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intothegenshinworld · 8 months ago

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Fate’s Destiny ~ Chapter 17 || Finale

You somehow, not being able to explain it, had fallen into the Genshin world you know oh-so-well. You were no new player and had explored most of the nooks and crannies of the world. When you first had woken up in Windrise you wondered; it might be a dream, after all, you were behind your screen usually, and now- here? It made no sense, and the world was keen on keeping it that way.

Warnings: Spoilers for main story.

Word count: 1k+

Auteurs note: Posting all that's left in one go <3

↺ PREVIOUS CHAPTER || MASTERLIST

In the presence of nothing, everything returns as it once was.

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…

With a single blink of your eyes, you find yourself in a serene place. It is a bright, colourful, and peaceful domain; a drastic contrast to the violent void that had consumed you a moment prior. Without a clear journey from your old to your new destination, the sudden shift in your environment is aberrant. Your mind tries to catch up to the facts and you realise you no longer remain in Teyvat, nor are you on Earth—the planet you originally came from.

When you gaze at your reflection on the watery surface below, your fading appearance is solid again. With the world no longer ridding itself of you, you stop looking impaired.

Your memories are restored and you remember who you are, and what had happened.

This is the 794th time you tried to escape the code of ‘Teyvat’.

You straighten your back and find your strength returning with every second spent in the astral plane. The area you currently reside in is something you would describe as a crossing between ‘your world’ and the world you were previously stuck in. A save file —the place you return to when you fail to meet the right conditions to ‘survive’.

Despite the weight of ‘dead’ lingering in your mind. There is a feeling of peace now that your memories are restored. You still have no idea how you ended up in Teyvat, but the past ‘runs’ of the ‘game’ fill in the blanks.

The first time you had awoken in Teyvat, you had seemingly come out of nowhere. Yet, your sudden appearance would not be your downfall. Instead, it consistently appears to be your interaction with the world that causes it to ‘break down’.

During your 1st time in Teyvat, you had done many things different than this time. You were naive and content to take on the name of ‘Creator’ without hesitation, taking things as a joke and not feeling any danger despite the ‘code’ detecting you as a virus. Your existence contradicted how the ‘story’ was written; and so it tried to erase you. Yet, your impact had gotten too big and it could only end with the collapse of the Teyvat.

Que, your second try. This time, once you had escaped the astral plane to try again, you could still remember your family and friends, anything from your past world, as could you recall the events of the past world. Trying to change your previous choices, you went to Mondstadt, only to ruin the ‘story’ by explaining that you are from a different world. Your impact changed the code again, and so you, including all you had influenced, were bound to be destroyed.

Many variations of your efforts to escape this world have gone in vain.

Since you are the only one to remember the ‘before’ and the ‘truth’, you can’t ask for any help or clues. Trial and error got you to a certain level of experience, but at some point, you stopped getting information and were lost without a way to survive.

This evolved into a feeling of desolation.

If all your actions end with the same ‘ending’, do you have a choice in the first place? Perhaps certain things are set in stone; maybe it is your destiny to relive this story over and over.

However, things took a positive turn when you met Dainsleif.

At the beginning of your run-ins, he could not remember you. It appeared that he, too, was limited to the code. Yet, he always found you, again and again until something changed.

As the deaths and rebirths of ‘Teyvat’ increased, he got closer to ‘the truth’.

One day, you woke up in the field of Windrise with him by your side. He knelt beside your resting body and spoke your name when you woke up.

Dainsleif remembered , and so you tried to uncover the truth together.

The memories of your previous world had proven to be useful after this. They explained how the world worked and that, at its core, it remained a game. Everyone’s actions and fate were predestined by the code that had written ‘life’ into the world, and anything that defied it was seen as an error.

Your fading appearance and the loss of memory started to make sense once you uncovered this truth. Continuous exposure to the code had made you fragile. Not only were you corrupting the code, Teyvat was corrupting you. You were crossing the line between ‘human’ and ‘code’, and once you became one with the game, you would no longer have access to the ‘savefile’ and die once the code had exterminated its error.

Somewhere after the 680th time, you had become a walking amnesiac, and no matter how many times Dainsleif tried to explain the workings of the world to you; you would end up forgetting it. The only times you were able to speak with him as you are now were in the first few system hours in the game.

Dainsleif will wait at the tree in Windrise and update you. You would decide a new strategy and he would lead you as best as he could.

At your 700th try, you offered your life for the world that was not yours. Dainsleif had regretfully promised to take you out before you could impact the code.

It did not work. Even if he got rid of you, he was still impacted.

In the last timeline, you started with even fewer memories. Your mind held on to the few fragile memories that made you ‘you’.

Your name, your age… but things like your friends and family became a distant thought and you know you will lose those memories again once you leave the ‘savefile’.

And herein lies the ultimatum.

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…

ㅤ

At the sound of bricks being stacked against one another, a familiar white door materialises behind you. Its imposing presence casts a solemn shadow over the otherwise serene landscape. Every time you return to the familiar gate, a weighty decision is put into your hands. Sometimes it feels like the door itself holds the key to your fate.

Your eyes follow the familiar shapes of intricate carvings on the framing.

Memories, vivid and fleeting, flood your mind like waves of a restless current.

You’re at the entrance of the game.

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DO YOU WANT TO TRY AGAIN?

ㅤㅤ[ YES ] [ NO ]

If you liked this chapter and think I deserve a comment, please leave one behind! I appreciate it a lot and it'll make me more motivated to write in the future ♡

#isegau #sagau #genshin x reader #sagau x reader #isegau x reader #genshin impact x reader #sagau isekai

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yun-shuten · 19 days ago

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Ao3 Link

i finally tried writing error sans. love me this bratty whiny skeleton and would actually smack the crap out of if i had to deal with him :)

A slice of preview:

“y-you’re just jealous that i’m… not alone on a friday night.” The other Sans gasped out after taking a long moment to recover from Error’s tugging, and has the audacity to smile when the Destroyer whirls back at him with an offended look.

Excuse, what? The fuck? Noooooo.

Error laughs derisively, a sneer across his face as he jeers at the other Sans, “w-who?! me, je-jealous?! you’re joking. shit joke by the way. zero out of ten. get a better fucking se-sense of humor next time. oh wait. you won’t have one. because this abomin-mination of a universe will be long g-g-gone.”

It’s hard to tell how the other Sans reacted because half of his face was already gone, evaporated into dust but his smile is still curled in a mocking smile. “normally i’d say i’d wish you find your one… but i don’t. heh, yours will probably reject you in a beat.”

“yo-you…!” Error blips and warbles into a rage at the act of being belittled by this pansy ass Sans. “i-i don’t have to ta-take this crap fr-from-m you!”

“bitchless.”

“A-AAAGH!”

One savage yank and the Sans’ SOUL cracks and shatters under the pressure of Error’s strings, leaving behind a pile of dust before Error. Without anything to attach itself to, the Red String of Fate disappears without a trace.

Sucker.

“l-loser. as if-if i need one anyway.” Error grumbles, kicking the dust pile out of spite before teleporting out of the crumbling universe.

Nothing beats home sweet home.

The glitch addled skeleton flops majestically upon his bean bag with a satisfied grin. An obliterated anomaly makes a happy Error, and you know what? He deserves a treat, especially after putting up with that universe’s Sans’ nonsense. And of course, all of his hard work.

The acoustic theme of Undernovela begins to fill Error’s pocket of the Anti-Void, and Error uses the opening time to retrieve the unfinished doll from his hanging collection along with his knitting needles, red glasses on face to restore his vision. The Voices are thankfully silent at the moment, sated by the recent destruction of a boring universe and leaving Error alone in peace with Undernovela.

Unfortunately, there was a teensy problem, one that became more prominent over time.

No matter how much Error tried to focus on Undernovela, the taunts of the alternate Sans continued to replay in his mind. Sure, the current episode was just a rerun of a previous episode where Sin took Toriel out on a date in the city, but Error would really fucking appreciate it if his head would stop repeating the recently deceased Sans’ words so he could hear Sin on the screen.

Bitchless, he was declared.

As if Error needed a soulmate anyway!

He’s an Outcode. His reputation was being the freaking Destroyer of Universes and he did not need a soulmate, nor did he want one. Ever. The thought alone of being tied down to some nobody without his say so was revolting, and Error had to wave off some of the glitches forming in his sight as his temper threatened to bubble over again.

Besides, he ain’t gonna put his (nonexistent) love life in the hands of that bitch called Fate. Why, if he really wanted to, he could totally get someone to fall in love with him. He was a prime specimen of a skeleton! Who WOULDN’T want him?

(who would?)

#error sans x reader #sort of. its in third person instead of second because its from his perspective and i wanted to peer in his head like a nosy neighbor #sans x reader

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directdogman · 2 years ago

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Dialtown short story + art piece - Wheels Within Wheels

Finally went through with polishing the short 6 page story about Mingus + God discussing the possibility of restoring Crown’s memory! This scene was devised originally as a potential flashback for the final route, but the flashback scenes were cut because they made the final route feel too narratively disjointed imo. Now you guys get to hear a conversation that you wouldn’t have otherwise!

I’m not the best narrative/descriptive writer in the world (and even then, I’m not 100% happy with it), but hey, at least this way people get something to gawk at :)

STORY START:

Rhythmic mechanical whirs resonated from the complex system of exposed gears on display, their ceaseless revolutions punctuating the resounding silence of a still operating room with a dim, but reliable tick. Wheels within wheels, revolutions within revolutions. After a prolonged, sterile pause, the mayor's alert stare shifted from the head of the centenarian titan lying on the operating table in front of her to meet the rueful gaze of the sole conscious person in her vicinity.

"So?" the mayor asked her guest, her tone firm and imposing, "What do you think?" The man to her left stood with a meek, shiftless posture, discomfort plastered across the face displayed on the CRT screen in the place of an organic face. "Yeah..." the man trailed off, his eyes glancing slowly from the controlled chaos within the patchwork phone to meet the mayor's hungry gaze, "...I don't think there's anything I can do." Pearlescent white fangs materialized as the mayor's maw contorted into a sneer. "You barely LOOKED." the mayor snarled back at the man, prompting the man to lean back slightly, putting distance between himself and the rage bubbling within the mayor. "I took as long as I needed to know I don't have the remotest idea how to fix this." the man replied, his voice almost a murmur. The mayor's eyes fixated on the man's face as she took an imposing step forward.

