#basically op in a dark head space

[ruru-cas]

Sentience - ONESHOT

(CW for implied postpartum depression) I think

[theresattrpgforthat]

As someone who designs games, are there any specific games you've read that do interesting things with the Forged in the Dark or Powered By The Apocalypse systems that get you excited to write your own stuff?

(Asking those two since Protect the Child is FitD, also excited to hear if another system is excited rant worthy)

My friend, thank you so much for giving me space to ramble lovingly about games and mechanics. I don’t know if anything suggested here will be new exactly, but I am relishing the chance to talk about how the games I’ve read and played have impacted my design journey.

This is going to be a walk-through of various games that have given me a lot of tools to work with. Right now my head is full of Protect the Child, so I'm not really thinking about any other design projects, but I hope you enjoy this nonetheless!

Brinkwood, by Far Horizons Co-Op, Slugblaster, by Wilkie’s Candy Lab, and Moth-Light, by Dissonance.

I knew of a few Forged in the Dark hacks before I heard about Brinkwood, but when I realized that the Masks were basically communal playbooks, my mind was blown. Both Slugblaster and Moth-Light appealed to me because of their setting, but when I read the rule-books I was also impressed by how they were able to take the base Forged in the Dark and change it to make the rules work for the proper genre and tone.

Brinkwood takes the playbooks with special powers and makes them communal. You can pick up a new set of powers every time but still play the same character, so you can have variety while still pursuing the same character’s storyline. Because the Masks are shared, the “crew playbook” doesn’t look the same as it does in a lot of other Blades hacks, as no matter what Masks you take, you’re still engaging in a rebellion against vampires. Brinkwood also gives the GM a lot of guidance on how to flavour the antagonists in a way that is challenging, interesting and dangerous, while also giving the players a way to veto any subject matter that bleeds too much into real-life boundaries. Honestly, I think Brinkwood probably directly influenced my game A Terrible Fate more than Protect the Child, but the initial moment of realizing how much you can play with the game was a really important step in my development.

Slugblaster re-organizes your dice resources as Boost & Kick, and shifts Stress into a currency (Trouble) that you have to spend, rather than a time bomb. This gives your characters more longevity and takes away a lot of the gritty trauma that works for Blades, but doesn’t make sense for hover-boarding teens. Additionally, Slugblaster gives agency of faction creation over to the players in a way that’s way more personalized than it is in Blades. Specific questions are meant to be answered by specific playbooks, which I think is a great way to speed up crew relationships, as well as ensuring that each player at the table has a piece of the world that they contribute to. When setting decisions are left up to the group as a nebulous whole, one player may have more say over setting creation just because they have the loudest voice or the most ideas. By giving specific choices to specific playbooks, you’re ensuring that each player has a piece of the world they can point to and claim as theirs.

Moth-Light takes the CATS safety tool and embeds it into Pact creation, allowing the genre and tone to shift the way the game is played slightly to reflect the kind of story the group wants to tell. The core setting is the same - a planet with gigantic bugs - but the ways the characters interact with the setting changes depending on the Pact that you choose. I think this is a genius way to give a group a way to use Safety Tools without them necessarily realizing it, and it ensure that the group enters the story on the same page. This mindset fuelled my choice to present the world-building as a series of questions for the players to answer, establishing some truths about the technology levels and the use of magic before players make their characters, setting some basic limitations to make sure folks are on the same page. Currently however, I don’t think I’ve achieved the seamless translation of CATS into a game-appropriate setting exercise - I’ve just ported CATS into the game.

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer.

External Containment Bureau minimizes a lot of their character options and does away with playbook options in order to make character creation customizable while still quick, and one of the primary ways they did this was by changing the way gear rules work in the game. In standard Blades, you can only use equipment to improve your Effect, but in ECB, you can use your equipment to add +1d or improve Effect. This is primarily because ECB doesn’t use stats in the way Blades does, but I liked the way that little tweak gave the player an additional resource.

Additionally, ECB doesn’t care about load. Instead, the character comes with some gear associated with their department, and a few gear slots that they can fill themselves. You can always have everything in your Gear section on you - the limitation is in what’s available. I really liked how the game provided a balance between gear that made sense for your department and gear that reflects the way the player wants to portray their character, so I did the same thing in Protect the Child.

Antiquarian Adventures, by acegiak

I heard about the way Stress works in Antiquarian Adventures when I was listening to the Dice Exploder podcast, and it sparked a lot of thoughts about what Stress can be used for, especially since I knew that I didn’t want to give the characters Trauma in Protect the Child. Thematically, it doesn’t make sense to imply that parenting is inherently traumatic, and I don’t want to cast the Child as a source of trauma for the parents.

Antiquarian Adventures solves this problem by allowing Stress to re-set every time you fill it, as long as the player is able to dictate how the character suffers some kind of setback or brings about some form of trouble as a result of getting too stressed out. The exact trouble is attached to the playbook, adding to the distinct flavour of each trope. In Protect the Child, I made sure to add one Reaction that was unique to the playbook, to reflect the same kind of thing.

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games.

Last Fleet blew me away with the Pressure mechanic. It’s a physical manifestation of stress that exists in the setting, that doubles as both a player resource and a ticking clock. You can spend Pressure to give yourself a better chance at success, but once it hits its cap, your character is forced into a situation that that they cause themselves.

In many ways, Last Fleet is doing something similar to Antiquarian Adventures, but the one thing it adds is that it gives the player options in terms of how they’ll cause trouble. Some options overlap across playbooks, but each playbook has a unique collection that helps keep it somewhat distinct from the others. One of the best moments I had in play was when one of my players realized that he had the option to actually turn on the group - the reaction was like a little present he’d just unwrapped for the entire group, and it made for an extremely memorable moment for the table.

Last Fleet also inspired me to shorten the Stress Clock in Protect the Child. Base Blades has a 8-mark Stress track, but in early play-tests, I felt like it was difficult for anyone to fill up their clock in a single session. The Last Fleet Pressure track can only hold 5 marks of Pressure, and re-setting it doesn’t empty the track, but rather puts it at 2. I think that constant Stress provides a bit of a friction point for players, which is needed since it’s easier for players to achieve bigger dice pools in Protect the Child.

Beam Saber, by Austin Ramsey

When I was agonizing about how to encourage more roleplay between players, someone recommended that I read through Girl By Moonlight. Unfortunately, I don’t own a copy of Girl by Moonlight. I do, however, own a copy of Beam Saber, so when I decided to comb through other Blades games for relationship mechanics, I stumbled on the relationship clocks of Beam Saber.

In Beam Saber, you write down beliefs you have of each other character in the party, and attach each belief to a slice on a Connection clock. During downtime, you have the option to Cut Loose, which helps two Pilots relieve stress with each-other at the same time as filling the Connection clock. Filling the clock awards XP as well as provides the characters an opportunity to confront each-other about the way they see each-other.

I liked the idea of using time together as a chance to relieve stress. As far as I understand, this moment of connection is also seen in Girl by Moonlight, but I decided to limit the amount of stress you could relieve in Protect the Child because I’m still operating under the ethos I was introduced to in Last Fleet - I want to keep the characters under a lot of pressure, making room for them to make terrible decisions, and therefore giving them room to grow.

Lady Blackbird, by John Harper.

I returned to Lady Blackbird when I realized that the way I’ve set up runs in PtC means that it may be hard for players to do things like engage in long-term projects, or train for XP in a regular Downtime session. I also noticed that it was hard to get the players to roleplay with each-other with the way that Downtime is written in base Blades - it’s often navigated through in a very procedural way. Finally, I wanted to make the game a bit more one-shot friendly, with a way to present a Downtime-like section partway through the game without bogging down play too much.

Lady Blackbird has moments in between Action scenes where it explicitly encourages players to engage in flashbacks or character interactions in ways that allow them to clear conditions and provide a bit of exposition into their backstory. This, coupled with the Impressions in Beam Saber, gave me the tools to both encourage the players to role-play while also giving them the tools to foster relationships with each-other.

Right now, Rest Stops only have two moves: Bond with the Child and Bond with Each-Other. By reducing both of your options to moments where your character interacts with other characters, and encouraging both of these options to reflect your character’s ideals and history, I’m hoping to provide some of the maintenance of Downtime while encouraging the role-play that happens in Lady Blackbird. Longer downtime actions are relegated to Time Passes, which will only come up in campaign play.

I still haven’t perfected this stage though. For example, I haven’t figured out what to do about wounds.

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi / @temporalhiccup.

It’s kind of hard to quantify or describe the influence Apocalypse Keys had on my design, but I’ll give it a shot.

In Apocalypse Keys, your character never has to fail. There’s always options to give yourself a success, it’s just a question of how much you want to sacrifice parts of who your character is in order to get what you want. Apocalypse Keys is itself an amalgamation of a number of different mechanics from various places, such as the way you use tokens to improve your rolls, as originally found in Libretè, or the Theorize roll, popularized in Brindlewood Bay but originating in Codex: Moonlight.

The character playbooks are also centred on different struggles that the player has decided to wrestle with. The Summoned has a lot of moments centred on fighting destiny, while the Last wrestles with grief and loss. Some of the themes in these playbooks give you a lot of freedom to explore struggles and traumas that affect people in real life, but are flavoured in a way to give your monsters great power and extremely interesting backstories.

Finally, the way your character looks is completely up to you, and is irrelevant to the things your character can do. If you want a thousand glowing eyes, it doesn’t matter which playbook you choose. If you want to be the spirit of all werewolves that came before you, it doesn’t matter which playbook you choose. If you want to carry a golden spear that can listen to the regrets of the restless dead, I don’t think it matters what playbook you choose. I think that there’s a bit of a carryover from what I love about Changeling: the Lost to be found in Apocalypse Keys, in that your character’s origin and presentation can be as varied as whatever you can imagine, and can fit into the themes of whatever playbook you decide to wrestle with.

Protect the Child doesn’t directly borrow any mechanics from Apocalypse Keys, but I think the ethos behind the design is there. I want the players to experience the same creative freedom, while tying down specific themes to specific playbooks. I want to enable conversations about real issues that affect real people, while allowing the table to situate those issues in whatever setting makes the most sense for the group. I want the players to feel powerful, and at the same time recognize that the biggest obstacles to being good parent are generally incredibly personal.

I also admire the way that Nedjadi designs, from the rigorous play testing, to the purposeful openness about his inspirations, to his careful documentation of who has inspired him and where his ideas came from. I think being able to provide a clear through-line to the ways your were influenced by other design works is good for the historians of our hobby, and it also reinforces a culture in which game designers influence and allow themselves to be influenced by each-other.

[possibilistfanfiction]

happy new year! maybe a prompt for sleep/nap bc i need one lol

bea 🧑🏻‍��️🐝❤️‍🩹 (4:27 am): If you’re done with your post-op and would like to stop by, I’m in the on-call room. 

it’s so late it’s almost morning, and you really should be headed home because, technically, your shift is over and you’d been at the hospital for, like, too many hours to really want to keep track of at this point. but bea — beatrice choi, md, the resident in charge of you — is, like, so handsome, and kind, and an incredible teacher, with her perfect handwriting and her free gender-affirming clinic and all the languages she knows fluently. you think you’re a little in love with her, but who can blame you — you’re sleep-deprived and sometimes in awe of the skill and calm she has, even in just her third year. 

