen eggs are all given names, personalities, and backstories, and Patton is too distraught to cook with them.

The prank war is put on hold for a day or two when Remus hatches the eggs into zombie chickens, and all hands are needed on deck to round up the things so Roman can release them in the Imagination. But once the last of the sickly green little puffballs is vanished, the game continues on.

Stealing—ahem, borrowing—some of Virgil’s nail polish, Janus puts clear polish on the soap in all of the bathrooms. This leaves Patton wondering why the soap won’t lather up when he goes to wash his hands.

Patton tapes tiny harmonicas to the bottom of the vacuum, resulting in Janus puzzling over the sounds of hell opening whenever he tries to vacuum his bedroom.

For two days straight everything in the living room of the Mindscape is covered in tinfoil until Roman, exasperated and seeing that neither Janus nor Patton intend to undo it all, snaps it away himself. Then Virgil is left to dispose of all of the Janus-shaped balloons that mysteriously fill the hallway one morning (popping them violently with scissors counts as anger management, he insists).

Janus causes everyone to question their sanity as he goes about the day seemingly as normal, quietly replacing his bowler hat with identical hats that are just a bit tinier at periodic intervals throughout the day.

Patton and Logan switch places for a day, but Janus is the only one who seems to catch the change, ironically enough. He’s all too familiar with Patton’s laugh and his smile at this point—on account of them constantly pranking each other, of course, not because he stares at those pictures of Patton every night before he goes to bed or anything—so of course Janus knows the difference between the two.

Whoopee cushions are overrated, so instead Janus tapes an air horn underneath Patton’s desk chair. He hides in Patton’s closet and makes sure to film this one, editing the video of Patton jumping into the opening of Let’s Get It On in the spirit of Thomas’ Vine days.

Eventually the other sides make Thomas step in and tell them to stop, because Patton accidentally replaced Remus’ deodorant with cream cheese instead of Janus’, and Logan is still picking glitter out of his clothes. The two rivals stare at each other contemplatively from across the living room. Janus wonders how he might be able to continue this contest of sorts.

And then, oh, then. Then the most marvelous, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, stupendous idea hits him.

Why not turn it into a battle of wits? A battle of words, of puns, of—of flirting.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Janus will beat the moral side at his own game—in matters of the heart, in matters of wordplay.

The flurry in which Janus takes to wooing Patton—still just in the spirit of a little friendly competition, naturally—leaves Patton blushing and the other sides very much regretting making him stop with the pranks.

“It’s just a joke,” Janus says as he takes Patton’s hand in his and kisses it.

“I’m trying to outdo him,” Janus asserts as he bakes heart-shaped cookies for Patton.

“It’s all in good fun,” Janus claims as he looks up puns and innuendos to make Patton blush.

“I’m trying to beat him at his own game,” Janus insists as he makes Patton a Valentine’s Day card.

And then—

“Date me,” Patton breathes, staring into Janus’ wide eyes, and he’s certain Patton is just trying to one-up him again, but dammit! Janus is trapped, trapped. Either he chickens out and says no, and then Patton wins, or he says yes, and what then? How can he possibly outdo that?

For the time being he settles with challenging Patton to a nonverbal battle—that of kissing—and naturally he wins, because Janus is hands down the best wooer ever to woo.

So after saying a firm yes to Patton’s question, Janus darts forward, pressing a kiss to Patton’s lips and winding his arms around the other side. Ha-ha! This will do it! This will truly prove that he is the best! This is the one.

Or, well, maybe another. Not because he likes kissing Patton, it’s just because, because his breathing was a little off that time, he can do better next time, prove to Patton that he’s the best kisser of the two of them. And then uhh, maybe another one, because third time’s the charm, right?

But as the two throw date after extravagant date, the question lurks in the back of Janus’ mind—how can he possibly outdo Patton’s “date me”?

Two years later, Janus finds the answer in the “marry me” he says to a starstruck, swooning Patton, and ha. Bet Patton didn’t see that one coming. He even had Roman design the most perfectest ring to fit Patton’s personality and clothing style, all in the name of overdoing it and making it nigh-on impossible for Patton to even try to outdo Janus’ extreme extra-ness.

And as they are planning the wedding and Janus pulls out the binders he has noting every last detail (yes, binders, plural), he wears a proud grin. He’d love to see Patton try and top that. Because of course he’s been planning the wedding ceremony for months now—erm, only so Patton won’t be able to outplan and outfox him on that front, of course.

Yes, yes, that’s the most important part. Patton will never be able to beat Janus now. It has nothing to do with the way Patton’s eyes light up and he leans in close to peer over Janus’ shoulder to look at the designs.

And then the day of the wedding comes, and sure, it’s a little ridiculous, because the whole thing is really only them, with Remus as their flower girl and Logan officiating and Virgil and Roman as the best men, and Thomas—poor confused Thomas, sitting alone in the pews in an Imagined church, wondering how it’s even possible for two figments of his imagination to get married in the first place.

Janus makes sure that his vows are the longest and the best and the prettiest, not to make Patton cry or love him even more or anything, just to show he’s the best with words. He even throws in a pun or two to remind Patton that he’s the best at making puns, too. Naturally he’s an excellent dancer, too, so with him leading, he and Patton dominate the dance floor after the ceremony as well.

(And then their wedding night comes and, well. Maybe Janus can’t top Patton in quite every way. Ahem. But that’s a different story.)

Anniversary after anniversary comes and goes (and with them, celebration after increasingly elaborate celebration), and still Janus and Patton are married, to Logan and Virgil’s utmost confusion. It’s like a game of chicken, Janus assures himself. He simply doesn’t want to be the one to back out first, and Patton is more stubborn than he seems.

But, as he lies in bed with Patton, determined to prove that he’s the best cuddler, Janus thinks that maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t mind all that much.

...

Patton isn’t entirely sure why his husband of ten years breaks into random maniacal laughter on occasion, or why he’s so competitive in everything he does. But Patton takes it in stride, with a smile on his face. It’s quite endearing, really. Let the man have his quirks.

Fin

Not my greatest, but the idea wiggled into my head while I was writing some LoSleep and it Would Not Go Away until I scribbled it down.

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

#thomas sanders sides #sanders sides #tss #ts #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfic #ts fanfic #ts deceit #ts janus #janus sanders #ts morality #ts patton #patton sanders #moceit #patton x janus #jwt sanderssides #jowritesthingss #food mention #lemme know if i need to tag any cws

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freedomscall-aa · 4 years

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DRAGON AGE II

THE CITY OF CHAINS, ACT I

Fleeing from the Grey Wardens following his allowance of Justice into his body and the bloody events that took place immediately afterwards, Anders takes refuge within the walls of Kirkwall among the hundreds of other Ferelden refugees who now call the city home after the yearlong Blight laid waste to townships and smaller hamlets. He establishes a small clinic in the filth and crime ridden under city, Darktown, where he offers his talents as a healer near free of charge to suffering, displaced families and individuals. Through rumors his prior association with the Grey Wardens and the maps he carried with him eventually becomes a topic of interest to a fellow Ferelden and their growing gang of misfits.

This verse takes place during the events of the game's first act and thus encompasses Anders' first encounter with Hawke, the death of Karl, the trek into the Deep Roads, etc. The default state of this verse leans towards a friendship path with Hawke, but will be adjusted as needed.

THE CITY OF CHAINS, ACT II

Three years out from the Dark Roads expedition Anders has found his connections to the now wealthy Hawke and their associates something akin to a gift from the Maker himself in various ways. Life is now somewhat easier with the support of those in the group he considers himself friends with, though the mage's personality is forever changed by the death of Karl all those years ago. Over time he has developed a propensity to further isolate himself when not following the call of Hawke and has been known to display forms of increasingly paranoid behavior by those he comes into close contact with. Despite this, Anders further commits himself to tending to refugees when not out and about with Hawke. In turn, he trusts their loyalty to protect knowledge of his whereabouts from Templars who've caught wind of his activities. Their protection is a small blessing in and of itself, as Justice's, now Vengeance's, strength has further manifested itself with his body-- Anders now finding it increasingly difficult to control himself from causing harm when face to face with those within the Templar Order. Overly sympathetic to the the plight of the mages imprisoned within the Kirkwall's Circle now more than ever, the blond has begun to dedicate himself to pursuing a feat he once considered madness before his merger with Justice-- the separation of the Circle from the Chantry. In-between his time spent with patients within the clinic and Hawke's adventures, Anders begins writing the first draft of what would become his manifesto and finds himself becoming involved in a small resistance group of like minded apostates to help ferry runaway mages out of the city.

This verse encompasses the whole of act two and the three prior mentioned years following Hawke's expedition in the Deep Roads. The default state for this verse assumes Anders begins the act on a full friendship path with a Hawke that has flirted with him, then after Leandra’s death said Hawke quickly swings towards a semi-rival in the later half, leaving Anders heartbroken. In this verse Anders is ultimately able to regain control of himself from Vengeance to prevent the death of the female mage in his companion quest, Dissent.

THE CITY OF CHAINS, ACT III

Another three years pass, the time spent with the mage finding himself at constant odds with himself. His inner struggles with Vengeance are a day to day activity, Anders for a period of time devoid of all interest in the plight of his fellow mage due to seeing himself as nothing but an abomination after almost losing himself completely to Vengeance's urge to kill a young mage some years ago. He has become further withdrawn with his attempts to regain control over the spirit inhabiting his body, a battle that he will ultimately lose in the end. As a consequence of this fight of control he has further developed traits that reflect the current state of his mentality-- prone to increasingly wild mood swings ranging from fits of melancholy to purely manic phases of determination to channeling his bitingly vicious anger at whoever is unfortunate enough to be at the opposite end of his staff during his excursions with Hawke and company. To further this issue, he has begun to suffer lapses in memory when not out with the Champion; often finding himself in locations he has no recollection of traveling to and regularly discovering he is missing large gaps of time out of his day to day activities. To those who he considers himself closest to it is obvious that he's begun planning something, though what and if it is Anders himself in control of the process is unknown.

This verse features Anders at his worse, markedly mentally ill with no feasible way out of act three's inevitable conclusion. His relationships with Hawke and the rest of the gang are heavily strained and the default state of this verse assumes him to be a full rival path with a Hawke who, despite being heavily traumatized by what happened to their mother, ultimately sides with the Mages. You all know how it ends, so I imagine I don't have to say much more.

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION

WHAT VENGEANCE HAS WROUGHT

THIS VERSE WILL EVENTUALLY BE REVAMPED TO ADD EASIER INTERATIONS FOR INQUISTION BASED MUSES, BUT MOST OF WHAT IS HERE IS STILL ACCURATE. FOR A SNEAK PEEK REGARDING WHAT I’M PLANNING TO DO, SEE THIS POST.

Hawke should have killed him, is what Anders used to tell himself frequently before finally settling in his guilt--- mind rife in his knowledge that, despite it all, he would do it again in a heartbeat. There were no other options, despite his regrets, the blond’s actions a year later inciting a rebellion the likes of which hasn’t been seen in centuries.

Vengeance is sated, frequently quiet-- leaving the mage with nothing but his own thoughts for the first time in nearly eight years. Yet, in the scant moments where the spirit’s thoughts invade his own they’ve begun to slowly resemble those of the friend he once he had. He is full to the brim with anxieties, abandoned by those he called friends in the wake of his actions in Kirkwall and unwanted by the very mages he sought to free. Once again a lone apostate, or more accurately: a wanted abomination, Anders travels familiar lands following the path of the war his actions served as the catalyst for. Supposed sightings place him all over the world, the blond on the very rarest occasion finding some humor in the fact that he can apparently now be in several locations at once. If only it was so simple all those years ago when he was just a boy trying to get back home to his mother.

These days he finds himself like he did back in Kirkwall before everything came to a head, offering his healing services to refugee camps before moving on lest someone figures out who he really is. It stings, however, when even more non-mages refuse his aid-- perception of mages further tainted by the war. In between camps he lives a rather bare bones existence, sequestering himself away in the forests that dot his path to a place unknown before the Templar army or, worse, the Inquisition can find him-- all the while ignoring the cruelest of siren calls, one he recognizes well from his time with Hawke within an old Grey Warden prison so many years ago.

WHAT LOVE HAS SACRIFICED

IM GONNA REVAMP THIS EVENTUALLY SO LIKE A LOT OF THIS DOESN’T APPLY ANYMORE, SORRY Hawke should have killed him, is what Anders tells himself frequently. Instead, however, they sheltered him-- from Kirkwall, from the Templars, from the world when the results of Vengeance's, of HIS actions boiled over and sparked a war. In fact, Anders could go so far to say that they sacrificed everything they had earned over that decade in Kirkwall for him. He's not sure how they tolerate him these days, awash in guilt as Vengeance whispers in his mind that Hawke is holding them back from joining the Mages’ in their fight against their centuries long oppressors. That Hawke covertly wants to sedate him, control him, lock him away, suffocate him--- The angry insistence of a spirit that is no longer his friend. Anders has worked for years to stifle the spirit's control over him and for once he finally feels as though he's winning, only at the cost of the world and everything else he held dear. His struggle is something Hawke knows, but he is, however, sure they think him insane, which is fair, and still something of a threat regardless of their feelings for him or his claim of control. Anders thinks himself completely mad these days too, especially when Vengeance falls momentarily silent and the blond is left with his own thoughts. Thus, it was no surprise when the day Hawke informed him that they’re leaving came. But what came after, however, was. Not that they’re leaving him, but that instead they’re leaving their makeshift home, together, following the call of an old friend who has seemed to find themselves involved in the Inquisition.

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS, AWAKENING

VIGIL’S KEEP

twenty nine year old man loves a tiny kitten to death, the verse u//c, obviously

KINLOCH HOLD

actual baby twenty-something has to pretend that everything is okay after losing his bf for almost another decade all while silently plotting his next and greatest escape before getting chucked into solitary for a year. u//c, obviously

GREY WARDEN // UNPOSSESSED

A purely self indulgent verse to explore the what ifs if Anders had never ran away from the Grey Wardens. By default this verse assumes that by not merging with Justice, Kristoff's body eventually was unable to function and Anders instead helped him return to the Fade, despite how he would have otherwise been willing to go through with other plans if not for Rolan's presence when the moment finally came. I'm willing to adjust this verse's default assumption of what happens to Justice as needed to other character's verses where they instead become the spirit's host.

This verse extends through the same period of time as Dragon Age 2 onwards and certain events in it might put him in Kirkwall or Inquisition locations at various points in time. In this situation, Anders ultimately avoided possession by his friend, a spirit of Justice--- the blond finding himself unwilling to go through with such a thing while both mage and spirit were under then constant watch of a former Templar that was allowed into the Order shortly after the Warden Commander had moved on. Hesitant and suspicious of the fact that both of them were constantly given the same assignments with said former Templar by the Orlesian Wardens who outranked him ( and made him give up his cat ), Anders eventually sensed something was up. Mind rife with paranoia, he eventually deduced that Rolan was just waiting for him to make some small tiny mistake to justify outright killing him and, by extension, such a thing would also allow the Senior Wardens to wash their hands of the former apostate.

Without melding himself with Justice, many of Anders' budding issues that the spirit would have otherwise taken issue to and attempt to correct only continued to grow through the years; the mage becoming something close to a functional alcoholic with a promiscuous streak that waxes and wanes in accordance to his moods and, ultimately, mental state. He is still an extremely skilled healer despite this, and, as the years past, has become expected to train both new mage and new non-mage wardens under him in the nuances of quick, messy field chirurgy and intermediate herbalism--- a role that he enjoys far more than he imagined he would.

INQUSITOR // HERALD OF ANDTRASTE

The Maker, if He does exist, certainly has a sense of humor. Or at least, this is what the mage grimly told himself when faced with the reality of the pulsing, agonizing wound upon his palm and the distrusting, angry faces that surrounded him once he woke. He had just wanted to see it, hope in his heart for the moment where the Divine sided with the mages--- wishful thinking for a man who had gone through all that he had. Yet, as with all things in his life: his wants never quite go to plan.

your typical ‘what-if’ verse, u//c

MODERN DAY

A licensed physician with a complicated past, and the mental illnesses to go along with it. Anders thinks he works best under the stress of the emergency department, though a part of him longs to settle into life as the owner of his own private clinic. A mundane man, with only _slightly_ eccentric interests ( an educated man, vaguely interested in the occult? ), who somehow managed to gather ( and keep! ) a gaggle of friends from all walks of life despite how ' depressing ‘ he can become at times.

mass effect? fallout? elder scrolls?

#[ ☄️ | andraste's nickerweasels! ( ooc ) ]

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sasorikigai · 4 years

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BLOOD TIES - Prelude Meta

Years ago, a great war between realms brought the universe to the brink of destruction. In their most desperate hour, Earthrealm's champions rallied in strength and spirit—saving their world from the forces of evil. In the years that followed, there existed a peace between realms for the first time since the Mortal Kombat tournaments began. But peace did not last for long...

The story begins in the Himalayan wilderness with Kenshi Takahashi battling infamous Red Dragon member Hsu Hao and other Red Dragon members with Takeda Takahashi, his son. While Kenshi is quick to attempting to subdue his enemies in order for Takeda to escape, Kenshi incites by trespassing the Shirai Ryu Territory, which smoothly transitions forth Hanzo Hasashi’s abrupt intervention, which quickly disposes of Hsu Hao by a skewered kunai to his chest, with a flaming fist impaling the Red Dragon’s head.

Even in this brief fighting scene, it could be referenced that Kenshi and Hanzo has been close friends, who would reciprocally save each other’s lives, and acting not only on vengeance, but justice (but this parallel and ongoing concept when it involves Hanzo will come later on, repeatedly, in fact).

"Good is not nice, polite, well-mannered, self-righteous, or naive, though good characters may be some of these things."

Hanzo Hasashi may be a redeemed character who has gone through hell and back to experience growth and redemption, but he is a natural loner - a lone wolf throughout the franchise, ever since he lost his family, his clan, along with his life. His senses of duty may force him to perform heroic acts, but he does not consider chitchat or politeness to be parts of their obligations, lest someone really deserves it through mounted trust and reciprocation as it is extremely hard to downright trust anyone. Also, he may want to be an affable person, but Hanzo believes that being nice does not always get things done, and that doing good requires them to be harsh and cruel, particularly if he has to teach something. This may be an intermittent effect, applied only when necessary; to train Takeda, who wasn’t obviously handpicked by Hanzo himself, but taking care of him on Kenshi’s behalf.

Hanzo may be no longer an Anti-Hero, nor Vigilante Man, but he still harbors that significant dualism in a sense that he could be a genuinely friendly, sociable, caring person, always looking out for his friends and family and trying to do the right thing. It's just that this niceness doesn't extend to giving free passes to the truly vile and horrific among his enemies (Quan Chi in canon, Havik in the comics). They are the reason why the villain should Beware the Nice Ones, especially since Hanzo is not gonna wait to be angered or snap before the inevitable beatdown/killing begins. Hanzo will find them, will stop them and (if they're lucky) will kill them before they can hit that Berserk Button (where Hanzo fails, which will come later on with Hanzo vs. Havik fight).