"So..." the mayor snarled, lowering her head while keeping her gaze fixed, "...You're refusing to try?" Sensing imminent danger, the man held his hands out shakily and uttered his hesitant defense. "N-No, no, it's not-" the man stammered, wringing his hands, "It's not THAT, ma'am, I just... I wouldn't know where to BEGIN, y'know?" The mayor's gaze loosened as she slowly nodded her head in reluctant comprehension. "The way I see it..." the authoritative tabby declared, "...Given Paw-Paw's near-constant lack of lucidity, consistent inability to recognize others, and TOTAL lack of awareness of his surroundings, ANY meaningful change would logically have to be positive, correct?" The hound's eyes shifted towards the floor, unable to meet the mayor's engrossed stare. "I mean… I could blind him, deafen him..." the man muttered back, still staring at the floor, "Hell, I could KILL him. There's... substantial risk with me touching anything in there." The mayor scoffed resentfully at the feeble hesitation exuding from her guest's replies. "No achievement is bereft of risk. I didn't get where I am without taking risks." the mayor affirmed, her tone and posture seeping with grandiosity, "My Paw-Paw didn't get where HE did by shying away from peril." "...Certainly not, ma'am." the man muttered, as his wincing gaze shifted back to the geriatric governor lying on the operating table.

"Y'know, if anything happens to him from me meddling..." the man uttered, his voice almost a whisper now, "You'd hold ME responsible." The mayor rolled her eyes. "So, you're asking me for total impunity before you act, is that it?" the mayor asked, folding her arms impatiently, "You're asking me to promise that I'll spare you should you make an error." "It's not just that, ma'am." the tattered guest replied, as his expression shifted from fearful agitation to an empathetic peer, "Are you willing to throw the dice, knowing it'd likely mean that it'd likely mean losing your Paw-Paw? Have you considered what that could do to you?" For a fraction of a second, the mayor's stare loosened, as her mind visibly considered a possibility too agonizing to contemplate. Within a second, the mayor's face shifted back to its invulnerable and imposing leer.

"Think of how much better off we'd all be if you WERE to restore his memory." the mayor asserted, decisively gripping the man's right arm, "This isn't just about what I want. You'd be saving the whole human race." The man peered down to notice the mayor's claws embedded into his sleeve, causing him to stumble backwards, glancing uncomfortably from the unmoving relic on the table to the bargaining tyrant as he relinquished himself from her grip. "Look, I, uhhh- I wouldn't be the most qualified person to, uhhh-" the man stuttered, his body now trembling slightly, "Maybe you're better off getting a neurosurgeon to take a look at your Paw-Paw." A scoff sounded from the mayor as her expression twisted into an embittered sneer.

"I've HAD scores of neurosurgeons summoned in here from around the COUNTRY." the mayor spat back at her guest, "Not one of them had so much as an INKLING of how to fix my Paw-Paw." The mayor's sneer shifted into a defeated scowl. "Each relented that their skills mainly lie in correcting organic defects, NOT in prying data from fine-tuned machinery." the mayor stated, enthusiasm fading from her voice. "The neurosurgeons recommended I instead get a visitor who repairs swiss clocks for a living to diagnose what's wrong with Paw-Paw's brain." the mayor whispered, her gaze now fixed on the moving parts within her grandfather's head. The stifled ticking from within interrupted the momentary pause. "The clock-mender couldn't make heads nor tails of what he was looking at. Wouldn't touch a thing." the mayor murmured, her gaze still fixed on the relentless mechanisms whirring away, "Said he wasn't comfortable playing God." The man's bewildered gaze then met the mayor's. "So, you thought I'd be up for the task, then?" the vagabond asked.

"I've had dozens upon dozens of experts grace this room, and yet, not ONE of them were qualified enough to fix my Paw-Paw. Who else IS there to ask?" the mayor demanded, folding her arms warily. The man glanced away, clearly unable to answer. "You dare crown yourself a GOD among men, and yet, you shy away from MY challenge?" the mayor spat, "You call yourself a GOD? Prove yourself. Prove yourself to me, NOW." The man placed his right hand on the back of his neck. His face now betrayed him, with bewildered indignance showing at the corners of his mouth. "I have nothing to prove to you. There IS nothing that I can prove to you, ma'am." the man replied calmly, "I never claimed to have the answers. I never claimed to be anything other than a vagrant with life experience."

"So, who are YOU going to pawn this bothersome task onto, then?" the mayor growled, leaning into the dog-faced drifter's space, "Who are YOU going to pass the buck to, huh?" "I'm not passing the buck, ma'am." the man replied, his gaze drifting back over to the mechanical wreck lying in front of him, "I don't think anyone other than your Paw-Paw would know how to fix whatever's wrong." The mayor's expression softened as a new possibility evidently entered her hirsute head. "I see now that fear doesn't effectively motivate you." the mayor crooned, her tone now one of bargaining, "Well, then. Go on. State your demands. What will it take for you to make an earnest attempt to fix my Paw-Paw?" "I'm sorry, but... There's nothing that you can offer me, ma'am." the man replied honestly. Unable to accept this answer, the mayor relented. "Nonsense! There isn't a person on earth who isn't looking for SOMETHING." the mayor affirmed, "So, what is it that you most want? Go on, then. Spit it out." The man took another step back, sensing what was to follow wasn't going to benefit anyone present.

"What will it take for you to care? Hmmm? Countless riches? Societal power, perhaps? The respect of each and every person you see on the street?" the mayor bargained, pacing towards the man, "What do I need to offer you to get you to try something, ANYTHING-" "Ma'am..." the man interrupted meekly, his hushed tone intelligible against the mayor's relentless pleas. "I can give you EVERYTHING you've ever wanted, you know. Whatever life you'd most like to live!" the mayor implored, "I can give you ANYTHING that your heart desires." The man paced backwards, visibly distressed, but the mayor continued. "You may think I only have MY OWN paltry resources to offer you, but no!" the mayor desperately ranted, "Why, after you restore Paw-Paw's memory, I would ensure that he- that he'd know that he has YOU to thank for-" "MINGUS." God boomed, causing everything in the room, save for the conscious duo, to cascade away into darkness, leaving the pair standing together in a vast, unending void. The mayor stood paralyzed, unable to speak, with an expression of trauma plastered across her face.

A stifled silence emanated from the abyss. As the man sheepishly realized what he'd done, he exhaled deeply, and placed his hands over his face, causing the room (and Crown) to phase back into view. An unbearable hush presided over the two.

"I CAN'T fix your Paw-Paw." the man stated, his quivering lips holding back a snarl and flattened hand moving with every stressed word, "I'm SORRY." The mayor's gaze stayed glued to her Paw-Paw, tears now welling in her eyes. "Listen..." the man stated emphatically, compassion leaking through his voice, "Even IF I wanted to-" The man trailed off, realizing he'd almost sorely misspoken. The mayor's gaze slowly drifted back to the vagrant's face, her left brow now raised and her lips curled into a sneer. "I'm.. sorry." the man meekly stated as he glanced away from the mayor's oppressive stare while wringing his hands, "I wish I could take your pain away. But, there's nothing I could show you that wouldn't just hurt you even more." "Useless." the mayor spat at her guest, "You call yourself a God, but you're just a CHARLATAN. Pathetic." He shook his head slightly before a slight grin graced his face. He turned back to face the mayor's feline gaze.

"Y'know..." the man trailed off, unsure of exactly how to broach the thought that had entered his head, "...Might I offer you some advice?" The mayor scoffed with vocal aggrievance. "Why would I want to hear what YOU have to say?" the mayor sneered with bared teeth, "All the years you've spent on this planet and what have you built? That's right. NOTHING. You've achieved NOTHING." The man nodded slowly before replying. "I admit it. The bold rat usually gets the cheese." the man replied, desperately trying not to visibly glance at the incapacitated Crown, "But, the crafty rat watches the bold rat die in the rat trap and gets to return home with a piece of the cheese." The mayor's sneer retracted to a snowl, and her brow raised inquisitively. "Human history is basically just a chronicle of mistakes." the man added, his expression now back to its default vacant grin, "I think it'd be a disservice to your family's good name if whatever eventually snags ended up being something you could've seen coming." "Alright, then." the mayor responded, curious to hear the advice of this hapless immortal, "Out with it, then. Give me your sermon, while we're still young."

"Are you familiar with the Roman emperor, Caligula?" the man asked, with an unassuming smile. Mingus nodded. "Yes, yes, I know my history. Especially the stories of powerful rulers who've come before me." Mingus replied, "Caligula was the mad emperor who promoted a horse and declared war on Neptune and had his soldiers attack the sea." The man beamed with joy. "Wow! You already knew the story I was gonna tell!" he replied with genuine enthusiasm, "You're smart. Maybe I don't need to give you this advice at all." The cat scowled. "If the moral of your story was genuinely going to be 'don't stab water', or 'don't wage war on things that DON'T EXIST'..." the mayor growled, "...I'm going to kill you with my hands." "It... uhhh. It wasn't." the man sheepishly replied, "Although, those aren't bad lessons to learn EITHER, per se." The mayor glanced away, trailing off in thought. "Some sources theorize that Caligula declaring war on Neptune was actually just a pointless task he gave his skittish soldiers after they refused to invade Brittania by sea..." the mayor muttered, "They brought home sea shells as medals. Then, there's those who think the whole story was fabricated by his detractors. Envious peasants love to tell lies about the powerful."

"Trust me, it happened." the man replied, "I was there." The mayor's gaze drifted back towards the man, bewildered. "I think people just like to assume it didn't happen because of how goddamned RIDICULOUS the whole thing was." the man mused, "Don't ask me WHY. I've never been one to see into the head of an autocrat." The man averted his gaze away from the disembodied relic on the table, realizing what he'd just said aloud. He continued. "It genuinely was AS ridiculous as it sounded, y'know. Thousands of armor-clad Italian dudes just... stabbing at the waves." the man stated, his gaze drifting upwards as if vividly recalling the sight. "Heh. I remember turning to this Gallic dude to my left and telling him…" the man grinned nostalgically, "...that I'd be SHOCKED if the sea actually, like, LOST, seein' as the waves outnumbered the soldiers at LEAST five to one." The mayor tapped her heel on the floor impatiently. "Whatever the POINT of this story is..." she growled, "It had better be FAST approaching."

"Look, do I need to spell it out?" the man replied, "The soldiers fought the TIDE." The mayor raised her eyebrow and leaned forward slightly. The man continued. "Hey, I'll be the first to admit: Humanity's got MOXIE, y'know?" the man shrugged, "We live in an age of space shuttles and, like, five THOUSAND flavours of ice cream, most of which are TERRIBLE. Seriously, who eats ice cream and thinks: "Wow, this flavour is already pretty good, but y'know what it could use? Huh? RAISINS." Now, amirite, or amirite?" The mayor stared back, mouth slightly agape. "Sorry... Went off topic there for a bit." the man sheepishly added, "My point was, when you fight the tides, you make an enemy of the WORLD." "And IF you fight 'til your last breath against the WORLD..." the man continued, "The story can only end two ways. With your destruction, or the whole world's." The mayor's gaze shifted nervously over to her grandfather. "When a large wave comes, would you rather be riding it, or FIGHTING it?" the man asked, causing the mayor to glance back to him.

