#2 of them died within the first like 4 minutes of the match

[hostiae]

sometimes i want proximity chat just to holler at other survivors when they think myers is being playful.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Is DC at the stage where they're unwilling to let time flow anymore (a 'Time Crisis' if you will), and the only way anyone's age changes now is through 'time shenanigans'.

Because there has to be an upper limit for how old they will allow a character to be - e.g. (For several reasons) They will never allow Bruce Wayne to turn 50.

You got it in one. Time is now an enemy that needs to be kept at bay, Why?

DC (and other comic books) have to keep their characters within a believable age range. It’s why DC has never allowed their characters to age in real time. They can’t and still keep them viable as Intellectual Properties.  Batman premiered in Detective Comics Comics #27 in March of 1939. Since Bruce was supposed to be somewhere around 22 to 25 years old at that time, he would pushing 130 years of age today.

The biggest canonical age-up in the Batfamily was Dick Grayson. Because of the 1966 Batman TV show he went from a ‘tween to a teen overnight. This was back in the days when I was young, meaning that comic books weren't really taken very seriously. The TV show was a huge success, so DC climbed on board the gravy train and tried to match as much in the comics as they could. 

 After the show ended in 1969, DC wisely realized that keeping an 18 or 19 year old in this costume...

was a truly bad idea (if not soft core porn at that point). Which is why Dick changed to Nightwing.

Dick was about 20 years old (maybe a little older at this point). He was a young adult but an adult by anyone’s standards. Dick then went to Bludhaven where he got not only his very own city to protect but better fashion sense as well. 

What this inevitably meant is that Bruce had to be aged up as well, leaving Bruce in his early 30′s when Dick became Nightwing. Batman got a series of Robins. First Jason..

Who was with him for 2 to 3 years. Batman is now early to mid 30s when Jason dies. Then Tim...

who started as Robin at 13 and stayed Robin until 17. That’s another 4 years. Bruce is now in his very late 30s. Then Stephanie...

who stayed Robin for all of 2 minutes before Tim was Robin again.

Bruce was in his very late 30s when Damian, age 11, came into the picture.

Four more years passed and not only did Tim go from being Red Robin to Robin again but he lost, then gained back a year of age. Damian went from 11 to 13 years of age, making Bruce in his early 40s.

The point is that each new iteration of Robin ages Bruce up. He’s now supposed to be in his early 40s. He’s beginning to feel age creeping up on him. A part of Bruce is finally ready to accept that he physically won’t be able to continue as Batman in another decade or so.

This is why the “Time Crisis” as you call it is vital. Batman has to be kept no older than he is now to be believable. It’s also why Damian got an upgrade to 13 but Tim is going to stay 17 basically forever. Yes, DC can pull some time shenanigan’s and let Damian and Tim get maybe a year older each but that’s it. 

The bottom line is simple. Batman and family are the biggest money makers DC currently has. If rumors are to be believed, Batman and Co are the only real money makers DC has. They’re pulling no end of crazy storyline stuff with Bruce but the one thing they cannot do is make him older. As someone in her late 60s I can tell you from experience that your early 40s are when you have the unpleasant awakening that you can’t push yourself like you used to. Sickness hits you hard. It takes longer to recover from injuries. You’re reminded of the wear and tear you put on your body over the years when you get out of bed each morning. 

“Time Crisis” isn’t really a crisis. It’s simply acknowledging that Batman isn’t Superman or Wonder Woman. He’s Bruce Wayne and Bruce Wayne may be the pinnacle of what a normal human can reach but he’s not an alien or a demi-god. Bruce Wayne is only mortal and all mortals fade with time. 

[outsideratheart]

History (Alexia Putellas x reader)

A/N: Am I happy with this, i’m not sure but I started and finished it so why not post it.

You can find part 2 here

There was a lot of history behind El Classico and over the last couple of years the women’s game became just as highly anticipated as then mens. With you leading Madrid and Alexia leading Barcelona. You were two of the best players in Spain, during the league you despised each other and with the national team you managed to play well together but that’s the limit to your partnership. It was a rivalry that went deeper than the surface, you and Alexia both having different reasons for the hostility you showed each other.

For the first time in the clubs history both El Classico’s would take place on the same day. The women had a 12 o’clock kick off at Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano and the men would be play at the Bernabéu at 4 o’clock. 