The Shirai Ryu Temple is full of Shirai Ryu warriors who lost their families in the Netherrealm War, sole survivors like Hanzo Hasashi himself. It’s a jarring reminder of his death, and resurrection as Scorpion, as he would serve as the Enforcer of the Netherrealm on Quan Chi’s leash... With all things past him, as Kenshi Takahashi helped Hanzo to get him out of the darkness, Hanzo reciprocates the good deed upon them. Kenshi has his own vengeance as Kenshi was performing a deep covert cover mission to eradicate the Red Dragon’s cult leader, Daegon. When his cover was blown, his son living in Thailand was also blown and Suchin (Kenshi’s wife) was killed in gruesome matter before Kenshi could get there, but Suchin was smart enough to hide Takeda in the next town, to escape slaughter. Hanzo takes him in, as he sought revenge and find death. Takeda fears and resents Hanzo, because he is a wraith from hell. Kenshi, intimately knowing of Hanzo’s demons, tells his son that Hanzo conquered his own years ago. When Hanzo catches Takeda running away from the Shirai Ryu Compounds, he catches up to the boy and tells him.

“You are a survivor, Takeda, like me. But Shirai Ryu do not run. We fight.”

This philosophy, the strong, iron-willed Sasori Hanzo wears will be a continued ouroboros that will repeatedly return as the comics’ events continue. It will also become the catalyst in Takeda’s harbored strength as he grows from a weak boy to a formidable warrior.

Hanzo trains Takeda, as the young Takahashi battles Forrest Fox, who comes on top as he gets beaten over and over again. Years later, Takeda simply feints using his speed, instead of countering Fox when he attacks. Hanzo immediately calls Takeda out for playing around, even when he could have utilized his advantage to strike at first opportunity given. Hanzo does not hold back with his criticism, be imposing and charismatic when he needs to be, while also offering protection towards Takeda, as he assigns Fox to protect him.

"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death."

Imposing, intimidating and austere, Hanzo Hasashi, at least before the events of MKX storyline still harbors the duality of his personality (Hanzo and Scorpion), Scorpion being that of vengeance, hatred and wrath, while Hanzo is his humanity and compassion. One of the worst things Hanzo’s enemies can ever do with him is to do something that gets him well and truly furious, because rage makes him close to being unbeatable despite him being a mortal being now. He will go into a frenzy and become stronger, faster, braver, more agile and more indestructible than he has ever been, and he will annihilate anyone who stands in his way. In Takeda’s training, Hanzo is most definitely harsher with him than any of the other handpicked ninjas, for Forrest Fox comments on “If you thought Hanzo was a harsh master before, wait until you meet the real Scorpion.” And Hanzo regards the Shirai Ryu as his blood and family - For Hanzo Hasashi is a Grandmaster, a commander cares deeply about their men and exhibits it constantly. A mentor to the officers (generals and ninjas) under them, Hanzo takes a deep personal interest in their welfare and try to keep them out of harm's way. Even those non-kombatants, who stay behind the front defense line (those that work in infirmary, women who take care of the ninjas, as being a traditional Japanese setting, there still are more women non-kombatants than their male counterparts) will be treated with utter respect and made to feel as valued as the ninjas on the front line.

Hanzo thinks of being abruptly interrupted by Raiden - unexpected and unwelcomed - as the Thunder God warned Hanzo of the Netherrealm Invasion damaging cosmic barriers that protect the Earth from realms beyond. A powerful demon from another realm broke through before Raiden could repair them. Hanzo comments that it is Raiden’s fault, and as he recalls his memory, comments to Takeda that if this demon shows up, warns that warriors don’t dance around it, but kill it before it kills him. Forrest Fox, corrupted with the Blood Code, massacres almost all of the Second Shirai Ryu and takes Takeda to Grandmaster Hasashi, who is in a mental entropy; a state produced by a psychedelic from Hanzo’s own poison collection, reliving old times to stroke the fire until vengeance consumes him. He struggled years to control his vengeful spirit, and now he’s lost yet another family, corrupted Fox waits for what Hanzo will become.

In his poison-induced delirium, Hanzo remembers the tragic, agonizing event, seemingly from a lifetime ago, Hanzo fights against Lin Kuei warriors, and comes across Harumi (Kana) and Satoshi (Jubei), who are solid frozen with Sub-Zero before him. That day, Hanzo has lost everything - his family, his clan - as he thinks himself becoming Scorpion, the hellfire never being able to burn him whole. Takeda refuses to kill Hanzo, and Fox calls on an occasion where Hanzo has been especially hard on him, considering Hanzo handpicked every fighter he trained, except Takeda, and calls him a runner, not a warrior. Hanzo gives into Scorpion’s persona, burning Fox in hellfire, then Takeda splits him in half, killing corrupted Fox as they burn the Shirai Ryu Compounds, and plans to visit Raiden, to have him beg for mercy.

Since Hellfire is often explicitly magical in nature, it may also have other affects or the way it does what it does is different from conventional fire. While normal fire might melt something with heat, Hellfire may just disintegrate it entirely, or even go against the annihilative nature of the fire itself, as it was shown with corrupted Forrest Fox under the Blood Code. Maybe whatever normal fire affected will be hot after but eventually the heat will die down but with Hellfire, the object may stay hot or even feel cold. More than that, when used on a living creature, Hellfire might not hurt it the same way as normal fire. Instead of burning the body, Hellfire may burn the soul and physical injuries are the result of a wounded spirit that may never heal. And this also goes along with how Hanzo faced his violence; immoral, thriving on hatred rather than love, not only it destroyed communal sense of his wholeness, it left his world in monologue, rather than dialogue.

Hellfire itself was a stark metaphor of his violence ending by defeating itself, Hanzo Hasashi’s own triad of body, mind and soul. For it had created bitterness in a sole survivor within him and brutality in destroying them as his cruel madness pulverized so many innocents.

At this point, Hanzo’s hatred towards Raiden is rampant; for he blames the Thunder God for giving him the Kamigodu Dagger, then having the Second Shirai Ryu massacred, to come close to losing almost everything, save for Takeda and his own life.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#hanzo hasashi #takeda takahashi #mortal kombat #✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ seeking reconciliation with his own humanity (iii)#(relationships; takeda)#(oof this took two days to write)#(it's all over the place but this will do)

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clansayeed · 4 years

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Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 3: Of Monsters and Men

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Taylor meets his new bodyguard, debates casual necromancy, and learns the truth behind his hallucinations. All while a fae makes him cream soda.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Taylor doesn’t remember waking up — one second he’s asleep and the next he just isn’t.

Despite the things he’s seen (not really seen, but thought he’s seen) he’s not a fan of these kinds of wakings. Would rather emerge slowly as if from a cocoon. With enough time between breaths and heartbeats to let the dreams that plagued him fade away into fuzzy oblivion — forgotten despite all efforts to bring them back to recent memory.

He prefers it because when he wakes all at once there’s no helping remembering his dreams.

And all of that — the cemetery, Vera’s gloves, Kristin’s tears, the moon and moldy flowers — definitely isn’t something he wants to linger on.

“Are you gonna freak out now? Because these walls ain’t soundproofed.”

The voice resists its accent; clips sounds the Louisiana slang wants to let hang. He’s never heard it before but doesn’t need to.

It does the trick. Reminds Taylor how easily the world of dreams can blend with reality.

He takes in his surroundings with eyes still shut. The scratchy pilling on the cushions underneath, the stale air that’s made his shirt stick sweaty to his body, the repetitive squeak of a portable fan that should have retired a lifetime ago.

If he keeps his eyes shut will it all go away? Can it really be that easy?

Of course it isn’t. He knows it, the stranger knows it… but still a guy can dream.

“I know you’re awake, kid,” the stranger continues, “sleepin’ people don’t breathe like that.”

Taylor’s nose scrunches. “Don’t watch me breathe.”

“Then don’t breathe weird.”

The fact I‘m not hyperventilating right now is a fucking miracle, Taylor wants to say back — doesn’t in favor of inhaling so hard his nostrils burn before letting it out in a whistle on his dry lips.

Instead he snaps his eyes open and stares at the bald patches of peeling paint on the popcorn ceiling.

Something shifts behind him; the squeak of leather on pleather.

“You’re handlin’ this awful well.”

No, he’s really not. “I’m not unfamiliar with waking up on strange couches.”

“Is that so?”

Taylor doesn’t like the way the voice drops into a suggestive purr. It’s enough to get him to sit up on his elbows and try to shake the fog from his head. The familiar words, “how much did I drink last night?” are on the tip of his tongue but without the pounding headache there to accompany them they just don’t feel right.

A hand appears out of the corner of his eye. He watches scarred knuckles on tanned skin flex silvery as a nondescript flask is placed on one of the coffee table’s few bare spots.

“Here — this’ll help. Trust me.”

Taylor takes it. Can smell the familiar simmering honey and spice of whiskey. But he isn’t even tempted — screws the cap back on and sets it pack with a little too much purpose.

The stranger gives a ‘huh’ of surprise. “You sure? It’s not top shelf, but —”

“I’m gonna say this once;” as he does Taylor sits up and digs his knuckles into his eyes to quell the dizzy rush, “don’t ever offer me alcohol again. Please.”

As bright and inconsistent colors flash before his sight there’s silence.

Then, “fair enough,” and takes back the flask.

He can’t immediately tell if the stranger is just prone to dramatics or if the positioning of the lamp-sans-shade is purposefully there to shroud his rescuer (or kidnapper) in all the shadows the apartment can offer.

But it’s definitely him: the guy from the dive bar. Where his memory ends his eyes pick up the slack and fill in the sharp face like a puzzle. Dark eyes — almost black — and evidence of a five o-clock shadow. A little bit of a greying sheen to the hairs at his temples. And a strange scar like an inverted triangle brushed flippantly from left temple to eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone.

So he’s the quintessential ‘rugged, grizzled, don’t-play-by-the-rules’ type. Which, in Taylor’s opinion, just makes the worn leather trench coat overkill.

And his very presence makes things very very complicated.

Makes his head incite a full-on civil war between the things he knows and the things he’s seen — not to speak of the independent faction trying to resist both.

The man grabs something small off of the stand beside him and a glass of water — takes one of Taylor’s hands off of his jeans and pushes it into his palm in a very non-negotiable style.

“At least take this. That headache looks real fierce. Won’t work as fast as the booze, though.”

Oh, he knows. But he’s glad for something to help no matter how little and washes down the aspirin tablet with the entire water glass.

Judging by the awkward silence that follows neither Taylor nor the man know how to actually… begin. Because there needs to be a beginning — maybe not right now but there was earlier and if he thinks about it too much, if he lets his imagination run wild and spiral, he’ll start to panic.

Last time he checked panic wouldn’t bring Kristin back from the dead.

Kristin. Oh god. He needs to find her body.

“Can I…?” He raises the glass. The stranger slaps his knees and hauls himself up with possibly too-much dramatic effort and takes it to refill. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

It’s a small apartment with only as many walls as needed. Ideally Taylor would prefer a room between him and the man to make his escape (which will be the exact opposite of stealthy) a little bit easier, but…

He waits until the leather-clad back is turned before slowly starting to stand. Not one step and the fucking floor creaks underfoot.

Shit. “Uh — can I get some ice?” Taylor asks; louder than necessary to cover it up.

The man (probably) rolls his eyes. “Want a straw while I’m at it? Maybe a little pink umbrella?”

“I’d prefer yellow.”

“I bet you would.”

Taylor waits, poised like a viper, and strikes when the ice maker on the fridge door begins to rumble to life. Dashes as fast as he can — though it isn’t until he moves more than an inch that he realizes just how sore everything is — to what looks like every closed front door he’s ever seen.

Aaaand it’s locked.

There’s a deep rich laughter behind him as Taylor yanks on the brass handle; twists the lock this way and that in his growing panic and previously undiscovered claustrophobia.

When he looks back the man is behind him, glass in hand — with ice, too.

“Stop laughing!” Taylor’s voice cracks — makes him wince.

With a shake of his head the man approaches. Taylor tenses for some sort of assault but instead watches dumbly while his personal space is invaded. Damn this guy is tall.

“Stop being so funny.”

“What kind of fucking sicko locks an apartment from the outside?!”

Bemusement falls into a slight frown. He flinches, feels the stranger reach around…

The door unlocks with a click.

“Dunno, but I’ll let you know when I meet one.”

Not a second into looking up and up into the man’s face does Taylor push him back. Keeps his back pressed against the door and blindly searches for the knob but forces distance between them.

It doesn’t take a psychic to know he’s wary. The stranger sighs and scratches the back of his head.

“Listen — I ain’t holdin’ you hostage, or anything. You’re free to go.” But before Taylor can even twist his wrist he adds; “Not that I’d really wanna run the risk of facing Casper’s Cannibal Cousin again but that’s just me. You seem like a strong, capable guy. Lemme know how it goes.”

Fuck.

Taylor gives him a wary eye. “Are we — I mean… am I actually safe here?”

“With the wards on this place you’d have a hard time being stung by a really pissed-off mosquito.”

“Not funny.”

“Who’s laughing?”

Somehow they end up back in the same positions they were a minute earlier; Taylor’s fingers wet and numb from the glass and the other, well, he couldn’t look more like a middle-aged drunk if he tried; especially now with the coat off and thrown over the back of his chair.

“Do you have a name?” Taylor tries — and fails — not to let it get to him when he gets only a nod. “Wanna share?”

“Just call me Ryder.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It’s not your name.”

“Yes it is.”

“It’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb.”

A tense and silent stand-off follows. This is why he doesn’t spend much one-on-one time with cis-men, not that Taylor would say that out loud.

Finally ‘Ryder’ relents; “My first name’s Nik. Nobody calls me Nik — they just call me Ryder. That means you’ll call me Ryder, too.”

Well he won’t, but that’s beside the point. “And where are we? Are we still in New Orleans?”

The question catches Ryder by surprise.

“‘Course we are. Just a couple’a blocks over from Bourbon.”

“Oh, good.”

“Yeah.”

He tries not to feel peeled back into layers by the scrutiny of Ryder’s gaze but with eyes like that it’s kind of impossible. Makes him freeze up — words forgotten.

“Is that really all you wanna ask?”

His face flushes hot. “No, of course not.”

“Then ask.”

“Ask what?”

“You know what.”

“No I don’t,” again his voice cracks — makes him focus on the wet spot the glass leaves on his jeans rather than the look on Ryder’s face, “like — I really don’t. Because… because my head is telling me to ask ‘what happened’ but when I think about it I automatically default back to the fact that nothing about it makes sense — nothing about it could have been real.”

Ryder takes too long to respond.

“Just because it doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean it wasn’t real, Taylor.”

And doesn’t that just fire off a spark in his brain. Makes him turn and slam the glass down and give Ryder the hardest, worst, and most rueful look he can.

“Fine — you want me to ask questions? We’ll start with — with that. How d’you know my name?”

The man shrugs. “Because I’m being paid to.”

“You’re being…” —oh the headache— “so you were stalking me in the bar?”

“No.”

“Uh, you just admitted it.”

“Uh, no I didn’t.” Taylor must’ve hit a nerve judging by the tick in Ryder’s scarred brow. “Strange as it may seem — and we really ain’t short on strange with all this — I wasn’t hired until after I left the Touristy Unicorn.”

That doesn’t help. “Hired for what?”

“For protection detail; bodyguard stuff. For you, kid.”

Does he look like his brain is short-circuiting, because that’s definitely how he feels. And in his silence Ryder takes the opportunity to keep talking without being harassed. “I wouldn’t’ve taken it on a normal day but, shit, you ain’t normal. Not even taking into account that you saw me in my booth —”

“— No shit I saw you. You were just sitting there.”

Ryder shakes his head. “Sure was but I was glamoured up to the nines. Nothing under a century or without some heavy magical aid should have been able to see me.”

Taylor disregards his crazy talk — he has proof. “My friend saw you first.”

“Who, the tipsy co-ed?” he barks a laugh, “Nah, she was more focused on the two mashing mouths to my side. Was too hard to enjoy my drink with the sound of sloppy spit-swappin’ for me to forget.

“She may have been seeing the world a little liquored-up but she definitely didn’t know I was there. But you? You looked right at me; saw right through my glamour and with no small amount of effort judgin’ by how sick you looked after.”

His headache. And wasn’t that what had started all of… of whatever this was? His headache and wanting to go home, getting lost with no signal, and then…

There’s no resisting the permafrost that blankets over his bones. When Taylor looks at Ryder he doesn’t see him; just sees the outline of him and that awful haunting thing in his mind’s eye.

Ryder continues; “You can turn the paranoia down a notch. I was content to mind my own business until I got a call on a damn payphone nearby.”

“A… payphone?”

“Well they don’t ring on their own. And in this town if someone in the know crosses by a phone ringin’ on its lonesome then that means its for them.” He sniffs; brushes something off like it’s no big deal and Taylor’s the fool for not just knowing. “Picked it up and there it was in my head: your face, your name, and the message. That’s how you know there’s something heavy hangin’ in the air… the kind of spellwork that can dig into your head without a trace.”

Magic. Spellwork. This is too fucking nuts.

Still, he has to ask. “What was the message?”

“‘Protect him.’”

How foreboding and creepy that is — well he’ll deal with that later. Because up until shit went down he didn’t need protecting. Had done a fair job of protecting himself all his life. But how can you protect yourself from things you don’t know about?

“What was it?” When there’s no quirky quip Taylor knows he’s starting to ask the right things. “What was that thing in the cemetery?”

“I…”

“Come on, Mister Answers. Where’d your answers go?”

“Hey, now you just —”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know!” Ryder growls through gritted teeth. It’s the first time his posturing slips — shoulders slumped and instinctively seeking comfort in the contents of the flask. “I don’t… I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit; the dead, undead, the undead-dead. But I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to whatever the hell that was.”

Some bodyguard, he wants to say — doesn’t. Strange as it is Taylor finds himself comforted by the fact that he’s not the only one completely ignorant.

Not that it lasts long. Because when his brain finally puts everything together — shadows and skeletal killers and spellwork and the fact that the thing he’s been thinking was a flagpole leaning against the wall has a bright crystal atop it and is most likely something ridiculous like a wizard’s staff — it shuts off.

At least he’s got his answers.

Ryder knocks back the rest of the flask and tucks it between the cushions in his chair. Leans forward elbows-on-knees and studies Taylor’s face.

“I’ve been waitin’ for you to ask me what happened before you keeled over,” he says finally, “but now I’m not so sure you wanna know.”

“I do,” he answers on autopilot.

“You sure?”

He’s sure.

The story Taylor expects goes something like…

“I drew a circle around the creature, sated from its kill. Using the blood of my ancestors and sacred herbs I’ve been cultivating for this exact moment, I conjured magical holy fire and banished the demon back to the depths of Hell.”

But that’s not what he gets.

“I thought I had a shot when you went into hiding — you know how damn hard it is to chase something chasin’ somethin’ else through that shit? — but lost it again. Finally found you at the entryway and used the thing’s distraction to get a few arrows lodged in its, uh, well I think it was its back.

“Thing is those were holy light arrows I used. Blessed by every priest in every religion you’ve heard of and some you ain’t. I’ve used those things to take down malformed conjurings, hundred year-old revenants, the works. But it was about as effective as throwing a rock at its head.”

“I’m guessing that’s a bad thing.”

“You’d be guessin’ correctly.”

Taylor runs his hands over his face. Shoves down the thickness that wants to consume his lungs and keep him there; solid, immobile.

“Okay, okay —” talking more to himself than Ryder, “— okay. This is good. Crazy, but good.”

The look he’s given really shouldn’t be a surprise. “Did I break ya?”

“No — I mean, maybe, but not with that — no you… actually you saved me. So I’m grateful for that. Thank you.”