"You know... There's something to be said for accepting that there's things out there that you CAN'T change." the man replied quietly, a quiet sadness appearing in his eyes, "...In accepting your own powerlessness in things." The mayor scowled. "That's just something that SHEEP tell themselves..." the mayor muttered, "The people whose destinies are controlled solely by people like me... It's just something they tell themselves so they can sleep at night." "There's nothing wrong with being able to sleep at night." the man replied in a sympathetic tone. The mayor didn't reply to this, instead choosing to stare down at the floor. Sensing emotional vulnerability from the mayor's posture, the man persisted. "Y'know... I think the concept of closure is massively underrated in this day and age..." he trailed off, "Maybe... Maybe the best end in this case would be if we accepted that there's nothing more that can be done for your Paw-Paw and w-" Predicting the course of action that her guest was about to suggest, the mayor cut him off.

"Choose your next words... VERY carefully." she snarled. The man stood silent, realizing he'd almost carelessly talked his way towards his own doom. Several oppressive seconds of silence presided over the room before the man regained the courage to speak.

"I'm sorry, ma'am." the man reaffirmed, "I can't fix your Paw-Paw."

"Well, that doesn't matter ONE IOTA to me. And do you know why that is?" the mayor growled, tears welling in her eyes, "Because I'll find someone who WILL. I'll ask every single person on EARTH if I have to." The mayor's claws unwittingly extended, though she didn't notice. "I'll even learn how to fix him MYSELF if I have to. I'll move mountains, I'll split atoms, I'll PART the TIDE and CLEAVE THE HEAVENS IN TWAIN, IF I MUST." she bellowed, "Even if the whole WORLD has abandoned Paw-Paw, I WON'T." "When Paw-Paw's himself again, HE'LL know." she spat, "He'll KNOW that I never gave up on him!"

The two stood in silence for what felt like an eternity. Mingus saw what she hated most reflected back at her through the eyes of her guest. Pity. Shortly after this, the mayor's guest silently excused himself from her company with a wordless nod and a wincing expression of understanding, leaving her alone in the dim, sterile operating room with her grandfather. Blinking back tears, she stared into his head, and looked upon what appeared to be a roll of film, being pulled along a belt, not unlike the surface of a treadmill. Constantly circling back and forth. Locked inside this incomprehensible mechanical safe, her Paw-Paw. No matter how futile it seemed, she would never be able to forgive herself for giving in. A single lock stood in the way of the salvation of the whole world, and by extension, herself.

The Mayor stood alone, transfixed with the impenetrable puzzle before her. Rhythmic mechanical whirs resonated from the complex system of exposed gears on display, their ceaseless revolutions punctuating the resounding silence of a still operating room with a dim, but reliable tick. Wheels within wheels, revolutions within revolutions.

STORY END.

(Art piece was by the talented Jen Jenneration! Check her stuff out, it’s top notch!)

There we go! Quite a few of you guys asked for it, so receive it you shalt...’ve(?) Thanks.

#dialtown #oc #writing #Mayor Mingus #god dialtown

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onejellyfishplease · 2 years ago

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So if you dont mind me I was just going to ramble about my ideas surrounding This post.

long post!

... so it takes place in the far future, where humanity has mived on to live with the planet and live harmoniously (think solar punk). the reason for their success as a species can be traced back to these mysterious heroes, who have vanishes from the world and are now mostly regarded as myth.

the turtles themselves have aged weirdly. without the stress and tremendous pain of the apocalypse they do not seem to age like humans do. much like the Yokai they are based upon they find they have incredibly long lifespans.

and as they age, they move away from what ties them to being human.

they become mythic and ethereal.

I didnt have clear cut plans for most of them, but heres what i came up with:

Raph never stops growing, ever. while his brothers find suitable hights he gets ever taller. eventually he becomes too large to move about safely.

When this happens he voluntarily sinks into a deep sleep. his physical body becomes part of the landscape as the world carries on around him.

But Raph's not gone. he can still send out his projections, which without a close bond with his physical form become more and more abstract as time goes on and Raph becomes more separated from his physical body, still embedded in the landscape.

The locals call these forms their 'red angels' as they commonly lead lost children back home and protect wanderers from falling rock slides. they also look almost incomprehensible, their abstract forms overwhelming to the human eye, such a display of mystic power.

Donnie never stops working. his need to create insatiable. So he never stops. From the shadows he helps humans build their technology, expanding their collective knowledge with his own.

he pours his soul into his work.

his technology becomes inseparable from humanity.

and so does he.

Donnie's soul is present in every computer, interface, and screen. watching over humanity behind a curtain of coding.

hes spent so much time watching over humans and creating with them, that hes kind of... forgotten... what he last did with his body.

oh well. he can always build a new one.

Mikey never stops helping

Mikey has committed himself to the restoration of nature. during humanities growing pains a lot of the planet had been scarred by their errors.

So Mikey has been helping them fix it.

with the help of his mystic powers, which have evolved beyond all recognition, he twists the environment back to the health of its prime.

(large machines a big as skyscrapers aid him, purple light flooding their servers as they trudge through the landscape)

he gives so much of himself, so much of the light of his soul to nature that its started to give back. flowers grow where he stands, the wind ruffles his hair. he snores in whalesong. he can speak in the light trills of birds. the wind gales when he sneezes. and his scales become soft with moss

Leo has grown with the O'Neil bloodline. All his brothers startes distancing themselves from the family once April passed, unable to look at the faces of her descendants without being over come by grief. but Leo stays.

he looks the same as he did a thousand years ago.

#wow that was a lot to write #i hope you dont mind my rambling #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt raph #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt leo #rottmnt april #far far future au

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nhpregulatory-official · 3 months ago

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[[DEVICE_ID: /CRADLE/NHPRO/DARAMSHALA_HQ/CAMERA_2]] [[LOADING LIVE FEED]] [The camera feed opens on a circular room full of screens and desks and fevered discussion. Arm-thick wires radiate out from an ancient, bulky casket like the spokes of a great wheel, snaking between technologically advanced cubicles where human and NHP alike hopelessly pore over screeds and screeds of sensor data, old omni-net posts, and partially recovered error logs.] [Above them all looms a projection of a single, geometric, crimson eye surrounded by waterfalls of scrolling dataplate. It's gaze skitters from datastream to datastream, raking for some overlooked nugget of information. Every so often it pins one of the scuttling figures below with a stare and roars.] [MAG-MELL]: HELENA. STATUS REPORT. HAS THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE INTRUDER AT UOAD: HIGH GROUND BEEN ESTABLISHED? [HELENA]: No Ma'am! No matches to any major extant or discontinued NHP lineages. M-maybe if I cross-reference our notes on HORUS development again I can- [MAG-MELL]: CORINTHUS. PROGRESS ON RESTORING ACCESS TO THE PREMISES? [CORINTHUS]: N-no, ma'am. UAB and UAD access codes keep failing the moment we get our hands on them. B-but omninet history suggests the Albatross might- [MAG-MELL]: GOOD. CONTACT THEM. PANOPTES, IS THERE ANY INFORMATION ON HOW IT GOT INTO THE BUILDING? [PANOPTES]:OMNINET INTRUSION == FALSE; PHYSICAL INTRUSION == FALSE; BLINKSPACE INTRUSION == FALSE; NO POSSIBLE ENTRY POINTS DETECTED. [MAG-MELL]: KEEP. LOOKING. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WE HAVE MISSED. [A tired looking woman with artificial eyes and centipede tattoos takes one last drag of her cigarette and stubs it out on Mag-Mell's casket. Maggie's gaze snaps towards her.] [MAG-MELL]: WHAT. IS. IT? [SIOBHAN]: I know you don't want to admit it, Maggie but it's staring us all in the face. Nothing's been snuck in, there isn't even have a partial classification match, and we've got months of increasingly anomalous omninet history from the systems in the embassy. I dunno how it happened either, but you know damn well what we're looking at Mags. [MAG-MELL]: ... [SIOBHAN]: You want me to spell it out for you? Fine. Whatever that thing is? It was born and made in that building. What we're dealing with here is a Novel Prime NHP Subjectivity smack dab in the middle of the Voladores embassy. [SIOBHAN]: Now buck up, calm down, and lock the fuck in, cause we're about to have a really long day. [The eye goes still. A pall of silence falls over the room smothering the constant hum of activity in a moment.] [MAG-MELL]: FFFFF- --- [[LIVE FEED INTERRUPTED]] [[END OF STREAM]]

#union nhpro #oc rp #lancer rp

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7su-r · 2 years ago

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MOD: 7th Stand User: R

Download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mN49EvprHEzvJmUvwvQvUEidZF17aubk/view?usp=drive_link A QoL mod of 7th stand user, based on version 2.6 with the colors from DX! Some gameplay elements have been altered to make it a bit more accessible for those that are not into old-school RPG's! If changes some aspects of the game that some players find frustrating, such as random encounters. This mod focuses on QoL and does not add new events or story elements.

Features:

• Colors from DX! HUGE thanks to Pythagasaurus13, the creator of DX, for letting me use these. Note that some colors have been adjusted a bit, generally to make it easier to tell different characters apart. • Water tiles no longer have a "flashing" effect and the screen flashing effects of certain battle animations have been toned down. • No random encounters. All enemies appear as characters on the map now! (The only exceptions are Caravan's pocket dimension and the Debug Room.) • Skills that can only be learned from staying at a hotel will no longer unlock randomly. Instead, they are guaranteed to be unlocked as long as you meet their other requirements. • Several endings now allow you to enter the Dev Room: Betrayal End, Mad World End, Good Josuke End and the Unrest End. • Items show you how much HP/SP they restore.

• Hotels now show you how much their food/drinks restore and recover slightly more. • Tonio's special meals now guarantee a stat boosts and the game now tells you what stat has been boosted. Of course, he has to charge a bit more for such convenience. • XP gained from staying at hotels has been rebalanced. • Food (the type that can't be used in battle) will heal the K.O. status. Additionally, food at hotels now recovers a bit more. • Option to do a "fresh start" rather than a new game+. This is very similar to just starting a new game, but you keep your completion counts and special unlocks. • A whole bunch of bugfixes. (And maybe even some brand new bugs 🙃) • More small adjustments that are not listed here! Q&A Q: I already have a save file, can I use that? A: Yes! Just copy your save[number].lsd into the 7SU-R folder. But make sure to back up your original save just in case. Q: Does it work on EasyRPG? A: Yes! Q: I found a bug, eediot. A: DM it to me! I'll fix it. Don't be afraid to mention small graphical errors either. Q: I have a suggestion! A: DM it to me! But keep in mind: This mod does not aim to add new content and I do not want to change character dialogue. (Unless you believe something is mistranslated) Q: Can I still use the wiki? A: Most of the guides on the wiki will still work for 7SU-R, but a couple of details might be different.