All of the Real Madrid girls would attend the game. Some planned on watching it their families, whilst others including you, had been invited to watch the game from one of the owners box’s. A few of your team mates asked if they could invite some of the Barcelona players to watch the game with them and who were you to say no. 

Your match was challenging to say the least. Both teams wanted to put on a show given that the game was sold out. You and Alexia butted heads, figuratively speaking, several times. That is until the last ten minutes of the game, the game is tied 0-0 and you have a corner. You jump for the head when your Barcelona counter part elbows you the face. 

Alexia tries to check on you but you know it is fake concern which only pisses you off more. 

“Really, we’re playing kind of game are we?” You shove her away. 

“I didn’t even touch you” within seconds she is back in your face. 

“Captains, everything alright?” The referee comes on to you. 

“Ask her again in a few minutes” you body check Alexia before going back to you position. 

Alexia watches you walk away and for a brief moment she allows her eyes to linger. The White kit really did suit you, this season you opted for white boots meaning then when you play at home you are in white head to toe. Your naturally tanned skin making your muscle look like they were sculpted. The sight alone reignited feelings she once buried deep.

During the final play of the game Olga plays you a ball down the wing and as you run for it Alexia is right in your tail. Seeing Nahikari making her way to the box, you know you need to slow the play down to give her time, this means you have to go one of one with Alexia. Knowing getting around her will be difficult you choose option B, go through her. 

You do so cleanly and she cannot argue the tackle. You send the ball in and it lands perfectly at Nahkiri feet who then slots it in the back of the net. 

You run past Alexia to celebrate with your team but not before turning around sending her a smug wink. 

The game ends 1-0. The women have done their job now it’s a quick shower and change so that you can see if the men can do theirs. 

You look around the pitch at full time and see that a few Barcelona players have family in the crowd and are staying out to talk to them, Alexia included. 

“You and Y/N re getting worse.” Alba states and Alexia ignores her sisters question knowing that she is right.

“Can we meet Y/N?” Alexia’s younger cousin asks. 

After the altercation and the tackle that lead to the goal, there was a little more tension between you so asking you for a favour wasn’t at the top of Alexia’s list but this was for family so she put her pride aside. 

She sees you talking to Misa near the tunnel whilst you meet the last of the fans. 

“Y/N” Alexia’s voice is low. 

“Alexia” you both stare at each other for a few seconds “did you want something?” Your face remains stoic making it impossible for Alexia to read you. 

“I do. My nephew, for some reason, is a huge fan of yours and he wants to meet you. Would you mind—“

“Of course, lead the way” your face softens. Although you and Alexia didn’t see eye to eye, you always made time for those that support you. 

Alexia watches as you talk to her nephew as if he is the only one there. It was a trait of yours that she admired. You are able to make the person you are speaking to feel like they are of the only person in the world no matter the environment you are in. 

“Can I have your shirt?” Hearing her nephews question snaps her out of the daydream she was in. 

You turn to face Alexia. You would love to see any Barcelona fan in a Real Madrid shirt but for it be a relative of Alexia’s in a shirt with your name on the back, that would be the icing on the cake. 

“I don’t know about that one bud, you’ll have to ask Ale” 

You haven’t called Alexia that in a very long time but you couldn’t help it, it just slipped out. You can only hope she didn’t pick up on it. 

“Can I?” the young boy begs. 

“Sure just don’t wear it around me” 

Your roll your eyes at Alexia’s stubbornness before shouting to one of the coaches, signalling for him to bring you one of the warm up jackets. 

You talk to Alexia’s family and for a short moment it is like old times. You and Alba laugh about the time the three of you tried to make a cake for Eli only for it to end in a flour fight. 

Alexia watches intently as you quickly strip off your game shirt and replace it with the warm up jacket in one swift movement.

“It’s nice seeing you guys but I need to go” you point to your media manager who is calling you over. 

“It’s nice seeing you Y/N. I really wish you and Ale would make up, it’s been 3 years, she misses you” Eli says as she gives you a hug. 

Paris 2019, the World Cup. A trip that would be memorable more so for the bad times than the good. 

“I love you Eli, you know I do but somethings can’t be forgiven” 

“What’s that suppose to mean” Alexia says having overhead your conversation with her mother. 

“I have to go” with that you leave to do media duties. 

Alexia stands there for all of a second before running after you. 

“Y/N!” She shouts but you don’t stop, if anything you walk faster. 