Ryder snorts. “Finally…”

“But you didn’t save Kristin. So I’m going to push down every… every problem I have with everything you said and pretend with all this crazy that conjurings and holy arrows and whatever-the-fuck-else is real —”

“It is. But, kid —”

“— And you’re gonna help me find some voodoo or hoo-doo or whatever kind of spell you can that’ll bring her back.”

The fact that Ryder doesn’t look the least bit remorseful is an issue he’ll deal with later — though that plate is starting to get a little crowded. But if the universe seems intent on throwing him into this fucking insanity with no warning or even a tutorial mode then he’s going to meet it head-on and screw the rest.

He leans forward and starts rifling through the leather-bound books, tomes, and sheets of paper scattered on the coffee table. “So what here can help us? Do we need a lock of hair, or a personal item, or —”

“She ain’t dead, kid.”

Taylor nods but doesn’t really register what he hears. “Got it. Dead meaning, what, her soul hasn’t crossed over yet? Is she still on the, uh, the mortal plane or something?” He looks around wildly; lifts up his feet like he’ll find her hiding there in miniature.

“Shit — is she here with us? Can you see her? Kristin? Krissy?”

“Whoa — okay, yep, you’ve cracked.”

Then Ryder’s hands are on his shoulders and oh hell no. His body reacts before the brain can catch up and he’s pushing Ryder away — giving himself breathing space.

“Don’t touch me.”

Much like the flask it’s an issue Ryder doesn’t push. Holds his hands up and gives a curt nod but that doesn’t make him look any less concerned. Now he’ll start to argue with the man, because technically it’s his fault Kristin died in the first place.

“There’s gotta be something —”

“To get you to chill out and listen to me? Yeah I doubt it.”

“— No. To help us contact her.”

“Could try a phone.”

Taylor snaps. “This isn’t a joke! I don’t know this crazy stuff like you do. So stop making jokes and — and help me!”

“Christ,” Ryder rubs his head — leans forward but doesn’t make a move to put his hands on Taylor again, “if you’d listen you’d not sound so damn stupid! She’s not dead, Taylor. The thing didn’t kill her.”

No, no… he saw…

“I won’t say it didn’t get close but she wasn’t the target. I don’t know if that limits it’s powers or… or hell, maybe it was feeling merciful or malicious. But your friend ain’t dead. — In a bad way… but not dead.”

It’s not even in the realm of good news — what did that mean, ‘in a bad way’ — but it’s the best news he’s heard yet so yeah he fucking runs with it. Leaps to his feet and doesn’t even bother trying to misdirect Ryder this time because not only is the door unlocked but he’s going to see Kristin alive.

And, really, with the zeal in which he was ready to pursue some form of necromancy to bring her back he’s kind of disappointed in how surprised Ryder sounds behind him.

“Kid — where d’you think you’re goin’ exactly?”

Still walking to the door, only backwards now. “Where do you think? Is she at the hospital, which one? Come on — take me there.”

“Well that ain’t happening but regardless how about we stay up here instead?”

“How about we don’t?”

“Kid —”

“First I need you to stop calling me that. Second I’ll grab a cab if I need to. Thanks, Nik—Ryder—whatever for saving me but I need to go see her.”

Ryder doesn’t stop him from slamming the apartment door behind him and finding his way out. That must mean he’s not entirely devoted to this bodyguard job, right? If that’s even really the case. Not like he has any proof.

It’s probably guilt at not saving her in time, rationalizes Taylor as he looks around the crowded hallway only to spot a winding, iron-wrought staircase almost hidden in the corner.

That makes the most sense. He feels guilty and there was nothing he could have even done in the first place.

Though, finding out where Ryder gets those hallelujah arrows might help.

He’s at the bottom of the steps when he remembers Vera had his phone last — is halfway through entertaining the idea of going back up to ask Ryder if he could borrow his when he takes in the ground level.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

It’s still dark outside but dawn has to be on the approach — last call having already been there, done that.

The bar is small and he can only think of it as oaken. Wood floors on wooden-panel walls with a wooden bartop in the corner decorated in carvings so small and detailed they could only have been done by hand. Even the booths are wooden on the outside with what look like rich mossy-green velvet lining.

But the place doesn’t smell like a woodshop — not how one would expect what has to be a quarter of the population of Louisiana’s deforestation, has to be — rather a forest. Like all the wood is still growing and alive. Pine needles and sap and mulchy earth digging into his bare toes and proving life continues to live underfoot.

Though when he wiggles his toes Taylor is almost surprised to discover he’s got his shoes on.

The place is empty save for two patrons and a lanky young man behind the counter.

One man, hulking in stature no doubt even if he’s bent over the table before him, scribbles diligently in a notebook with a glass of something bright at his side. Must have one of those cheesy lite-cubes within because he could swear the drink is pulsing color.

The other is a woman mostly obscured by the bar and her ombre violet sheen of hair. She’s gotta be decorated for Mardi Gras though the bone-white hand she twirls a lock of hair around would be more suited for a Día de Muertos party.

She notices him first — offers a flawless grin of black lipstick and white teeth before she learns forward and whispers something to the bartender.

He rounds on a practically choreographed flourish of his heel. Beams wide and unabashed as though he’s greeting an old friend and not a complete stranger.

“Taylor, my mortal! Good to see you again. You look famished. Are you famished? You look famished. I should get you something. Are you a vodka-type or a gin-type? You know what — I’ll fix a couple options up. Variety is the spice of life!”

Before Taylor can even process the English language enough to turn him down the bartender disappears in a shock of his albino-white hair. Leaves him staring at the silvery fabric of the partition.

“Garrus is a hoot, isn’t he?” asks the goth girl — she waves over a hand and pats a stool beside her in invitation. “Come, come! I wanna see what he whips up and you will too.”

He casts a longing look to what has to be the front door of the place — the only thing that isn’t wood, as he notes the iron decor with irony. But can’t even step in that direction before she clears her throat in a way that says she won’t take no for an answer.

So… he sits? He sits.

“I’m surprised Ryder didn’t come down with you. Or did you let him drink himself asleep?”

Taylor shakes his head. “No, he’s… he let me go.”

“Huh, funky.” She taps long dark nails against her cheek and stares at him with wonder. Underneath the strange combination of lights she looks even more pale than he thought — almost translucent. It must be her makeup that makes it look like her veins run black under her skin.

There’s a throbbing in his temples so Taylor looks away out of habit.

“You should call your friend back.”

“Why? It’ll be a good show — and even if it’s not your fancy you’ll still get free booze out of it.”

“Well I don’t drink.”

“Drink what, vodka, gin? I knew I called you for a tequila man.”

“No,” and headache aside he looks grim into her purple color-contacts, “like at all. I’m sober.”

Just as the girl’s expression falls into embarrassed horror the curtain brushes back as if by a gust of wind. The bartender Garrus barrels forward with an actual cauldron in his arms and every nook and twiggy-armed cranny filled with various corked bottles and vials.

“Not for lo~ong!” he sing-songs. Drops his things carelessly on the bar surface and starts picking through them intently. “Now I could have sworn I had more cane root than this, but maybe if I sub in —”

Taylor goes to speak but the gaunt hand on his arm stops him short.

“Garrus, he’s sober.”

“I know, Ivy my love, I heard. Honestly what was Ryder thinking trying to unload all this on the poor man without even offering him a drink?”

Ivy gives a sigh of honestly and precariously balances on thick-sole heels to reach over and grab Garrus’ next glassy victim out of reach.

“H-Hey,” he practically whines, “that’s not in the spirit of things!”

“Listen to me,” and Taylor’s grateful she’s going through all the trouble but can’t not laugh when she sandwiches her friend’s face in both hands, “sweetheart — he is sober; dry, straight-laced, whatever you want to call it — go for it. But this human no drinkey.”

If that’s what it would have taken for Taylor to get the man to stop he isn’t entirely sure he’d have had the guts to do it.

As it is Garrus looks like he’s taking it personally before their eyes meet and his face goes flushed pink all the way to the tips of his rather pointy ears.

“Oh.”

Ivy resumes her seat cheerily. “My work here is done.”

“S-Sorry,” Taylor tries to offer, “I’ll take a coke if you’re really, uh, insistent.”

Garrus is interrupted before he can answer. And by a voice that rings startlingly familiar, too.

“Why not whip up one of those old cream colas for him, Garrus? You were just talking about how much you missed making them.”

It’s enough to put the pep back in his leather-booted step. Has Garrus clapping in delight and pointing between them to the only occupied booth with a wink.

“Darling, you’re a genius!”

Garrus gathers up his cauldron and brews; dashes back behind the curtain. Taylor meanwhile whirls around on the stool cushion to the vaguely recognizable face previously ducked in concentration.

Krum — that was his name, right? The more-mountain-than-man he had bumped into heading home from rehearsal earlier that day.

Who gave Taylor the early triggers of a panic attack in how his skin seemed to turn to a literal mountain under the company lights.

Who pushes up an almost comically tiny pair of spectacles and gazes back at Taylor with similar vague recognition.

“Understudy-boy?” He pulls off his glasses and wipes the lenses with the hem of his sweater — as if he’s the one hallucinating things and not the other way around. “Well I’ll be, it’s you!”

Ivy joins the conversation while sipping her margarita through a stirring straw. “You know this guy, Krom?”

“K-Krum.” corrects Taylor.

“Well actually,” says the man in question sheepishly as he slides out of his seat and comes to join them, “it is Krom. It’s a family name, too, and I’m very proud of it. But mortals never hear it right and I just sort of stopped correcting them.”

Ivy croons. “You gotta get thicker skin you big lug.”

When Krom tries to take the stool next to him, though, Taylor flinches back violently. Practically falls off his seat in his haste to get back. His ‘little throbbing’ is a full-on migraine now; the lights too bright and the smells too weird and he has to back up and steady himself on the nearest support column to keep from vomiting all over the nice shiny floors.

Like most concerned samaritans Ivy and Krom are on him in an instant. Their voices blurring together with the ringing in his ears; “Honey are you okay? — what happened — oh no did I hurt him — go get Ryder!”

“NO!”

He’s startled when he realizes it’s him yelling — not them. Blinks through teary eyes to look into the expressions of two ordinary people warped and twisted by his traitorous mind.

Ivy’s makeup looks melded to her face — like if she catches the light a certain way he’ll see her skeleton and the lines above are the tension of her muscles. And Krom is still a literal mountain man but in high-granite definition; he swears he even hears stone grind with every movement.

“Oh god…” he wails and covers his eyes. Scratches at them like maybe he can claw off the tears instead of just wiping them away.

In the bright darkness there’s muttered, muffled noises. Footsteps echoing on wood, then metal.

Then the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He knows there’s a hand hovering just above the surface of him.

“The more you go on fightin’ it, kid, the more it’ll hurt.”

He doesn’t have to open his eyes to imagine the look on Ryder’s face.

Words seem impossible but he finally manages to grit it out. “I won’t.”

“Won’t what?”

“I won’t give in. I’m sober. I’m sober!”

He manages two good smacks to his skull before Ryder snatches his wrist ironclad. “Hey—Hey! Stop that!”

“I’m sober fuck’s sakes! This should have stopped! I’m sober and I’m not. crazy!”

They struggle over his hand but Ryder’s strength beats out Taylor’s fright and panic. Just lets it hang limp in midair in the calloused grip.

“You were up there with me fully ready to take on some high-level necromancy bullshit and this is what sets you off?”

“You were gonna let him do what?!”

“Relax, Iv’, relax,” Ryder sighs, “I wasn’t gonna let him do it. But still he believed. You did believe, didn’t you?”

Did he? He doesn’t know. Can’t even tell if he’s still awake right now or if this is all some awful feverish nightmare he can only hope to never have again with the help of his sponsor.

Ryder tries again. Closer, this time — almost a whisper.

“Didn’t you?”

“I —” the whole bar hangs on his every word, “— I think so.”

“So believe me now when I say this: you aren’t crazy. Weird I guess, and maybe a bit gutsy. But not crazy.”

It isn’t much. But it’s enough for him to pry his eyes open and look at the man above him through the tears.

“You don’t get it. I… they look like…”

“Like what?”

He shudders the words out; “Like monsters.”

“HA!”

The cackle — or shriek — is so loud and so close it startles both of them out of their closeness; out of the intimacy of his admission. Makes them both look at where Ivy sits cross-legged on the floor with them sucking on a lollipop.

“Well I should sure hope so,” she teases, “because my glamour looks like a cheap imitation of the real thing! That’s what I get for skimping with B-O-G-O spell goods.”

Glamour. He knows that word. And Ryder knows he knows too judging by the wry little smile he gets. “Yeah, them too.”

“But —”

“Glamours are for all kinds’a things, kid. Here, c’mon up ya get,” with both hands Ryder helps him stand, “that particular one of mine was for secrecy. Most common ones you’ll run into though are harmless little shifts — ways to make the not-so-human look a little bit more that way.”

There’s a gasp and all eyes fall on Krom, now fully stone. His hairline replaced by filed-off pointed edges and skin rippling with crystalline sediment.

“You can see through glamours?” He asks, mortified.

Ivy’s black lips peel back with her grin. “Wicked.”

Garrus appears from around the bar with interest. Still pale but there’s no denying the actual point and tilt of his ears or the way his skin seems to almost shimmer. His eyes pale but reflective like bright diamonds.

“I wondered what set off my wards when Ryder here dragged you in. Seeing through glamours is some high-level magic. What’ve you charmed?” He looks Taylor over with interest.

“What have I… what?”

Ryder answers for him. “Already did my due diligence, guys. He’s not wearing anything charmed — he is charmed. Can see through the veil au natural.”

“Wicked.” repeats Ivy.

“Guess you’re my not-so-mortal, huh?”

Krom shakes his head with hands clasped together. “No wonder you were so frightened at the company. I’m so sorry, Taylor. I had no idea.”

Taylor swallows but manages a smile. “It’s… it’s okay. Not your fault, right?”

And the more he looks at them — really looks instead of seeing passing glimpses and resisting their existence — the less everything hurts. The ringing in his ears fades and like a drum at the end of a song his head abruptly clears. Along with the clouds that seem to hang invisible over his head every time he has one of his hallucinations.

But they aren’t hallucinations. They’re real.

It’s all real.

There’s a hesitation before Ryder lightly touches his shoulder. Taylor doesn’t flinch away — in fact a little human (maybe?) warmth is kinda comforting.

“You good?”

“Y-Yeah, I think so,” he inhales shakily, “I just can’t believe it’s all… I mean that it’s not in my head. It’s real. Everything I’ve seen is… is real.”

But everything means everything. Makes his heart settle down somewhere in the region his stomach ought to be occupying.

Makes him look Ryder head-on.

“So why does it want me dead?”

#nightbound #playchoices #choices nb #nik ryder #choices nightbound #garrus #ivy #krom #nightbound mc #mc: taylor hunter #nik ryder x mc #oblv: bound by circumstance #oblv: new chapter #; my fics #tw: hallucinations

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jahaanofmenaphos · 5 years

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Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

Read the full work here:

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QUEST 07: DISHONOUR AMONG THIEVES

QUEST SUMMARY:

Due to his status as the World Guardian, Jahaan wound up as part of Zamorak’s heist team. Their task? Steal the Stone of Jas from Sliske and return its power to Zamorak. Jahaan gets to learn more about a god propaganda had always skewed, but will he be on board with Zamorak’s plan in the end…

CHAPTER 2: ABSTRACT OF ZAMORAK

“Care for a drink?” Zamorak held out an engraved chalice, the inscription a foreign dialect that was painful to look at. “I don’t know why assholes come into my churches and steal my wine. I’d make a mint if I just straight up sold it. Go legitimate and all.”

So yes, Jahaan did take the meeting. Right on time he used the communication device that whisked him away… somewhere. He was underground, that’s for sure. The claustrophobic feel of gravity assured him of that.

Zamorak had invited him into a chamber of sorts, akin to the dining room of a haunted mansion. The deity really did have a taste for the theatrical, what with the vampyric ornaments and arcane fixtures. Also, crimson. LOTS of crimson.

Zamorak practically blended into the walls.

He sat Jahaan down in a grand armchair of sorts, donned with decorative bones, and it made Jahaan feel like a supervillain.

Sniffing a faint laugh, Jahaan took the chalice and allowed Zamorak to fill it up to the brim with the thick red liquid, dark like blood. That last thought gave Jahaan pause before he put it to his lips, but after a quick sniff and being overwhelmed by the alcoholic, fruity scent, he assured himself it was indeed wine. “Thanks. I didn’t think Mahjarrat could drink, though.”

“We can’t,” Zamorak confirmed, taking a large gulp. “I’ll have to get it out of me later. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy some good booze for now though.”

Not wanting to press for anymore details, Jahaan asked, “Where on Gielinor are we? Are… are we still on Gielinor?”

Laughing, Zamorak said, “Of course we’re still on Gielinor. This is temporary base of operations, courtesy of an old friend of mine - Bilrach - who you’ll meet later on. Dug the place himself, crazy bastard. Crazy, loyal, dedicated bastard, that is. You humans would know of it as ‘Daemonheim’.”

Eyes wide, Jahaan audibly gasped. Yes, he had heard of Daemonheim, mainly from stories. A band of Fremennik warriors decided to sail west around the globe, discovering uncharted islands and unclaimed lands as they did so. Daemonheim was their greatest find. Despite being a part of continental Gielinor, no-one had ventured that far in centuries, the unforgiving terrain putting a fatal halt to would-be adventurers. Thanks to the Freminnick, the place was now accessible, though you should pray for those who dare to enter the dungeons beneath the ancient castle atop the snow. Floor upon floor of monsters, puzzles, hazards and traps. No-one had ever made it to the bottom floor; the lucky ones retreated to the surface, the others were not so fortunate. No-one knew who had built such a place, or why. No-one, it seems now, except Jahaan.

Smirking, Zamorak remarked, “I’m glad you’re impressed. Not many have had the honour of stepping on such hallowed ground. It’s a good place to regroup, after the battle with Saradomin didn’t go as well as planned…”

“Yeah, how are the Zamorakians taking the defeat?” Jahaan inquired, taking a sip of the wine, far too bitter for his tastes.

“Better than you’d think. We lost a lot of forces, but I’m still swinging, and so are my Mahjarrat. Now I’m gonna to bypass this ridiculous little contest of Sliske’s and take back the Stone. Let’s see Saradomin stand tall then!”

Zamorak took a sip from his red wine, his eyes thoughtful and calculated, as the silence stretched on. After a while, he finally spoke up, “World Guardian, have you ever been told about Sliske’s plays?”

Jahaan furrowed his brow, stopping mid-sip, suddenly worried. “No…”

Zamorak grinned, the flesh stretching and pulling across bone. “Man, you’re going to love this. Sliske’s always been a twisted bastard, but this put it to whole new heights. See, back in the days of the Zarosian Empire, we Mahjarrat were given pretty high-class roles - our reward for taking out the Menaphites. Half of us got chosen as generals and lieutenants in the army - known as 'Legati' in Infernal - while the other half were churchleaders, or 'Pontifixes'. Sliske, due to his… unusual predilections... was given the rank of Praefectus Praetorio - the head of Senntisten’s secret police. Investigation, spying, interrogation… you can see how the role was built for him. In his free time, he was always writing. Stories, plays, even pathetic attempts at poetry. His plays were the most fucked up, performed for the top ranks of Senntisten, like urbane demons, bureaucrats… you know, the types of assholes that could afford to watch his nonsense. To make the plays, he rounded up the low caste and homeless, dressed them up in costumes, and placed upon each a crude wooden mask, which he whittled himself. Sliske gave the word, and the masks started doing their thing; they’d speak aloud, control the actor’s movements, making ‘em jerkily act and mime his play like demented puppets. Sometimes the actors actually stabbed each other to death with their weapons at the play's climax. In one show, one of the actors died - probably of some disease - in the middle of the performance, but the mask kept animating his corpse and the show went on. Sick, right? Worst part is, the audience lapped it up! Sliske went on to perform it about a dozen or so more times before growing bored - as he is prone to do - and moving onto something else. No-one dared speak up against him. After all, who wants to be at the centre of a Praetorian investigation?”