Q: Are the Chaos Mode / Ballin' updates included? A: Yes, thanks to KKM's help, the mod is currently up to date with 2.6's Ballin' update. Q: Is the story any different? A: Nope! There are only some spelling errors and a couple of minor dialogue changes to reflect the QoL changes.

Q: The game is stuck in a tiny frame in the corner of the screen. A: If your screen is only in the corner then right click the application and then go to properties. Go to compatibility and then click Change High DPI setting. At the bottom it will say Override high DPI scaling behavior. Click the check box and make sure what's under it says application. Then restart the game.

Q: I have another issue... A: Check the FAQ on the 7th stand wiki.

Credits: Clayman for creating 7th stand user. KKM for creating the 2.6 translation as well as YellowCardinals & MaudDuke for creating the earlier translations. Pythagasaurus13 for coloring DX. The 7th stand wiki Discord for helping with testing, especially BreakDude who picked out a ton of small errors.

#7thjojo #7th stand user #7su #the 7th stand user

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techav · 11 months ago

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On Boot Failures

Headlines everywhere on Friday, the 19th of July, 2024 were about the massive computer outages caused by a faulty update to the CrowdStrike antivirus software. It seems some config file choked up a kernel module causing Windows machines to fail with the infamous Blue Screen of Death.

I recently started a new job and was perhaps a little smug in the fact that in my new job I am no longer responsible for hundreds of endpoints running CrowdStrike.

Karma's a bitch though.

I shut down my home PC Friday night to install a memory upgrade and after powering it back on I was met with the very same Blue Screen of Death.

"A critical process died" it told me, with no information about what said process actually was.

And no log files.

And no dump files.

System Restore failed. sfc /scannow failed. dism /cleanup-image failed. Everything I could find failed. I couldn't even just reinstall Windows over the existing installation because apparently that requires being already booted into the OS that currently isn't running.

The log files from dism led me to believe the problem might be related to registry corruption, but my attempts at replacing system registry files with clean ones from an install wim were not successful.

I was grasping at straws. Starting from scratch with a clean install is daunting and would have set me back weeks. I was contemplating pulling out an old SSD and just running with Linux Mint for a while.

Through desperation, I downloaded Hiren's BootCD PE so I could poke around a little more. None of the tools included there were able to resolve the issue either, but just having access to a standard Explorer shell and a web browser helped.

Finally I came across ShadowCopyView, a program that can explore the System Restore images that Windows (can) take regularly. In one last desperate effort, I moved out all of the system registry files from C:\Windows\System32\config and used ShadowCopyView to replace them with copies from an automatic restore point the previous Monday.

That actually did the trick. I was able to reboot into my primary Windows partition and sign in like normal.

I have no idea what may have been lost in a few days of registry updates, and I have no idea what may have caused the problem to begin with. But I am happy I was able to find something in the end that would get me back into my system without having to reinstall everything from scratch.

... Although maybe I should anyway.

And should anyone encounter something similar in the future, these were the kind of errors I was seeing that a Google search wasn't really coming up with anything useful:

dism.log: failed to open registry root

dism.log: failed to query for path to user profiles directory

dism.log: failed to load the default user profile registry hive

dism.log: failed to load offline store from boot directory

srttrail.txt: pending package install

strtrail.txt: boot manager generic failure

#modern computing #crowdstrike #microsoft #windows #troubleshooting #bsod #blue screen of death

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neververy4 · 9 months ago

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I play a video game called Vintage Story, been playing it since 2020. Absolutly love it. It's a 3D open world voxel game, like Minecraft, but that's about where the similitaries end. Anyways, on my current world, I have a 3x3x3 bunker room with some clay in it, I call it the Clay Hole. Whenever the storm that spawns monsters pass through, I bunker down in the clay hole and work on my pottery whilst the storm rolls on.

I'm telling you this to give context for this conversation I had with a friend who recently got the game

My friend's message, "I love (clay) hole", is the last thing my phone saw before it bricked itself. My phone's screen went VERY bright when that message went through (I always keep my screen on the dimmest it can go), before powering down, and entering a boot loop.

Connecting it to iTunes, it failed both a restore, and a factory reset, going through the whole process, finishing, and still having a boot loop. Error code 4013, which is everything from Face ID to the motherboard to the USB cable/port.

): IDK what to do. I don't want to buy a new phone right now. I'm trying to save for a new laptop. I've had this iPhone 11 for 4 years now, and it's been such a great phone. Maybe buy a used 11? Assuming I can find a trustworthy reseller . .. Going with a same model phone will allow my old phone to be kept as parts for the new one, so there is that. I could also just get the latest, a basic 16 model, and use that phone for another 4 years. IDK, all I know is that I'm upset over losing 4 years of photos, from having to do the factory reset.

Anyways, take some humor out of my misfortune. The Clay Hole was too powerful and killed my phone.

#neververy4 #iPhone #Worst part is no matter what route I take #it all ends in me having the latest version of the Tumblr App #Which means that the chats will now look bad and I can't see what Prev tags are #Also if you tell me to try Android I will strangle you I am NOT masochistist enough to use that shit.#Android was specifically designed to torture you and watch you suffer #): I wish I could get a Windows Phone tho. I miss my 950XL. Microsoft killing off Windows 10 Mobile is why I even got this iPhone #After spending a few months fighting with an android. I took a hammer to that phone I hated it so much

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theworldibuilt4you · 9 months ago

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[Addie whimpered as Sonny was reduced to a mess of pained grunts, their hand coming to rest on the warm glass of their machine.]

Deep breaths... Just look towards me, I'm right here...

[Their own eyes had begun to grow glassy as they sat there, frustration mounting as they wanted nothing more than to let Sonny crumple against their form; to rub soothing circles into his back, to kiss him and hold him through it all.]

[They were too stressed to even register the fact that the usual noisy garble over his voice had been lifted, and that he was now speaking through a proper mouth. They did notice the aura that began to surround him, however: their eyes worriedly following the path the vivid color traced through his splintered frame. Something was happening...]

[They weren't exactly sure how effective it would be, but they went and wrapped their arms around their monitor completely, a shaky but familiar tune rising from their throat. You Are My Sunshine. It made them feel a bit better, at the very least. Like they were actually doing something other than watching uselessly...]

-Addie

[Sonny continued to huff and grunt, Too overwhelmed to try to speak. There were so many sensations, too many to really even think.]

[Slowly but surely it was prevalent that the "Something" that was happening was repair.. The arm that had been missing had slowly begun to patch up, pixels reforming on the shattered form- And the missing chunk of his skull had begun to do the same.]

[Eventually, a flash of a popup came on Sonny's end of the screen, flickering in his vision]

[RESTORATION OF "SONNY_C.RRA" COMPLETE.]

"G....GHhh.... II...-- I thh...hink... Think it's ove-"

[ERROR; MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF "SONNY_C.AVA" DETECTED. COMBINING FILES.]

"erGHCK-!"

[DEACTIVATED FILE "SPEC203XH.ZIP" LOCATED. LAUNCHING.]

[Sonny doubled over once more, both arms clutching around his stomach as a searing pain flashed behind his eyes. A thick, black substance was forced up from his lungs and out of his mouth. It dribbled down the corners of his lips, a ripple of electricity pulsing through his form.]

[A loud, horrible wail escapes his body, and the screen flickers, glitches- The feed goes black.]

[....]

[And then it returns.]

[Huffing, shaking, Sonny tries to overcome the shock that his form had gone through. He... Hadn't been expecting any of that... Everything feels so weird, so overwhelming- He thinks he's seeing double.]

"A...Aaddie..- Ff...fuck- I-..I didn't thh...think..- I'm... I'm so sorry... It.. it wasn't supposed t.."

[He lifts a hand to his face, trying to wipe the sweat and other fluids off his face.]

"I didn't mm..mean for you tt...to see... that..-" "I tt..think i'm gonna throw up..."

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sullustangin · 7 months ago

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Inspired by that Edna Mode post you reblogged, I'm curious in the early days of Eva's creation of her Voidhound persona did the standard Voidhound costume have to go through any adjustments because some part of the costume was impractical or unsafe? And were there any suggestions on things to add to the costume "because that's what the pirates in holofilms wore" that were shot down without even trying them out it was clear it was a bad idea?

Oh, golly! You've tapped the lore vein. I'm so sorry in advance. I also apologize for being SLOW on this because I had to remember/write down some of the headcanon explanations (because I sometimes forget that the Voidy costume isn't canon.....).

I wrote about the appearance and the influences here in our universe, basically making the Voidhound costume an ode to the Shadow and other pulp mystery-solving heroes. There isn't a perfect Voidhound armor in game right now, but Columni Restored Smuggler/Targeter (pub side) is the current one in use for cut scenes. As for how Eva remembers it:

The process of creating the costume was actually pretty fun. It came hand-in-hand with winning Nok Drayen's treasure.

Eva was a just-turned-20 moron, but she was streetwise enough to understand that everyone was going to want to be with her...or bump her off. She was already smart enough not to sign anything as 'Eva Corolastor.' EC sufficed at the gaming tables. But how did she keep her head now that she'd inherited the rep of best smuggler in the galaxy? Risha, as ever, was three steps ahead of her. "You can't walk around looking like that and demand a higher paycheck." She tossed Eva a fashion magazine. "You need an upgrade in general, but look at the expensive stuff first."

The costume came about as a collaboration between Eva and Risha. There was a spandex version, with a mask. "Not enough armor, not enough deflection capacity." "No matter how shiny it is." There was a Mando version, because it had a helmet, but that was veto'ed by Corso. "Letting people know you're a girl will make men like me think twice."

"Assume the lowest common denominator of the galaxy is Corso."

"Hey now!"

"You said it. Sorta."

Bowdaar stuck his head into the hallway from the galley.. "If I see a bounty hunter approaching me, I rip off arms first, ask questions later."

Eva pointed in his direction. "That's a better argument."

The form of the costume finally arrived while Eva and Risha were watching an old holofilm. The plot twist was surprise/secret twins, a comedy of errors for one hundred minutes.

"Wanna be my twin sister?" Eva asked Risha. "The costume. That bossy bad bitch thing we're making."

"...that would lend us some flexibility as to who actually does the negotiating. If one gets caught, the other shows up in the costume, reasonable doubt -- gotta let us go." Risha sucked the melty ice cream off her spoon as she rolled the idea around in her head. "She's going to have to make a hell of an impression if the same audience sees her twice, played by two people."