Dr. Ava Silva (4:31 am): sweet yah omw :)

when you open the door, a little harried, you immediately still and quiet as much as you can. bea has the room darkened, the only light coming in from a sliver under the window curtain, blue and red from the ambulances and easy white-gold from the street lights in the hospital parking lot. you’ve spent so much of your life — way too much of your life — in dark rooms in hospitals in uncomfortable beds that, for years, you could barely even feel, so you should want to run away. you should want to leave as soon as your shift is over and go home to your cramped apartment with its rickety table you found on the side of the road and its lumpy couch and the chipped mug in the kitchen — it’s not much; you can’t afford more, but it’s yours.

but you’re starting to think in some way maybe beatrice is yours too. all of the tension in your shoulders from the day — from countless central lines and three boring laparoscopic surgeries and one fatal stabbing in the er, from sutures and journals and so much to learn — melts away when you see her fast asleep. bea is on her back, scrub top off, one arm over her head, the blanket pooled around her waist, her phone face down on the flat plane of her chest — scars you haven’t seen before there that make you smile, just a little, beautiful — like she’d fallen asleep texting you. based on the fact that it’s only — you check your watch — 4:35 am, you’re pretty sure she did. 

camila keeps pestering you, and probably bea too, knowing her, to just talk to chief superion about your feelings so you can be on another resident’s service, so that there won’t be any issues and you can kiss bea if you want, but it’s, like, totally terrifying to imagine not only telling beatrice your feelings, let alone dr. superion, who puts up with your antics but just barely. 

you could leave. you could sneak out the door right now back to your apartment. it feels like a cliff to jump off, or a knife’s edge — but maybe it’s not that. maybe it’s something warm and easy and not really a choice at all, to love the steadiest person you’ve ever met. 

it’s easy to pull your running shoes off and discard your white coat and climb into the small space in the small bed next to her. she stirs a little, and so you say, ‘hey, i’m here.’ and she puts out her arm so you can lie down. it’s an invitation, albeit a sleepy one, so you make sure: ‘is this okay?’

she hums and nods. ‘hi ava.’

her voice is heavy with exhaustion; later you’ll come to find out that the hardest part of residency for beatrice — beyond literally everything else you personally find abhorrent and impossible — was just a lack of sleep. 

‘hey bea,’ you say, close enough to count her freckles and take in the warmth of her skin. she curls into you when you scoot closer to her, and it’s cramped and these beds are horrible for your back but it’s still basically heaven. you feel such deep fondness for her, small and in the dark like this, so different from her ramrod straight posture and clever hands in the light. 

she mumbles something incoherent and pulls you closer, and you fall asleep just like that. you’re awakened by the sound of her pager — a crime in your book, totally homophobic — just as the sun has risen. she’s disoriented, seemingly, as she wakes up painfully, and you kind of expect her to panic upon seeing you. but she smiles apologetically, a little nervous but apparently happy you’re there.

‘i don’t remember you coming in,’ bea says, searching for her scrub top until you hand it to her from where it was discarded over the side of the bed. she looks at you questioningly for one second, the tiniest bit of trepidation crossing her face, and so you just smile. 

‘you were very asleep, mere minutes after texting me. kinda rude to knock out after inviting me, don’t you think?’

her little blush is worth everything as she checks her pager and slips into her clogs. ‘you’re lucky i even managed to get that text off.’

’the er was that bad?’

she groans. ‘worse than.’ 

you’re ready to just lay around for a few minutes before you go home, but then she pulls on her quarter zip and you think about the scrub cap she’d had on earlier, blue with little otters all over it, unexpectedly adorable, and you decide to get up anyway. ‘have time for me to grab you a coffee as i head out?’

‘i’m sorry i kept you here. that can’t have been comfortable.’

you have to physically hold back the urge to tell her about how good she smells, even smooshed near her armpit. you’re, like, the best at all things self-control though, obviously, and so you don’t. instead you just shrug and stand, thankful for the last round of jillian’s shots that seem to be helping your back. ‘well, if you weren’t so ripped.’

she rolls her eyes, but her blush remains. camila is right, you think, because all you want to do is kiss her right now. but you don’t, you’re good for once, and you get ready too, as quickly as you can, and then hold the door open for her. she blinks a few times at the light, rubs her eyes behind her glasses, but then smiles at you — just for you.

‘maybe, soon,’ she says, taking a brave little breath after you’d waited in easy silence at the coffee counter, ‘you might want to join me on a hike? i go most days off if i can.’

and, like, that’s a terrible idea for you maybe, but whatever, some of your most ambitious terrible ideas have earned you an md and a phd and this very cool person in front of you, offering. ‘i’d really love that,’ you say. ‘text me.’

she nods, definitely pushing the time it would take to answer a page — lilith is going to be pissed, a delightful detail — and then reaches out to squeeze your hand, just once.

‘have a good day, dr. choi.’

she smiles. ‘see you soon, dr. silva.’

[g-girlshavingfun]

December Prompts

10) Lips against a hipbone - Abby x Townsend

The winter before the events of LYKY, Abby and Townsend are a couple months into an op in Buenos Aires when years of tension finally comes to a head. (CW: Slight mature content)(3,690)

———————————————————————

The air in the elevator was thick with tension, so much so that it fogged up the mirrors and got caught in Abby’s throat. Stubbornly, she had angled her body away from man she shared the space with, leaning her body against the handrail and gazing at the floor in feigned indifference. She didn’t need to look at him. The heat of his eyes was burning a hole in her back, the warmth of his body, too close in the cramped elevator, was spreading across her own, the brush of his breaths against her neck, deep and laboured, was causing her hairs to stand on end. She didn’t need to look at him to know what he was thinking. What he was feeling.

Besides, she was certain he wouldn’t struggle to make himself known soon.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Predictably, he spat the words at her the second he closed the door to the hotel room behind them. Voice low and quiet, mindful of the thin walls and the covers they needed to maintain, he levelled a glare at her, fire burning in his face, his fists clenched, his posture stooping. Abby rolled her eyes. For a supposedly internationally accredited spy he really was too easy to read.

“Gee Townsend I don’t know. Maybe I was thinking that Alvarez is close to our subject, who we haven’t been getting anywhere with by the way-”

“We had a plan!”

“-the plan wasn’t working! You’ve been trying to work through the ranks for months and we’re not any closer-

“Why are you so impatient-”

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“-that you can’t wait for a reliable and well thought out plan to come to fruition?” Abby scoffed at him, tearing through the hotel room to the minibar, needing another drink if she’s going to have to deal with his pride and ego and self-riotousness. “No, no you can’t do that. Abigail Cameron has to be the hero who swoops in-”

“When have I ever-”

“-and makes the whole thing about her!”

“Your plan wasn’t working! We made more progress today than-”

“Of course you’d say that, because you can do no wrong-”

“-thanks to me, we have the name of Alvarez’s handler and a location for their next handover.” She thrust the details of the President’s upcoming dinner printed on gold embossed card into his chest. “I even have a fucking invitation Townsend! All you’ve managed-“

“You don’t think you’re actually going do you?”

Astonished with the audacity of this man, a maniacal laugh of disbelief bubbled out of her mouth. She stared at him, his eyes narrowed and breaths haggard. The pulses in his neck were bounding, leaping out at her, throat quivering and muscles tensing with frustration, nostrils flaring out and sweat beading down his forehead. Cold fury had washed over her at his words, his incredulous tone as if she couldn’t handle a basic undercover assignment grating at her temper. Her jaw was tense, fist clenched to retrain herself from striking him, eyes wide in shock, shaking with rage.

“How dare you.”

“Of course you don’t realise how stupid-”

“How dare you suggest that I’m any less capable-

“-I have never said that Abigail! It’s too dangerous-”

“-for me? But not for you right? Nothing’s too dangerous for MI6’s so-called finest-”

“-you’d have no cover, no extra eyes. I can’t get in-”

“-funnily enough Townsend, I don’t actually need you-”

“He’s unpredictable Abigail, he’s violent, he’s-”

“Really? The strangulation gave real puppy dog energy to me.” Gesturing to the slowly forming bruises around her jaw, the dark splotches in the shape of Alvarez’s mouth patterning her neck, she scoffed at him. She knew exactly the kind of man Alvarez was. He was the kind of man she was trained to read, to manipulate, to handle. Townsend’s refusal to let her, driven by doubts in her abilities or an unnecessary and irritating desire to protect her, was infuriating.

“Don’t.” The fire in his tone brought her to pause, to take a shaky breath. Features darkening, he shook his head as he turned from her, body trembling slightly as he took a deep breath himself. “Don’t joke Abigail, this isn’t funny.” His eyes locked on hers across the room again, the intensity boiling beneath the deep blue of them stealing the air from her chest, rendering her temporarily and uniquely silent. “If he snaps, if he loses his temper for a second, he will hurt you. Your cover dictates you can’t stop him and I can’t be there.” For a moment he looked scared, looked desperate, eyes wide and pleading, then he looked away agin, scoffing. His tone turned from imploring and soft to firm and dismissive. “Just look at tonight-”

“Jesus Christ.”

“-he was perfectly calm and charming and then he flipped a switch with no warning! Suddenly he’s screaming with his hands all over you-”

“Jealous Townsend?”

She doesn’t know what compelled her to say it, what entity took over her body to breathe life into the words that had been toying with her mind ever since Alvarez had seized her by the arm and escorted her to one of the backrooms of the club. Since they had made a fleeting split second of eye contact across the dark room, the look on his face somewhat familiar though out of place on the normally stoic man’s features.

The growl that crawled out his throat as he stalked towards her sent heat flaming through her body. Frame towering over her despite her heels, he grasped hold of her biceps and yanked her towards him, grip firm yet impossibly gentle. His choppy breaths mingled with hers, eyes flitting between her own and her mouth and her neck. He swallowed. For a moment, he lay his forehead against hers, thumbs soothing across her arms, eyelids flickering closed.

She took a deep breath.

They were both trembling.

Voice still firm, but tone softer, quieter, speaking to her as though she was fragile, as though if he dared raise his voice she might shatter. “If something goes wrong-”

“Nothing will go wrong.” She tried to respond in kind.

He just shook his head, removing it from its perch against hers, voice becoming insistent again, progressively growing in volume as they continued to fail to see eye to eye. “-if something happened to you-”

“I’m a big girl Townsend, I can take care of myself-”

“-I never said you couldn’t but Abigail-”

“-you implied it! All night you’ve acted like you’re the better agent-”

“-no I havn- Arggh will you just shut up and listen to me for once-”

“-fucking make me you assho-”

Her words were swallowed by his mouth slamming onto hers.

Instantly, her brain short-circuited. His lips were firm against hers, moving with a ferocity she wouldn’t have pegged him to have, parting her lips with his own and slipping his tongue into her mouth. She responded in kind, frantically grasping onto his neck with both hands and pulling him down as she stretched up on her toes, trying to re-angle their heads so he didn’t have quite so much leverage over her. One arm wrapped around her waist, hoisting her upwards and pulling her body flush with his, the other reaching out to cradle her jaw, to delicately trace the curves of her face, to run his fingers through the waves of her hair. The heat of his body sent paradoxical goosebumps rippling down her flesh, leaving shivers in their wake. Electricity burst from his mouth, tingling through her bones and setting her alight.

It wasn’t the first time they had kissed, it wasn’t even close.

Half a decade ago in Bucharest, when Abby had been operating under the legend of Nicoletta Marinescu to uncover the leaders of a local arms smuggling ring, MI6 had unknowingly sent one of their own agents to bust the same men. Neither agent aware of the other, Nicoletta and Gianni had danced dangerously with one another, lips entangling in darkened showrooms, each trying to tease out information from the other. Of course, Abby had eventually uncovered a very slight English twang in the way he swore into her mouth, had clocked onto his subtle way of dodging her enquiries with his fingers in her hair, had recognised the formal and alert stance his body naturally fell into as one she associated with Joe. Leading him into an empty alley, she had slammed him into the stone walls and cursed MI6 with a fire in her gut, furious at the set back in her mission and the delay in her making his cover. Reluctantly, they had finished the assignment together before going their separate ways, distaste for one another present in their every subsequent interaction.

It was a couple of years later when Langley and MI6 sent them on a joint task-force assignment to Dubai over Christmas, Abe Baxter tagging along in tow. The pair had been hiding in a closet at the Prime Minister’s banquet, attempting to listen in to the bug Abe had placed in the board room two floors above, when members of the presidential guard had burst through the door. Seconds before the closet opened, while Townsend had floundered for an escape route, Abby had slammed her lips against his and pulled them against the wall in an attempt to look like their married legends rather than international agents. Though successful, this had led to its own complications as public affection was a still just a step away from being criminalised in UAE. So although in her head Abby would argue that a closet the size of a small fridge was hardly public, Townsend had to employ some charm to stop them getting deported.