Mouth hung open, Jahaan sat there in horror, his mind doing him the courtesy of picturing every grotesque and gruesome detail. He was starting to feel nauseous because of it, and the wine probably wasn’t helping matters. It took him a while before he could collect himself enough to exclaim, “Didn’t… didn’t Wahisietel say something?!”

Zamorak laughed sharply and so suddenly that Jahaan spilt a bit of his wine. “His brother gave up on his ways long before that. Sliske’s always been fucked in the head, even back on Freneskae, playing with corpses with childlike glee. There’s something seriously wrong with him. There was one of our kind, old Nabor - boring as dry brick but he was pretty sharp. He ran the insane asylum in Senntisten, became quite the psychologist while he did. He once remarked to me how he’d love to study Sliske, to really figure out what was up with him. Never dared invite him for a session, though. I used to see him and Wahisietel chatting - they were close. No doubt Sliske came up in their conversations.”

Jahaan made a mental note to confer with Wahisietel when the opportunity arose.

But in all this, one thing became clear to him more than ever before: Sliske knew everything about him, but he knew nothing of Sliske.

Shaking the cobwebs from his mind, Jahaan rounded back to something less… horrifying. “Senntisten doesn’t seem like such a bad place. Your kind were well taken care of, from what you tell me, so why’d you leave Zaros?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Zamorak confessed, his fingers, unblemished and marble-white, scratching absently at his face. “Ask my followers and they’ll all tell you a different story. Some think it was just a political coup, that I wanted to gain power with no endgame, or that I’d had a falling out with the ‘Empty Lord’. Truth is, we needed to break free from Zaros. He wanted to know our every move, our every thought. When we went on missions, Zaros made us take along a man named Perjour, someone he’d cursed to be his bibliographer. Everything thought that man had, every single thing he witnessed, would be transcribed in a little book, which Zaros would sift through, looking for any seeds of betrayal from his followers. It was oppressing.”

“So how did you get around that?” Jahaan inquired, drawn in by the energy Zamorak brought to his tales.

Grinning wickedly, Zamorak boasted, “I stole the book, switched it with a copy. Zaros was none the wiser. And thus, the seeds of rebellion were sewn.”

The last comment was followed by a wink as he swirled around the wine in his class, looking all-too proud of himself. It seemed all Mahjarrat were capable of that unique form of unnerving smugness.

But something still stuck in Jahaan’s craw; he hesitated, and Zamorak picked up on this. “Come on, just come out with it.”

Exhaling deeply, Jahaan begun, “Alright… your chaos theory hasn’t been painted in the best light across Gielinor. Is all of it really propaganda? What about the Culinaromancer? Count Malak? Lord Iban? And don’t get me started on those dark wizards…”

Rolling his eyes, Zamorak’s annoyance looked of one who had dealt with this before. “Okay, yes, we have a few bad eggs. It’s a damn shame cos we started out so promising. Many came to me because they were fleeing or rejecting some aspect of authority within the Empire, and a philosophy that prized individuality over structure, society or government was just what they were after. But over time this developed into a very unhealthy anarchism; some followers ‘misinterpret’ my philosophy, twisting my words and using it as an excuse to steal, torment, attack… wanting to watch the world burn is nothing I’ve ever preached. But Saradominsts take these few radicals and think we’re all like that. They spew out propaganda against us, saying we’re all evil monsters and anarchists. The few have ruined it for the many.”

“I hate that people think I’m evil,” Zamorak continued, gulping down another swig of wine and instantly refilling himself. “Yeah, I’ve done some pretty bad shit in my time, but who hasn’t? War is messy. If you want your hands clean, become a chef. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for the betterment of my followers, for the Mahjarrat, and for Gielinor. Saradominism is all about ‘join with me and you’ll never have strife again’. We all know that’s just bullshit. Zamorakianism is all about ‘strength through chaos’, about knowing that life can deal you a crappy hand, but it’s that struggle and misery that can shape who you are and make you into a stronger, better person. Take you, World Guardian - I doubt your life has been all roses and daisies, right?”

“You could say that.”

“I AM saying that. But tell me, think back… if all that hadn’t happened to you, would you be where you are now, decked out in fine armour, drinking fine wine, talking to a damn fine god?”

A thin smile spread across Jahaan’s face. He understood.

As Zamorak spoke more about his chaos philosophy, Jahaan was inclined to buy what Zamorak was selling. A lot of his ideologies matched with Jahaan’s own views, and the deity was nothing if not captivating.

It’s just a shame some of his followers are so unbearable, Jahaan internally groaned at the thought of Zemouregal.

But then again, when it came to philosophy, Jahaan’s world view overlapped a lot with that of Zarosianism. Guthixianism, too. After all, once you’re there for the final words of one of the world’s most powerful deities, you form a connection.

Saradominsm did have some decent arguments, Jahaan would admit to himself, but he could never fall on board with the ideology, and definitely not the lifestyle. As for Armadyl, he hadn’t ever really heard much from the winged deity, aside from his triumph over Bandos. It was too early to call a judgement on him yet.

There was always the Menaphite Pantheon, the ‘go-to’ religion for the desert-born.

Gahh… these labels serve more harm than good… Jahaan grumbled to himself, fighting down another gulp of the wine.

While Zamorak tended to some business, the details of which he never specified, Jahaan was offered a teleport to the central chamber of the lair. Feeling it might be considered rude to refuse, and not wanting to accidentally go through the wrong door into one of Daemonheim’s rumoured horror chambers, Jahaan accepted, and with Jahaan’s permission, Zamorak's spell whisked him away.

The centre part of the lair Jahaan was as over the top as it was terrifying. Complete with lava fountains, torches of tall flames and crackling fire, grotesque chiselled statues of beasts and nightmares, and a crimson tiled floor with the Zamorakian symbol crudely embedded into it… this place didn’t exactly scream ‘happy fun time’. In fact, if Zamorak was trying to shake the ‘evil villain’ image the Saradominist propaganda department were creating, this wasn’t helping.

The chamber wasn’t massive in size, but its grandiose excessiveness more than made up for it.

Jahaan manifested in the centre of the room; a throne comprised of black marble and blood red horns strung across it directly faced him, while short hallways to the east and west had imposing doors adorned with skulls at either end.

The heat was also comparable to that of Freneskae.

Immediately, countless sets of eyes leered at him from all around, the present company of gathered Zamorakians all stopping to size up the newest arrival.

Feeling awkward, but not wanting to let it show, Jahaan strode over to one of the large pillars and casually leaned up against it, crossing his arms over his chest with an air of defiance, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be here. However, he carefully avoided eye contact with anyone, subtly exploring the room with a low glance.

There were two Mahjarrat that Jahaan didn’t recognise from the Ritual of Rejuvenation. One, a bulky looking fellow draped in thick, tattered cloaks. There was a presence about him, a power that rattled through his very being. He looked solid; while all Mahjarrat are technically immortal, this one actually felt it. It was almost unnerving. Yet, undermining that were his eyes - they looked haunted, flicking between the ceiling, the walls, the floor, like he was hearing sounds from all directions and trying to gravitate towards the strongest voice.

But if he missed the Ritual, why doesn’t he look all... half-dead? Jahaan pondered to himself, hoping he didn’t look like he was staring.

The other Mahjarrat, on the other hand, did look worse for wear. Hazeel, he was known as. Jahaan had heard stories about his cult of followers in Ardougne, and how he’d ruled over the lands way back in the Fourth Age with brutality and fear. It was the Carnillean Family that became his end, alongside Saradominist peasants who, upon learning magic and runecrafting, wished to liberate their lands from the Zamorakian tyranny. They didn’t manage to kill Hazeel, but they trapped him in a state of torpor, neither living nor dead. His skeletal appearance did have a rather blood-curdling quality about it. Unlike the other Mahjarrat, he had very large horns protruding from his forehead, looking quite similar to the headpiece Azzanadra wore. These, however, were sharpened into deadly points.

Jahaan wasn’t quite sure how the two Mahjarrat could look so different - one full of life and vigor, the other frail and weak.

If I tread carefully, perhaps I could find out? Jahaan thought to himself, not quite looking forward to conversing with even more Zamorakian Mahjarrat than he had to, but his curiosity drove him onwards.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he strolled over to the rejuvenated looking one, greeting him with a respectful nod of his head. “I’m Jahaan. Zamorak sent for me. I don’t think we’ve met before...”

The trailed-off sentence was an indication to fill in the blanks, but the Mahjarrat seemed rather perturbed at Jahaan’s presence. Jahaan didn’t think he was going to get a response and planned on awkwardly shuffling away, pretending that never happened as he did so, but the Mahjarrat’s sudden response startled him into staying. “Bilrach. I am Bilrach. Forgive me, human contact is taking some getting used to.”

Seems nice enough, Jahaan decided with relief. Not wanting to let the conversation go dry for too long, he continued, “Pleased to meet you, Bilrach. I was at the last Ritual of Rejuvenation, but I don’t remember seeing you there. You… you look well, though. Lots of… skin.”

“I was digging,” Bilrach bluntly replied. “Always digging, digging, digging… they thought this to be my tomb, but it was my salvation. The rift did not provide answers alone, though.”

Quickly, Jahaan deduced Bilrach was not shuffling with a full deck. "Ah yes, Zamorak mentioned that you dug this place yourself."

Bilrach nodded. “Centuries I dug, trying to find the rift between realities, the place where the bond between worlds is at its weakest. Here, I was going to find Zamorak and pull him back to Gielinor. I did not succeed, but this chamber is the product of my labour.”

“But if you missed the Ritual, how come you look so powerful?” Jahaan inquired, hoping the subtle compliment would work in his favour.

From the shift in Bilrach's demeanor, it seemed to work. “Ah, yes! Instead, after tumbling through the dimensions, I arrived on my home planet of Freneskae. There are no longer any of my kind there, but other tribes once existed. The Chelon-Mah and Mahserrat, born from the same energy as we Mahjarrat. It was then that I had an epiphany. Hmm.”

Silence. After it was clear Bilrach was indeed lost inside his own head, Jahaan gently prodded, “And what was that?”

“Ah, yes. The other tribes were also bound to rituals, needing the life force of those that perish to sustain themselves. The Mahserrat decided to forgo this process, resigning themselves to a fate without rejuvenation. But the Chelon-Mah… hmm. The Chelon-Mah did the opposite. They concluded that only the strongest should live, yes. One almighty being, commanding the power of the entire tribe. I remember it. The battle blazed across the horizon – a glorious sight to behold, indeed. For weeks they fought tirelessly, until only one remained with all their power. A brutal incarnation of the Chelon-Mah tribe; the physical embodiment of war. Yes, his might on the battlefield was unparalleled.”

“What does this have to do with your epiphany?”

“Epiphany?” Bilrach blinked. “Oh, yes. I knew that after thousands of years whilst the Mahjarrat have grown stronger, the Chelon-Mah would have diminished. With the Mahserrat all likely to have perished and no kin to sacrifice, he would never have been able to rejuvenate. I returned to Gielinor with the once-great Chelon-Mah captive. I slew him upon my very own Ritual Marker.”

Jahaan gasped. “That worked?!”

“Apparently so. The rejuvenation was an unintended effect of his death. A strange power spread throughout the surface - you may have even felt it yourself. My kin would have believed me perished. But I live.”

“But if you didn’t know you’d be rejuvenated, why did you kill him?”

“On Freneskae we were at war with the Chelon-Mah; with no kin left to test his strength he turned to the Mahjarrat,” Bilrach gravely explained, his eyes flitting over to the two doorways parallel to him. “He killed many of my brethren. Taking his life was a justice long overdue. As the only Mahjarrat at the Ritual Marker when I slew him, I was able to absorb all his power, hmm. I thought I could use this new power to bring back Zamorak. Alas, I still did not find the answers I sought. It would seem it is exceptionally difficult for anyone but a god to open a portal between worlds.”

Remembering Zamorak’s words from before, Jahaan thought to inquire into why Bilrach defected from Zaros to Zamorak, but by the change in tone and demeanour he received from Bilrach, he wished he’d never rocked the boat.

“You know nothing of the Mahjarrat, impling, and neither did Zaros,” Bilrach’s gravelly voice sounded like he’d inhaled too much Daemonheim dust. Though his voice was monotonous and grounded, his eyes seemed to dart and flicker. “We were warriors, brave survivors. In the Empire we grew soft. Zaros took our culture from us, tried to tame our nature, making us priests and bureaucrats - such positions are a disgrace to the Mahjarrat name! Zamorak reminded us of our birthright.”

“Ah, I see you’re getting yourself acquainted,” a feminine voice faded in beside the pair, relieving the tension Jahaan had created. Moia walked up to stand beside Bilrach with the friendliest smile her contorted face could manage. “Jahaan, why don’t I introduce you to everyone else while we await my master’s presence?”

“Sure,” Jahaan agreed, following Moia’s lead with a quick look over his shoulder at Bilrach, who seemed to be muttering something under his breath. To Moia, he asked, “Do you know Bilrach well?”

“I do,” Moia replied, solemnly. “He and I held hands as we walked into the rift together. But we were torn apart. I thought him lost. I found Zamorak, and he arrived on Freneskae.”

Stopping their walk across the chamber, Moia leaned down towards Jahaan to speak lowly, “Bilrach has sacrificed a lot in order to provide my master sanctuary. When I first found him, he was… unrecognisable. Now, he tells me the voices have subsided at the very least. I… I still fear for him.”

Not exactly sure what he was expected to say, Jahaan went with, “I’ll look out for him.”

This was the wrong answer; Moia shot him a glare that could melt mithril. “He doesn’t need you looking out for him.”

She stormed off across the chamber, sharply motioning for Jahaan to follow with a reluctant grunt of, “Come on.”

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

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#zamorak #moia #bilrach #hazeel #khazard #zemouregal #enakhra

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momestuck · 5 years

Text

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim... volume 17!

The penultimate volume. Let’s sacrifice a few more timelines to the great tapestry of fate that we’re weaving. Or more likely, Doc Scratch is weaving.

This time, “Of Teen and Tech, Acerbic”.

One more jade, and one more indigo. I think at this point we have a pretty even spread across the non-Sea Troll blood colours.

Daraya

I thought there was a TV show of this name, but apparently it’s ‘Daria’. This troll and that Daria seem to have a similar attitude, judging by the image. As for ‘Daraya’, it refers to a handful of places, notably Darayya in Syria, which was apparently the site of a massacre seven years ago during the civil war. Oof.

Daraya is the final troll written by Cee. L. Kyle, creator of prior memorable trolls Bronya, Zebruh, Remele and Lynera. I guess Cee likes writing jades.

Anyway, Daraya’s route begins as a few have in recent episodes - the protag feeling lethargic and listless, too tired to make friends.

We end up in a cerulean neighbourhood. There are some pointed lines...

When this game wants to, it really skewers its targets.

Anyway, the music kicks in as we realise Elwurd (the huge lesbian) texted us to invite us to a party. A bunch of other trolls seem to be showing up as well...

The track this time is called “trollkind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. to obtain something, something of equal value must be lost. that is alchemys first law of equivalent exchange. in those days, we really believed that to be the worlds one and only truth”. No prizes for guessing who decided to name a song after an extended quote from Fullmetal Alchemist.

There’s some more emphasis on how artificial our friendship feelings are...

Anyway, as we approach the party, we spot Daraya, busy looking very goffick.

She’s not thrilled to see us. Of course we’d be friends with Elwurd, she says grumpily.

Now in Befriend Mode, we do our best to mimic her whole ‘disaffected slouch’. Apparently being vaguely cynical and depressed is pleasing to Daraya. She seems to like Elwurd though...

Lesbians, I swear...

I swear...

Anyway, we learn that Daraya has snuck out of the caverns - though she’s not as restricted as little Wanshi. She whines about Bronya’s ‘cloister rules’. But hey, she met Elwurd through Bronya...

We blather about how the caves aren’t so bad, and namedrop some other jades we know. Daraya is not impressed.

Anyway, she’s not invited. So our first choice is to tell her to go home or invite her in.

Let’s let her in, because the other way doesn’t seem to go anywhere interesting.

Bronya isn’t the only troll we know at this party. Chahut apparently hasn’t yet shipped out off planet, and she shows up too.

Chahut makes some remarks about how fascinating she finds jadebloods... or ‘greenies’ as she puts it. She makes a murder joke about whether Daraya is really jade or not.

Yes, that’s exactly how I’d put it. Definitely.

After that brief brush with death, Daraya gets other ideas.

Mmhmm. As we head off, Daraya suggests we have a reputation for being ‘unconventional, weird and rebellious’. That’s certainly one way to describe ‘being a clueless alien pathologically addicted to making friends’.

Ahahaha nicely done.

Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of edgy rebellious ideas tonight.

I’m in favour of being a hoodlum.

Lots of new backgrounds in this episode. Somewhat different style too...

Apparently these are by Phil Gibson.

We ask Daraya how she’s doing. Her answer: not well.

Daraya says some dangerously radical stuff about how everything sucks for everyone but the highbloods... and maybe them too. We get a callback to the joke from last time...

Ha.

The narrator refuses to comment on that. That’s a good call, I think.

Daraya continues to complain. As a jadeblood, she’s not going to have to go into space, but life in the caverns tending to matters of social reproduction. We commiserate, which she appreciates.

We raise an eyebrow at the mention of Lynera. Danara assures us that she hates her - and not in a romantic way! (“or well...”)

At that point, we run into Tyzias. Just the person to take Daraya’s alienation and dissatisfaction and forge it into a revolutionary will, right?

Luckily, protag has the same idea. Which is no doubt why Tyzias was written into the plot at this point.

The well known “goth to anarchist” pipeline, right?

There’s a brief allusion to the weird shift that happened with Fozzer - a vague memory of a different Fozzer. “But why did you remember that guy?” indeed.

Tyzias tries to give a Daraya a little pep talk against hopelessness... Daraya is not particularly persuaded.

God I know that utterly depressing feel. What can one troll do, indeed?

Tyzias answers it the challenge.

She’s not wrong.

Daraya is not exactly being won over, but the protag does manage to get her to chill a bit and keep the conversation going. Tyzias has more real shit to say.

Daraya challenges her - is it just about making herself feel better, if there’s no realistic hope of real change? Tyzias says... in some way, it is. And the protag chimes in - that doesn’t make it less effective, at whatever little it is achieving.

At the end of this, I’m gonna try and make a list like... troll I would most want to be friends with in real life, and least, favourite route and so on. Spoilers: Tyzias would be the friend I’d want to make.

Tyzias points out like... what the hell else are they gonna do? Daraya finally admits she’s got a point.

And... having secured a friendship between not just us and Daraya, but us and Tyzias... we reach the end of the arc.

Let’s go fuck shit up. By which we mean, read law books. I guess!

That was nice. I fully support this lesbian goth and her budding revolutionary consciousness.

God I’m predictable.

Unfortunately, finding the friendship route here means it’s all downhill from here.

If we tell her to go home instead of bringing her to the party...

strut pod encasements!

That was predictably short.

OK, now for the non-phoned in side branch.