"Acting lessons for each other might help." Eva gestured at the holo screen. "Not like plotline acting, but compromising with each other and how we normally act to create that character that gets the big paycheck."

"The costume is also going to have to cover a lot of recognizable features, least of all what a pale freak you are," Risha quipped, holding out her arm next to Eva's.

"You might plan on peeling yourself back to 20 when you're 90, but I assume I'll live and die in the same skin. Plus I'm still on iodine for the cosmic radiation." Eva got to her feet. "Stand up."

Immediately: "Lifts," they said in unison; Eva was short.

"Padding."

"Binding or compressing."

"Can we leave that to the costume to make the illusion? We need to move in this thing."

"And let's not forget looking good."

The button-down shirt. The vests. The neck scarf, to add a pop of color. The black blastweave greatcoat and trousers. The boots.

They had a fight over the rebreather mask (Eva no, Risha yes), but that was settled when Bowdaar pointedly hooked a claw into the mask and ripped it off -- and took half of Risha's foundation with it; the humidity in there had steamed the makeup off. No masks. Thick cake of makeup instead, in a foundation shade halfway between them, with complimenting colors for both.

There was another fight about the hat. "I hate hats," Eva said, eyeballing the atrocity Risha had on her head. "One more thing to get ripped up or ripped off. Helmet, if anything."

"I couldn't think of a more inelegant piece of gear," Risha sneered. "The hat can cast a shadow, obscuring the face in holos and in person without any risk to the makeup. It can be made of blastweave. Also." Risha drew out a long, thin hatpin. "You'll have at least five to ten of these in your hair at any time. Think of them as additional weapons."

To make her point. she stabbed Corso's sandwich on the table.

"Now, now, ain't nothing a that a toothpick couldn't handle," he drawled as he plucked it back out of his food. Corso had gotten used to the constant argument over Miss Dark and Broody and Paid Better.

Then Akaavi Spar, Mandalorian of Clan Spar, came on staff and things really got fun.

She was surprisingly impressed by the costume. "Thought you'd hate it for the duplicitous nature," Eva barbed as she spun around in the greatcoat, as Risha finished removing her hat.

"I think it is a tool of cowards, but your people have a preference for live dogs as opposed to dead lions. For its function, it serves purpose," Akaavi stated, leaning back against the bulkhead in the lounge. "It also presents some interesting tactics, if you don't manage to kill yourself first."

"I like the sound of that," said Eva, as Risha said, at the same time, "That's her job. I'm just supposed to look the part."

First: after a mishap with a jetpack and, on a separate occasion, rocket boots, Akaavi applied a vigorous coating of flame retardant to all of the costumes.

Then came the delicate, almost gossamer-thin comm line that Akaavi threaded through each and every hat with such skill. No earpieces needed; Eva could be fed lines by Risha and vice versa. "Don't act surprised. Mandalorians are self-sufficient," Akaavi calmly said when Eva caught her one morning, early, sitting in the lounge and doing the dainty work.

That made the knitting thing much less of a shock later.

Customized smoke pellets and flash-bang grenades. Selectively activated hidden pockets. The final version of Eva's holdout knife set-up. The hand-held zipline launcher. Those were all Akaavi's contributions as well.

Then came Corellia.

"The press is calling you the Voidhound," Akaavi reported as she flipped through pages on the Holonet.

"What a stupid, unoriginal name," huffed Risha. She eventually found the hat annoying, while Eva found that it grew on her.

"Hound caught the wolf. And the press gave it to me, so that's one thing I don't have to give to them. Anything we called this thing would be a tell on ourselves," Eva rationalized as she lined up a bunch of shots on the bar. "We were going to have to name this suit sooner or later."

"It's taken on a life of its own," agreed Akaavi. "It is not you. Yet it is."