Then it was only a few years ago, though Abby felt like she had aged a lifetime since then, that she had slowly and deliberately pressed her lips to his as they lingered outside her hotel in London. She had been consulting with MI6 on an ongoing operation in Russia, her temporary office set up opposite Townsend’s, leading to countless spats over coffee and debates over tea. Somewhere along the way, she had come to enjoy his company. Had gradually come to notice the way his eyes lit up when he made her laugh, the way the corner of his lip quirked when she huffed in exasperation at him, the way his gaze always found hers in a crowded room. The kiss had been short lived, his hands only briefly settling on her waist before the ring of her phone interrupted them. It had been Matt calling from Rome, asking her to join him. Townsend had rested his head on hers, asked her in a whisper not to go. The two had fought for hours before she ran off, flew first back to the states to gather the equipment Matt had said she’d need, the intel from Langley that he asked for, tried to fly straight back to Europe but was delayed by a storm.

By the time she finally reached Rome, Matthew Morgan was gone.

In her worst moments, the moments when she hated him, and herself, and the world, she wondered if those couple of hours could have made a difference. Wondered if the fight Townsend had instigated because he didn’t want to let her go, wanted her to choose him over her family, the fight Abby trapped them in because she didn’t want him to grow tired of her so soon, wanted him to understand that it wouldn’t ever be a choice, had delayed her so much that her brother died alone. Wondered if she wasn’t trying so hard to find and fight for her own happy ending she wouldn’t have ruined her sister’s.

This kiss didn’t feel like any of those. They weren’t playing parts, weren’t fighting to uphold a cover, weren’t, as far as she was aware, seconds away from losing everything. The only battle she was aware of was that of their tongues against one another, of their bodies clashing together as they fought for purchase on each other’s skin, of her head and her heart and her soul when for a brief moment she wondered if they should be doing this. If they deserved it. If she deserved him.

As if hearing her thoughts begin to wonder, Townsend slid the arm holding her waist down over the curves of her dress, the curves of her, until it hovered at the back of her thigh and pulled. Keeping a tight grip on his neck, his shoulders, she hoisted her legs around his hips, finally managing to angle her head so she came at his lips from above, pushing and pushing until he whimpered into her mouth. She began running one hand through his hair, nails scratching at his scalp and tugging at his curls, the other tickling his spine, dancing across his shoulders, gliding down his chest until she started tearing through the buttons holding his shirt together. Holding her securely with one arm, his other drifted around her back in search of the zipper of her dress, peeling it down just as she ripped his now unbuttoned shirt from his pants. He stumbled towards the bed, hand returning to gently cradle her jaw as hers tore the shirt off his torso, ran her nails across the smooth of his chest, the hardness of his abs, leaving her mark on him in the form of the scratches she left behind.

Abby felt him stumble, felt herself fall back onto the mattress, grunting into his mouth as he landed on top of her, her limbs still wrapped around him. Briefly, their lips separated, each of them gasping for breath. She took a moment to stare at him, his chiseled jaw and distressed hair, his panting chest and swollen lips, his flushed cheeks and the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed.

He looked gorgeous.

She went to kiss him again, desperate to feel the heat of him, his need. He dodged her mouth, instead attaching his lips to the empty spaces on her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. Kissing the skin and sucking it in his mouth, pressing his teeth into her then soothing it with his tongue, he passed over the marks left earlier in the night and carved his own. It was when he found a particularly sensitive spot, the jut where her clavicle met her neck, and bit, that she let out a desperate keening moan, neck and back arching into him, heels pressing his hips closer, closer to her.

The bastard smirked into her skin.

His hands stripped the dress from her shoulders, head and mouth moving lower across her torso, connecting with her chest in a way that had her trembling in his arms, tugging at his hair, whimpering into the dampness of the air. Pulling him back towards her, she sat up, pressing on his shoulders and attaching his lips back to hers.

She was on fire. She was freezing. She could barely breathe past her want of him. Hammering away in her chest, her heart was aching for his, for them to stay wrapped up in each other forever.

Scared suddenly by the intensity of her feelings, of the urgency in her bones, of the sudden thought that he could crush her with his body then and there and she wouldn’t care, she swung her leg around him, shifting their weight so she pressed him down into the bed.

Lips breaking apart, his hands exploring her back, her sides, her chest, her legs, she dropped her mouth to the underside of his jaw, his earlobe, his neck. She could hear him panting beneath her, groans stretching from his throat into her ears. He tasted of salt and smoke and pine, felt like fire and solid ground beneath her feet. Fingers brushed the inside of her thighs and she moaned into his neck, teeth clamping down on his skin until he shivered and cried out her name. Her own hands traveled down his chest, playing with the buckle on his belt and drifting under the waistband of his pants as her mouth found its place on his once again.

“Wait, wait,” His words broke through the haze of need taking over body, halting her ministrations and pushing her away from him momentarily. “What are we doing?”

It was all she could do not to giggle mercilessly. “Well Edward, when a man and a woman-”

“No,” Laughing at her, eyes alight with warmth and mirth and something she didn’t recognise, he ran a hand along her face. Ignoring her hair as it dangled into his eyes, he pushed himself up on his elbows, pressed a gentle kiss on her brow that stole the air from her lungs. “I mean what is this? To you?”

“Seriously?” She cocked an eyebrow at him. Guys never asked her that, she didn’t know guys asked anyone that.

“Yes, seriously Abigail,” He sat them up, face suddenly serious. Pressing his forehead against hers, somehow ignoring the way the sweat dripped down their bodies, the heat of one another overlapping, the way every inch of their touching skin was electrically charged with sparks. His jaw tensed. He swallowed, steeling himself. “I like you.”

Oh.

“That’s why I don’t like where this mission is going, because I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.” She had to look away from the intensity of his eyes, the look in them unknown to her. Insecurity crept into his voice, darkened eyes flitting from her face to a distant spot over her shoulder. “I don’t think we should do this if you don’t- if you don’t really want to try.” Pressing his nose to hers, foreheads resting against each other, his voice dropped to something desperate, nearly inaudible. “I don’t know what I am to you Abby.”

Truthfully, she didn’t know either.

She knew that he set her teeth on edge. That his arrogance and his ego and his incessant need to control everything, to be right, angered her to no end. That he was stubborn, and unflinching, and oh so serious.

She knew that he made her heart race. That she could trust him with anything, could be at her most vulnerable with him and never feel uncomfortable or unsafe, could show him the worst pieces of herself and still expect him to come back. That he was kind, and observant, and resilient.

In the years before London she often found her thoughts drifting to him at the most random times. She would be piecing together some dinner and remember his outrage watching her snap the spaghetti before boiling it. Would be getting coffee on her way into work and remember the way he memorised her orders, the different drinks she craved throughout the day and how it varied depending on her mood. Would be flirting with someone in a bar and remember the curve of his smile, the glint of his eyes, the smell of his skin.

After London it was different. She couldn’t think of him after Matt disappeared, couldn’t, wouldn’t, let herself miss him. Her entire body was taken over by grief for her brother-in-law, by the pain of losing him, by the guilt of being responsible for her family’s loss. It wouldn’t be fair of her to miss Townsend as well. It wouldn’t be fair to Rachel, who was grieving the worst loss of her life, to Matt, who she had known and loved for more than half her life and deserved all of her undivided pain, to herself, who couldn’t handle more than one loss at once.

She wondered, if she allowed herself to miss him, would she? Would it hurt to lose him? Is he already that important to her?

Abby was terrified the answer was yes.

Was terrified she was going to lose him anyway.

Removing herself from the safety of his arms, she stood beside the bed on trembling legs, dress pooling at her feet, tried to take a deep breath. In her heels, she towered over where he sat on the edge of the bed, his forehead coming to rest on her stomach, arms wrapping tight around her. Nose cold against her, he pressed a long, slow kiss to the bare skin before him.

Abby wasn’t sure how he expected her to think when he was doing shit like that.

“I think you’re impossible you know,” He whispered into her stomach. Abby huffed, moving to pull away from him with a retort on her lips, but his arms were tight and his words were quick. “Impossible and impulsive and infuriating. I think you’re beautiful.” Another kiss pressed to her skin, this time lower, creeping away from her naval. They both sighed. “I think you’re caring and selfless and unflinchingly good.” She ran one hand through his hair, the other along his back, shaking as his own hands travelled up and down her legs. “You’re distracting and uncooperative. Difficult to work with and unfairly good at what you do.” His lips brushed against her hipbone, quivering ever so slightly. “You think you don’t deserve this, don't deserve to be happy, but you’ve never been more wrong about anything.” Teeth clamped around her skin as he sucked, and her legs crumbled, the weight of her collapsing into him.

He was wrong. He was wrong. He was wrong.

But suddenly Abby didn’t care.

Held up almost entirely by his arms around her, his lips still pressed against the hip carrying a slight scar from Dubai, she sighed into the top of his head, pressed a light kiss to his messed up curls. Sniffing, she pulled back, reaching out to cradle his face in her hands, pulling him up with her. She soothed the creases from his forehead, wiped the frown from his mouth, brushed through the disarray that was his hair. Looking up at him from where they now stood facing each other, she tried to brace herself as she leant in to kiss him again, nodding slightly in ascension, voice but a whisper.

“We can try.”

———————————————————————

Authors note:

So I might of made the whole Rome situation even more sad. Sorry for that.

Is it obvious that these two are my favourite pairing lol? They get a couple months of being together maximum before everything goes wrong again by the way.

[baenyth]

Bethany's Bizarre Miraculous Rewrite: What's in the Box?

So this is the contents of Master Fu's Box in this rewrite. Since there are only two Miraculous here, the guardians take in, protect, and utilize all sorts of magical items instead. A lot of these items are larger than mere accessories, but the box stays the same size. It's just non-euclidean. Bigger on the inside, you know.

Also real quick a definition of magic: Magic is a form of energy that is attracted to people's ambition and willpower. It can be pretty hard to attract magic at first, but thankfully there's magical items like the ones in the miracle boxes for that. So without further ado, here's what's inside Master Fu's Miracle Box, the Heavenly Miracle box with some extra items given to him by the Order of The Guardians as they collapsed:

The Ladybug Miraculous (Contains Tikki, one of the seven essences of reality that takes the form of an incorporeal fairylike entity known as a kwami. Tikki is the essence of creation and is associated with good fortune and light.)

The Black Cat Miraculous (Contains Plagg, one of the seven essences of reality that is also a kwami. Plagg is the essence of destruction and is associated with bad fortune and darkness.)

The Five Elemental Idols (Basically the Legendary Spirits from Digimon Frontier: Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Wood)

The Saint's Corpse (Peacock Miraculous Equivalent; Lost and Scattered; Coeur has the heart while a retired supervillain has the ribs, wings, and pelvis.)

Wayzazz (An immortal tortoise with a snake's head, tail, and 'neck.' Has human-level intelligence but no powers, and really just keeps Master Fu company. He and the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous are the only items that can be accessed at the start of the season due the tumor Coeur created on the Miracle Box.)

A Time Bomb (Blows up time. Smash it to blow it up and be sent back in time alongside anyone close to you. Click one way to set a reset point. Click the other way for the Time Bomb to set the reset point. Don't worry, it has failsafes to prevent infinite loops.)

The Puzzle Box, a box of layers and layers of puzzles, containing Chronos, the essence of space (one of the seven essences of reality!)

Energos, another one of the seven essences of reality.

The Pseudo-Mouse Miraculous (convergent evolution; made by a Victorian English woman with passion, a desire to become a mouse, and a love for skip rope. Lacks a kwami and was picked up by Fu instead of the guardians themselves.)

The Frozen Heart (Crystalline ice heart that never melts attached to a chain necklace made of similar ice. Wielder can create and control ice. Works best with ice queens with hidden fury. Useless with overemotional people.)

The Power Gauntlet (Golden adamant gauntlet with magical gemstones, that grants super strength on the arm it's on.)

The Holy Grail (Golden and platinum adamant with magical gemstones. Doesn't grant immortality but any liquid inside it becomes purified and delicious.)

The Dominion Crown (Also golden adamant with magical gemstones. Wear the crown on your head and create a large bubble. That bubble is your domain, and you have full control over what goes on inside it. Basically the Op-Op Fruit combined with the Turtle Miraculous.)

A Philosopher's Stone (One of the larger ones, if not the largest one. Has a golden adamant container decorated with magic gemstones. A stone that resembles white jade and displays both solid and liquid properties. Put in the right ingredients to convert any material into another material. Smells like salt and rotten eggs. Handle with care.)

Excalibur! (Not to be confused with the prop sword in the stone. Silvered adamant blade with a golden adamant and magic gemstone hilt.)