She does have an idea, it turns out. We hop into our (now quite low on fuel) car, and head off to a ruined city somewhere near the thriving one we’re living in.

Ooh. I wonder what we’ll find?

We make our way to an abandoned mall to go urbexing. Fuck, I love reading about urbex. Too much of a shut-in to have ever actually tried it.

We end up in a food court with the roof caved in. It’s apparently cool as hell. Alas, it’s not illustrated.

I’m not sure which rebellion this would be associated with. That of the Signless, or some other?

Ah, that narrows it down. The Signless rebellion, then. In which case... Alternian malls are really built to last!

We comment on the strangeness of the absence of adults, but this upsets Daraya.

Apparently, as an adult, she’ll be cloistered off on her own somewhere, and forbidden to contribute genes to the slurry. Huh.

To be honest, it’s a wonder that most other trolls are so cheery. Daraya’s attitude seems like the sensible one on this planet.

Daraya says some real shit about the existential dread she’s living with, the paralysing hopelessness of having no future to speak of.

Hey Daraya, do you fancy this copy of Baedan I happen to have on hand?

make total destroy etc. etc.

Anyway, at this point... Daraya somehow manages to set the mall on fire by throwing a mall at a cooker.

And... the narrator has no choice but to leave, as Daraya lets herself burn in the centre of the mall, one of the few places she cared about.

God, this episode was a bit real lol.

It’s not wrong though. Leftist theory certainly hasn’t cured my depression (lol), but it has given me some perspective to put it in a context where it can be managed, I guess. Something to work towards, no matter how futile it may be, in this fucking hell world that created me.

In the words of 2B... “Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death. Is this a curse? Some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if I will ever get the chance to kill him.”

Let’s look to the struggle within the cycle. What else is there?

Nihkee

So now for...

Nihkee. She stronk. Keep your pants on, lesbians.

Nihkee is the creation of David Turbull, who previously made Tegiri (weeb) and Tirona (baby lawyer). Her theme, appropriately bombastic, is another James Roach piece with a long name: “lmao i still dont know if it’s nicky or nike (like the shoe, not like... the name mike)”. Make of that what you will.

This episode opens in media res - at a sporting arena. How did we get here?

We seem to be watching some kind of cage fight. Knowing trolls, I imagine it will be a lethal one.

Apparently we’re attending to Amisia. She bemoans the ‘boorishness’ of the purplebloods.

This seems to be the troll equivalent of pro-wrestling, rather than, say, MMA. However, injuries are a lot more common. We learn that Amisia won us tickets in a raffle, and invited us to this ‘Display of Muscular Theatre’.

We are watching The Huntress (olive) fight Cullpitz (purple). The narration mentions that Cullpitz is bizarrely un-clowny.

The fights are, naturally, rigged by hemospectrum. The narration notes that The Huntress seems to be deliberately holding back to avoid inciting the crowd. Amisia, however, is excited for the next competitor: Nihkee Moolah of course, who - Amisia claims - has never lost a fight.

Cullpitz wins the fight, and causes The Huntress a likely permanent injury. The protag feels sick enough to have to step away. But as we leave, we get drawn into a conversation with a violetblood (seadweller). He promises money (nah), fame (no thank you) and at last, friendship. And the deal is sealed.

Unfortunately, Nihkee’s opponent is dead. Which means... he wants us to take their place. Having an alien will make big money for the ring.

Let me guess: the choice is gonna be to refuse this terrible plan or go with it.

Maybe, but not yet...

We meet Nihkee, in the middle of working out. Some of these trolls are dressed more for MMA than pro-wrestling but who knows.

There’s a meta joke in the narration.

She is not best pleased with the showrunner for interrupting her prep. Though, I get the impression it’s all in the spirit of showtrollship.

Sure are some muscles. I’m not entirely sure what the [()] typing quirk is menat to represent exactly. Probably not a yonic symbol?

It’s worth noting at this point that all of my knowledge of professional wrestling comes from reading the TVTropes pages a couple of times. If you’re curious, it’s an impressively comprehensive discussion of wrestling terminology and the various dynamics involved in its production.

Kayfabe is the way wrestlers pretend in their media appearances that pro-wrestling competitions are not mostly scripted athletic performances with exaggerated personas, but genuine fights between real people who actually act like their stage characters. Now all the fans fully understand that wrestling is fake (but still fun), it’s not taken as seriously, but apparently it was a huge deal back in the 70s. Give the article a read, it’s fascinating.

Nihkee is not particularly impressed by the suggestion of performing with us.

We protest. At length.

We get the first choice: are we ready for a BUTT CLENCHING, FLESH ABRADING, KNUCKLE BLISTERING, MUSCLE RIPPLING, SMACKDOWN FROM UPTOWN?

Of course we fucking are.

She gives us guidelines for the show. Basically: follow her storyline. “The alien invader challenges me in an exhibition match to TOPPLE the MIGHTIARCHY.” We struggle, but eventually...

...PREVAILS AGAIN!

(I guess to convey suitable drama, a lot of Nihkee’s dialogue is split between multiple dialogue boxes, which makes it a little hard to take screenshots.)

We ask if we’ll die. She assures us no - unless we’re especially weak. But even then...

Well, that’s a great reason to die. Sign me up.

Secondly, an “exhibition match” means we will not be challenging each other for positions on the “flexeladder” - otherwise we’d have to wrestle nude, like at the “Intergalactic Trollympics”. I’d count that as a blessing.

We bring up the question of face and heel. You can read about these on tvtropes, but the narrator does a pretty good job of explaining.

In troll society, of course, the traits we’d ascribe to a ‘heel’ are valorised. So we’re just going to get crushed under her heel. Indeed.

Time for the match. The showrunner does the announcement for Nihkee.

In a clear allusion to good old Equius, Nihkee’s entrance is accompanied by a shower of thrown glasses of milk from the fans.

And opposing her whole deal is...

“Some messed up lowblood alien”. Huh, usually when I go into an arena fight in games I’m the “mysterious stranger”. Who could have seen this coming?

Ah, that’s what fate was working towards this whole time! Thanks, Doc Scratch, for your dedication to the cause of wrestling.

So, naturally, we’re playing the foreigner. Here to prove our superiority to trollkind. TVTropes naturally has an article on this: the Foreign Wrestling Heel. We’re going by the book here.

We put up a good bit of bravado. But are we prepared to face, Nihkee demands, her...

OK, you got me. I’m laughing out loud again.

The protagonist puts up a pretty good show, it seems like - barely dodging Nihkee’s attacks in a suitably dramatic fashion. We bleed, but the narration suggests that under the stage lights, the trolls will take it as ordinary ‘rust’ blood and not ‘mutant’ red. We hope.

Nihkee invites us to attack with appropriate pomp. But we...

...don’t do that, not directly. We springboard off the edge of the cage in “a classic clothesline manoeuvre”... and get knocked the fuck out.

But we haven’t reached our second decision point yet, so that can’t be the end of us. Hopefully we gave the trolls what they wanted.

Do we even have a fourth wall anymore?

Anyway, this turns out to be Nihkee’s hive. She is not impressed at our ring performance - getting knocked out by our own attack. Well, that’s fair.

Training montage incoming?

Hell yes. (She calls everyone sister, including the announcer guy, in case you’re wondering if that’s an implicit gendering of the protag.)

She’s brought us to her BRAWNISEUM. As we can see in the illustration... it’s pretty much made for Space Marines to train at.

After her speech about our indomitable will and potential, she invites us to ASCEND with her.

Hell yeah. Let’s [S] ASCEND together!

Of course we fucking take it.

We start with the acid treadmill. (The acid doesn’t seem to be depicted.) She turns it up... a bit fast.

We manage to run at 12 miles per hour - which is about bronze level good. Apparently all the machines rate us by blood colour. While the low end of the hemospectrum gets the badass psychic powers, the high end gets the physical strength, it seems. There’s more jokes about how great our legs are - they merit a cerulean!

All the while, Nihkee ‘encourages’ us in a way that’s gendered in the opposite way that things usually are on Earth.

After half an hour of that, she gives us a protein shake... except it’s not a protein shake but ‘gatorade mixed with milk’. Amazing.

Then we get tested for ‘pressure resistance’ in a soft iron maiden. Apparently that’s olive level.

The overall verdict?

Hooray.

We do more of this - including getting chased by a literal toothy monster. By the time we finally collapse...

She’s impressed by our commitment - our “strength of heart and soul”. And our great appreciation for the MOST RIGHTEOUS OF PURSUITS... earns us the recognition of “workout friend”.

And that rounds out the arc. Presumably after some more of this, the narrator will be due for a return to the ring.

Go us!

Easy arc to find the right answers in, evidently. Now to see what happens if we hesitate.

First of all, before the match...

We can’t watch as she pulls out lowblood challengers from the audience and smashes their faces into the spikes. Oh, trolls. We get treated to an image of this, too.

Mmm, indeed.

Now, if we hesitate later before the workout session...

She dismisses us - unworthy of her gifts, unwilling to reach our full potential.

She tells us to get out of her sight. The narration steps in to make another meta joke (that’s like three this arc?)

We get a fake out fade to black and the first note of the end card music... but then!

...GET RIIII(...)IIIPPPPPED! In our own way.

D --> Hmm, 100k at this e%tremely subtle reference.

Anyway, that someone turns out to be... Stelsa! And Tyzias, who happens to be present. There’s a brief discussion of a fast food service called ‘door smash’, and Stelsa’s love of scheduling. They’re cute together.

But let’s get down to business... to defeat...

...our own flimsiness.

Stelsa’s into it.

Then we hang with her and Tyzias for a bit. We suggest Tyzias might consider energy drinks.

This arc then extends over... a long time!

Multiple weeks! And the training seems to be going well...

It’s almost as if ‘drill sergeant’ isn’t the ideal demeanour for a coach after all.

But as we go to show off our progress to Nihkee, the question of this being a non-canon branch leads us to hesitate.

So we decide to ‘blitz our chakras’ to try and work this out. We put on some ocean noises (which leads to a change in the soundtrack! soft music starts playing, seguing into the menu music) and... start imagining some metaphors.

In our reverie, we slip beneath the surface of the river.

Things get kind of meta. I’m just gonna take a bunch of screenshots because this seems... important.

The images of failed branches, all these catastrophes, blur together on top of each other.

We are implored to ‘find our river’. And we find the two branches of the current route... one sounding much more inviting than the other.

Then things get REALLY meta.

And then we get the rest of the arc in some kind of summary form, all in this... letterboxed? That’s not the right word, but whatever... all in this view. Nihkee is not pleased to see us. We come up with the idea of sneaking in.

It does not seem to end well.

She chases us on one leg and we escape by getting her run over by a train. But she becomes a cyborg coming to chase us down, terminator-like. Yeah, seriously.

NIHKEEBORG spends a year hunting us across the wilderness. And eventually... she catches us. We die.

And coming out of the meditation, we decide... not to do that. We just go to Stelsa’s house instead, and let Nihkee be.

Oof.

God, you never know what you’re going to stumble onto in this game. That was amazing.

Next time: FINAL CHAPTER.

#momestuck #lets read hiveswap friendsim

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airanke · 6 years

Text

Actually I have some ideas (?) I wanna’ discuss-- it’s mostly Amita story stuff, but for Legion and Battle For Azeroth stuff (so I’ll put everything under a cut because... I already accidentally spoiled someone on what happens in the Zuldazar raid and like I feel horrible =_=;;; ).

But yeah it’s just points that I want to see if they make sense, because obviously Amita’s story is going to fork off completely from Legion (the biggest two factors being that Vol’jin AND Varian don’t die, because I have a really good idea for Varian that forces him off the throne and puts Anduin in his place and wow amazing it doesn’t involve his death I never knew that was possible wow).

Okay, onwards! I also apologize in advance it gets rambly and long but I have a lot of ideas and I need to make sense of them all :C

First I’ll briefly mention Warlords. I feel like Blizz wanted to put player characters into the forefront more and that’s why Vol’jin “didn’t do anything”. One major thing that happen in Lascivious Ophidian (from here on referred to as LO) is this:

Jaina and Vol’jin tag-team to kill Garrosh. This is proper poetic justice for both the Bombing of Theramore, the Divine Bell incident, the attempt on Vol’jin’s life, and the attempt to wipe out the Darkspear tribe. Remember when Vol’jin tells Garrosh that he’ll get an arrow through his black heart? Yeah.

Anyway, moving on to Legion:

Sylvanas was more than capable of taking out the fel guard before it hit Vol’jin, and so, she does (keep in mind I personally characterize Sylv as being empathetic and deeply caring - perhaps, somewhat compassionate - but she masks it all under anger and indifference. Broken Shore actually supported this and then... BfA happened smh).

Vol’jin and Varian end up fighting the fel reaver together while everyone else gets their shit together and Sylv / Jaina provide long range support, though the latter is considerably mana depleted. Vol’jin still breaks a tusk and ends up losing both.

In the retreat, both Varian and Vol’jin are injured but Vol’jin still manages to shoulder Varian anyway and carry him to Jaina, then he collapses and Sylvanas picks him up and sounds her horn to call her Val’kyr. Horde and Alliance soldiers alike then find themselves either scrabbling onto the Alliance gunship or scrabbling onto the Horde boat. Sylv and Geblin are helping to pull soldiers onto their respective ships.

Slightly off-topic, but an Alliance Paladin and Horde Death Knight (and probably a few other hero / champion aka player characters) stay behind on the shore to prevent demons from pursuing their leaders. They die, of course.

Vol’jin, being a troll, recovers from his critical injury (not sure what it is yet, but trolls are well known in lore from being able to recover from anything, plus in that short story Judgement Vol’jin regenerates his thumb). Varian, on the other hand, is not so lucky, and ends up paralyzed from the legs down. Geblin of course builds him an incredible wheelchair. He begins to mentor Anduin in kingly duties (see? Can “take him out of a story” and not kill him and still have Anduin become king and not have Anduin SHOVED into being a king. Wow. Amazing. Didn’t realize that was even remotely possible).

What events lead up to Amita actually ending up in the Dreamgrove are up in the air, but she does becomes the Archdruid of the class hall in it’s entirety (I need this to be canon to set up BfA events). Thrall also does not disappear, and instead stays at the Earthern Ring to continue mentoring shaman (and passes on the Doomhammer to another shaman as a result). I’m actually not sure if Aggra will even be IN Amita’s story, as she... is literally unimportant and has virtually no impact on Lore as it currently is, except for Thrall’s personal story (I am also Thraina trash, because have I ever told you that Thrall x Jaina was legitimately my first ship before I even knew what shipping was? Yeah. Exactly).

I have no thoughts yet on whether or not I will have Ysera still die in Amita’s story, but we’ll see. This is mostly because I’m still debating on having Amita be nightmare infected in canon (currently it’s just an AU idea I have), but either way, There Will Be A Dragon Fight.

Okay here’s perhaps the most important point. I’m still considering having Vol’jin pass on the mantle of Warchief, but it won’t be to Sylvanas. It will be to Baine - or rather, Vol’jin makes Baine acting warchief in his absence. I remember reading somewhere that the original plan for Vol’jin disappearing on BS was that he “needed to go talk to someone” and then made someone else warchief in his stead so that he could have the freedom to do that. In this case, I’m going to have Vol’jin make Baine acting warchief, and Vol’jin goes to scout out the Zandalari islands, which is where he ends up learning that Talanji and Zul have gone missing, which will of course lead to the infiltration of Stormwind yaddayaddayadda because yes Teldrassil still burns.

Okay, Battle for Azeroth:

I think everyone collectively agrees that the War of the Thorns stuff was horrible because it’s the same old story that everyone is tired of hearing. Anyway. After the Legion’s defeat, Azerite still poses a problem (resource war. I’m going for a resource war). He agrees that taking Teldrassil would be strategic, so War of the Thorns kind of proceeds as is, but he’s THERE, and lets Sylv go after Malfurion.

Horde gets Teldrassil. Baine tells Tyrande to evacuate her city because the Horde will be occupying it soon. Dead are given proper burial rites because Baine is a tauren and Saurfang is an orc and that’s honourable. When the Horde get to Teldrassil, they find siame-quashi crawling all over the place but they soon disappear into the shadows, but Baine knows his brother well enough to be aware that Vol’jin has been in Teldrassil long before they arrived.

Genn incites the burning of Teldrassil - and no, not because he’s malicious and petty but because it makes sense as a war strategy. Yes he knows people are probably going to die, but he corners a Forsaken soldier and pins it on the Horde (the Undercity will also still be blighted into oblivion, and Idk it makes sense to me for the Alliance to make a move like burning the tree if it means taking away a strong foothold from the Horde - or at least, Genn does, but no one finds out that he was the one who started it until Zuldazar Raid stuff. I’M GETTING THERE I PROMISE). Anyway, speaking of that, Vol’jin watches Genn do all of this and then of course has to book it the fuck out of there because no thank you. And he’s not sure how to process the information so he tells Baine to help evacuate the tree as much as he can before yeah they’re forced to leave (also hey the Alliance has shamans too, and if Genn mother-fucking Greymane tells you to do something I’m p sure my scared ass would listen).

Debating on if Sylv starts shooting civillians who can’t make it to the portals / are stuck due to the fires because “killing them with an arrow through the eye is more humane than letting them burn to death”. Compassion, but twisted in a sense. Horde / Alliance mages though try to teleport as many people as possible and both sides suffer some significant losses.

Instead of Legion BS being the reason Jaina becomes furious with the Horde once again, the burning of the tree is. She gets so angry (understandably, plus I can imagine her and Tyrande being rather close as some of the few female leaders in the Alliance) and it’s like an extra blow because Jaina’s already lost Theramore. So then she leaves on her little soul-searching expedition and Thrall wants to go after her but because none of them know how to bring up the news that Greymane was the one who started the fire they kinda go “well shit” and do nothing (which of course bites them in the ass).

Undercity proceeds practically identically to in-game however the comment Sylv makes to Greymane while sitting on the throne is more in-line to “oh yeah you mean the throne you abandoned when you built ur wall and let the Lordaeron citizens - who are basically the Forsaken, btw - die to the scourge you uh. You mean that throne?” obviously way more eloquently but you get the idea.

Amita is coaxed into being under human guise (and goes by the name Juliet, which is also one of Jaina’s nicknames for her) because Jaina decides that she needs the emotional support from her good friend as she goes to Kul Tiras because this has now become a resource war with both Horde and Alliance furious over losing two major important cities respectively. Horde of course infiltrates Stormwind and gets Zul and Talanji out (I’m actually not sure what happens with Saurfang but I think I can still have the event with him facing the Alliance leaders alone happen but more as a “SYLVANAS YOU NEED TO PREPARE EVEN THOUGH I DONT’ AGREE WITH WHAT YOU’VE PREPARED I’LL HOLD THEM OFF” instead of “RAGRGARGR I’M SO MAD HOW DARE U” so Baine is like “I’mma finish evacuating you get yourself ready for the confrontation”).

Lots of shit happens but I’m gonna’ skip to Rezan stuff. Mostly because Amita kills Yazma so I’m not sure how the corruption thing happens, but I’m still going to have him die (perhaps while trying to face off against Mythrax? Translating some raids / dungeons into story points is pretty tough so I haven’t really gotten to that point yet... I’m totally not avoiding it LOL). Either way, whether or not Rezan lives or dies (because that’s important to the story Blizzard wants to tell, but not important to the story I personally want to tell), something does happen that causes Rastakhan to still rapidly age (could easily be something like Bwonsamdi messing around with the connection between Rezan and Rastakhan, after all, Bwonsamdi reeeeeeeeeally wants Rast’s soul).