“Y/N” again she shouts only much louder. You can feel the fans eyes burning holes in your head. 

You didn’t know when or if you would be ready go talk to her but here in front of all these people wasn’t the place. 

You sigh a breathe of relief when you see Nahikari waiting for you by the tunnel. That girl and her sixth sense. 

“Are you ok?” Nahikari asks. 

You are about to respond but alexia cuts you off. 

“I don’t deserve this!“ she never understood why you cut off all communication with her or why you couldn’t look her in the eye.

“You deserve worse” the young forward speaks for you. 

“Nai” you pull her arm “trust me, she is not worth it” 

You all but drag her into the locker room in fear of what she would do or say to your former best friend.

Whilst getting changed you cannot help but feel defeated. Real had just won, you were able to talk to Alexia’s family like you used to yet the joy you felt vanished in a second because of her….again. 

**********************

The atmosphere at the Bernabéu is electric and you cannot wait to enjoy the match with your friends and their friends, you only hope that Alexia got the message earlier and that she will stay away from you. 

“This is incredible” Leila says as a member of staff escorts her into the box. 

“Benefits of of dating a Real Madrid player” Misa says as she greets her girlfriend. 

Some the Real Madrid players are making the most of the gourmet buffet whilst the others are already in the seats watching the team warm up. 

Alexia scans the room and tries her hardest to hide her disappointment when she realises you aren’t there, not inside or outside. 

The words you said earlier stung. In her eyes she did no wrong, you had all but cut Alexia out of your life with no explanation.

“Your captain couldn’t grace us with her presence?” Alexia asks she stand near Ivana. 

“Are you being serious?“ the defender asks “look around” she points to the large screens around the stadium. 

That is when she sees you. You are pitch side with some of the media team doing interviews. 

“Y/N agreed to do media on behalf on the team so that we can enjoy the game. I know you don’t like her but she is a good person. She deserves to have fun tonight please don’t ruin it for her” Olga tells her Alexia as she brings her a drink. 

“Oh and one more thing, Y/N told me to tell you to go into the bathroom until she tells you to come out” 

“Do you always follow her orders?” Alexia asks given that she has no idea why you would suggest that. 

“I have found that Y/N always has a reason for saying and doing what she does” Nahikari says as she walks staring past the forward, not turning to look at her as she does so. 

Despite her stubbornness, Alexia goes to the bathroom. She sits on her phone wondering how long you expect her to stay then. If she texted you, would you reply? She then hears voices enter the box, yours is the one she recognises first.

“Yes, unfortunately Alexia is stuck in traffic” Alexia hears you say “I agree, we would hate for her to miss us beating her precious Barcelona” She rolls her eyes at your confidence then she hears you thanking them before the door closes.

“You can come out now” you knock on the door letting her know the coast is clear.

She hopes you are waiting for her but you’re not, you have taken your seat in the stand, sitting between Athenea and Claudia Zornoza.

“Why did you do that?” Alexia asks as she takes a seat behind you.

“You don’t like media, he was media” you say without taking your eyes of the pitch.

“Careful Y/N, it’s almost like you care about me?” Alexia teases trying to break the tension that had built between the two of you.

Your head snaps around at her claim. Is she being serious?

“That’s not funny Alexia”

The Catalonian swallows deeply having found that her attempt at lightening the mood has had the opposite affect.

“I was just —“ 

“Well don’t. I’m here to have a good time with my friends”

“So we’re not friends?” Alexia asks not caring that the discussion between the two of you had now gained attention of those around you.

“No we’re not” your reply is honest and you can tell that you have hurt alexia but you cannot bring yourself to care.

“Why is that?” Leila asks rather casually.

Now you really did have everyone’s attention. Each player not wanting to miss out on hearing why you and Alexia, two people who were thick as thieves, can no longer be alone in the same room as each other, never mind talk to each other.

You remain quiet, you hadn’t even talked to Alexia about what happened, no way was you about to discuss a very personal matter with your team mates.

Alexia on the other did not share the same need for privacy.

“Y/N woke up one morning and decided throw away a ten year friendship”

You look at alexia in shock, how dare she say that when she is the reason why you did what you did.

“What are you doing?” You say through gritted teeth.

“Telling them the truth” Alexia blatantly replies.

“No need Ale, we knew Y/N must have done something” Patri says clearly on the Barcelona captain’s side. 