The Miraculous Grimoire, a dense book detailing all the magical objects, species, and spells in this world. Lost by Master Fu. Found by three archaeologists.

Feel free to ask any more questions about these magical items, btw. I love infodumping and adding detail to my work.

[zydrateacademy]

Review - Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector

What an amazing experience this game is.

I've had it wishlisted probably since it showed up but there it fell under my radar since its release. It may or may not have caught some sales in that time but again it went unnoticed and what an absolute crime that is. Released in 2021, it recently just came out with the T'au army which put the rest of the game and its various army packs on sale to an agreeable level, and putting it back on my radar.

Many Warhammer games usually nail the aesthetic, themes, diction, and storylines but very few capture the actual feel of playing on tabletop. There was Dawn of War which depicted swaths of armies cutting across the landscape but it was all in real time, the only methodology there was making sure your travelling teams had all the right counters to vehicles and infantry and after that you basically just let it go.

What we have here is a unique XCOM-like that may very well be the closest many of us will get to playing the actual tabletop game. We have a campaign (just one; following a Blood Raven chapter of the space marines) and two extra modes. Demonic Invasion is a wave based king of the hill type thing where you hold off for as long as you can as every round will continually spit the chaos god's minions at you. There's Planetary Supremacy, which is a sort of Catan/Risk style hex board that players of Dark Crusade or Soulstorm may be familiar with. It's the mode most of my hours have been played on. My only wish is that it could go for just a bit longer, maybe a bigger map, more enemies fighting each other, better node control.

In extension, there's also custom campaigns players can build as well as skirmishes for you to play against AI or other players. As of this writing there is no Co-op and that's quite a shame.

So there's a lot to do here. Some of the more mixed reviews, especially targetting the new armies, are complaining that there's not a super special story campaign for each and every single one of them. That is frankly not so much a problem for me, as I immediately gravitated towards the hex board game mode and just enjoyed having my hands on the Necron for the first time in many years. Now in HD with reflections! My dead bois are beautiful!

There's plenty to learn as well. Even on the easiest difficulties, the AI can route you. My Necron have units called Warriors, basically the equivalent to shotgunners. They also have the slowest movement of my army so it's difficult to get them into position and keep my general army momentum going. Sometimes they fall behind and I lack the much needed damage against enemy swarm units, and I've lost some good troops because I didn't have enough people shooting back. It's how I nearly lost against the Tyranids one game despite outnumbering them by 500 army points. Tactics very much matter here.

There's also a photo mode which is a bit fickle. The camera is locked at certain height over the floor tile so it's difficult to get sweeping, heroic visions of your armies from foot-level. You're more or less stuck staring at them from head-on. It's fun to play around with, though.

So while there is a campaign (just the one), this game could be treated more like a sandbox than anything else. I'm told from the game's discord they plan on releasing free units over the coming months. This is good, because that's one of my chief complaints about the game. There's a significant lack of versatile units to play with. Each faction gets around a dozen to fifteen to allocate with your army point cap (another staple of Tabletop that most games don't quite capture), with Khorne getting the shortest end of the stick (and the cheapest DLC) whom only have eight units to choose from. There's a significant lack of Kroot and vehicles here, and foot troops seem to be a choice between three different things. There's a lot more than that on tabletop.

Not that I expect this to be the tabletop simulator but it cuts real damn close. Closer than most games in this franchise. A must have if you like turn-based XCOM-likes.

[forestshadow-wolf]

Mutant au cont.

Gore, violence (but none onscreen)

Bad OP it's soap, ghost, price, gaz, and the 3 remaining members of a long dead squad, Adam, JJ, and Kensey, he thinks their squadmates called them. Not that it really matters at the moment because they're about 30 seconds from being turned into swiss- fucking- cheese. Basically everything bad that could have happened, has happened. The remaining squad members are either non-mutants, or their power cannot help them in this situation. The only reason they're still alive was that the only mutant on the enemies' side had been taken out, barely- that's not to mention that intel had said there wouldn't be any mutants, but this is now, not then.

They're surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned, and they have nowhere to go. Their only saving grace is a tiny concrete box they're haphazardly sheltering in, and whatever cover gaz can muster up with his quickly dwindling strength, and already large chunks of concrete are being blown off.

Ghost locks eyes with soap. Just for a moment, but it's enough. Soap tries to shake his head in weak protest, he wants to argue, in ghost's tired state it'll over work his body. If it's too bad it can have major side effects. But ghost knows that doesn't he. And he also knows that they're desperate, and running out of time and options. And how could soap possibly protest when ghost presents what might very well be their only shot at surviving this mess? He can't.

So soap's blackness floods from him, crawls along the ground as he sets his watch and gathers the others into his arms. It builds on itself as soap lays himself over the others, tells them to close their eyes tight, don't open them until he says they can. And they listen. All of them listen because he knows ghost the best, knows his powers the best, knows ghost's power the best.

Gaz's makeshift shield buckles under the lead beating of enemy gunfire. A stray bullet makes it though just before inky blackness can envelop them, but by some luck it doesn't hit. Well not flesh anyway, it rips a hole through concave black and soap felt it ripple through him, not as pain but as waves of pressure, but he holds strong. And then it seals shut, pure dark, couldn't see the hand an inch from your face. The last thing soap sees is the hard shell of Ghost's mask, and he hates it. Hates it because it feels like abandoning him, feel like a betrayl- and hasn't that happened one too many times already? He starts his watch as soon as all the light ceases to exist in the space.

Soap won't feel it when ghost kills them, eviscerates them, blinds them so bad that it might just kill them from that alone. Light has no weight, no mass, and doesn't need a medium to travel. So he'll wait 180 seconds- 3 minutes- before he checks to see if ghost has done it. Their bodies won't have time to go into shock before their brain begins to bleed from the overload, and it'll ooze from every hole and oriface in the head. Unfairly quick and merciful if soap gets to have a say- which he doesn't- they won't have time to be in any pain, they'll exist and then they won't. And it'll blind the ones it doesn't kill, they'll bleed from the ears and nose, and spit up blood that trickles down their throat, the brain damage might make then useless and insane. A fitting end for those ones, soap thinks, maybe it's a cruel thought but it's one he has nonetheless. And either ghost will finish them off, or ghost will pass out and soap will take care of them on the fourth minute.

3 minutes plus change where he has no idea what's happening. Over three minutes that he might have just left ghost to die without backup. And he won't even know because it's light and light doesn't have weight.

Except...

Something's different this time.

"Is it warm to anyone else?" He thinks maybe that was JJ, but he can't be sure. Whoever it was is right though. He can feel it. Warm heat that tries to turn his shadows viscous. And it get hotter and hotter until it's blistering, and he could swear he felt his darkness bubble. He can't let up yet, there's still time on his watch, he has to keep them safe. The heat turns searing, and tears threaten to fall from his eyes. And then it gone. Like it was never there, but it was, he can feel it lingering in his darkness.

The tone on his watch startles him, and he lets the inky black slump off them. He couldn't tell you where it goes when he doesn't want it around, but now he can tell you what happens when it burns.

When he says it slumped off them... it did... but it left behind a rough uneven layer of material. In some spots it looked like it crystallized, others like charred tree sap, and just beneath that was a layer that sloughed off like a layer of fat. It steamed with a lingering heat that soap could still feel, and an eye-bulging pressure he knew would be pain if his darkness could feel pain.

Outside soap's circle of black, lay what soap would cout to be atleast 13 dead enemies. All with charred faces, burned blood and brain-matter crusting every hole in their faces, swirling patterns of melted skin. It'd have been a horrible death of they'd had to feel it, but they wouldn't have. The ones who were unlucky enough to be hiding behind cover or whatever else they could find, were either writhing around on the ground, fresh blood coating blackened, clutching their eyes, or were stumbling about, bleeding boiling blood, unable to see.

Ghost lay just at the edge of the circle. He was unconscious, steaming, and covered in the blood of an enemy who was stood too close and the blood in their brain had, evidently, boiled so quickly it tore their skull apart in a bloody gore-y mess.

[flatstarcarcosa]

[gun slide noise]

ME!AU RAPID FIRE:

*abarahm resident over powered biotic. vanguard. heavy reliance on barrier+charge plus has done some incredibly illegal mods to his service shotgun. concussion rounds+experimental incendiary that blows you open and burns you out from the inside. you're better off getting slammed. the van brunts are also like, the closest thing to royalty the alliance has which means he's even more arrogant and egoistical than regular canon because he has never, at any point, had to deal with the fallout of anything he's ever done.

*i cannot stress to you enough this man's response to ichabod saying "abraham we can't do that, it's a war crime" is "only if there's batarians left alive to tell anyone". he doesn't even have a good reason to dislike batarians outside of alliance propaganda and like. blatant racism, if i'm honest. man is not remotely empathetic enough to actually CARE what any of them have done he just Craves Violence.

*and speaking of, ichabod. infiltrator, squishy as fuck counterpart for abe's tank but it's fine because he's in, done with the mission, and out before anyone knows. (if he's....yknow. not with abraham. that is.) he's also, for some reason, basically the only person that can stand to be around abraham for any length of time, likely because they ended up in basic together and just kinda clicked despite differing personalities.

cutting bc there's a lot, rapid fire or not-

*one of the things i put a lot of effort into back when this was a thing i did on the RP blog was making abraham and shepard's stories mirror each other, if not entirely, in a lot of ways. abraham was the original poster boy, and he was actually the first line draft pick for human spectre.

*it doesn't come to pass when a mission goes tits up, and he nearly dies. family name and money catches the attention of cerberus, who slide in with promises they can fix him, like, totally, we prommy. he does get fixed, he gets top of the line cybernetic implants and in the end it's nothing some PT can't fix.

*except oops! mommy and daddy van brunt stupidly trusted the known terrorist organization because they were more interested in making sure The Family Legacy went the way it was supposed to! and now their already OP son is infested with fucking reaper tech no one knows about!

*the injuries abe sustains when he almost dies includes a TBI. the TBI has the fun little side effect of actually interfering with the indoctrination from the reaper tech. lots of notes in abe's recovery with him commenting about buzzing/humming noises no one else seems to hear and "i swear to god my teeth itch".

*abe's first mission once cleared for duty ALSO goes tits up because harbinger tries to awaken what's supposed to be the best little sleeper agent Its ever Had only to find out the fucking sleeper agent is defective. it begins an ongoing battle where harbinger is constantly trying to outright control abraham entirely, but it doesn't always work.

*he officially gets listed as MIA--POSSIBLY AWOL

*ichabod and abraham's plots revolve around everyone lamenting that the alliance golden boy just cracked under the pressure and couldn't cut it, with ichabod sincerely believing that's not the whole story. "abraham is an arrogant ass, he's not an unhinged coward" is repeated quite a lot.

*abe and harbinger's back and forth for control means sometimes he loses. sometimes harbinger is able to make the indoctrination work and operate him like a fucking meat puppet from dark space, and that fun little TBI that causes the back and forth also means he's completely aware the whole time it's happening.

*eventually he notices a pattern in that getting his shit rocked (ie more brain trauma) tends to shake harbinger loose, which results in one encounter with ichabod and abe where he tells ichabod 'the next time you find me trying to kill you, aim for my head'

*basically a lot of it is the concept of like. Worst Guy You've Ever Known Finally Faces Consequences except. it's also one of those stories where at a certain point you're no longer thrilled by these turn of events, you're kind of uncomfortable. it seems less like comeuppance and more like watching someone slowly get fed into a meat grinder for no reason.

*which. remember the early concepts for saren and tim where the reaper tech was slowly eroding any organic parts of them? yeah. yeah he's not having a good time.

*abe also ends up targeting cerberus when he's controlling his own mind, particularly when he finds out they were only able to save shepard because of what they did to him. feels a lot like being the test run.

*which leads me back to shepard and abe having mirroring stories. in the end the reaper war ends and they're both dead, but only one of them is remembered.

*abe's death takes place during me3. i never got as far as plotting the details but it was always meant to be a last ditch "fuck you/ i'm not what you made me" type thing. there's also a smidge of suicide by sacrifice to it, because again, he was already dying because of the reaper tech and just. was so goddamn tired. it's shades of vega as well in like, what he does is very big and very good and saves a lot of lives (ichabod's included) but it's. just that shepard was already elsewhere, doing bigger things.