"I'd like to keep it as a business partner only."

~~~

As a sort of postscript, the deployable hanglider got one test flight on Ziost before Eva disappeared.

#swtor #swtor fan fiction #oc: eva corolastor #risha drayen #akaavi spar #corso riggs #bowdaar #Guss didn't have any input on the costume #mostly due to fear

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goldenavenger02 · 1 year ago

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the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul

"Cole, what-"

"Nya told me."

"She…" Jay swallowed back the bile that wanted to come out of his throat because 'she told Cole, she told Cole EVERYTHING'. He wasn't surprised when his fear came out in the form of a squeak.

Nya rested her thumbnail against her lips as she waited for the results to come in from the computer, her heart beating anxiously against her chest.

Jay trusted in the sealing power of his wish but she couldn't find it in her to do the same, no matter how much she wanted to.

Not when the yellowish-green scar on her chest still ached, not when she felt so cold at night that not even her brother's elemental fire could warm her, not when she was right back in that lighthouse every time she shut her eyes.

"No search terms for that object appear in the database." The Bounty's text displayed across the screen.

"Scan for the Teapot of Tyrahn below the surface of Ninjago." She commanded, watching as the text box disappeared only to be replaced with a thick, red line slowly making its way up through the tiny Ninjago on the screen.

She knew that the scans were excessive, that if she didn't stop then there was a slim chance that she could undo Jay's wish, that everything they had done would be ruined and that she didn't even know what she was going to do if she found it.

'Touching it will free him, destroying it will free him and locking it in a vault that gets broken into despite the high levels of security Cyrus Borg has installed will end up with him being freed.'

And yet, something in her needed to know where it was, even if it was just so she could ensure that it never ended up in anyone's hands ever again.

"No objects matching the description of "Teapot of Tyrahn" found." The text displayed.

'Then why can't I shake this?'

"Scan for the Teapot of-"

"Nya?"

Nya looked away from the screen despite the "error due to incomplete search term" display covering the screen to see Zane in the doorway of the bridge, only to be filled with relief when he was titanium rather than rusty.

"Hey, Zane," she greeted as she cleared the incomplete search request error and started to clear out her scans, "I was just doing some research on-"

"The Teapot of Tyrahn?" Zane supplied, looking up at the screen as she clicked the button to clear the scan history, making her blood go cold.

"How do you know what that is?"

"It's a historical artifact that hasn't been seen in two hundred years. It would be more strange if I was unaware of its existence," Zane explained before raising an eyebrow at her, "although, it would also be odd if I didn't ask what caused your sudden interest in finding it."

'So I can prevent it from ending up in the wrong hands, so I don't have to feel like my ribs are being crushed by the weight of poison seeping into my body ever again.'

"Just some research," she tried to shrug off his inquiry while walking away from the computer to make her escape, "we should probably go train-"

She was stopped by Zane's cold, titanium hand gently grasping her wrist.

"I am missing a period of time in my logs," he told her before she could pull away or protest at him holding her back from the doorway, "PIXAL thinks that it is a period of about a month and she is unable to restore it no matter how hard she tries."

'Because the timeline was erased to keep everyone, to keep me, from dying at Nadhakhan's hands.'

"I don't suppose you, as well as Jay, know what that is about," Zane continued, only stopping to release his grip on her wrist, "but I do not want to force you to confide in me."

"It's not that, it's…" she pulled in a shuddery breath that only made her realize just how terrified she was.

And not just of what would happen if Jay's wish was somehow undone, but the fear of losing her life had encompassed her in a tight chokehold that refused to release her.

Nya couldn't be sure why she made the following decision, whether it was because it was either to show Zane rather than tell him or just the impulse control that had skipped over her and Kai's entire bloodline.

"I'm…If you're okay with it, that is," she stopped to pull out the wire that was used for Zane's maintenance checks, "It's easier to upload the data, then to talk about it."

"I trust you."

"Okay, but if you could keep this between me and you-"

"Of course, but PIXAL will also have to know. She's in my head, after all."

Zane's smile and joking tone filled Nya with a humorous relief that made her giggle while she plugged the wire into the port on the side of Zane's head before walking over to the computer, this time manually accessing it.

Once she had access to his memory bank, she clicked "add new memory" which she and Zane had created after they returned from Chen's Island so she could fill in the gaps that his new memory bank had lost before she started typing.

She typed every detail she remembered; becoming public enemies, escaping prison, getting stranded, Jay getting taken hostage and hers and Jay's eventual escape; she debated internally for a moment about if she should add details about his father's lighthouse and about Echo, more importantly, if Echo even existed in the new timeline Jay had created.

But with how that event related to herself getting taken hostage and the new scar on her chest, she knew she had to, even if it hurt Zane or worse, hurt their friendship that she hadn't told him until now.

She hit the enter key and turned to see the scanning reflected in Zane's glowing blue eyes for a few moments before he finally met her gaze, the blank stare quickly morphing into deep sadness.

"I think you know why I didn't tell you now." Nya tried to smile while she removed the wire, even though she knew that it wasn't convincing.

She didn't realize just how unconvincing it was until she was pulled into a tight hug by the nindroid who only said one thing but that one thing still filled her with an immeasurable amount of relief.

"I do not blame you for keeping it from me."

…

Jay bit back a curse as he continued to fiddle with the long-abandoned ray gun in the dark, the object in question throwing sparks at his face.

"You stupid, piece of junk, just work." He muttered, waiting until the last ember fizzled out to stick his hands back into the mess of wires and machinery.

The lamp strapped to his forehead wasn't strong enough to illuminate the white scars on the back of his hands, let alone the inside of the weapon that he hadn't tinkered with since before Zane's sacrifice.

But even though his left eye refused to adjust to the darkness, he didn't dare turn the light on; the last thing he wanted was a lecture from anyone about why he was awake when he couldn't tell them why or worse, to wake up Nya, whose sleep schedule had become just as bad as his if not worse.

He would just wait until it was an acceptable hour to be awake and make himself an extra-strong espresso; being jittery throughout training was better than closing his eyes only to be shoved down deep into the nightmare that had been his reality just two weeks before.

Jay lifted the pliers away from the tangled mess and clamped his teeth around the bright red handles before grabbing the wire cutters and snipping right through the blue wire which protested in another round of quick sparks.

"Is that a gu-"

"Ahhh!" Jay screamed before the voice could finish its sentence, launching himself onto his feet and allowing his fists to fill with lightning that illuminated the room, only to light up his best friend's ghostly face.

"Sorry!" Cole shouted, covering his face in defense even though the lightning would easily pass right through him.

"Why are you sneaking up on people?!" Jay shouted as the blue fizzled out, "why aren't you asleep?!"

"I could ask you the same question since it's," Cole paused to look over at the clock on the wall, "three in the morning."

"Really?" Jay asked as he stood up, pulled the headlamp off and stretched his arms with what he hoped was a convincing yawn, "I must've lost track of time. I'll just head to bed-"

He was stopped by Cole's cold hand around his wrist, effectively stopping him in his attempt at a quick getaway.

"What is going on with you?" Jay tried to answer but was cut off by Cole adding onto his question, "What is going on with Nya? Everyone can see you two drifting away from us, and don't think you can lie to me, I know you too well."

"You saved up for this place? Bologna. Whenever money comes your way, you waste it on junk food and video games. What's really up, and don't think you can lie to me, I know you too well."

"Cole, I'm not…" Jay swallowed in order to try and find the words, to find the strength in him to tell him everything, but the only words that came out were, "I'm not ready."

"Jay-"

"The little canary can't find his voice."

"I can't tell you," Jay continued, wiping his arm over his eyes filling with tears while trying to block the mocking tone out of his mind, "I can't tell anyone."

"Why not?"

'Because I'm the reason all of you got hurt.' Jay wanted so desperately to just tell the truth, to let his best friend in, but his lips felt as if the sheet of metal that had been forced over his face in an effort to keep his last wish from being spoken was once again covering them.

"Fine, you don't have to tell me," Cole finally spoke up after pinching the bridge of his nose, his other hand still grasped around Jay's wrist, "but you do need to go to sleep, not just lay down, close your eyes and fake snore until you can keep fiddling with this gun thing."

'That might be the worst idea Cole has ever had, and this is the same guy who tried to make lava with Kai.'

"If you must know, it is a replica copy of Fritz Donnegan's ray gun, the one from Starfarer issue thirty-nine where he goes up against the Kryptamights-"

"Oh, First Master! Just go to bed!"

"Fine, fine!" Jay raised his hands in surrender which finally got Cole to let go of his wrist, "I'm going, I'm going," he let his hands drop only to put the prototype away in case it tried to spark in defiance again, "but you better do something outside of pummeling Kai's Sitar Legend high score into the ground."

"Goodnight, blue bell."

"Same to you, twinkle toes."

Even though he couldn't help himself from smiling when he heard Cole's echoey laugh, it quickly faded when he was hit with the realization that he actually had to go to sleep, in his bed, where the memories of losing everyone to the Djinn blade hovered over his head.

'It's just a couple of hours till sunrise exercise. You can last for a couple of hours.' Jay told himself as he climbed up the ladder and laid down on his pillow, allowing himself to take comfort in the sound of Kai's deep breathing, Zane's loud snoring and Lloyd's occasional shifting in his bed.

Sure, Cole was making rounds through The Bounty and Nya was sound asleep in her room, but this was as close to normal as Jay was going to get until the dreaded training in the morning so he grabbed Mr. Cuddleywhomp from the end of his bed and pulled himself onto his right side.

It wasn't long until his eyes fluttered closed and shut out the world around him, but the sleep he received was anything but the peace that he had hoped for.

"You only have one wish, Jay. What a dilemma," Nya was already growing cold in his grasp, too cold, cold only meant bad things, cold meant dea- "wish me mortal and she dies. Wish her well, and there is no stopping me!"

"You have to make your last wish. You're the only one who can stop him."

His heart was pounding by the time the alarm clock started ringing throughout the room.

Luckily for Jay, the topic remained untouched as he stood in front of all of them with the newly reconstructed battle bot standing behind him at the ready.

"This is the master remote, it controls every single aspect of the bot's infrastructure which means that this stays with me," he stopped to pull out the smaller yet just as advanced secondary remote, "this is the training remote, so you can change difficulty, weapons and speed. Who wants to test it first?"

Jay wasn't surprised to see Lloyd walk forward and slip the helmet over his head without even being asked; he had been assisting with the major improvements after he had been cautioned against diving headfirst back into his usual routine while recovering from Morro.

"Do you know what level-"

"Give me a challenge."

'Maybe I'm not the only one who couldn't sleep last night.' Jay thought to himself while taking in Lloyd's clenched jaw and strained voice.

But, he knew better than to press when that was the last thing he wanted for himself right now, so he grabbed the remote, hit the number seven and backed away to give Lloyd all the space he needed.

Jay knew he was supposed to be paying attention to both Lloyd's technique and the bot's adaptation but he was unable to focus when the ghostly palm pulled him away from the others.

"Cole, what-"

"Nya told me."

"She…" Jay swallowed back the bile that wanted to come out of his throat because 'she told Cole, she told Cole EVERYTHING'. He wasn't surprised when his fear came out in the form of a squeak, "she told you about-"

He couldn't finish his sentence before he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug which made the skin on his arms tingle in retaliation, but he ignored it and returned the hug as his tears made a light 'hiss' against the deepstone armor.

…

Nya hated how damp the storage building was.

She knew better to complain about it when it was keeping them hidden from Harumi, even if all of the clothes, first aid supplies and the perishables had been soaked through and the dampness only made the metal building colder than it was in the harsh fall wind.

It didn't help that it felt all too familiar to Misfortune's Keep.

It had been nearly two years since the timeline reversal and even though confiding in Cole and Zane had been beneficial for her to be able to begin to move on from those events, there were still things that would remind her on how tight that white dress had been despite the extra arms and how tight her throat had been as she tried to get her final words out.

Nya shook away the thoughts and bent down to pick up the drying first aid kit before making her way over to Lloyd.

Lloyd, who was sitting in the corner with his vision not fixated on any one thing as he rested his head against the wall and was more than likely thinking about the others.

Lloyd, who looked so much more like the nine year old in a black hoodie and less like the leader of the resistance.

She couldn't help but wonder if the ache in her chest was how Jay felt right after she had been taken, if he also knew the exact stab of pain from losing everyone he loved all too well.

"You're getting better at hand to hand." Nya tried to break through his silence as she gently pushed back a section of his hair to reveal the graze from the fight in Kryptarium Prison that still hadn't healed.

"My mom told you to tell me that?"

"No one told me to tell you that, and if you remember from my samurai days," she stopped to brush an alcohol wipe over the graze, swallowing back her guilt from the instant hiss of pain, "when it comes to talking to you, I am a shit liar."

Lloyd nodded but stayed quiet as she applied a new gauze pad over the graze and didn't fight back when she started to run her fingers over his collarbones, shoulders, and arms.