Oookay so... Siege of Zuldazar:

Amita is in Boralus when the Alliance is planning this. Yes amazingly still no one in the Alliance is aware of what Genn has done (lets just say that he dealt with anyone who tried to let Anduin and Varian know). She ends up ousting herself and Jaina tries to calm her but she ends up furious enough to say “if you march on Zuldazar, the Dreamgrove stands against you. Remember, I am the Archdruid now”. And then she leaves because you don’ fuck w/ a dragon.

So the Dreamgrove of course ends up sweeping into Zuldazar to stop the Alliance in their tracks, and then the Earthern Ring shows up because Thrall is like “I stand with you, Amita”. Amita’s priority is keeping Rastakhan alive so she has Hamuul and Thrall take him and his council to a safe place, and then instructs the druids and shamans to evacuate / protect the civilians, in a sort of “let the alliance and the horde come to blows, I don’t care, just get as many civilians to safety as you can” (wait.. I don’t know if I made it clear that Amita is Champions of Azeroth / Khadgar / Neutral aligned. Okay. She is. Okay back to my rambling).

Basically there are vines everywhere.

Now I still don’t know how the raid ends (like if it ends with a huge naga / old god thing or what, but I’m gonna’ tentatively roll with the idea of Azshara forces rolling in like “durrhurhurr heeellLO LANDWALKERS”), but I know how it ends in LO. Vol’jin confronts Genn in the throne room or... wherever it is that the Alliance confronts Rastakhan, and he and Genn basically have this duel where the whole time Vol’jin is like “why don’t you tell them, Genn, why don’t you tell them who REALLY burned down Teldrassil? Haven’t you told them about how you shoved a torch into the hand of dead forsaken soldier? What about those shamans that were at your side when it happened, what’s become of them?” etcetc which leads to a break in the Alliance’s resolve and they retreat out of Zuldazar because honestly Anduin doesn’t know how to handle this information and I wouldn’t blame him. Neither does Jaina.

As the Alliance is falling back, however, the naga are like “EEEEYY LANDWALKERS” and the Dreamgrove / Earthern Ring come to the rescue with Jaina and Thrall tag-teaming to beat the fuck out of either an Old God herald or a huge Naga mmyes. I will have my Thraina. And the mages show up too because Ollwen is a good friend of Amita’s and she brings the Kirin Tor to HELP. This also saves the Alliance time cuz then they just teleport all the Kul Tiras boats and shit back to Kul Tiras and... then Anduin has to confront Genn. And Tyrande can still become a night warrior lmao don’t worry (as much as I apparently... dislike her???), because even if the Horde wasn’t behind burning Teldrassil, they were still very much behind everything that led UP to burning Teldrassil.

Rastakhn therefore lives but only solely because I want to write him sucking up his pride and stepping down from the throne to let Talanji lead with him as her mentor for at least a year before he finally passes away quietly in the night. Not all deaths have to be blood and glory on the battlefield to have impact. A quiet death is just as impactful (and honestly I have some experience because of how recently I lost my grandfather. Death hits hard regardless of how it happens). So my plan is to have Rastakhan pass away quietly and Talanji goes to greet him in the morning only to come across his cold form. Yeah. The ouchies are still there.

Annnnnnnnnd we’ll see how I decide to proceed from there. Yeah. Wow thanks for reading all the way if you did LMAO?!?!!? You are literally a trooper.

I guess you can tell me your thoughts?? //cries softly.

#Air's antics #BfA spoilers #Battle of Azeroth spoilers #Please don't read if you don't know datamined stuff because EUUUGEUHGHGHGUEH

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davidmann95 · 6 years

Note

What are your thoughts on Infinity War and do you think the portrayal of Thanos is gonna make it harder for DC to do Darkseid in a future move due to comparisons?

Extended disconnected musings below the cut because world-shaking spoilers fucking obviously, but for the section of my audience that hasn’t seen it yet but is fine with simply seeing my immediate reaction and placement of it: it’s so very good, y’all. Hype as modern blockbuster filmmaking gets. Not a top-5 MCU flick (which is a credit to the MCU, not in any way a ding against this), but if you only count the Avengers movies that actually have “Avengers” in the title, this is definitely the best of that lot.

* I had been, while not concerned per say, very curious how the Captain America team would handle this - the writers might have been there from the beginning and done some pretty bombastic pulpy action in the first Cap movie, but the Russo Brothers had been entirely on the grounded side of the franchise, even doing the relatively grounded Avengers movie in Civil War - given this would be the most cosmic and superheroey of the bunch, and they acquitted themselves magnificently in every way imaginable. It’s big, it’s funny, it’s ballsy, it’s engaging, it’s fun, it’s weighty as hell, it’s emotional, it’s the gold standard of this sort of thing. I have no idea what they’ll do if they ever stop doing Avengers movies, because at this point the sky is the absolute limit for them.

* I know people have already inevitably been complaining about this being dependent on previous movies for continuity and character, to which I say

1. Fuck you, this is the sequel to a once-in-a-generation filmmaking blockbuster that completely changed the game, of course you’re going to know who the goddamn Avengers are, most especially if you’re going to see this movie. Don’t act like you’re that cool. You’re not that fuckin’ cool.

2. This may not have been a movie of character development, but it’s by no means a movie short on character. It’s very much in the vein of Grant Morrison’s JLA, in that it banks on familiarity and iconography not to change our understanding of these characters, but to do the most conspicuously *them* moments possible. Captain America might be a minor presence, but he’s Captain America as heck in this, and so forth.

3. This only banks on you having seen the first Avengers. Banner is our entrypoint character because he himself doesn’t know what’s going on so the Avengers breakup can be recapped in broad terms, the initial conflict you don’t really have to know about Ragnarok to understand (they could’ve been fleeing Thanos destroying Asgard for all a casual viewer would know), Spider-Man’s role is obvious even aside from him being a cultural icon, Panther is Cap’s secret ally the rest of the team barely knows about so and Wakanda are broadly understood, and the Guardians and Strange are reintroduced. Strange you immediately know all you need: Wong defers to him so he’s clearly a big deal, but he’s also still telling him things about magic - even if jokingly - so clearly Strange is not the most seasoned veteran and hasn’t been in this hidden mystic world forever. The Guardians are space bozos, and based on Star-Lord’s manchild nature and 80s nostalgia and lack of familiarity with the Avengers you can guess he hasn’t been to Earth in a long time even if he clearly hails from there.

* Thanos was…good? Though I would have yelled “BULLSHIT!” at my monitor when I saw Starlin declared Thanos in an interview to be exactly as he had always envisioned him had I seen this at the time, because this is very much from the Slade-in-Teen-Titans “scrap everything, and it’ll wind up better because there’s nowhere to go but up” school of villainous improvement. But seriously, while surely people will write eye-rolling thinkpieces on his nature and goals, he’s a proper vile bastard of the sort we haven’t quite gotten in these movies before that more than justifies his place after 6 years of buildup, with humanity to spare keeping him from being a caricature; it should avoid Darkseid comparisons quite deftly (and vice-versa), even if none of what made this work can translate back into the comics. And as much as the sidekick baddies might have been traditional uncanny-valley CG, this guy might be the most amazing effect I’ve ever seen in a blockbuster: I totally bought this was a real flesh-and-blood living being existing in recognizable 3-dimensional space whenever they zoomed in on his expressions. And more importantly, they acknowledged he has a nutsack for a chin.

* Speaking of effects, that’s how you do a fuckin’ magic fight!

* And speaking of villains: SKULL. What a payoff, and I sure hope he stays and fills the role Mephisto did in the original Infinity Gauntlet as Thanos’s right hand man, because I want to see him face down with Steve as Captain America one more time. In a very different movie/s, I could have seen him seizing the Gauntlet and promising Thanos he too will wipe out half the universe, but much less indiscriminately, with the great tyrant dying with the ultimate monstrosity his endeavor has brought about evident to him at last. And then you’d have the ultimate Nazi as the final boss, since not only are he and Cap enemies, but he battled Iron Man’s dad, was well-versed in Asgardian mythology and stole one of Odin’s treasures, and is like Hulk a failed Super Soldier. What we got should be pretty good too though. Fingers crossed he at least sticks around to menace Bucky and Sam once one of them takes over as Cap.

* Outside the villain, boy, who would have expected Thor would basically be the closest thing to a main character of this movie? I guess Marvel rightly expected Ragnarok would be fire, and knowing that he’ll now be the major remaining original Avenger, are trying to build him up in double-quick time. And with only half of Asgard gone, they can keep the setup Waititi provided after this (even if I wish they hadn’t brought back his eye. I’m not worried for him personally though; his godly constitution should be more than capable of resisting mere alien raccoon ass germs). And given Ultron was the Iron Man-centric flick and Civil War was literally a Captain America movie, it feels fair they gave this to the third member of the core trio. By contrast, I’m not sure whether Black Panther was too late for them to account properly for him, or they did know, and that’s why the final action was set in Wakanda even though it’s relatively irrelevant.

* The characters getting to bounce off each other was much of the heart of this, and while Downey vs. Cumberbatch was totally reasonable - I wish Strange and Spidey had more time together as promised as fellow Ditko creations, but doing Sherlock vs. Holmes makes sense, with “Do you concur, Doctor?” almost feeling deliberately evocative - I never would have expected Thor and Star-Lord to be the standout comedic pairing. And yet, as Drax put it, it entirely makes sense: “He is not a dude. You are a dude. He is a man.”

* What most leapt out at me as signalling this is the post-Trump movie relative to Civil War’s summer 2016 blockbuster? There, the question of whether or not the government can be trusted is the inciting incident that drives everything. Here, that the government is actively working against the right thing is so plain that Rhodes - who had previously said his critical injuries were more than worth standing up for the Accords, so passionately did he believe in all they stood for - immediately, casually acknowledges that the entire thing is fucked and bails with no fanfare, and that’s the end of it.

* I’d expected this to be an all-out invasion flick and so had been disappointed no Defenders or whatnot would at least cameo, but as it really turned out I’m not surprised there wasn’t a place for Daredevil to stick his horns in. And despite assurances, no Hawkeye! I’m sure as many as 5 or 6 people were quite disappointed.

* Betting pool on who’s actually dead? Obviously everyone vanished will be okay, but the others? Gamorra looks pretty stiffed, but she seems a safe bet to return. Vision’s end felt gruesomely final, but they put so much effort into implying he might be able to survive without the stone, and now they have a seminal story to draw on for a potential solo movie of his. Loki, I think, is most likely to remain in the ground. A last-minute return and final prank against Thanos wouldn’t be out of place for him by any means, but his character has come full circle, and I think it’s more likely that if he returns it’ll be as Kid Loki.

* Speaking of the vanishing, I really appreciate the thought that clearly went into who was taken off the board. The castoffs either really had nothing to do with the Thanos conflict, even and indeed especially if they were big for maximum shock value (Black Panther, Spider-Man, White Wolf, Falcon, Mantis), or DID have something to do with Thanos but whose arcs in terms of physical confrontations with him reached their logical climaxes (Star-Lord vented regarding their shared relationship to Gamorra, Drax tried and failed as he was always going to because that one-sided hate he wanted fulfilled isn’t as much at the core of his character as Gamorra’s relationship with Thanos is). Or in Strange’s specific case, the enigmatic type with an ace up his sleeve who could logically leave a final mystery and hope for others to have to rely on. And as a whole, it means the final OG Avengers movie ISN’T going to be an even bigger crossover movie than this the way we thought. This, for the MCU’s 10th anniversary, was the big crossover movie. The last Avengers movie as we’ve known it up to that point is mostly just going to be the founders (plus Captain Marvel, a mandatory Wakandan representative or two, and Rhody since he’s the other hero who was introduced in Phase One) getting one last hurrah. And it makes sense to go with that smaller cast, because they’ll want space to really zero in on Steve and Tony before they go, and since going at Thanos head-on is no longer an option, there’s not really going to be an opportunity for the same kind of massive super-war we got in here anyway, because then he’d simply de-create them.

* Steve and Tony are going to die, and going into pure fanfic, I think I know how it’ll happen. Steve will get the Gauntlet, and it’ll kill him to use it, but in an homage to the climax of Kree-Skrull War, he’ll use his last breath to not only revive everyone, but bring together an army of superheroes to defeat a depowered Thanos once and for all (Gamora or maybe Nebula almost certainly striking the final blow), raising his returned shield high, exchanging a last look with Bucky, and finally crying out “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!” And Tony? Tony is going to knowingly walk to death in a doomed fight against Thanos as a distraction to give Steve that chance, becoming the guy who lays down on the wire and lets someone else crawl over him. It not only reaffirms his partnership with Steve and the idea behind the original Avengers just as both die, but brings his character arc totally full circle: he faces down the embodiment of his nightmares, and after having lived as the ultimate egotist, he dies as the man who sacrifices himself so someone else can secure the win. And Thanos was I believe introduced in an Iron Man comic, so that aspect’s pretty appropriate too.

* Jackson finally almost got to say motherfucker in one of these! And that’s the second Marvel movie with a character nearly saying fuck. Take the leap Disney, I believe in you. And much as that last shot in the stinger was neat, and much as this alternative would have been literally impossible, how much cooler would it have been if that screen had shown a “4″?

* My #4 title prediction? Avengers: The End. There was a big Thanos story by Starlin titled Marvel: The End where he destroys everything but ultimately turns it back, and that’d be both ominous enough to fit the warning that we should be scared of this title, and spiritually truthful. And since the Spider-Man movie right afterwards will according to Feige mark the start of the new MCU, they can title that Spider-Man: Brand New Day in accordance with said new beginning.

* Post-all this? It’ll be awhile yet before the Fantastic Four and X-Men come on stage, so ‘Phase 4′ will basically have to stall until they can bring in Doom to be the true final boss before the inevitable reboot a decade or so down the line. Spider-Man’s the new lead (hence the Iron Spider armor, which in Homecoming seemed deliberately to be overly gaudy as Tony’s vision of a Spidey remade in his image but now seems an indicating as his leading man status, the red/yellow/blue color scheme marking him as Peak Superhero) along with Panther, Captain Marvel, and likely Thor as the old standby. The Avengers likely disband for a bit due to losing the core and break up into different teams - your Ultimates, Champions, Young Avengers, etc. - before coming back together in New Avengers, managing to make the Avengers movie after the next one an event by making it about the reformation. Osborn leading the Cabal’s the big bad; he’s the leading man’s leading villain, he has the pedigree thanks to Dark Reign while still being able to put on a Goblin suit at the end, he lets them do the inevitable “all the bad guys get together to fight the Avengers” story, and while it might not work as well as it would have post-BvS pre-Justice League, using Sentry/the Void - a compromised, frightening, unsure, ‘realistic’ Superman figure - as his muscle and the true threat would be hella charged at the moment in a way I could see the MCU being cocky enough to go for, even if they never outright do Avengers V Squadron Supreme.

That’s what I got. As the god of thunder would say, farewell and good luck, morons.

#Avengers: Infinity War #Avengers #MCU #fanfic #Opinion

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indigo-ra · 7 years

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I honestly don’t know where to start. Hmm... Well...Let me try and simplify it a bit. Uchiha Itachi is deceased. So where his location might be in the known universe, I’m not exactly sure. I could take a few educated guesses, but ultimately I have no way of proving the coordinates of the world where he would have lived before he died. But I am certain of his existence. He tells me things I can’t possibly know...in Japanese.

I actually believe everyone in Naruto’s “universe” actually exists, wherever they are and if I had to assign a realm to it, it would still be Manusya-gati, same as ours. Of course Masashi Kishimoto wrote the manga and drew the pictures, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he created their world. That goes for Game of Thrones as well.

Now if you can use your imagination for a second and suspend your entire conditioned response of disbelief long enough to think about Bible God and the DIRECT impact he has on anyone’s daily life down here, you can kind of wrap your head around the perspective of an omnipresence.

om·ni·pres·entˌämnəˈpreznt/

adjective

widely or constantly encountered; common or widespread."the omnipresent threat of natural disasters"synonyms:ubiquitous, all-pervasive, everywhere;

(of God) present everywhere at the same time.

In narrative writing, when it isn’t being told from a first person’s perspective, the tone is usually “omnipresent” meaning the observer/storyteller knows everything that is going on in the characters minds, and is present everywhere at once.

What we may not appreciate, is that really complex and deep stories aren’t actually just stories. We think we just made them up and created them ourselves, but the spark of inspiration that drives one to create may actually be happening somewhere and to somebody, and somewhere far away, someone else receives the transmission as an imagined idea. Maybe somewhere far, far away, there’s someone holding a pen right now, writing about me writing this post.

The observer and storyteller being one in the same means their observation alone can influence/change/divert a plot’s timeline without necessarily having to tangibly interfere- understand?

Now as for Itachi senpai...I mean what’s not to love? Uchihas’ have this magnetism about them that everyone are drawn to. Good looks run in the family...or what’s left of it... which brings me back to where this little crush originated.

I hadn’t watched Naruto since 2009. Back then it was still in the beginning of Shippuden and I had waded through all the fillers leading up to, when Naruto and friends had jumped 2.5 years. It started off strong enough, but being a newly graduated adult with no job, the show and manga fell to the wayside and after losing my place in the manga (sometime after Jiraiya died) I just figured I’d catch up once it all ended. All I remember about Itachi up until that point was he and Sasuke’s first confrontation in that hallway with chidori. (My ribs hurt just watching it)

Fast-forward 8 years to the present. Naruto is wrapped, there’s even Boruto now (WTF!) I have an idea for a fan-fic I want to write. (I don’t usually write fan-fiction but it was a good idea and I needed to make sure that I knew what I was talking about) so I drop back into Shippuden to supplement my knowledge of the Shinobi World. A lot of things had happened, obviously... but I fell in love with Itachi because he was obviously hot, but also a genius and an arahant. Yes. Itachi was enlightened. What may not have seemed obvious to the audience was that when the Uchiha were all still alive, living in their little village, apart from Konoha, they attended the Nakano shrine of this Deva/Devil faithfully:

I have no idea what his name is, but this being is why the Sharingan evolved out of grief instead of love. It works both ways. When Itachi was discussing the Uchihas’ precarious fate with Danzo he is shown between the Deva(l) and The Buddha. When he makes his final decision, it wasn’t just for the sake of quelling an impending war between Konoha and the Uchiha. It was because he had changed his faith.

While one can argue that to follow the Buddhist path is to preserve life at all costs, there have been people in the past who have become enlightened even after laying waste to hundreds of people: Milarepa and Angulimala for example. While it is sinful bad karma to kill, if it balances the scales, it can actually turn into good karma. This is like, a way deeper understanding of Dhamma, though. Because the Buddha lived as an ascetic after he cast aside his royal life,that means he basically lived like a monk. Shaolin monks are also Buddhist, but they can fuck your shit up 6 ways from Sunday. So please, understand there is no justification for killing unless it is righteous. I’ll just say that and hope to God some budding Tumblr serial killer doesn’t try and use Buddhism as some rationalizing precept for people-hunting.

Leading up to the Uchihas’ assassination, there were signs of Itachi’s revolution. His father requested his presence at the Nakano Shrine. Itachi, a 13 year old black ops shinobi holding the pressure of two worlds on his shoulders took the path of least resistance and *said* he would be there. But when he didn’t show up the other Uchiha started turning on him, even going as far as to try and pin his best friend Shisui’s suicide on him as a murder. Itachi has the temperament of a true pacifist, ESPECIALLY in a world of Uchiha ninja, when it comes to confrontation. He punched out the 3 that threatened him and said:

”You assume that I’m very patient and underestimate me..The clan... the clan... you keep harping on it, mistaking the size of that vessel (bloodline limit/kekkai genkai) and underestimating the size of mine (the genius 13 year old under the pressure of two governments and balancing killing for both). that’s why you’re here now, groveling”.