*after ichabod gets cleared after abe dies, he basically gets a "tyfys here's your next posting" and asks what about abraham which is met with "what about him?"

*ichabod then starts demanding abe's status get changed from MIA--POSSIBLY AWOL to killed in the line of duty along with a posthumous commendation of valor. i'm thinking he gets a call from hackett about joining the crucible project and agrees, but on one condition, mostly because the idea of ichabod yelling hackett down is kinda BDE if i'm honest.

*also of importance: abraham being a whole ass home of sexual whose also big brained enough to be like "actually asari aren't women so yes i can fuck them despite being gay"

*and finally if he ever found out aria t'loak fucked mordin and not him he'd blow up afterlife and everyone in it

[lord-squiggletits]

If you're on right now, want to help me double check the timeline for Megatron's trial on Luna-Two? I just realized I'm kinda wishy-washy on the details of what happened when, like the order of events from Starscream's speech to the Lost Light taking off and OP's team heading to Earth. The non-linear storytelling certainly does not help with keeping track

Okay so I'm not a lore expert by any means and I'm glossing over a lot of the fine details of the story, but the way I remember Megatron's trial and surrounding events is roughly this sequence:

Pre-Dark Cybertron, Optimus (as Orion) accepted a permanent exile from Cybertron and left the planet in order to maintain peace and get the neutrals to calm down. He spent the ensuing issues of exRID all the way to Dark Cybertron basically following a breadcrumb trail of a bunch of planets that Shockwave had put experimental ores in (Ore 1 thru 13), basically a bunch of stuff that doesn't really matter for the sake of your question. He wasn't on Earth yet at that time.

Megatron has his heel-face turn and becomes an Autobot at the end of Dark Cybertron. The final ~2 pages are him and Optimus talking about Shockwave and then Optimus asking Megatron if he's ready to go out and face what happens next.

Megatron's trial. Megatron was basically willing to face the music and accept his fate, but then Starscream makes the speech ripping Megatron to shreds (BASED) which causes Megatron to invoke the Luna-2 "can only be tried by the Knights of Cybertron" backup plan he set up by asking to be put on trial on Luna-2 to begin with. He explains this to Optimus in a conversation in his cell. Optimus allows his request to go on the quest for the Knights, but only on the condition that Megatron makes a speech telling the Decepticons to demobilize (and go on a diet of fool's energon, not mentioned until later in MTMTE). Megatron does this and gets sent off as co-captain of the Lost Light.

Meanwhile Galvatron has taken over the Decepticons while Megatron went out to get milk from the grocery store. Galvatron and Soundwave make a deal with the humans to help them build a "peaceful" "space commune". The humans are okay with this because Megatron defecting to the Autobots magically makes every other Decepticon trustworthy, including Megatron's former lieutenant who was literally on the ground killing humans like 4 years ago but whatever. After Megatron's trial and related bullshit is settled, Optimus and some others go down to Earth and try to covertly stop Galvatron and co. while also trying not to fall astray of the humans (who hate Autobots now due to plot reasons)

I glossed over like, A LOT A LOT of stuff, but as far as where Optimus and Megatron are before/after Megatron's trial, those are the most important details. I have a lore-loving mutual who might reblog this with better details if she's in the mood.

[lampost-in-winter]

Thank you for putting this together op! Point 4 specifically has been making me insane for months. The "hopeful" ending goes against one of the major themes of the story! He needs community and the game knows this because it has belittled him for not having friends like Rook several times! You've been beating me in the head with the importance of the power of friendship for the whole game, but recovery needs to be done completely alone if you've been deemed a villain? C'mon!

I'd add that a good narrative redemption it's not about what your target audience may deem "appropriate punishment", no matter how much the Internet wants it to be, but about the character overcoming their fatal flaws, and as you say, the insistence on working alone has been THE big weakness in Solas since Inquisition. So, for me, a proper atonement for Solas necessarily would include working with other people sincerely and without betrayals. I do think they tried to compesate for this by having Solas allowing himself to be "helped" by other people (Rook, the Inquisitor and Morrigan) as a necessary part of the Atonement ending. And that worked for me partially, but it falls a bit flat if the ultimate result is that he ends up completely alone unless you're running a romanced Lavellan that's willing to go with him (and it is a shame because I feel the ending undermines the friendship with Solas route, which I think is very special on its own merits, which rounds back to your point 6).

I would perhaps concede that depending on your interpretation, soothing the severed dreams of the Titans is a form of eventually making a connection with the Titans themselves, a form of collaboration in some way? Somewhat?

On another topic, since you mentioned having expected Solas to sacrifice himself in some manner, I'd say that, on the contrary, one of the reasons I dislike the thematic implications of the Atonement ending is precisely because it relies too heavily on self-sacrifice (Solas gives up his freedom, his core ideal, and the possibility of patching up old friendships/finding new connections for the sake of the world).

Let me say first that I think that a 0 sacrifice ending would not have worked with Dragon Age's original tone and deconstruction of the figure of the Hero and what it means to save the world (all the protagonists lose something personal and receive a bittersweet ending in the best case scenario). But I believe one of Solas' flaws is a martyr complex, and a fully developed atonement route, for me, would've needed to unpack that.

[Now, some people will agree with me instinctively on Solas being self-sacrificing, but others may think that he’s only willing to sacrifice others (Veilguard does seem to imply this at points), but I believe that the text even in Veilguard does hint that he’s very willing to self-sacrifice, so here's some of my evidence: In a high-approval run of Inquisition, he sacrifices his friendships/potentially a very dear romantic relationship and a situation in which overall he’s arguably the most peaceful and happy he’s ever been, in order to fulfill what he sees as his duty. In Veilguard, we see upon arrival at the Lighthouse that these 10 years he’s lived a life of complete asceticism (the place is dark, cold and ruinous when we arrive; there is little food and, dog jokes apart, it’s shitty food, if Solas hadn’t been a magical inmortal he would've gotten scurvy; his bedroom is primarily a work space, with the desk being the central piece of furniture; the room is also littered with what I think were lyrium containers for working on restoring the dagger that he hasn’t bothered to throw out, and the bed is basically a tiny prison cot. Overall, the pre-Rook Lighthouse is a place with very little space for personal comforts and enjoyment). We also see in the Regret murals a repeated pattern of Solas giving up his needs and desires for Mythal/the People; there's even one optional dialogue in one of the Fade Prison conversations (I think it's post-Weishaupt) where he tells Rook that Rook's cause [fighting the Evanuris] "is even larger than your own wishes", which sounds a lot like he's projecting. So in summary, I think that what we know about Solas does paint the picture of someone very willing to sacrifice what’s important to him at a personal level, his happiness and comfort, in order to fulfill his perceived duty to the point of self-flagellation. To believe that he would also sacrifice his life if he thought that was the most practical approach to fulfill his duties is not a big stretch (and I might add, the post-credits scene in DAI seems to imply that he also thinks he deserves punishment and would've looked for it in a less passive way, perhaps even seeking death, if he didn't think he needed to save the People first, "I should pay the price, but the People, they need me". Like, this dude is hanging by a thread the whole time and the thread is the elvhen people).

I don't mean to imply by this that he's completely selfless, far from it, but I'd need a whole 'nother post to delve into that.]

Consequently, I would personally add another number to your fantastic list, op:

9) The Atonement ending doesn't sufficiently desconstruct the logics of martyrdom, self-sacrifice and self-denial that are intertwined with Solas' destructive decision-making, and these logics even partly bleed into the supposed heroes. (This is partially mitigated in the Solavellan ending since he doesn’t deny himself the 1 thing he wants the most in this scenario, when it’s freely given).

This is why the "Whatever it takes" thing drives me up the wall. Rook is forced (because it cannot be challenged via player input) to symbollically embrace one of the antagonist's core philosophies, "you must do whatever it takes to save the world, no matter how big the sacrifice" in order to scape the Regret Prison. The phrase even appears for the first time in the pre-Weishaupt conversation with Solas, *induced* by Solas, in the exchange where he is most clearly shaping Rook to replace him in the Regret prison. However, Rook embracing this motto is presented by the narrative as an unchallenged good thing, and it's only briefly problematized in the "bad ending", depending on how you read it. I THINK there might have been an original intention to do more with that, since there were clearly hints that they were making Rook into a more strict paralell to Solas with serious consequences, and that that was ultimately diluted to make them more "palatable" as a hero.

(P.S.: If I could make an amendment to point 8 of the original list, I don't think that in the Fight and Trick endings Solas would just kill himself to tear down the Veil, since there must be something he has to do to keep the trapped Blight from spreading when the Veil falls (or maybe he originally planned to move the Blight Cube into the Regret Prison after he finished with Elgar'nan a Ghilan'nain?). Even if it's never revealed in Veilguard, he must have had a contingency plan for the Blight because A) we know he’s terrified of the Blight and B) he can't restore the ancient elves nor return immortality to the modern elves if they immediately die of fucking Blight. So I don't think he'd kill himself as soon as the credits roll in Veilguard, not for a lack of willingness but for practical reasons. Rather, I think he'd first use the dagger to open a rift to walk out of the Fade, spend some time planning another fuckass Ritual(TM) to contain the Blight in a different manner than he'd originally planned, THEN he'd kill himself.)

the ending

For my sanity, a collection of all the ways in which the Veilguard ending is a bad way to conclude Solas' arc. All of this has been said before but I think it's quite striking to put it all together.

(As a caveat, the closing scene itself is aesthetically very beautiful and clearly made with love; there's just this big disconnect between the form and the content)

1) The only way for Solas to 'atone' is for him to be released by someone who has been manipulating him his whole life and there is a very plausible interpretation of the text in which she abused him and/or owned him as a slave.

2) Not only does no one listen to Solas about how binding spirits is abusive, the game ends with us binding him, a former spirit, either by force or by manipulating him in a vulnerable moment. When he tries to say something about spirits in this scene Rook immediately cuts him off.

3) All three endings are punitive and cruel, sending a person whose greatest fear is dying alone into eternal solitary confinement, and thus conveying a very retributive approach to punishment. Maybe you can headcanon something different in the atonement case, but that is not what is presented in game: the last thing we see of him is being sent away alone. You can make it slightly better by sending Lavellan or Rook with him, but two people being trapped in prison together forever is not really a good outcome either.

4) In a game that is all about healing through community, with a character whose central flaw has always been insisting on working alone, it makes no thematic sense for his ending to be that he is sent away alone.

5) This is blood magic, one of the Big Evils of the game, and yet the fact that Rook uses blood magic is never acknowledged or commented on.

6) The same endings are available regardless of his relationship with the Inquisitor and Rook, thus rendering his whole character arc in Inquisition and all his interactions with Rook completely pointless (Solavellan is the one exception to this and I love that it exists but I don't think this should have been the only way to get an even slightly hopeful ending to his arc).

7) Solas has no agency. What happens to him is entirely decided by Rook, his own growth plays no part in it. He is just passing directly from being controlled by Mythal to being controlled by Rook.

8) It is extremely unclear how any of this is going to work, e.g. if Solas has the dagger with him couldn't he just kill himself to take the Veil down? The Trick ending in particular makes no sense at all.

Note that none of this is about thinking Solas should have a happy ending. I was personally expecting that his atonement would involve him sacrificing himself and in many ways I honestly think that would have been better.

One or two of these things might have been ok, but put them all together and this is just a very icky collection of things to endorse and a spectacularly uncomfortable note to end on. It's honestly quite puzzling to me that anyone thought this would be a good or respectful way to conclude this arc which has been so central to the series.

[undead-merman]

🧜‍♂️MerMay- The Brothers🧜‍♂️GN Reader- SFW

Lucifer

Appearance

Lucifer has a long black tail with a hint of a royal blue striping on the back. His scales are smooth and small, ganoid shaped and are completely flat. A few black scales are on his face, just at the corner of his eyes giving them a sharper appearance and forming a diamond shape on his forehead. There is one scale slightly out of place on his diamond mark; it's not noticeable unless seen close up.   

His fins are long and flowing and are in the shape of rounded spades. He has a tear on his dorsal fin which goes all the way through the fin and has a scar on his back. His caudal fin is the largest on his body and has a peacock like pattern that can be flushed making the colors go from the normally black with barely visible blue to bright flashy blues, and reds on deep blacks.