“You don’t know shit. If you did then you wouldn’t have treated me like the bad guy for the past 3 years” you stand up abruptly “And you” you point at alexia “how dare you sit there and blame me. This all happened because of you”

Having nothing else to say and no longer being interested in the game you walk back into the box as you try to rid yourself of the nausea that is building within you.

“Y/N! Wait!” Alexia chases after you.

“No Alexia, I’m not doing this with you. You don’t get to sit out there on your high horse and blame me for this. The destruction of our friendship is on you, it is your fault not mine.”

“I’m sorry” her words are barely audible.

“No!” You shout  “3 years, you never said a thing and now in front of everyone you choose to apologise” you point to your team mates who are all watching the exchange between the two of you.

Alexia shakes her head as she walk over the the doors to the outside area. She closes the them and the curtains to give the two of you more privacy.

“Because I am sorry” 

“You told me you love me and I stupidly believed you, that’s on me” 

Alexia looks like a deer caught in headlights as she listens to you talk about the moment you two shared in 2019.

“Do you have any idea how much pain you have caused me? To see you chose her over me when you looked me in the eye and told me it was over”

“It was over” Alexia replies thinking she knows what you referring to.

“Jesus Christ Alexia, stop with the lying. I came to Barcelona wanting to surprise but it was you who surprised me”

“What are you talking about?”

“Three days after the World Cup I came to your house and imagine the betrayal I felt when I saw you with Jenni. You broke me Alexia, you did, out of all the people in the world I never thought my heart would get broken by you” 

“I couldn’t be around you. I hated you, even the thought of you would make my blood boil. It took me years to rebuild myself and now you think you can say sorry and it will fix everything well it can’t, I wont let it”

“Y/N” Alexia begs you to stand down, to end the wrath that you are so adamant to bring down on her.

“No! Your actions costs me my friends and the people I once considered family. Do you want to know what hurts the most? Our team mates see you as this angel, the girl who can do no wrong. So when we stopped talking they assumed I was the bad guy, that it had to have been me that did something wrong but the only mistake I made was loving the wrong girl” you quickly wipe a tear from your cheek, not wanting alexia to see the pain that she is causing you.

“For months, every time I closed my eyes I saw you with Jenni on your door step kissing”

“We didn’t kiss” Alexia knows she is burying herself a deeper whole but she doesn’t know what to say. The anger and pain you are showing has been building for years, all she can do is stand there and lie hoping that you believe her version of events.

“Alexia listen to me” you take a step forward as if asserting your dominance and small smirk tugs at your lips when Alexia takes a step back, she knew who was in charge in this moment.

“I want you to remember I turned up that night. I could tell you what day it was, what time It was, heck I could even tell you what you were wearing. I know you don’t care about me but at least have some common decency and not lie to my face”

“I didn’t know” it is all alexia can say “She was bringing back her things, she kissed me and I didn’t push her away but you know that”

She had no idea you turned up that night. At least now she knows why you cut her off, she would have done the same thing. 

“I know this is new information for you but it is in the past for me” you voice is eerily calm which worries Alexia all the more.

“I—“

“Y/N the game is about start” Nahikari tells you. 

“I’m coming” 

You leave alexia standing in the middle of the room. 

“She told you didn’t she?” Alexia asks her, it would explain the forward’s reaction earlier, why she is so protective over you.

“No but I knew she loved you. I knew she would never do anything to hurt you” 

Both players go back out to the seats. Alexia wanted to talk to you, she wanted to be near you. She now knew that you didn’t cut her out of your life because you didn’t love her, it was because she made a mistake, she was too focused on her past and it cost her her future. 

[hellogirlslikegirlslikeboysdo]

And the lights are not fluorescent, and there are no words on the page. - Voice/Rough Draft Essay

Author's Preface and Ch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7

Description: My final portfolio for one of the creative writing courses I took based around exploring the creative nonfiction essay in its many literary forms, with any and all identifying names or signifiers censored out.

During my many travels, I have found sticking a man and his daughter in a hot car for approximately 116 miles, radio on low, murmuring music she likes and he doesn’t, homemade food in Tupperware in insulated beach bags in piles of slowly unfolding clothes in the back of the trunk, will, against or with their collective will, bring about conclusions. Asinine, podcast-y, “This action will have consequences“ conclusions. Some the father’s already decided and convinced the daughter of (and vice versa).