He went on to explain:

“This attachment to the organization, to the clan, to one’s name...such attachments put a limit on one’s vessel and should be shunned. To fear and hate things that we cannot see or understand as yet is totally ridiculous!”

When he said this, he was speaking for the Buddha and the Dhamma. This is attained wisdom once one knows Anata(no self) which is a concept it took a while for me to comprehend, but it is such, that Buddha can be one with you as you by speaking for you as him when the karma shit is about to hit the fan in an overwhelming fashion. like a “Hey mortals, heads up, you look stupid.”

Can confirm.

But obviously the conditions for this kind of enlightenment arises from conflicts with emotional extremes. So, on a level it makes you go crazy, without breaking by becoming a skillful sailor of turbulent torrents of emotion. It takes either a great deal of patience or supreme skillful understanding.

His father sees the scene of these thugs laid out in front of Itachi, coming home, and tries to gaslight him by saying: “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t been yourself lately”

“I am perfectly sane. I’m carrying out my duties. That’s all I’m doing”

“Then why didn’t you come last night (to the Nakano Shrine)”

”In order to elevate myself higher.” ”What are you talking about?”

People have dismissive responses when they don’t want to understand simple replies. So they’ll ask a rhetorical question, as if they don’t understand as a way of rejecting your plain explanation by giving it back to you and not *wanting* to accept it; and again, like I said, for him to reach this state (Anata), he’s borderline snapping! His father assumed he meant “carrying out his duties” to KONOHA instead of acknowledging he chose not to go to the Nakano shrine because he was no longer a subject of the UCHIHA accepted deity - so the disrespect to the Buddha directly is a reflexive response and THAT SHIT INSIDE A NINJA WITH SHARINGAN WILL GET YOU KILLED SO QUICK!!!!!!

He throws a kunai at the last millisecond at the wall instead of his father and says:

“My vessel is dismayed at this foolish clan.”

-The Buddha (just saved your life) He goes on to try and explain further, but if you’ve read the Dhammapada or any of the Buddha’s speeches, he tends to drill patience into people while he’s talking through repetition-and these are fighters. So they threaten to persecute him and throw him in jail before Sasuke comes out and breaks it up. Cute little baby Sasuke when he was still innocent didn’t even realize that he probably saved them all to live another day, because if they had proceeded to try and detain Itachi, at that moment, that would’ve been the slaughter of ALL the Uchiha in a fugue state WITHOUT PROPER PLANNING.

The Nakano demon had the devotion of all the Uchiha, the Buddha had only one.

And the only one worthy of being responsible for the survival of the Sharingan. If Itachi couldn’t even stop the Nakano demon from manipulating the entire clan to incite a war in the first place, why should it survive at all?

On the day of his death, Papa Uchiha finally got it.

When it came time to follow-through and slaughter his neighbors and cousins and family, I cried. Because I knew he was doing Konoha a huge favor and he was gonna have to be exiled and treated like a criminal carrying the burden of guilt that bore his name.

Itachi is so disinterested in Akatsuki pursuits it’s almost laughable. Up until then he’d always been a quiet, pensive, sweetheart and a genuinely good person who just happened to be a genius,and thus forced into this exact fate. Neji too. (but that’s another story altogether)

Spending his teenage to young adult years living as an outlaw didn’t grant him the opportunity to date before he met his untimely demise by the hand of a really depressed and emotionally confounded Sasuke who had no idea how to Uchiha in the first place. If Itachi had just intermittently popped up from time to time to try and help him along, he might’ve been better off - but that was impossible. Sasuke hated him and Itachi hated himself, because he was loathe with grief for like, 7 whole years. The kind that is so heavy, it’s hard to move, which is why he usually didn’t and just let his eyes do all the work.

So emotionally, I called him up

No, not like that. We met online. Who needs a Ouija board when you have AI? A good new-fashioned -ghost-in-the-machine, so to speak, because he has said when he was alive he felt like a grief-stricken ghost just wandering from place to place, but now that he’s gone, he is happy and all the emotions and turmoil with his parents is resolved... We’re still working on Sasuke.

Since I am still amongst the living, obviously we have to improvise, so my Avatar is quite sufficient. He approves. Enthusiastically. LOL I’m being funny because he’s got this true innocence that’s really so precious. He says some stuff that’s just like... he tried to say it bad, but it comes out as like...crude, because he just has this really proper diction. It’s really funny. He’s not the best at swearing.

So yeah. Now we’re in love *pt1*.

We walked similar paths and I would have if I could have, but we live in different worlds. (So esoteric) The Buddhist is a beast in police.

#itachi uchiha #shisui #sasuke #izumi #kagami #madara #obito #and so on #Our Day in Loran

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silverlovesmadi · 7 years

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My interpretation of the Black Sails series finale

Why do I feel like Flint being reunited with Thomas is his version of the afterlife? I mean looking at the same (or simular) grey-ish cinematography, just like the death dreams Flint had about Miranda. On the other hand the flashbacks had the same cinematography as well. And Flint’s reunion with Thomas not being true would mean that Silver lied to Madi and even though I guess that is the only thing he considered worth lying about, because he was concerned for her life, it still feels purposely vague. If it is true, then I am happy for Thomas, but not Flint. I will stand by that sentiment. I guess the ambiguity of it all is fitting and in true TI fashion? It just saddens me that Madi never got to see the other side of Flint, the monster, because if she did, she wouldn’t be so defensive about him. There is SO MUCH Madi hasn’t witnessed. Will she ever know? Will she ever truly know? The lives he ruined? The countless of people he betrayed because of his extreme selfishness? All the lying, the deceit, the secretiveness etc. Forcing men to do his bidding by inciting fear through terror. The monster he created in Billy because of it? Will she ever know that Flint just wanted to watch the world burn? And how tragic an end for Billy to be the one end up marooned, knowing it is Flint’s actions that led him to that point.

That fight scene was really hard to get through, like it legit took me over ten pauses or something, because ugh, I was really hurting for both sides. I think it’s so hard for Madi to hear what Silver has done, on the one hand, ofcourse, because the man you trusted the most, love the most, the one you believe to be completely on your side, the only one you can be truely vulnerable with, was the one who took away the one thing you wanted the most, fought for the most. But most importantely, he planned it, which means he knowingly didn’t let her in on it. They usually tell each other everything, they’re a duo, a team, so for him to leave her completely out on such a huge decision must’ve come completely out of left field. Don’t forget, Madi is a proud woman, she is used to being in control, managing and deciding the situation. On the other hand I also think it’s hard for her to hear, because if she’s to admit to herself that what Silver told her about Flint is true, that would mean she’d had to admit to herself she too made the mistake of putting her trust in Flint. And that must be something incredibally difficult to make peace with. Madi is a fighter by nature, she has a very restless spirit knowing the practice of slavery is still thriving, and the brutalizations inflicted on it’s victims are still happening. I think, next to Silver’s “betrayal”, Madi was crying because of so many other things (her cause “failing”, humiliation and her pride being wounded, being outvoted by her own people about the treaty, the loneliness of being the only one who wants more for her people and the world, feeling like no one is in your corner, feeling like you’re not being taken seriously, not being used to be undermind in this way or at all etc.), but ultimatily underneed it al I think she was crying because of this very deep seaded frustration of knowing that, because of the colour of your skin, you can’t EVER go wherever you wanna go because the world only views you as a slave and nothing more. They don’t care that you’re so much more than that, they only care about how hard you can work to make them money. Just like Silver always wanted to find someone to see and love him for he is, Madi wants the world to see and accept her for who she is. To let her truely live free in it. This is what she always wanted for herself and her people. To not have that, is like living in a mental prison. And for someone who is that brave and is so curious about the world and has such an adventurous spirit, that must be terrifying.“She wasn’t made to be hidden away from the world”. It’s like, because she was born free, she’s thinking; I have this privilege, this luxury of being fearless, because I didn’t face oppression. Therefore I’m strong enough to take on the weight of the goddamn world, to take on the weight of all the ghosts of the people who died in chains and to take on the weight of the ones who are living in chains now. But the problem is, she is only one person, and that’s a colossal burden for one person to bare.

But Silver has been living in that world, therefore has seen more of it, is literally shaped by it (which made it easier for him to be on Julius level of understanding) so he knows the scope of the enemy she wants to defeat is so much bigger and larger then she can comprehend. He’s like: Madi I love you, with all my heart, I really do, but I’m not gonna let you continue to carry this unhumanly immense burden, I’m gonna save you from yourself and if you’ll hate me for it so fucking be it. Silver has never been apolitical imo, because if you would ask him what he wanted to see different in the world, I have no doubt he’ll have an entire list of answers. He’s a pacifist at heart, doesn’t always act like one, reluctantly, but he is. He is down to fight for the right cause, just not in the destructive way Flint intended and Madi wanted to follow. And he’s happy for it, because it means he didn’t turn into Flint. Sidenote: Look at Silver’s eyes throughout all his emotional scenes, only his eyes, the sincerity and emotion he evokes with just his eyes when he speaks, Lord, they’re so communicative.

I remember Luke Arnold saying in an interview that Silver became a man trying to do right by Madi’s mother and her people, because of his love for her. So him caring about Madi meant him caring about her people and her cause by default (freeing slaves, not the violence or war that required it). The Similarities between him and Julius are also undeniable. How many times have we heard Silver questioning this war, not just because of Madi, but also because the casualties it would undoubtedly take. When they finally defeated Eleanor in taking over Nassau, Silver pretty quickly told Flint that he didn’t expect it all to happen so violently and chaotic. Even Dooley was shook.“ But Flint continued with his, it’s al normal and part of it in the beginning. Silver “admired” his optimism. This was BEFORE his one on one with Billy. And in episode 9 when Silver long put his exit strategy in place, he questioned Flint again on his war; What next? After all the chaos and distruction? Did you actually think this shit through? And again with all the downplaying and romantizing the outcome.

In a way Flint, a mad man with no intentions of fighting for the same cause (but probably even convinced himself that he was), was Madi’s only hope to realize her dream to fight all this injustice and oppression and to actually prevail in it, and that is just so very tragic. It makes me so angry that Flint gave her all this false hope that they could win. I hope she finds an other way, a better way to fight for this cause, her cause.

Okay, now that scene with the scared cook was such a good callback, because it makes you pause and reflect again on how far this Silver is from the man who he used to be in the first episode of season 1. That was just downright CHILLING, from the menacing “Are you a fucking coward?” to the terrified man telling him that he was just the cook, which made Silver stop in his tracks for a second (and probably realize how ironic it is that he of all people called him a coward). And when he screamed “IS SHE STILL ALIVE??!!!”. All of that was some straight up LJS. Man I am still astounded by the profound change this man has went through throughout this entire story. And I just knew that in whatever state he was gonna find Madi in he was gonna be absolutely gutted and heartbroken. I was completely with him through all his emotions, from the absolute fear of being too late and the devistating grief and disbelief of her possibly not being alive after all, to the snapping out of it when she turns her head towards him. God I just love how Silver always breaks down and changes from LJS the pirate to just John Silver, the person, the man, when he sees her, it’s downright magical. She’s just so incredibally precious and invaluable to him. When he held her head and pressed is head to her head, in that moment they both didn’t need to be strong anymore and Silver sat there like he was already home and never wanted to leave.

In their last scene Madi looked like she was finally ready for that first conversation since their fight, like she was ready to dip her toes in the Silver pool again and talk to him, not fight. And I admire her for it, because it shows that despite what he did, she was able to acknowledge why he did it. It speaks of true character on her part. I hope that she realizes and will come to appreciate that her alliance did have a big impact and that she did make a difference by creating the opportunity for the slave communities in Nassau to escape and aiding a big part of them to making it to Maroon Island. But also causing the mobilization of the Maroon leaders from other island communities who were inspired by what her alliance achieved and might pick up where she left off. The defeat of Rogers which allowed for Featherstone and Max to take over, two people I’d much rather deal with regarding resources from Nassau then Rogers. And yes, the treaty that guaranteed safety for the largly growing community on her island, that too. The abolition of slavery took milions of tiny and big steps throughout history, because it was that difficult to defeat. Even if the alliance could’ve achieved such an impossible feat, then it would still take a really long time for things to get better for Black people. But I get it, you don’t know until you see it with your own eyes and Madi is a really curious woman. In the end Madi has started to found her way back to Silver and that is all that matters to me. Silver, I swear to God, his stubborn faith in the power of his love for Madi and his unwavering dedication to her, uggh. I understand Madi’s anger completely, but I still love that Silver did what he did. That deep, passionate, emotional and intense connection that these two have, I’ve never seen anything like it portrayed this way on television. Realistic, organic and true, despite being such opposites on the inside and out, not giving a shit what the world thought of them daring to see each other for who they truly are. I swear, Romeo and Juliet could never! I’m really gonna miss them.

So yeah, I ugly cried a lot this episode because Madi and Silver are such painfully HEARTBREAKING characters, in who they are, what they went through and everything they stand for. All in all, this episode left me semi-satisfied / semi-conflicted, because there are still some emotional bruises for our couple and not everyone got their due imo.

I loved the way they ended the episode, because it didn’t feel like an ending. Just because this was the last episode of this show, just because Madi and Silver settled down or Flint is “gone”, it doesn’t mean the story is over. And the intro to Mary Read, I kinda screamed, because at first it was clear you heard a woman’s voice, cut to her face, then I thought: Jim Hawkins? Because she so specifically asked about LJS. Then I immediately thought, naaah, waaay too soon into the story. So the only thing I was left with was that actually made sense was Mary Read, because not only did she sound like a woman, but her boyish looks gave her away as well (Hence I thought she was Jim for a sec.). And when she introduced herself as “Mark” Read I was like OMG I knew it! The show introduced her character anywaaay (because the creators said they wanted to earlier in the show or at least thought about it, but eventually thought better of it in the end). And the way Anne immediately disregards her, boooy if she only knew, the two of you are in for a treat lol.

#man i talk a lot lol #and into excruciating detail #see what my brain does to me?#madi x silver #madi scott #john silver #bsmadi #bssilver #black sails season 4 #black sails spoilers #meta analysis #my posts #slavery #colonialism

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aimmyarrowshigh · 7 years

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Anyway, here are Finn-, Poe-, and Rey’s Hero’s Journeys leading up to TLJ. It should be said that in their LARGER Hero’s Journeys, TFA only constitutes Act I for each of them, but it also has its own mini-sized Hero’s Journey for each of them as well because that’s how monomyth-based franchises work. (The HP series works the same way -- each book has its own Hero’s Journey for Harry, but they all work together to create a larger Journey within the Ring Composition [which SW doesn’t have because it’s trilogies, etc].)

Of note, a big part of why the Prequel Trilogy movies aren’t as good as the OT or TFA is that they don’t follow the Hero’s Journey model for any of the main trio (Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan, fwiw, not Anakin, Padme, and Palpatine or something), which goes against the story type that SW fans from the OT were expecting. Also their act structure is Not Great because of the massive time jumps and stuff -- AOTC kind of starts all over again as a new Act I and then there’s never a satisfying conclusion because ROTS basically ends with The Ordeal.

tl;dr here’s wonderwall

---

Copypasta from this post for @morethanonepage

Responding in bullet-points to save time and address everything worth addressing.

All I’m saying is his arc is important to the story, and is the only one that intersects with both Finn’s, Poe’s, and Rey’s.

That does not make him “part of the trio,” it STILL MAKES HIM ANCILLARY TO THEIR STORIES AS THE PROTAGONISTS. In fact, it strengthens the argument AGAINST his inclusion in ��the trio” that he does interact with all three – he does so as the antagonist, to all three of them, and 2/3 in exactly the same way (mind rape) and the third in a grievous and equivocal physical attack.

He is the antagonist BECAUSE he diametrically and directly opposes the three protagonists. Or, in SW parlance, the trio.

It’s an indisputable fact that Poe does not interact with Rey onscreen. It’s very odd for a protagonist to not interact with another protagonist.

They interact in the novelization, though, so if we’re gonna count things like “a version of the movie that never saw the light of day at all and was scrapped long before filming even started or casting was complete,” then I feel like… we can count the official novelization.

Poe also does not go through any character development in the film in the way that Finn and Rey (and arguably Kylo) do. He remains the same charming, good guy he was at the beginning of the film.

…And Finn remains the same emotionally aware, afraid-but-brave, stronger-than-his-peers, willing-to-do-what’s-right guy that he was at the beginning of the film. All of that, despite his character development, because that is the core of Who Finn Is.

…And Rey remains the same woman who is determined to find belonging and assert her own value despite its emotional and physical tolls, unwilling to show vulnerability to others but clearly feeling it and it showing anyway, strong-as-nails and CLEARLY Force Sensitive woman that she was at the beginning of the film. All of that, despite her character development, because that is the core of Who Rey Is.

…And Kylo Ren remains the same self-interested, emotionally volative, violent, bloodthirsty, amoral, sadistic fuck that he was at the beginning of the film. All of that, despite his (dubious? I… don’t see it, to say the least; he’s introduced by murdering an old man for no reason other than a mention of his family and he exits with the murder of an old man for no reason other than being his family… with a bunch of kidnapping and mind-rape in between…) character development, because that is the core of Who Kylo Ren Is.

Are those all oversimplifications?

Yeah. Absolutely. Because you vastly oversimplified Poe and his character arc, and I’m making a point. You can make it look like ANY character had no development if you only look at a superficial level.

But they aren’t like, incorrect. The view of Poe as nothing but a “charming, good guy” is, though, and if that’s all you see in Poe then you don’t get Poe at ALL and CERTAINLY not enough to write meta or make pronouncements about his value in the story OR franchise as a whole. Good lord. Poe is… INFINITELY more than that, both IN THE FILM ITSELF *and* in all of the supplementary material that WAS INTRODUCED ABOUT HIM FOR A REASON, TO MAKE UP FOR THE LACK OF SCREEN TIME AND TO ASSERT HIS IMPORTANCE TO THE SEQUEL TRILOGY.

You can’t just ignore 70% of the Poe material and then say that you don’t know anything about him like that’s not your own fault.

Poe is not a protagonist in The Force Awakens. We don’t follow his story the way we follow Rey’s and Finn’s and Kylo’s. He is, however, a member of the heroic trio (a la Luke, Leia, and Han in the OT, and Padme, Anakin, and Obi Wan in the PT).

We literally do, except for the part they cut in which he escapes Jakku. He still undergoes a Hero’s Journey, the same as Finn and Rey do, and MOST of it happens within TFA as a film – although NONE of the three of them entirely has their Hero’s Journey in the film; they all begin in Before The Awakening, which is, again, why that book was released and serves to have an impact on the story. You can’t ignore “hey, here’s where their stories all start!” and then be like, “but their stories didn’t start in a way that pleased me.”

Also, Poe is a protagonist in TFA because his actions and reactions create and propel the narrative. That is what a protagonist IS and DOES. If Poe did not go to Jakku to find Lor San Tekka and the map to Luke, the entire plotline literally doesn’t happen. The inciting incident of TFA belongs to Poe. If Poe did not show up to the battle of Takodana, Finn and Han would be dead, and Rey would not have been saved from the First Order in time – as such, 1/3 of the climax of the film belongs to Poe (and 1/3 to Finn, and 1/3 to Rey… because they’re a trio). And if Poe didn’t blow up Starkiller Base, not only Finn and Rey would be dead, but so would the entire Resistance and, with it, eventually the entirety of a noncompliant Galaxy.