His human skin is colored like a great white shark: creamy light skin on his stomach, fading to grey on his back; granting him the ability to countershade and aid in avoiding detection from above and below.

His face exhibits many shark features: broad and round head, small eyes, his mouth is filled with large teeth, and a flat nose.

Daily life

He’s very broody so he prefers the twilight and night hours; being accustomed to swimming in the deep parts of the ocean, too much light hurts his eyes but he also just enjoys the dark endless water with starlight above.

He has a very strict schedule, patrolling his nest, fighting off intruders, meeting up with Diavolo to hunt, clean up his brother's messes, patrol, try to sleep and get interrupted by one of his brothers if not more, and repeat.

He’s a carnivore so he enjoys eating whales, and sharks. He dislikes crabs and lobsters since they’re bottom feeders and he finds the idea of eating them very distasteful. 

He’s meticulous with grooming himself. He’s always sharpening his claws and forever growing teeth, picking them and cleaning them until they gleam in the light and buffing his scales to make them shimmer. 

When alone he enjoys trying to nap amongst a peaceful patch of seagrass. Drifting away slowly as curious little fish swim around him and the plant life softly brushes by with the current. 

He enjoys playing the violin, which surprisingly works, making melodies that haunt divers unfortunate enough to hear.  

Life with you

If you're a morning person you’ll get to see his sleeping unguarded face. He’ll try to wake up with you once he realizes, and within a few weeks he’ll be waking up far before you. He somehow has a built-in clock wired to try and make him wake up before you.

If you're a night person he’s thrilled to share some of the prettiest sights the ocean has to offer when the moon is out. Showing you his favorite spots to enjoy the night in silence. 

He becomes very protective of you and constantly scents you before leaving your side. Rubbing his palms on your cheeks or circling his tail loosely around you before brushing up on you as he swims away. No one will dare come near you if you smell so much like him.

He hates to admit it but he has the natural instinct of him bringing shiny things to you. He won’t even notice it until he pulls your hands in his and suddenly you have a shiny piece of sea glass in your hand. His face heats up if you tease him about it and suddenly he finds a speck on the wall very interesting.

Mammon

Appearance

As golden as gold can look, being actual gold, Mammon has the boldest scales of all the brothers. He’s not sure why they are, they’ve just always been that way and their weight doesn’t seem to be affected. His scales are ctenoid and can cut if he flares his scales and hits you with his tail. He doesn’t have any scales on his face and his skin seems to glow in the morning sun. 

His fins are exactly like that of a long spined sea scorpion with them having large painful spines inside them. Unlike the other fish he has a painful venom that can leave someone reeling in pain for days. It won’t kill but it’ll hurt!

He has two sets of canines that are very noticeable when he opens his mouth to talk. His upper right canine tooth has a gold coating making the tooth look like it’s made of gold. The top pair always hang out of his mouth while the lower one is hidden. 

He has shorter nails more meant for prying than slashing. Though they’re surprisingly well manicured and painted white.

Daily life

100% a morning person. Wakes up all groggy but after brushing his scales he's peppy and ready to start the day.

Mammon hoards his shedded scales, after all they are gold. He puts them in an old vintage submariner foot locker, nearly rotted apart but he sticks random stickers or patches onto it to help keep it together. A lot of the time the brothers will just take the money they are owed from the chest and Mammon whines about it; however, if they're pissed they’ll pluck some scales from him painfully.

His scales get plucked often: by the sea witches to whom he owes a massive debt to, his angry brothers, even Solomon sometimes plucks them off like he’s a pez dispenser. Because of this he sometimes has very sensitive scaleless spots. They grow back within a day but it still hurts.

He joins Lucifer in patrolling their territory. He’s just as protective over his space as Lucifer is, and of course he wants to look out for his younger brothers, but he won’t admit that unless it gives him a chance to use pity points to get out of trouble.

Very particular about his scales. He wants them looking pretty and as bright as they can be. Contrarily, he doesn’t give the same treatment for his hair, calling running his hands through to get the tangles out good enough.

Life with you

If you show concern for his scales he’ll play it off like it doesn’t hurt and it's really just a bother, but it isn’t. If you continue to worry about him or even offer to help patch him up he will become much more protective of you. You treat him so kindly that he doesn’t want that to stop.

If he’s in a bad mood or he gets jealous of someone, he'll grab you and shove his face into your neck and twist till his face is thoroughly buried. He wants to smell you so he can calm down and basically scream at anyone who comes by that you are something very close to Mammon so don't you dare touch.

He’ll try to drag you around to join in his mischief. Joining him in gambling rings or minnow racing. He’ll insist you're a lucky charm, though he just likes your company. He loves to bear hug you if he wins big and he holds you above him in the water with a big smile on his face.

Another victim of random shiny gifts for you. He's more aware of it and brags about how neat it looks even if it's just some old mirror. He’s always trying to play up how amazing his little gifts are.

Leviathan 

Appearance

His tail is very long, much longer than his brothers though it's thinner and has less muscle. His scales are ganoid shaped and colored the same color as his hair with a white underneath. During the night he has bright cyan bioluminescence circles on his sides. His eyes and tongue glowing as well with a very faint glow to his teeth as well. 

He’s embarrassed about it but he has multiple random patches of scales around his face and he thinks it makes him look weird.

His fins are shaped much like a goldfish, even having a round double tail and flowing fins. He is the most delicate looking one. But if he gets angry he transforms into a gigantic sea monster and can cause storms. 

He’s an omnivore so his teeth are small and much like a humans. They fall out if they get damaged but like a shark they’ll always grow back.

His skin is also counter shaded like Lucifer. Though more ashy gray color than his older brother. Unfortunately his bioluminescent colored scales, even though they pulse in brightness, make him much easier to spot. 

Daily life

He’s a night dweller through and through and refuses to swim during daylight hours. He likes to dwell in deeper waters so the light isn’t too much for him; but he mostly likes to stay in his cave and obsess over his washed up anime knicknacks. Making sure to pluck away barnacles and clean the muck off.

Since he’s an omnivore he’ll eat whatever is nearby. He enjoys jellyfish and the deadlier they are to humans the more he likes them. He's unaffected by their venom. Though he’ll enjoy a crab or free swimming fish. 

Leviathan does not like patrolling; he’d much rather leave the scuffling to everyone else so he can focus on more important things, like trying to dry out a keyboard in his open air room. 

His room is open air and inside a cave that can be accessed by a nearby beach. Inside is a shrine to his collection and he’s always fawning over it.

He loves that he matches with his fish friend Henry. They are extremely similar in shape, even having similar tails. He has a fresh water tank inside so Henry doesn’t get too dried up from the salt water. Leviathan can handle both fresh and saltwater so sometimes he hops into the tank to swim near his friend.

He’s very self conscious of his scales, especially the ones on his face so he has to make sure they look nice. His hair has to be styled just right to distract them from his face. He has a habit of pulling his bangs down over his eyes when he’s flustered.  

Life with you

Once he’s bonded with you he is constantly by your side and wanting to spend as much quality time with you as he can. He’ll be trailing you talking about the little curiosities he’s found. He whines about how he wants to go back to his cave but he won’t leave your side.

He’ll show you his collection of nicknacks and if you're able to set up a little television and gamecube he’ll be ecstatically waving his fish tail around like a dog. He’ll constantly beg you to play with him. He wants to CO-OP this game with you!

If he’s feeling cuddly that day he’ll float up to the surface and let you lounge on him and let the waves gently rock you both. He’ll hum old sea shanties he’s heard from sailors long ago as well as some anime songs from a series you enjoy together. 

Expect him to drag you to his spots for finding his little curiosities, he’ll want you to help him scour the area and find more fun items. He’s very happy with whatever you bring and he’ll keep them around his nest.   

Satan 

Appearance 

Satan is built similarly to Lucifer though his scales are more raised and spiny. His tail is a bright shamrock green which shifts to a seafoam green. He has a bunch of scales on the corners of his mouth and completely covers his cheeks.

His fins are long and have a crowntail shape that are tipped a deep black. When he gets angry his fins flare up making him look much, much bigger.

He has a flatter nose and bigger teeth like Lucifer. While they aren’t as sharp they are still dangerous if he’s mad. 

His skin also glows in the bright morning sun and if he’s lounging around he’ll attract nearby small fish to swim around him enjoying the serene glow he has.   

Daily life

He takes a long time waking up, and he’s not a morning person at all. He’s dazed for an hour or so until he’s fully awake, though he’s not much of a night person, more preferring midday.  

He’s currently got the goal of piecing together the world’s true histories. Figuring out what happened to old forgotten cities, lost treasures, and destroyed civilizations. He has a long way to go and he treats this handcrafted book like a child, holding it far above the water.

He explores with random, yet reputable exploration teams. Helping them with identifying relics or gems. He’s earned a reputation for himself by doing this and is often approached to go on expeditions. 

He is another type to patrol around his territory. He does it around midday though and hunts during these. He’s a carnivore and likes tuna and other free swimming fish, but refuses to eat squid and octopi due to how smart they are. He likes to feed nearby ones. Though they aren’t as cute as human world cats.

He’ll go to a human world pier and try to attract the local stray cats with his tail. He’ll leave them little gifts so now all the local cats come to the docks at a certain time to wait for him. He really wants to have a cat but sadly it’s a love that’s not meant to be, they are from two different worlds.    

Life with you

He’ll enjoy taking you on expeditions. Showing you beautiful sunken landscapes very few eyes have seen before. He loves seeing your reactions to sights.

He enjoys learning your hobbies and trying them out with you. He’ll go out of his way to provide an accurate experience to what you're used to since he enjoys learning and experiencing new things, especially now that you're here.

He's another one that loves to rub his smell all over you. He’s just as bad as Mammon, his smell is all over every part he can get to and stinks of “back off, don’t touch” causing others to give you a wide berth.

He’s going to hang off of you every morning. If you're larger than him he shoves his face into your chest and tries to go back to sleep. He looks so different with his sleeping face, he looks peaceful in your arms. But if you're smaller he’ll flop onto you and try to use you as a pillow. He’s surprisingly warm and his underside isn’t as spiny and sharp.

He’ll want to introduce you to his octopi friends. Each one is named after a different sea or famous author. If you agree he’ll be delighted to take you there and let you play with them. Though he might get a bit jealous if you get along with them a bit too much. He won’t show his jealousy though.   

Asmodeus 

Appearance 

He’s the most serine and delicate looking of all his brothers. His thin body has a bright cherry blossom pink tail and has long silky looking fins. His bright scales sparkle and shimmer and have a pearlescence to them. He has perfectly pure white scales patches on his tail as well giving a koi pattern. 

He resembles a butterfly koi but with longer and frankly impractical looking fins. They flow around him weightless and they look like silk in the wind around him. Even his dorsal fin is long and flowing.

He doesn’t have any scales on his face and he looks perfectly human from the waist up. His skin has an angelic like glow and shimmers in the sun. He has a few freckles on his face, chest and elbows. 

He has small pearly white teeth just like a human would, he’s very keen on keeping them perfectly white, just like his white scales, but his canines can extend like a cat flexing their claws.  

Daily life

He wakes up to his internal alarm clock, which is scarily accurate. Bright eyed and bushy tailed from the moment his eyes open. Swimming around and preparing himself for another day, brushing his tail, combing his hair, and cleaning his teeth, all while chatting to whoever will listen.

He is a highly requested entertainer for festivals and celebrations. He’s invited to grand openings, large festivals, and even private birthdays to those who pay him well enough. His dances and singing is the best among his kind and can easily enrapture sailors let alone his own kind. His voice mixed with the way his fins trail behind him like long fans is an easy way to get hypnotized. 

When he’s not booked for a celebration he’s helping Diavolo keep humans away from their city. He uses his voice to entrance anyone he deems a threat and can make them turn and forget why they were out here and what they saw. He doesn’t get into any of the violent stuff. That’s not his style.

If he’s not at home, he is always with someone. He’s like a fairytale princess with a crowd behind him, be they other mers or fish schooling around him. He always has a smile on his face and he’s not very quiet about how much he enjoys attracting an adoring crowd. At home he enjoys a nice relaxing self care session.

When he’s angry his canines poke out he doesn’t notice this habit of his, but it's usually because he’s extremely angry at the time and holds himself back.

He doesn't bother with patrolling and he’s not territorial in the slightest. He’s a lover not a fighter so his big brothers can handle any scary monster.     