You’ll get them in a wide variety of (recurring) topics too! The entertainment industry, capitalism, education, and, if you, the reader, happened to be a stowaway on my last return to college, my mother’s own gradual and uncharitable concussion:

That she, at the ripe old age of 50-something, is done growing as a person.

It checked out when consulted her track record, like it was fact-checking for an intervention: Her slow-roasted resentment in my grandmother’s miserly recognition of her overwhelming lifelong achievements (and, subsequently, her brother for slurping up all the motherly attention grandma served up, like the part eched little thing he was), barely abated by her (1) confrontation of my grandmother’s behavior. The following mourning period, shared with me and my father for two months at best. Her go-to apology: “I guess I’m a bad person then!” said in the most patronizing voice she could muster (and believe me when I say she has plenty of experience).

My mother is a firecracker more than she is a woman, raw, rich personality stuffed inside what looks like Barbie-laminated plastic, engineered at initial creation to shoot off into the sky quicker than the strike of a match. To burn out, quietly, like the star that she is, following the promise of a thunderous boom. A great disappointment you only understand in adulthood.

Of course she saw life, her life, as just sorta…like that. Nothing to be done about it, you could figure she figured. Best to hang that soggy pit of sadness on the coat rack and hope to god it dries in time for work tomorrow.

I wasn’t grown up though, despite my age of 20 whole years. At least, not enough to understand how anyone else could think like that. Could find something tucked away in the recess of their life that just wasn’t quite right, and go “...Mmmm that should be good enough.” The best explanation, the one meant for someone so young and hopeful in their delusions, was found in the very first conclusion I managed to bulldoze my father into coming to that evening: Ever since man first inhaled the emancipating power of creativity and survived the exhale, there has been art born out of someone, somewhere, going “...Well, it looks like the picture in the book”, and calling it a night.

You may be surprised to hear this, considering this little article of mine is (arguably) fairly coherent and, at the very least, not actively killing your brain cells, but my favorite television show of all time is one of the laziest, thoughtless, and most exhaustive pieces of media 14-year-old me had ever seen in her measly little life. It was a 15-minute serialized animated cartoon named Breadwinners running on Nickelodeon's spinoff channel, Nicktoons, at the time, aired only two seasons, and if you value your time and self-respect, you will not watch it. All you need to know about the show is the words of its co-“creator” (the term, of course, used in the most ambiguous sense possible, within the confines of human minds) Gary Di Raffaele on his and Steve Boris shared writing process: “I think, when you watch a Breadwinners episode, it feels and it sounds like no other cartoon because it’s, it’s got that, that constant drive, that constant beat.“ (“Meet The Creators”), an unofficial elaboration on the previous statement, “The way we produce our show is pretty much unlike anything else that’s been produced.” (“Meet The Creators”).

What follows these sentiments are only a few more words on the animation process and the collaborative angle the show’s crew takes, but Gary’s tone (and the show itself) is so clear and obvious that the second part of that sentence, I feel, can barely be classified as an inference. “Unlike anything else that’s been produced”, because that’s what makes the show so unique, so fun and wacky and zany!

So good.

The filming of this interview (with the help of fevered, extensive consumption of both every decent video essay critiquing this show and every episode of the show I’ve gotten my hands on) has only confirmed my suspicions. Sometime after the greenlighting of their pilot and the subsequent order of a first season, Raffaele and Boris had come to the reasonable observation that one of the many redeeming qualities used to defend a show’s quality is its supposed uniqueness, its fresh ideas or concepts. Even its ability to introduce familiar archetypes and plotlines and tropes in a new and exciting way, or with a twist or subversion of sorts! They then, despite now having contact with at least a few of Nickelodeon's experienced and accomplished writers now within contact, stumbled down one of the many historic writing pitfalls of overeager amateurs and seasoned veterans who have lost their touch over time: The assumption that because their writing looks like some of the quality art they’ve seen before, it simply must be of just as high a quality.

This artistically stunting philosophy grows in many familiar places, the way mold grows on trash bins left on the curb on a hot summer Tuesday. You may find it in the 12-year-old who is just beginning to explore their artistic capabilities by tracing screenshots of anime characters they found online, or the burned-out cartoon writer, a fast-approaching deadline for the shipment of an episode’s storyboard hanging over their head, and a hastily downed Starbucks coffee hanging off the side of their desk. You may even find it trapped within the inner workings of your own creative work (though I do hope you never do). Either way, you will find the same outcome in every new example you find yourself confronted with:

The writer eventually mistakes their work’s resemblance to the type of art they aim to recreate, whether that be in the way said example tugs at the heartstrings or gets its viewer’s blood pumping, for proof that their work accomplishes these feats too, simply due to its traceable proximity to its inspiration.