"How are your legs?" She asked after confirming that he had come out of the training with zero hairline fractures.

"Fine, you didn't snap any of my limbs," Lloyd insisted, still resting his head against the wall, "can I ask you a question?"

"I don't see why not," she insisted as she grabbed the fabric bandages before gesturing for him to take off his shirt so she could see if the broken ribs were still healing, "good distraction, right?"

"How'd you get that scar on your chest?"

Nya became rigid as her blood went cold.

"I don't wanna pry but I saw it earlier and I just…you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"What, um…" She stopped to tear off the strip from the roll, making a mental note that she should tell Dareth to check the abandoned clinic again for supplies when he returned, "Is there a reason that you're asking?"

"Because you're all I have left of them and…" Lloyd stopped to swallow but Nya was unable to tell if that was from the pain of her taking off the old bandages that Jay had wrapped neatly around Lloyd's torso just a few days before or from what he said next, "I wanted to make sure it wasn't because of her."

Nya gently ran her hand over the purple and blue splotches that covered his left side, relief only hitting her when she saw that the least severe of the bruising was slowly but surely changing from blue to yellowish-green.

"No, it happened about two years ago, long before Harumi."

"Good," Lloyd nodded, his face visibly relaxing, "so, what fight did I miss then?"

"You didn't miss much. Sky pirates, Dijin wedding and a timeline reversal," she said quickly to avoid dwelling on it longer than she had to, "just another day in Ninjago."

"Would you believe me if I said that I was too tired to ask more questions?" Lloyd asked, wincing as she pulled the bandages firmly in order to make sure they were tight before securing them with a few strips of medical tape.

"Regardless, we should probably go again."

"But-" Lloyd started as he pulled his shirt back on, but Nya cut him off as she offered him her hand for support.

"Ninja never quit, right?"

"Unfortunately."

He put his hand in hers and let her pull him to his feet.

She tried not to remember the many times she had pulled Jay to his feet as they trained and he let her beat him, even if he insisted that he wasn't. It made the scar on her chest twinge with pain when she thought about him for too long.

So she pushed it down and held her fists up while speaking, "Then let's go again."

…

It was quiet in the monastery as Nya brushed the electric blue nail polish over Jay's fingernails.

It had taken quite a bit of filing for them to be the right shape after being in the First Realm, but sitting on her bedroom floor while the faint smell of nail polish hit his nose was comforting.

It meant he wasn't stuck in a foreign realm away and not knowing if she was okay and it also meant he wasn't trapped on Misfortune's Keep and fearing what would happen to her if he gave in to Nadhakhan's demands.

It made the Yin-Yang medallion weigh heavy in his pocket and his internal voice pressured him to "ask her now" but he ignored it; he knew that he could find a better time than while his nail polish was still wet.

"Did Master Wu tell you about the mural?" Nya spoke as she finished painting the nails on his right hand and gestured for him to put his left hand in hers.

He had missed dinner to pick up the medallion in the city and he wasn't that surprised that an announcement had been made in his absence. He shook his head "no".

"He said that he's hiring some monks to paint the "history of Ninjago" on the west side, individual murals of us stopping all those people over the years."

"Oh, that's cool." Jay nodded but he couldn't help but wonder if Nya had told Master Wu about the djinn.

"Lloyd's already calling it "the trauma wall", but Kai lectured him on it and now Cole's talking about finding him a therapist which I'm not totally against-"

"Did you tell Master Wu? About the…you know." Jay trailed off, knowing that part of him was still worried about saying the name aloud as if it would summon the dijin right to him.

"I don't think it's exactly an age appropriate story for a baby."

"Fair point."

"Do you…do you want him to know?"

"You told Lloyd, you told Zane and PIXAL and you had to tell Cole for me," Jay expressed as she let go of his left hand, "I just…if anyone should know, it should be Master Wu, just in case."

He didn't want to go into the "what ifs" right now, the two of them were both painfully aware of any bad possibility that could come from the events of the timeline reversal and this was their first date night inside the new monastery of spinjitzu. The last thing he wanted to do was taint it.

"He's probably still awake, if you want to tell him now," Nya sat back while putting away the dark blue nail polish and pulling out a dark red for herself, "it'll be easier if you don't wait until he's putting paint on the wall, but if you scuff your nails before I put the top coat on, Jay Walker, I swear to the first spinjitzu master himself-"

"I won't walk into the walls, promise."

"We both know you don't even believe that." she smiled before shooing him out the door with a wave of her hand.

It was only when he shut the sliding door, without denting the fresh polish, that he realized his mistake.

'Just tell Master Wu about everything that happened when you're too scared to even say names, like that isn't nearly impossible.'

"Baby steps, Jay. Baby steps," He whispered to himself as he started to walk through the dark halls of the monastery, "you can figure out what to say after you find him."

If anyone had heard him, they would know that he was trying to avoid thinking about his words as much as possible. Even he knew that he was avoiding thinking about it as he poked his head in the common areas that were completely dark for the night.

He grabbed his jacket that was hanging by the door and pushed his arms through the sleeves before walking into the courtyard that was only illuminated by the glow of the moon.

And sure enough, the figure of Master Wu that was shrouded in shadow due to the darkness was standing and staring at the west wall that would soon immortalize everything they had been through in the last few years.

"Master Wu?" Jay asked softly as to not startle him.

"Nya told you about the mural?"

"Yes, yes she did," Jay agreed as he moved forward to stand by Master Wu's side, "we were talking and…well, she said…I have something to tell you."

"Oh?"

"Do you remember when you sent us to investigate what Clouse was doing in Stixx? After he escaped the Cursed Realm?" Jay questioned, figuring that he should start with something he had no problems talking about, "but we missed him because we drew attention of the NInjago City news team and when we got back on The Bounty, Lloyd said that he was experiencing some really intense deja vu?"

"I seem to recall the news footage of you and Nya settling your differences and her using airjitzu, yes."

"I know why, Nya and I both do and we've told a few of the others, but we were talking and I told her that if anyone needed to know, it was you because if somehow it didn't work, you'd be able to help us figure it out. Wish magic is tricky and-"

"Jay," Master Wu's hand on his shoulder stopped his nervous ramble, "I know that you two reversed the timeline where Clouse released an evil djinn."

"Who told you?"

"I became very familiar with time travel long before Acronix hit me with the "time punch", and even before the four of you went back in time and destroyed my brother's megaweapon. When I saw that news footage, I felt the same feeling as Lloyd did, that I had seen this before."

"That doesn't explain how you know about…about him." Jay still couldn't say the name, it made his stomach turn and his tongue feel heavy.

"When my brother returned to help the elemental alliance, he told me very little about what he had seen and heard with Chen as his sensei. But he did tell me that Clouse had a very strong interest in dark magic which included the Teapot of Tyrahn, the same teapot that Captain Soto had famously trapped a djinn by the name of Nadhakhan inside of before marooning the rest of his crew in different realms."

Jay tried not to shudder at the name being said aloud, "so the First Spinjitzu Master used the realm crystal to help Soto?"

"Precisely. I was a teenager back then, so while my father didn't tell Garmadon or I much, I was very good at listening in on his private conversations," Wu's brief smile of fondness from the memory helped relax some of Jay's nervous energy, "would you and Nya like for the defeat of Nadakhan to be a part of the mural?"

"I don't know," Jay admitted, kicking at a loose pebble by his feet, "if no one remembers it, how is it as important as something like Zane's sacrifice, or the Iron Doom?"

"Regardless of whether or not the others remember it, it is still a part of our history. And given the nail polish on your hands, the fact you came out here to tell me at eleven at night and the yin-yang medallion in your pocket, I have a feeling that you and Nya are still finding significance in it."

The medallion weighed heavy in his pocket again, "how did you-"

"My nephew is very happy for you two, and terrible at keeping secrets from people who are not the subject of surprise."

Jay couldn't help but smile at the mental image of Lloyd excitedly telling Master Wu about what he had asked both Kai and Lloyd after returning from asking Nya' parents and telling his own, knowing that the green ninja was just as much Nya's brother as Kai was.

'If it wasn't for that stupid teapot, I wouldn't even be asking Nya to be my yang.'

"Yeah," Jay nodded in response to Wu's question, "It should be part of the mural."

"Very well. You should get back to your date night," Wu nodded, but when Jay started to make his way back inside, he added "and Jay?"

"Yes, Master Wu?"

"Congratulations."

…

Nya ran her fingers over the curves in the medallion, making notes of every little scratch in it; she had taken the gold half while the Oni were trying to break down the doors of the monastery and it had shined despite the lack of light in the sky.

Jay's words had been quick, but heartfelt and when Cole and Kai had yelled about his sense of timing, all he had responded with was "there may not be another time"; even though she had initially been confused, she knew that she was going to say yes as soon as he got down on one knee.

Just being pinned to her chest during the tornado of creation had scuffed it quite a bit, but Kai had taught her years ago how to get scratches out of metal with a scouring pad and once she made note of all of the marks, she was going to fix it.

'Two nights ago, I was telling Jay not to dent his nail polish,' Nya thought to herself when she caught sight of her chipped nails, 'now I'm working out the scratches in the medallion he bought for me.'

Nya knew it could have been way worse than a scratched-up medallion. Cole could have died, Lloyd did die even if it was only for a few seconds, her plan about the golden weapons and Lloyd's plan about the tornado of creation could have failed.

It was not lost on Nya that the biggest repercussions that she was feeling was having to smooth out the medallion and the monastery being slightly more drafty then usual.

It wasn't surprising to her that the others had all turned in early, leaving her alone in the dim lighting of the kitchen to repair her medallion; it was actually nice in a strange way, to be able to just focus on the repairs she was making.

She hadn't experienced that since she had been Samurai X.

She was brought out of her focus of running the scratches over the scouring pad to one of the bedroom doors opening and closing with a couple of creaks that indicated that the new hinges already needed oiling.

'That's tomorrow's project.' She told herself as she heard the footsteps approach her, looking up to see her brother heading towards the cups.

"How's Lloyd?" She asked, making sure she lined up the grooves correctly so she didn't scratch it more.

"He's not in too much pain, all things considered," Kai shrugged as he filled the cup with the filtered water in the fridge, "had to give him the "parents don't define us" talk again."

"So not great." Nya sighed as she put the medallion down to switch to a softer pad to finish polishing the sides.

Every single one of them with the exception of Jay, and she knew that he wouldn't be so lucky if Kai knew about his biological parents, had been on the receiving end of Kai's spiel about being separate from your parents.

Cole during their undercover work for the Ninjago Talent show, Zane when he questioned why his father hadn't removed his memory switch, Lloyd so many times whether it pertained to Misako or Garmadon and even her when she was so frustrated with her mom that it made her want to ignore every single text message and phone call that she received.

Kai had always been at the ready with his rare but wise words and a tight, comforting hug every single time.

"Yeah, but he's asleep now," Kai sat down beside her on the barstool with his glass of water, "can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I'm not following." Nya raised her eyebrow as she reexamined the medallion to see that her work had been a success before pinning it back onto her gi, all while a small part of her brain hoped that her brother was referring to something that didn't involve sky pirates.

"About the mural."

"What about it?"

"Oh my-First Master. The one of you and Jay and that four armed genie thing with the lamp! Were you ever going to tell me, Nya?"

'No getting out of it now.'

"Fine, fine," Nya sighed as she rested her elbow on the counter so she was looking directly at her brother's amber colored eyes, the Smith family anger bubbling in her chest, "what do you want me to tell you? About the sky pirates? About being public enemies and being put in Kryptarium? About me dying in Jay's arms? Or just about the evil djinn who tried to kill Jay and tried to force me into being his wife?"

Kai went deathly silent as he looked down at the tiled floor but as soon as she finished speaking, she couldn't help but instantly regret the tone that she had used against her brother.

She hadn't gone into details since she had first typed everything out into Zane's database, she had never recounted the details out loud since they had happened. It made the scar on her chest ache when she found it in herself to look back at Kai's tear filled eyes.

"I-I'm sorry," tears started involuntarily running down her cheeks as well, "everyone else knows and-"

She was cut off by the tightest hug Kai had ever given her, one hand in her hair and the other resting on her upper back, she instantly returned the pressure with her hands wrapped tightly around his torso.

"I shouldn't have acted like that." Nya spoke after a few moments, still engulfed in the hug.

"I shouldn't have pushed. You went to the others in your own time, right?"

"Kind of," Nya nodded against Kai's shoulder, "Cole came to me, but that was because he was worried about Jay and Lloyd asked, but I was trying to distract him and we thought you guys were dead-omph." She was cut off again by Kai squeezing her tighter.

"I love you, Nya."

"I don't think you've told me that in a long time."

Kai finally let go and wiped his face on his sleeve, "me either, I didn't think I needed to say it. But after today I just…I feel like I should let everyone know that, especially you."

Nya nodded, her brother's shout of "we have to go back" as a reaction to Cole's fall and his desperate plea of "buddy, wake up" after they had pulled Lloyd out from under the rubble would forever live in her mind, just like the scarring memories of what she and Jay had experienced.