Life with you

He’s bringing you to all kinds of festivals and parties as his +1 every time. You’ll be able to experience all the wonders Diavolo’s kingdom has to give and he’s extremely happy to be there with you every single time.

He’ll use his charm to get you whatever you want. Did you want that cute seashell necklace? Or that shark tooth bracelet? He’ll approach the store owner, shake his tail and flirt a bit and it’s his now. Which he immediately hands to you with a huge grin on his face, telling you how well it suits you and how you make that item look even better.

He’s always trying to groom you in any sort of manner. Rubbing your scalp and smoothing your hair with his finger. Trying to rub thick creams into your skin, or rubbing pigment onto your nails to paint them. You're the only one he’ll do this for.

He needs to hold your hand at least 3 times a day and needs a kiss before he goes to sleep and he’ll break into your room if he doesn’t get them all. He’ll act all innocent but he knows exactly what he’s doing. He just likes being a brat so he can cuddle and love you.

He also gets upset if you smell like someone else so he randomly jumps you and cuddles you in his arms rubbing his cheek against yours and rubbing you with his tail and brushing all of his fins against you. If you check you can see his fangs sticking out when he’s jealous. 

If you’re ever feeling down he’ll sing for you. Dance with you, twirling you around as if he’s the moon and you're the earth itself. He gets lost in the dance and by the time you're done you're both embracing and laughing. 

Beelzebub and Belphegor

Appearance

While being twins they couldn’t be more polar opposites. Beelzebub has radiant skin that seems to glow even in the darker parts of the ocean and a long sunset orange tail full of powerful muscles and reaches the longest out of the brothers. His tail is smooth and has a cycloid scale pattern. Belphegor has the shark-like appearance some of his other brothers have. Counter shaded skin, flatter nose. But he seems to absorb the light around him making everything seem much darker than they really are. His tail is medium size and is pretty thin. His tail is a deep eggplant purple with black spots.

Both of them have matching fin shapes, their caudal fin being shaped like a swordtail guppy and the rest of their fins are wide and shaped like fans. Belphegor's fins are mostly black but with the same eggplant purple speckled in. Beelzebub’s are the same sunset orange.

Beelzebub’s face is free of scales but on the sides of his cheeks and around his jawline and down to his shoulders scales are clustered around. They are thick hardy scales making his neck his strongest area besides his tail, but he has a scar just under his chin.

Belphegor has a freckle-like pattern of small scales they scattered all around his face only one or two at a time. They’re much smaller than the ones on his tail.

Belphegor has extremely sharp teeth and while they’re small they’re serrated. Beelzebub has mostly human teeth, though his canines are much bigger and wider, he’s able to crush stones with those teeth.

Daily life

These two have been inseparable since they were young and it's a trend that is clearly there to stay. They may have a different schedule but when they go to rest they rest and sleep in the same nest. 

Beelzebub helps teach the younger mers to fight. He’s been permitted to teach not only the royal guard but other everyday mers. He’s a proud teacher and he’s always trying to come up with ways to help each student of his even on an individual level, but that’s when he’s not eating. 

He’s also the kingdom's best hunter, and a small team is sent out with him every once in a while to hunt down any monsters that come too close to their kingdom. Beelzebub ends up eating the thing before they get back though. The bigger and more ferocious they are, the better they taste. That’s what he says at least.   

Belphegor is the kingdom's most talented astrologist. Unlike his twin brother though, he doesn’t put his skills to much use. He’ll help, maybe, if he’s not tired or if he’s in a good mood, but those chances are slim to none. Instead he’s actually a doctor. 

He’ll laze around in his office and sleep on the table, but when a patient comes in he’s somehow able to look over them once and tell what’s wrong with them. Even his brother’s are confused how he can just wake up, take one look at someone and perfectly diagnose them. 

He also seems to nurse others on an auto pilot. He barely has his eyes open and is able to patch up any wound he can find. Because of his talent yet lack of effort he has earned some ire from his peers. He doesn’t care though as long as he can keep sleeping on the job.

Many other Mer’s have approached him in hopes to become his apprentice but he’s ignored every single one. He’s too lazy to even try. Which many people think is selfish since he’s so skilled. Though he doesn’t care what they say.    

Life with you 

You will always find them not too far from you. Once they grew attached to you they began not moving too far from you. Sometimes they even drag you along with them so you can be near them. Belphegor is guilty of dragging you to his workplace more than Beelzebub, sometimes trying to trick you into keeping everyone busy so he can nap.

Beelzebub just brings you so he can keep an eye on you and give you hugs when he’s feeling a bit stressed. You can tell when he’s getting stressed because the longer part of his tail fin flicks back and forth. If you end up hugging him right when he starts he’ll end up holding you until you ask him to let you go. It always makes him smile if you do that. 

They are both picky about having you sleep in their nest. Belphegor will complain and try to guilt you into their nest if you try to sleep anywhere else and Beelzebub will give you puppy dog eyes. They won’t stop until you agree, and they both coil around you when sleeping.

Beelzebub is very protective of you since he knows how monstrous things can be outside the kingdom so whenever he gets worried about you he pulls you by the hips closer to him. Belphegor simply just gets jealous of others talking to you and will rest his chin on your shoulder and stare at whoever is talking to you. 

If you let him, Beelzebub will groom you. Brushing your hair is a favorite of his. He likes playing with it. If you were to return the favor by polishing his scales or even playing with his hair too he gets left in a great mood for the rest of the day. The smile he gets never leaves his face. 

Belphegor when he’s feeling up to it will show you the stars at night. He’ll let you float on him or next to him and gaze at the bright night sky, untouched by light pollution or blocked by trees. Just the sounds of the open ocean and the two of you. Sometimes he’ll end up like an otter and fall asleep while holding your hand so you don’t float away.  

[winterandwords]

Word find tag (issue, ramble, tea, and dance)

@catchingbigfish tagged me to search my WIP for issue, ramble, tea, and dance. Thanks, friend!

These are from Bridge From Ashes...

ISSUE

“I remember you from basic,” says Agent Zola Kartheiser, grade four, Elite Ops. She’s sitting cross-legged in the stupid architectural chair opposite my stupid architectural chair in my office and she hasn’t taken issue with how dark it is in here, so she’s got that going for her.

RAMBLE TALK

“Evidence? You mean my memories? Of what? Those people burning to death? Fuck you.” “Turner, calm down.” Ezra sucks air through his teeth, obviously doing his best not to raise his voice at someone in my current condition. “We’ll talk about this later.”

TEA

By the time I get into the boundaries, close to home, I can feel him following me. I don’t speed up or slow down. Walking at the same steady pace, I know he’s matching my footsteps perfectly. And as fucked up as it is, I’m getting a kick out of it. Not even from the anticipation of what might come next. Just from the connection and the familiarity of it.

DANCE

My voice sounds distant and hollow, and sparks of colour dance across the wall behind Gillen’s head. They aren’t real, but then what is? “This frequency’s heavier than I thought.” “It’s good though.” He stares into the space between us, watching particles of air or drifting sounds. It might just be the way I’m seeing things right now, but something about him seems softer, less protected than usual.

Tagging @calicojackofficial, @obsidian-goblet and @spellscribe. If you'd like to do it, your words are dead, down, didn't, and deal.

[affinityforyou]

/// 𝖆𝖋𝖋𝖎𝖓𝖎𝖙𝖞 , w. toxin. /// ari is glad to be led to cayden's room, in a place he coincidentally shares with shayne, of all people. he's one of ari's closest friends in atlantis, so that makes it even more odd that he and cayden haven't properly met until now. not wanting to get too distracted by details, he's quick to notice just how tidy the other man's space is. it makes him smile as he, too, is a big fan of organization and order. ❝ your room is really sleek, ❞ ari compliments, his smile widening. ❝ i appreciate a man with a good eye for décor. there's nothing more important than creating a relaxing spot to come home to, especially here. ❞ he muses, kicking his shoes off so he can climb onto the vacant spot of the bed, right next to cayden.

next, he ops for taking off his pull-over; leaving himself dressed in a clean white t-shirt, a pair of dark-wash navy jeans, and his socks. it's casual, simple, but everything fits him like a glove, which is the most important part, at least in his opinion. he even tucked in his shirt to better accentuate his natural shape. ❝ you get high a lot ? ❞ he asks, curious. ❝ i've never really dabbled in anything, to be honest. alcohol is basically it, and that's super rare for me, too. i feel like drugs would just... make my powers fly through the roof, and not in a good way... ❞ ari scrunches his nose, having a hard time even imagining it. his cheeks are still flushed, his buzz ongoing, and slowly, he inches his way closer to cayden; liking the contact. ❝ you feel so warm; hot, one could say... ❞ he laughs at his own lame attempt at flirting, shaking his head back and forth. ❝ might need to take more clothes off, at this rate... ❞

"No not at all. I'm glad you don't think I'm just a kid., though I suppose it would be worrying if you did." he had gotten that a lot growing up, a prodigy child in adult spaces meant he was always treated as if he were underfoot or needed to be coddled, even when he was the one pulling most of the work. Cayden can't help the smile on his face through when Ari calls him 'sweetheart' it makes his stomach flutter just a bit. He never did this before he got there, in fact before he was in Atlantis he never did anything close to this, flirting. He was no virgin anymore that was for sure but still, the thrill of it never wore off for him. He was clearly doing something right though because Ari was holding his hand and they were going to go back to his room.

His name was Ari and Cayden said it over and over in his mind, callsigns were fun and all but there was something about being able to know someone's name. Even if it was a secret between just them. Cayden pulled Ari along by his hand, giving it a soft reassuring squeeze, letting his thumb brush the back of it gently. Back to the apartment he shared with Shayne, letting them in he took them in the dark to his bedroom so as to not disturb anyone who might be sleeping. Cayden's room was perhaps too put together, it was clearly very Scandinavian minimalist, and every surface was spotless. Even his bed was made with the corners trucked. Perfect order. "Um make yourself at home. I ah...I am a bit of a neat freak. I mean. I get high a lot so if I have everything organized it makes it easier for me to navigate when I do it." he said honestly as he took a seat on the bed patting the spot next to him. In truth he'd have loved to scoop Ari up in his arms and hold the smaller male on his lap but that seemed like something he would have to ask permission for first.

[lands-of-fantasy]

DCU Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters

After a private press event on Monday, January 30, 2023, Co-Chairmen and CEOs of DC Studios James Gunn and Peter Safran announced to the public on January 31st the first batch of projects planned for DC Universe’s first chapter, titled “Gods and Monsters”. 

Collider shares Gunn and Safran’s plan maps out 2 chapters in this universe, which will take 8 to 10 years to be told, leaving space for other stories in the future.

5 films and 5 HBO Max series (one of them animated) were disclosed:

CREATURE COMMANDOS Animated Series

7 episodes written by Gunn. Amanda Waller creates a black-ops team out of monstrous prisoners.

L-R: Rick Flag Sr. (who is going to appear in other projects too), Nina Mazursky, Doctor Phosphorus (Batman villain), Eric Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein (the lead), G.I. Robot and Weasel.

WALLER Series

Starring Viola Davis, this series features Team Peacemaker, taking place between season 1 and the future season 2.

SUPERMAN: LEGACY Film

The proper launch of the DCU. Written by Gunn, will focus on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing - It won’t be an origin story. Safran describes Superman as “kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old fashioned”. On theaters on July 11, 2025. 

Superman’s actor has not been cast yet.

LANTERNS Series

Starring Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and John Stewart. A True Detective-type mystery on Earth investigated by the duo, who find an ancient horror that leads into the overall story arc of the DCU. 

THE AUTHORITY Film

DC’s WildStorm team who think the ends justify the means. Gunn explains “They are basically good-intentioned, but they think that the world is completely broken and the only way to fix it is to take things into their own hands, whether that means killing people, destroying heads of state, changing governments—basically, whatever they want to do to make the world better. We’ll see how that journey goes for them. There are morally gray characters (in our DCU), of which these are.”

PARADISE LOST Series

Set in Themyscira or Paraside Island, home of the Amazons and birthplace of Wonder Woman. The series focuses on the genesis and political intrigue of this society of women. Takes place before Diana is born.