The stand-up comic throws in jokes that don’t land because they have identifiable setups and punchlines, the romance novelist adds a sex scene even when it grinds the plot to an unnecessary halt because her favorite book has one too, and the writers behind Breadwinners use an inventive new production strategy to make the zaniest, off-the-wall scripts their network had ever seen, in hopes they would help the show stand out amongst all the other wacky competition in each week’s programming block and ensure each episode shocks and surprises 9-12 year olds everywhere. That Breadwinners would be innovative, eye-catching, and above all else, unique.

This inherent “uniqueness”, of course, was presumed to come neatly prepackaged with the intended goal of their solely comedy-focused cartoon: Making the viewer laugh. In any way possible. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Breadwinners, you know fully well that it did not.

“But [REDACTED],” You cry. “Haven’t you ever written something in the style of the things you like? Who are you to judge?” Normally, I would recount the “Appeal to Hypocrisy” fallacy in detail, but this article is already long enough (I would also question why you are talking to an online article as if it can hear you, but I digress). I will instead surrender my own early work, “Body Swichers” (I invite you to ignore the spelling, if you can), as tribute, and instead call your attention to this excerpt from a twelve-year-old me with a cliche plot line and far-too-early access to Microsoft Word: “Instead of the cheerful, spike-haired boy, he saw his sarcastic, witty friend, Gretchen in the mirror…Megee raced toured the closet and pulled out an antique, dusty, enormous book.” (Sacristan 1)

Notably bad grammar and sentence structure aside, this quote is a direct result of my ongoing journey as a writer. The first thing I had ever written, the first chapter of a romance/adventure story, was an attempt to recreate the magic I’d found in the many, many novels I had gotten lost in as a child. It was, predictably, not successful. Every line held the bland and awkward hallmarks of a child’s first draft, despite both my parents’ insistence on how it didn’t. Instead of falling back on the idea that it was good by virtue of it sharing an intended style with works I had deemed good, however, I opened up my laptop a few weeks later, pulled up Internet Explorer, and set out to find why that chapter didn’t intrigue me as much as the writing in my favorite series.

This process soon led to the discovery that the books I liked had big, descriptive words in them, words like “sarcastic” and “antique” and “enormous”. The incorporation of these words in my next work led to the question of why everything I wrote sounded so clunky and redundant all of a sudden, which led to learning about effective word choice, and then good sentence structure, and then impactful tone and atmosphere, and countless other improvements! Most importantly, however, is how it highlights the difference between my approach and Boris and Raffaele, despite still sitting at an amateurish level myself.

They took inspiration thinking it would ensure quality work, to somehow magically copy and paste its greatness into their own writing. I took inspiration to learn what made it so great in the first place.

So, there. That, I figure, is how someone could look at something in their life, whether it be art, a personal flaw, or even their entire self, and assume it resembles what it's supposed to look like well enough to “pass”, whatever in god’s name that’s supposed to mean. (One way, at least.) And I’m sure this theory could apply to other aspects of issues I’ve touched upon in this article. The dire need to push yourself as a writer and avoiding the comfort of creative complacency in your work, the way this type of thinking directly informs the prevailing disrespect children’s television writers holding in their audience, mistranslating “silly and childish” as “good enough for kids”, even how that reflects a wider disrespect for children in society as a whole!

I hope, however, the single grain of wisdom you and I both take away from this literary exploration is the same one I found detailed in Stephen King’s autobiography, On Writing, in his mother’s disappointment upon realizing that that the little hand-drawn comics he’d been showing her were direct tracings of someone else’s work. IN the novel, she dismisses the original works, citing them as “junk” and insisting that she “...’bet you [he] could do better. Write one of your own.’” (King 28)

Can you imagine, truly, if King (a young child who’d never written an actual story in his whole life and could have very easily done so!) had disregarded his mother’s advice under the guise that nothing could be better than something identical to one of his favorite things to read, that drawing something that looks like them was good enough on its own? If we were forced to live in a world where this advice didn’t lead him to publish so many of the literary classics we know and love today, like “It”, or “Carrie”, or “The Outsider”?…I can’t, since I haven’t actually read any of his books, but this world has been gracious enough to let me bear witness to Carrie (1976), the Carrie musical’s off-broadway cast album, and some of the loveliest It fanart I’ve ever seen, So I imagine that world, in the kindest of words, totally blows. It stands to reason, then, that we, as writers, have a creative duty to keep growing and improving both ourselves and our work, to make sure we never come to see it.