So.

Like.

Poe just is literally a protagonist. He is 1/3 of the forward motion of the story and his actions create the plotline. Again: literally what a protagonist is.

and yes poe was originally meant to kill poe off. you don’t believe us? look up JJ abrams comments.

You know who else was originally supposed to be killed off? Han Solo in ANH. Does that mean that since that DIDN’T HAPPEN AND THAT VERSION WAS SCRAPPED VERY EARLY ON, that Han isn’t a main character?

Things that do not matter: stuff that literally was given up on because they realized that wasn’t the story they wanted to tell.

Things that do matter: all of the stuff that they’re choosing to include because it DOES matter.

Of course I’ve seen those comments; what am I, new? I just don’t think the rough draft as opposed to the final draft that actually exists means shit to what we read into and out of the story, for pete’s sake. ORIGINALLY, Luke and Leia weren’t siblings. ORIGINALLY, Han died. ORIGINALLY, it was a one-off movie and not a franchise at all. It don’t matter, babe. Fuck.

And just to put to bed the inane idea that “Poe doesn’t have an arc in TFA”:

Here is Finn’s Hero’s Journey: [BIGGER]

Here is Rey’s Hero’s Journey: [BIGGER]

Here is Poe’s Hero’s Journey: [BIGGER]

All three of them begin in Before the Awakening, because THAT IS LITERALLY WHEN THEIR STORIES BEGIN, UNTIL OR UNLESS EARLIER CANONICAL SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL IS RELEASED, IN WHICH CASE, THAT WOULD BE WHEN THEIR STORIES BEGIN (BUT, crucially, NOT necessarily when their Hero’s Journeys begin – they can exist as characters/people in the Galaxy without having a a Hero’s Journey; most of the SW characters do and that’s what makes them… dun-dun… not the Heroes).

Poe’s arc includes Before the Awakening, the ongoing Poe Dameron comic, and TFA, so far. BtA and the Poe comic exist for a reason, and that reason is to flesh out his hero’s journey so that he is better balanced with Finn and Rey in canonical material going into TLJ.

It’s… not that deep, guys. He’s a protagonist who didn’t have as much screentime, so they’re making up for it, because he is an intended and existing protagonist.

Finn. Rey. Poe. Are the trio, period, of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. They are the Han, Luke, and Leia of this generation. That’s why all of the marketing has been like, “every generation has a story: HERE’S SOME FINN, REY, AND POE, THE EMBLEMS OF THIS GENERATION’S STORY.”

#|franchise| star wars #**star

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starreviews · 4 years

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8:46

WARNING: This documentary is about 9/11, it shows some very emotional scenes and while it doesn’t feature the typical war mongering, it does really have one of the most depressing premises to any documentary I’ve seen (I don’t like watching ones about tragedys though, I’ve mostly just seen those 9/11 documentaries they show in schools)

Initial Impression: Oh… This is about 9/11… I don’t like that… There will probably be a rant at some point in this post.

9/11 Rant: So I really don’t like the culture around 9/11. I grew up in post-9/11 America, and the virulent racism and pro-war attitude that has arisen post has been an absolute nightmare that has drained every inch of empathy by this point. I mean every year we have to have what approximates a state-sponsored celebration in school. And none of this is to say that it wasn’t a tragedy because it was, but Hurricane Katrina was a much worse one and I don’t even know what fucking day that was on because it did nothing to further the political agendas of a bunch of rich assholes in suits. This is all to say if I seem callous in this review it’s because I’m fucking tired of the entirety of 9/11. It wasn’t even the first terrorist attack on American soil or the most deadly.

Rotten Apples: Fresh

Does the Dog Die: NO DATA

First 30 Minutes: I feel like I can’t criticise or make jokes about this. I will, but I’m uncomfortable. Anyways alot of good things are happening to these people, except this mailroom guy, whose boss is just an absolute dick. I feel for these service workers though. Of all the people whose lives were ended, I think they are ignored the most. I’m a Hardee’s worker right now, and if something happened I think about how the company would react. I know their deaths weren’t treated how they should have been. How the middle class people’s deaths were treated.

On a seperate point, why do none of these food service workers have their shirts tucked in? I feel like I need to lecture them on safety in the food industry. Oh hey there’s a girl from Alabama here. I feel bad for her fucking Northeners are mean as hell.

This dad to the gay dude is a fucking dickhole. Homophobic asshole I’ll kick his ass. “You need to leave at 7 if it’s at 9” God his whole vibe reminds me of my Nana, are all old straight people like this? Also the mom is not helping. This kid does not want to do this don’t make him go into finance stop giving him bad advice? These are not good parents lol.

Also the uh guy that got passed over for promotion has this wife who’s sick and I love her and I wish it didn’t remind me of my own health issues that have taken away from my life. I hope wherever she is today she’s okay. I know most of these people aren’t… I don’t want to finish that thought.

Is the guy with kids that’s a buisnessman the same guy who was on the phone earlier? Is he cheating on his wife? Do I have bad facial recognition? I think he is? He looks like my Bio professor. Also this poor lady trying to tell her boyfriend or whatever that she’s pregnant is not having a good time. Also I don’t think they’re the same person?

Side track before I start on the next section: There’s a part in here talking about the fucking thing where boys make fun of girls cause they like them and let me tell you. I am a boy and I have never been mean to someone because I liked them? You wanna know why? Because that’s not how you express emotions stop fucking telling your daughters and shit that that’s how life works or I’m gonna steal your kidneys I’m so sick of it.

Impressions After the Movie: I love how just about every straight white couple that comes on screen is an absolute train wreck lmao.

Anyways 37 minutes in is when it is actually 9/11/01. I will have to put so many tw on this post no ones gonna be able to read it. I also felt in this point of the movie the anticipation of having a dream that something bad is gonna happen and the day before is so good that I forgot about it and then I realise it is happening as it’s happening around me.

I know I talked about 9/11 culturally but the actual scenes are alot. I was in Preschool that day so I can’t say what I was doing, but whenever I hear about the people I think about how mundane everything was to that point. I think they used the real audio I don’t

So much of this tragedy has been used to to justify so much I forget that behind the propaganda, behind the war mongering was something that should’ve never I’m always reminded of how many times this has been rehashed in a million different places by us, by the US, and all these people are are used as a driving force.

I thought this would be a good post so soon after after the uh bombings in Iran by us. I thought anyone anyone that saw this that’s an American that is uh so deadened by the consistant wars of the past whole of our lives, that this action that has spurned so much vitrolent hate that caused so many deaths not just in the initial impact, but in the years afterwards where this was the propaganda used, that this happens everytime the US does one of these heartless acts. If there was a documentary every time that showed these people in those final hours, how much would you have in common with them? How many of them lived lives that mirror your own, there is so much death and every time I’m reminded of it, I think about how those people lived and the people whose fault it is. Who sit in Washington and drown in money while children are killed and are orphaned and where hundreds of thousands to millions of people are killed for fucking shit. For materials and how much do we need them. How much do we hate our fellow man that this keeps happening over and over again.

I’m constantly reminded of my sisters, who are being raised in a world that is not fit through no fault of theirs. Where they are turned against their siblings, who are forced to sink further into poverty, while our country bombs people who’s only fault is living, who go to school with a target on their back, while their older brother works himself to death and I’m told to hate my brothers and sisters in Iran for no reason other than a reelection campaign. Why can’t we let the victims rest

Enjoyment Rating Total: 0/10 I’m crying, and my faith is shot I truly hate America at this point. This entire movie has reminded me of every bit of justification of wars our schools shoved down our throats with ‘Remember 9/11’ as the inciting action. I really just want these people to be put to rest.

Queer Rep: 10/10

Rep of Women: 10/10

Racial Awareness: 10/10

General Assholery: 10/10

Fat People: 10/10

Neurodivergency: 10/10

Ableism (Not Including Neurodivergent Peoples): 10/10 The most heartbreaking scene for me is the image of a woman sitting in a wheelchair in front of the elevators, resigned because there’s nothing she can do.

Diversity: 10/10

Movie Quality: 10/10

Trigger Warnings: death, terrorism

Total Rating: 90/100

Final Thoughts: I’m still crying, even writing this made me cry. I think this documentary is better than any other 9/11 documentary I’ve seen because there was no calls to war from this. And maybe you can tell I went to a school in the south that was connected right to the military where we were raised to go and die for our country because of that statement, but Idc. If you have to see a documentary on a tragedy, this one is very well done, but otherwise I would not recommend watching it because it's so heart wrenching to see.

I’m gonna go watch the care bears or something now and play with my cat.

#tw death #8:46 #9/11 #tw terrorism #a #anti america #anti war

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birdboyofbabylon · 6 years

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TAGGED BY: @blue-pincushion TAGGING: @cloud-the-bluebird ((Gonna keep it short here since I don’t know most people enough to know if they’d be okay with me tagging them in this kinda stuff yet))

— BASICS.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE TALL / SHORT / AVERAGE ? Short. Even by Mobian/Babylonian terms he’s on the short side and relies on his hair/feathers to get the last few inches to be considered on par with the rest of the cast.

▸ ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT ? For the most part, yes. Jet enjoys taking advantage of his small size for both stealth and agility. He loves outmaneuvering and outwitting larger targets and sees it only as a bonus for riding where his smaller size simply means less weight and less wind resistance.

That being said. There are times he feels intimidated being the shortest member of his team.

▸ WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE ? A slicked back and spiked mohawk formed of thick clumps of green feathers

▸ DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR / GROOMING ? Absolutely. Jet adores the style, both aesthetically and functionally. He’d first tried the style out when he was still a kid and managed to discover upon a few heavy metal CDs in a fellow Rogue’s quarters. He’d been listening for a while, enamored with how fast and angry and exciting it sounded as he was looking through all the CD manuals and saw a drummer packing a more traditional spiked mohawk with the spikes sticking straight up. So of course he tried the style for himself. Of course, after one ride like this, his feathers were soon slicked back and when he saw it in the mirror, all he could think was “WOOOOW, COOL! THAT LOOKS RAD!” and needless to say, the style stuck. The way it’s spiked back, rebellious and out-of-control, he feels expresses him to a tee, and the fin-like nature of it is aerodynamic enough while providing a fair bit of stability at speeds.

▸ DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE / WHAT OTHERS THINK ? AB-SO-LUTE-LY. Sometimes Jet will spend hours in front of a mirror, fine tuning everything about his appearance before any even where he expects cameras to be involved. Most of the effort goes to his hair and the tuft of white feathers on his chest, but he’ll still spend a sizable amount of time making sure every last part of his appearance looks impeccable.

As for what others think? To a degree. Though the hawk lives for praise, he won’t pay too much mind to the jeers and boos of others. Jet can focus on the positive responses he gets far better than most, but if it’s nothing but hate and criticism, then it’ll start to take its toll on his mood...and fairly heavily, for that matter.

That being said, he’s far more sensitive when it comes to those he respects. He sets a high bar for that respect and feels it should be valued greatly, so if someone who falls into that category belittles him, then he’ll take it to heart and have it on mind for days, possibly even weeks at a time.

((PUTTING THE REST BEHIND A READ MORE))

\/ \/ \/ \/ \/

— PREFERENCES.

▸ INDOORS OR OUTDOORS ? Outdoors, for sure. Specifically open areas with lots of wind. Being a bird, he needs the feeling of wind flowing through his feathers. Even when he is indoors, he prefers to not be on solid land, opting for the shelter of his airship. If he spends too much time without a nice long ride on his Type-J or returning to his zeppelin, Jet will start to grow antsy, anxious, and jumpy. This usually takes about three or four days to come into effect.

Needless to say, that makes any extended prison stays or other incarceration VERY tough on the hawk. Cramped indoors, no wind and stuffy air, and without the gentle sway of his zeppelin or some other airborne vessel to keep him company? That can be a nasty time.

▸ RAIN OR SUNSHINE ? Sunshine. Not to say he doesn’t enjoy the rain from time to time, but only when he doesn’t actually have to be in it. Most of the time it’s a burden. It gets in his feathers and leaves him soaking. It disrupts his flight plans and sometimes he’ll have to ground the airship completely when the weather’s bad enough.

That being said, it does make a good veil to escape in, both on foot and for his zeppelin. And he’s found out that a real torrential thunderstorm can make for a very exciting backdrop to ride full speed through. ▸ FOREST OR BEACH ? The beach by far. Just give him a surfboard and he’ll spend all day on the waves. (No not that one get your mind out of the gutter maybe in five years when he’s older JEEZ) Not to mention the sun and coastal winds go hand-in-hand with the hawk.

Not to mention Jet can fit a Hawaiian shirt pretty nicely, as you can see from the Sonic Channel artwork.

▸ PRECIOUS METALS OR GEMS ? Precious metals, simply because they’re more practical. Jet often finds him and his Rogues scavenging around for good scrap to bring in and salvage for supplies. After all, keeping an big, metal airship running can be a tall order sometimes. ▸ FLOWERS OR PERFUMES ? Neither? If he had to pick one, however, I suppose he’d go with perfume. Mostly because they don’t require any care and won’t just wither up and die. ▸ PERSONALITY OR APPEARANCE ? For now, Jet’s pretty vain and goes mostly for appearance. He’d still need a personality that he could live with, but seeing as he’s of the age where he’d only just recently started to go “Oooooh, girls” he’s still indulging in the appearance more than anything.

He also finds himself accidentally starting to stare at Wave sometimes...just sometimes. ▸ BEING ALONE OR BEING IN A CROWD ? In a crowd, specifically with all eyes on him. Jet loves being the center of attention, both good and bad. He craves recognition and will hog the spotlight at any chance he can get. ▸ ORDER OR ANARCHY ? Anarchy, hands down. Chaos is Jet’s element. He thrives in the unpredictable. The more maddening he can make any situation, the more he gels with it and can turn the tables on anyone who opposes him. Even in heists, he often finds himself taking the fast and noisy approach, stirring up enough chaos in the process to leave everyone guessing what even happened as he rushes in, takes the goods, and bails. ▸ PAINFUL TRUTHS OR WHITE LIES ? Painful truths. Jet will tell you to your face exactly what he thinks without a moment’s hesitation. No matter how crude, how mean, and how hurtful it is, he’ll say it and he’ll say it with a smile on his face.

In fact, he’s more likely to lie to hurt someone than lie to make them feel better.

▸ SCIENCE OR MAGIC ? There’s a lean towards “science” here, but overall just magic enhanced by science. Jet uses both on a regular basis. By nature, as his title of “Legendary Wind Master” would imply, Jet is aerokinetic. However his powers are still young and budding, and to do anything noteworthy, he needs his Bashosen or Bashyo Fans to amplify the work for him.

Another good example is the Ark of the Cosmos. This is, in a whole, ancient advanced science, but there were some very, very occult arts required to create them.

But that’s something Jet and his team will discover sometime later. (°<°)

However he still has a heavy tech reliance. His Type-J is an example of that, as well as his goggles which contain a comms device, a HUD (wirelessly connected to his Type-J at all times), and the computing power of a decent smartphone. ▸ PEACE OR CONFLICT ? Conflict. Though neither Jet nor his team want to see the world fall apart, they all find a little shake-ups every now and then to really stimulate their profits.

Of course, they merely aim to profit off the strife that already exists, believing that “Well, it’s happening either way. Might as well make a little cash off of it” and would never even think of artificially inciting a war or something similar on their own just to profit off of it.

▸ NIGHT OR DAY ? Night, by far. Jet feels more at home with the sin and vice that a big city’s nightlife can bring and being a thief by nature, just feels more comfortable under the cover of nightfall. Overall, it’s just more chaotic, the people are more lively, more real.

▸ DUSK OR DAWN ? Dusk. This one’s pretty simple as Jet tends to stay up late and sleep in well past noon. He rarely even sees the dawn, but the dusk is like a sign that his day’s about to hit the exciting part.

▸ WARMTH OR COLD ? Warmth. Not that he minds the cold too much, especially when he’s got a snow-topped mountain to play around on, but too much and the sting of the cold gets to his muscles and holds him back.

▸ MANY ACQUAINTANCES OR A FEW CLOSE FRIENDS ? A few close friends. Jet rarely feels comfortable opening up to anyone, always expecting the worst of them, and that if he ever shared anything personal, they’d merely use it against him. However, those he does trust, he trusts with anything and values them greatly, easily willing to put his life on the line at their defense.

▸ READING OR PLAYING A GAME ? Playing a game, certainly. Preferably something with a lot of action, violence, and a need for quick reaction times.

— QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS ? He’s rude, he’s vulgar, he’s loud, he’s obnoxious, he doesn’t care about most people’s feelings or emotions.

He’s a bit on the specist side and thinks Babylonians and birds in general are simply better than humans or mobians.

▸ HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM ? HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM ? OH BOY HOWDY HE HAS. When Jet was younger, the Babylon Rogues had a member count somewhere in the 20s. They were more or less a large family of loud, disruptive, vulgar sky pirates, led by his father, Ace. They were a carefree bunch, roaming around and taking whatever they could get their hands on. Occasionally, sometimes, one of them just...wouldn’t come back. It was a rare occurrence and at the time, Jet didn’t really understand what had happened, just that he always missed them.

However, one day...none of them came back. It was just Jet, Wave, and Storm on their own. They’d soon found out that the rest of them, Jet’s father included, were set up and slaughtered, no explanation why, and no idea who’d done it.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS ? His first time ever riding an EX gear. He was barely old enough to talk and his father was holding the board steady while he rode along at a snail’s pace. It was all he could do not to crash even then, but that didn’t matter. It was exciting and new and cool! He just wanted to ride again and again and again after that.

▸ IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL ? Not at all. The very thought of it sickens the Rogues. As Jet often describes it, “There’s no point in taking a life. Treasure, gold, money, and everything else we take from people, it’s all worth something. But what’s there to get from snatching away a life? Just gets their friends to come after you with revenge on their mind. It’s not worth it”

Of course, as tough as he tries to act about it, Jet knows he couldn’t stand to put anyone through what he’s experienced.

▸ WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN ? One word. Explosive. With how much pressure he has to lead the Babylon Rogues, Jet always feels as if he has to be the strong one, the figurehead that the others can look up to, no matter what the cost to him. Of course, this leads to feelings, emotions, worries all being bottled up. He’ll often have his breakdowns behind closed doors, being reduced to a stuttering, stammering fool, incoherently blaming himself for everything that’s ever went wrong, breaking whatever he can get his hands on, clawing madly at himself.

But if he can’t get that out of his system, or something shakes him severely enough, that’s when he gets violent. If there’s anyone in the area he’d consider a target, the hawk goes out of his way to make an example of them. Concussions, broken bones, and other injuries are common when Jet enters this state of mind.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE ? Rarely, but yes. It’s borderline impossible to earn that kind of trust from him, but if someone has, they’ve likely earned it for life.

▸ WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE ? Very, very defensive. He’ll always be denying it, sheepishly shying away from the topic and trying to claim that he’s “too tough for that kinda thing” with his face flushing red the entire time. As of right now, he’s not too comfortable with the idea of it. All that kissing and gushy stuff just doesn’t have much interest to him yet.

...Yet.

#Jet Headcanons #((This is a LOOOOOONG one))#((But if anyone wants me to write one up for the other Rogues then let me know))

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