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD Film

The DCU will introduce its Batman and his son Damian Wayne, Robin, who Bruce didn’t know existed for the first eight to ten years of his life, and who was raised as an assassin. Inspired by Grant Morrison's comics. 

DCU’s Batman has not been cast yet. Matt Reeves’ The Batman - Part II, starring Robert Pattinson, will hit theaters on October 3, 2025, but outside of the DCU continuity, under the “DC Elsewords” seal. Similarly, Joker: Folie à Deux will also continue to be its own separate Elsewords project.

BOOSTER GOLD Series

As put by Safran: “A loser from the future who uses his basic future technology to come back to today to pretend to be a superhero”. 

SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW Film

A science fiction adventure based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s comic. 

Gunn explains that while Superman was sent to Earth and raised by loving parents, Kara was on a piece of Krypton that drifted away from the planet, and lived there for the first fourteen years of her life in a horrible situation where she watched everyone around her die. “She’s a much harsher and more f*cked up Supergirl than you’ve been used to thus far.”

SWAMP THING Film

The film will investigate the dark origins of Swamp Thing.

*****

Other projects from Chapter 1 remain under wraps for now!

[whackdreamer]

Whack’s Black Clover headcanons, theories, meta-, ramblings or whatchamacallit (2).

About Chapter 326

I’m not going to advertise ABD again here but he was right regarding the awakening of Asta and Liebe’s union mode. One point I completely agreed with in his video about the last chapter but I didn’t expect that Asta would see Liebe’s memories this soon.

I wonder if Asta will end up using the mistletoe sword against Lucibear- I mean Lucifero. The dark magic has been effective against him before but in the end Asta’s antimagic is still the ‘super effective’ attribute against devils, so it seems. So like with what happened during the Dante fight and taking Yami’s katana it could possibly happen in this fight.

Forget what happened to the 4 fighters in this chap. WHAT HAPPENED TO MEREO!? Dear Mereo, either you die… or live long enough to become a fire spirit yourself.

With what Luci did to Yami and Nacht, the dude’s gonna catch Whack’s fangs! I’m prepared to travel dimensions just to snap all of his horns and shove them into his ass— (*cough* *cough* Does he even have an ass though??? Alright that’s enough, back to the story)

Future predictions.

After this arc, I could feel that it is headed toward the plot of 4th Zogratis’ ideology of acquiring undying bodies. AND! Depending on the event if Asta will indeed die as per Julius’ prediction, if Asta does die then un-die(is this even a word!?) because of “shounen protag syndrome-plot armor magic” this would further prove the point that undying humans are indeed possible. (I also have a theory on how this could potentially happen, so if somehow my prediction about it is right then it's not actually a complete plot armor nonsense. Tabata has laid down certain elements to make it happen.)

With the potential 4th Zogratis arc I have a hunch that Grey will finally be even more relevant in that part. Grey’s backstory is still incomplete. Her name is still unknown and her magic is really special. Grey is currently the BC universe’s ultimate healer. If anyone knows Jojo Bizzare Adventure, she’s basically like Giorno. Her transmutation magic is actually op, and potentially groundbreaking. This girl is closest to achieving what the 4th Zogratis wanted- an undying body. She can transmute organic material as shown when she healed Gauche. Healing magic in BC is said to be only able to accelerate regeneration and not regrow lost limbs. By converting inorganic material and change it into living cells it’s as if she can recreate cells and quite possibly artificial bodies. I’m pushing it but potentially she could create something like a homunculus in Fullmetal Alchemist. Sally can create human clones too, but needs Rades to put souls into them.

So yeah, Grey arc next pls!

Endnotes

I don't know if anyone else felt the same. But this current arc is giving me Yuyu Hakusho vibes. Plus the nerdy side of Tabata is all over the magic techniques. I've read Hungry Joker way, way, back and his hints of science fiction are here in BC.

The MC in Hungry Joker has gravity abilities. Following Einstein’s theory of relativity, gravity affects both space and time. Luci being the most powerful one makes sense. But don’t make me explain this, I barely understand the science talk. However, story-wise it could explain how it would take both the space devil(Beelzebub) and the time devil to go against the gravity devil(Lucifero) to match him in power.

Basically what I’m saying is.... the space-time devils may be conspiring against gravity. Sounds like a probable scenario....

[just-1other-nerd]

Oh my God, there is so much in this reblog chain that I need to comment on... disclaimer I only saw the show once in November/December so I'm not all too familiar with the details.

Prev you are absolutely right when you say that the writing was inconsistent and that the fandom is only still alive because of damage control and a ship. The thing is the show had so much potential and it was wasted time and time again but in between there where bits of gold that were what kept me going.

Another few examples for unconsistent writing: Allura being so easily manipulated by that dark force thing when we had a whole fuck ass episode in season one where she withstands the manipulation of a corrupted ai in the form of her father while having a fever, this mimi arc set her up for being the one on the team to have the strongest mental resistance from there on out but no. Lance going to be a farmer was shit, yes he loves his family and earth but he always wanted to be a space pilot, this is why he went to the garrison, he is one of those bragging guys from day one and he is always shown to want glory and fame so him going off the grid on earth is just actively opposing everything that was set up about him, they didn't even put in the effort to make him say an out of character explanation for this like "I was just acting like this so that I could be what people expect of me" and just threw that ending in there. Another inconsistency is the whole Allura Lance thing because he was the only one to express any interest but toned in down after getting rejected over and over again and after strengthening his platonic relationship with her and once he is at this more healthy place Allura suddenly does a 180 and has a crush and that after Lance tragically had barely any development except for maturing a bit which makes us not understand where this change of feelings comes from since he is basically still the same guy who was rejected many times. And I want to be clear that this isn't Allura's fault but the writers, I like her despite all of the bad directions that they took her.

Now back to the actual topic of this post.

I also think Keith (my little beloved emo bitch) should not have become the leader because of the reasons op said, he's reckless, hotheaded, self-isolating and just in this position because Shiro set him up to be and not because of his actions. I mean I like the bits of growth he got through being forced into this role that was bigger than who he was but he shouldn't have been the black paladin in the 1st place, there were other ways to make him get the same development, like his role within the blades or his role as the literal right hand of Voltron's head, he was basically vice-leader from the start but that didn't get explored. I actually think that Klance works so well not just as a ship but as a general dynamic because of Keith's obvious character flaws and Lance's strengths on top of their banter. Lance is good with people where as Keith isn't, Lance is mature enough to put the team over his own needs where Keith is impulsive and emotional which leads to selfish and reckless decisions, Lance is straight forward and putting himself out there and Keith keeps to himself. Keith on the other hand has got more refined skills and so while Lance is good at fighting and piloting Keith will always be better at that. There's something about the other that they envy and but also deeply respect. Now imagine how this dynamic could have been been utilised better if Keith stayed the right-hand man instead of Lance becoming him and if Lance took over the leader role. It also fits better because even as the leader Keith often struggled with seeing himself as part of the team while Lance did so despite their differences. And we know Lance isn't the best strategist or something but he is quite good at executing the plan so he could rely on others to help come up with a plan and him giving orders on how to go through with it, because that's what a team is for, balancing each other out with specific skill sets.

That being said I actually liked the bit where Lance accepted his position in the team as not the most flashy and important one, him coming to terms with that was as good thing, he matured. He became more confident because he saw the worth of his current position.

My personal take on the whole changing of positions within the team is that I didn't want it to happen at all because every decision they could have made kinda felt wrong to me mainly because it always meant that somebody new would have to be the 5th member. Shiro was good at his job because he was a leader before, he had experience, the only other person who can say that is Allura since she was born and raised in a high political position. But I didn't like her on the team as much as I liked the others. She is very much the heart of Voltron but she is way more capable in controlling the castle ship, think of it as Shiro being the captain but her as the commander. If she wanted to be a paladin she also could have just assumed that position from the start like she didn't have to assign it to one of the random teenagers. Remember how they used the wormholes (which only Allura could activate from her position on the ship) in their battle strategies in the 1st two seasons? That showed me that she isn't just a bystander or anything she is actively involved, while the lions are for fighting up close she was there to cover them and enhance their possibilities via wormhole. Once she was part of the team she couldn't activate those the way she did before which was just a wasted resource if you ask me. I never thought of her as helpless or not capable I just thought that the commanding position on the ship suited her better. She already was all of those great and interesting things, a princess, a political leader, a spiritual leader, a genocide survivor, a strategist, a commander, a diplomat, a teenage girl and so on, enough material to make her compelling and interesting without also making her a paladin if only the writers cared to explore those aspects of her more (I also feel like making her be a paladin on top of all those other things made her a bit of a Mary-Sue). But we all know there weren't enough other established characters in the series yet that could have become the 5th member so it had to be her.

This leads me to my next problem because as prev said Shiro basically dying after taking complete control of the lion and unlocking more powers was just so stupid, they should have done that whole thing differently. Shiro should have survived that battle and should have gone on a few missions in this new stronger shape before he was obliterated, that would have made the threat bigger and more dangerous and set up higher stakes because the loss would be even greater. The thing is that when "Shiro" came back it was hella suspicious and I was always doubting him but they didn't follow through on him being a clone for so long that at the point of the reveal I had basically accepted that he was just magically back. I love this angsty storyline on paper, guy "dies" and a clone sleeper agent of him who doesn't know he is one until activated is sent back as a spy on the team only for his brother to desperately want the real one back and go after him and them then reanimating the real one but in the clone's body is some fucked up shit which I like to see explored, which is why the Black Paladins episode is one of my favourites. But I think that it should have come earlier, the teams suspicions of "Shiro" should have grown, the black lion should have reacted in some way, the enemies should have used him more efficiently and a few more flashbacks of Shiro's and Keith's bond should have been there scattered across those episodes before the reveal to make it even more emotional. And of course they should have used Shiro better once he was back instead of sidelining him. My boy has been through so much traumatic shit and dealing with that would be so compelling especially since we never got it at first because of his memory loss but then because it wasn't him and then because they decided not to use him in a meaningful way anymore. I wish they would have showed us more than he's a perfect leader despite the shit that he went through, make him react to his trauma by giving him more flaws.

I gotta disagree with op's take on Shiro and Lance though, I don't think Shiro treated Lance all that bad because I don't think there really was any relationship beyond being colleagues and idolisation of Shiro on Lance's part. Which is a shame really because as you said meeting your idol is a complicated thing, one could lean into the whole "my idol isn't who I thought he'd be, he's flawed and not that interested in me" thing or "my idol is a real human being and I need to stop putting him on a pedestal". But Shiro never developed any strong bonds with the people with whom he already had history like Pidge and Keith meaning that Allura, Lance and Hunk (who btw was neglected the most by the writers) got left behind, I don't blame Shiro, I blame the writers.

Final thoughts: I liked Allura more in her commanding position outside the paladins, I think Shiro is the best leader for the team but if there was somebody who could replace him it is Lance, Keith should be in the position of the right hand, the sword, the blade, the dangerous missions kinda guy in the red lion because it is an important part yet not a leadership role and fits more with his momora and solo missions arc, Hunk and Pidge are perfect as the legs even the writers couldn't fuck that up. The thing is I like the idea of a team member going missing and them having to adapt and replace but in my opinion it shouldn't have been a permanent change but rather a half a season arc during which they all grow and learn to work together in a better way but ultimately being given the chance to go back to their original lions (the ones who chose them from the start - which means something to me) and discovering that their experiences made them a better team.

I like how the black lion is literally doesn't give a fuck about who is it's paladin. It took a battle to get zarkon out of it's system, it took no time for shiro to pilot it, and then like 5 seconds for it to accept keith. I bet that if lance was actually serious about being a leader and it wasn't just for show, black would let him in.

That brings me to the fact that the show was building up for lance to lead voltron, but then they decided that actually no, keith should be the leader (insane decision, actually unparalleled unhinged behavior, especially at that time)

Keith is a hothead, he's reckless and a loner. The fact that shiro wanted for him to lead voltron was pure nepotism. Lance has great spacial and emotional awareness, he always thinks about the team before he thinks about himself. Yeah he boasts and he's annoying, but he's the sanity of the team, he's the shoulder everyone can rely on in their time of need.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a keith slander post, i absolutely love that emo little shit. But at that point in the story, he was in no way fit to lead and he didn't want to. Lance was better suited for that role, but because of the writers' biases of "he's a comedic relief character" he didn't get to be a fully fledged out character.