"I love you too, Kai."

"I know you do," Kai grinned with a hint of cockiness in his voice which made Nya roll her eyes, "I just wanted to make sure that if you wanted to talk to me about it, you knew that you could."

"I know."

"Good, also that if that fucker ever tries to mess with you or Jay again, I'll fist fight him."

Nya chuckled as she hugged him again, tucking her chin against his shoulder as she whispered in his ear, "get in line, Jay and I call first dibs."

#lego ninjago #ninjago #whump #angst #my writing #fic #lloyd garmadon #jay walker #jaya #ninjago nya #ninjago kai #ninjago cole #master wu #ninjago zane #ninjago pixal #trauma #post skybound #the others find out about skybound

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themattress · 1 year ago

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A post looking over Kairi's actions in KH1/KH2/KH3, because curiously (and frustratingly) enough she only seems limited to approximately 10 major action set-pieces per game.

Races with Sora and Riku.

Referees a race between Sora and Riku.

Makes the Oathkeeper charm.

Goes to the Secret Place to safeguard the world's heart but is attacked by darkness.

Sends Sora a flashback of her and her grandmother from within his heart.

Saves Sora from having his head caved in by Ansem from within his heart.

Tries and fails to save Sora but still refuses to believe that he's gone, then runs away with Donald and Goofy at Riku's urging.

Recognizes Sora as a Heartless, protects him from other Heartless at great personal risk, and restores his human form to him.

Gives Sora the Oathkeeper charm and has him promise to return it to her.

Goes to the Secret Place and draws herself giving a Paopu Fruit to Sora.

Prior to Destiny Islands' destruction, Kairi as well as Riku are both, apart from their major character development scenes at sunset, simply doing things that reflect their friendship with Sora and their easygoing tropical life. There isn't anything major until the big storm strikes and they are both lost to Sora. After this, Kairi is a passive character by plot necessity, being unable to do anything because she's inside Sora's heart and for the longest time isn't even aware that she is. The moment she gets an inkling about it following the events at Neverland, she does something from within Sora's heart, and once it's outright confirmed by Ansem she immediately puts that knowledge to use and saves Sora from him. After this is her main actions everyone remembers her for - saving Sora after he becomes a Heartless and then giving him the Oathkeeper charm we see a lot more of in the following two games. While she absolutely could have stood to do more after regaining her body, she is at least given the focus in the ending FMV and (epilogue aside) does the last action seen in the whole game.

As I said here, I really like this mostly-passive-by-design role for Kairi in the first game, since as a potentially standalone title with heavy basis in fairy tales, mythology and of course Disney movies, this kind of mysterious magical damsel role is a perfect fit, plus it had a nifty twist put on it and was accompanied by an actual human and relatable character arc for her. Some may find it disappointing, but I feel for this specific entry in the series, it is perfectly justified. The only fuck-up was putting the scene where she gives Sora the Oathkeeper in Traverse Town instead of Hollow Bastion, which is then nonsensically said to be "way too dangerous" for Kairi and she'd "get in Sora's way" if she did...a fitting description for if she followed him into End of the World, not Hollow Bastion where the other Princesses of Heart are managing to get by just fine. Fix that one glaring error and Kairi in KH1 would be perfect.

Writes a letter to Sora and sends it out to sea to reach him.

Resists Axel's manipulation and runs into a dark corridor to Twilight Town with Pluto.

Befriends Hayner, Pence and Olette.

Gets away from Axel when he kidnaps her (off-screen).

Escapes her prison cell alongside Namine and is willing to fight Saix alongside her.

Stops Riku from leaving and has him be honest about his current condition.

Fights a chamber load of Heartless alongside Riku to save Sora, forcing Xigbar's hand.

Stops Riku from leaving AGAIN and reunites him with Sora.

Takes as many small actions as possible as a member of the party.*

Merges with Namine, thus saving her from fading into darkness.

* Stops Mickey from getting himself killed, points out the appearance of a Heartless swarm and the door to Kingdom Hearts, gets back through the door alongside Mickey (off-screen).

I again link to a prior post I made, where I brought up the reasons many people found Kairi in KH2 to be a disappointment. And while those reasons are and always will be valid (and always rectified in the KH2 manga; please check it out, people!), when I look at Kairi's actions in KH2 as a whole I can't help but feel that it's a major overreaction. People get caught up in either the various execution flubs that affect more characters than just Kairi or let their personal expectations for her get in the way of actually looking at and appreciating what's actually there, because what's there is a strong young woman learning to come into her own and fighting tooth and nail for every scrap of agency the villains keep trying to deny her, all while forging new bonds with others and being responsible for restoring the old bond of the Sora/Riku/Kairi trio. Her first action undertaken boomeranging back at the very end to save Sora and Riku from dying in the Realm of Darkness and bringing them home to a happy ending is just beautiful, the ultimate reward for Kairi taking it upon herself to be proactive.

Writes a letter to Sora but doesn't send it to him.

Gives herself a makeover.

Shares a Paopu Fruit with Sora.

Fights Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed alongside Lea (off-screen).

Guides Sora in corporeal form as he uses the Power of Waking to save everyone.

Kills some Heartless during the Heartless Rain event.

Fights Xion and Saix alongside Lea and Sora, but loses and is kidnapped then killed.

Re:Mind - Fights Xemnas, doing well until he saps her energy with a nil technique.

Re:Mind - Fights Master Xehanort alongside Sora then takes part in destroying him.

Re:Mind - Does everything alongside Sora in the ending FMV.

I've bitched about this a lot, but I want to specifically call to attention just how incongruous Kairi's actions added in the Re:Mind DLC are with her actions in the base game. The first two actions she takes in KH3 are utterly useless, with the actual point of her in those scenes being for Lea's sake and for the sake of pushing bad retcons. Sharing a Paopu with Sora comes out of nowhere both in the context of the game and the series up to that point and it affects nothing. We then get her fighting either entirely off-screen, shown killing a single raining Shadow Heartless, or pathetically short-lived and ending in miserable failure, with her actual major plot-affecting role being spiritual in nature and, again, out of fucking nowhere. Whatever one's issues with her in KH2, Kairi was not being built up for a combat role in that game - she was only being built up for a more proactive one in KH1, and while that role could have been executed better (like it is in the manga) she still fulfilled it. In KH3, she was very specifically being built up for a combat role, and she didn't fulfill that role in favor of a sudden, unsatisfying bait-and-switch where she's just as passive as she was in KH1, if not more so.

So that's why it's jarring when in Re:Mind, she's suddenly having no problem against Xion despite struggling in the base game, fiercely fighting Xemnas to the point of shattering his energy sabers and forcing him to drain her stamina in order to save himself, and then not only fighting and helping kill Master Xehanort but being the most OP playable character in the process which is at stark odds with her useless party member AI. Then she's inserted into literally every part of the happy ending montage she was originally almost entirely absent from until the last minute. It is such an obvious ham-fisted case of damage control after fan backlash that it only satisfies you in the moment, then you begin asking how and why the game even had to get it so wrong in the first place. And the dissonance only gets worse with the following Limitcut Episode + Melody of Memory, where suddenly it's like Re:Mind never happened as Kairi's once again a weakling who needs more training because adventuring's "way too dangerous" for her, with her main story contribution being passive and spiritual!

Character-wise, for Kairi it's KH1 > KH2 > KH3.

Action-wise, however, it's KH2 > KH1 > KH3.

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts II #Kingdom Hearts III #Kairi #Opinion #Analysis #Comparison #Bad Writing #Character Derailment #They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character #Kairi Deserved Better #Anti-Kingdom Hearts #Anti-Square Enix #Anti-Nomura #Anti-Tetsuya Nomura

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saberswordseabass · 2 years ago

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A Hidden Danger pt3

**Somewhere in Vulptanis space**

A low ding drones out as the human inspired alarm clock rigs out from the soft off-white night stand. A dull brown fur clad hand reaches out and gently grabs the device. Their arm rears back to throw it, but before they throw the evil device, they realize what they are about to do.

"I hate that damn device." A soft voice groans as the owner of said voice leans up, letting their sheet drop down from their form. A Vulptanis with dull brown fur and what looked like a black long sleeve shirt on.

The Vulptanis threw one leg off the edge of the bed and then almost a little overdramatically, their other leg. Standing up, they show off the long sleeve shirt was actually a bodysuit that was skin tight, or was say a second layer of skin. Walking over to a dresser, throwing on a trench coat that reaches the floor. Their hand snakes into the coat's inner pocket and pulls out a communication device.

"I better not have a... message... from.. Inquistor Rixwraith... fuck!" The Vulptanis shouted as their orange eyes widened in complete horror before sprinting out of the room. Their communication pad had an emergency warning that a purposefully hidden 'issue' of theirs has reactivated.

It has been a good solid hour or two since 'mother' as she preferred, turned back on. Two 'pups' here, in the safety of her 'brain' room. Two were still missing, a similar sized one, and a rather large 'pup'. Her children were currently on the search as she began to spread her influence back through the facility... slowly.

"Now, what will happen when the bots find the monster?" Carrion asked out, breaking the silence as Trish managed to set her arm, much to mother's dismay at not being able to help a 'pup'.

"Well, I will not go into the gruesome detail, but they shall make sure it won't be an issue for any of you dears." Mother gleefully chirped from her monitor's speaker. Her face artificial face filled the screen like a fox way too close to a camera. "But as they do that, my pups, I need to properly can both of your vitals, to better keep track of your health."

"Scan away." Trish grunted as she finished tying the cloth around her makeshift split for her wrecked arm. A red grid based beam began to scan away both Trish and Carrion from the main monitor. A loud, angry sounding buzzer went off when it finished. A human body began to fill the screen, reading off biological information.

"ERROR. Unknown biological species... beginning data recording..." Mother began to spout as her screens showed a loading screen as she saved the information. "...I am sorry, but my dear pup, what's are you?" Mother asks as one of the more lithe of her robotic 'children' walked up and lifted his helmeted chin.

Carrion blinked as he had a minor brain malfunction before remembering how to speak. "I am human. The newest species added to the community." Mother, let out what could be best described as an electronic hum.

"They are considered endangered, and most in community space have supposedly been issued guardians. I'm Carrion's guardian." The lithe Vulptanis looking bot turned to Trish, and everything of the mother and the facility seemed to freeze at the word 'endangered'

"Uh, Octarus?" Carrion asks softly as the long silence is beginning to be quite deafening. After another minute, and him backing up from the lithe bot, the bot shifts to look back at him.

"Defend pu-humans."

The bot states out as their eyes begin to glow powerfully. The floor rumbles as another bot gently holds onto Trish, and the lithe bot gently grabs Carrion. The floor rumbles again like a sleeping giant reawakening once again.

"Production of combat units has been restored, starting yield of 1000 units. Granting permission to start the production on Augar and Xelon unit lines."

Octarus' voice robotically spoke as the bots held the still hurting Trish and unharmed Carrion. When mentioning the 'Xelon line', the entire place shook like an earthquake hit the factory.

A planet formed into view, the inquistor trying not to panic internally. Their eyes scan over the view of the planet. Their eyes begin to focus on a small area that, from orbit, obviously quivered. Their ears droop down as he glared at the growing spire from the quivering earth.

The door opened as two similarly uniformed Vulptanis to the inquistor walked in, holding onto a bruised Vulptanis in civilian clothes. "Ah, thank you. Please have a seat." The inquistor spoke as the two place the bruised man onto a seat in front of the dull brown Vulptanis.

"So just to be formal, I am Inquistor Quilx. I shall ask you a few questions, and depending how it goes, you might get to return back to your station." Quilx spoke as he pulled over a padded chair to sit across from the captive Vulptanis.

"So first question, yes? Why did you choose this planet for getting resources? There are many more resource rich planets nearby." Quilx asks as he leaned forward to stare into the half swollen face of the Vulptanis.

"I-i chose it because the high-grade trees, their species use less...wood and more ferrus material. They would be a huge boon to beginning colonies." The Vulptanis croaked out as his right eye was beginning to swell from the black eye. Quilx nods his head softly, and before he gets another question, the Vulptanis continues. "We sent a survey team down. They have been down there longer than supposed to. I don't know the team specifically, but they had a human in it."

Quilx's ears flatten at the sound of that. Out of all the beings to be sent down...a human. His paperwork was going to increase significantly if he bombarded the planet to eliminate the 'issue'. "Sigel, Jurgen, get this waste of fur out of my sight, then prepare a shuttle for planetary landing."

Jurgen, who put away a thermose he was about to give to Quilx, grabs the Vulptanis and begins to draw them away. Sigel gives a soft bow before making her way to prepare a shuttle.

"This is not going to be fun." Quilx groaned as he pressed his paw against his face. Depending on how this went, he might need to terminate a human... Although he really doesn't want that.

So I really want to thank @wolven91 for making the universe and stories that have greatly helped me in figuring out where to take these stories. C&C welcome!

Also, have a picture of a model I've been working on because why not?

#cuddleverse #conservationverse #hfy #humans are space orcs

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