[ihopeyouhaveanicexmas]

I feel like no one has been talking about this since vol.2 was released (pls tell me if they have), but it NEEDS to be addressed.

The whole sequence after the 2 day time jump is so.... weird? Something about it feels wrong and contradictory with the rest of the season.

Here are some examples of stuff that don't match up with what we had been told so far within the last episode:

• this is probably the biggest one. how did the gates close and open up again at the end (without the process of actually opening, it's like they were there all along)?

• how did they get out of the upside down?? ik most of us assumed they went through the gates, if so, then why don't they talk about the gates AT ALL, as if they were never created? most likely they were all so traumatised that once the portals closed up they decided to take a break before bracing themselves for a likely new attack from Vecna, besides maybe they thought he was dead or didn't think they would have this little time before he came back. but still, i find it suspicious that we didn't get a single comment on the gates. if the gates were still there, i would imagine they would talk about them and be caughtious, or even attempt to examine them/go near them. but this doesn't happen, because somehow they closed up (again, we DON'T SEE THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING so even if they are aware the gates aren't there anymore they would BE QUESTIONING EVERYTHING, NO?)

• El (and Will) being confused by the fact that Max could be at the hospital. Even if El kept her alive, her bones were still broken, so it would be expected that she would be at the hospital. IDK WHAT TO TELL U IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

• it doesn't play part in my (semi) theory, but in the hospital room i swear we see Max's mom for a split second. she is sitting on the chair next to Erica, we see her literally for a split second and it's on 1/3 of her body. it had to be her bc i think i see red hair. i assume she was sleeping and that's why she isn't doing anything, but in that case, wouldn't one of the ppl coming in spare a glance at her? and WHY would they hide her from us? why have her in the scene if she is being purposefully hiden?? she could have just not been in that scene. and they could have just showed us a brief moment of the camera starting from her, asleep on the one chair, to Erica on the next one, to Lucas. instead, when the scene starts, the camera pans from the oposite side to Lucas, from THE WALL. but i swear she is there, pls i need someone else to double check this so ik i'm not making stuff up.

• also, Lucas said Max was clinically dead when she was magically revived. being clinically dead means your BRAIN stops working, not just your heart, and it happens 5 minutes or so after the heart stops beating. ("if the brain dies, the body dies" being the oposite of how it actually works, with the amount of bio i understand, i could be VERY wrong tbh) So if El was keeping Max's heart beating then she wouldn't have been clinically dead. maybe that's why El can't find her consciousness? (just something to note)

Part of me keeps thinking that it was just the lazy writing since it's the end of a very long season, but i need to entertain the thought of it having more to it.

So if someone thinks of a different theory regarding these (or other weird stuff), please tag me (idk if that's possible lmao i barely know how tumblr works) or like rb so i can see it! i'm so interested to see what you guys come up with!!

Now for MY theory which could totally be proven wrong lol:

This involves different timelines basically. So this started from the first point i made, but it could also explain some of the other ones. What if the timeline before the time skip is a different timeline to the one after the time skip? That would explain the Hawkins crew not discussing the gates at all. So in this timeline (after the time jump, i'll call it timeline 2), it really was just an earthquake, the 4 big gates across Hawkins never opened up, they just got through the gate in Eddie's house to the real world like planned. idk if the timelines can affect one another, but if Vecna is meddling with time, somehow maybe the earthquake in timeline 2 happened BECAUSE of the gates opening in timeline 1. ALSO. about Max, maybe El's void is timeless and she can tap into different timelines but she doesn't know it yet, so El from timeline 2 is the El who was in the mind fight, but Max was actually Max from timeline 1, in which the Hawkins crew was in. So in this scenario, the Cali/Nevada plot and possibly the Rushian plot could be taking place in timeline 2, while the Hawkins plot in timeline 1, until the time jump, so after it it's timeline 2 in Hawkins. ik this probably makes no sense and would need way more thinking to check if it's actually plausible, but i think i'll put a pin to it and just pass my thoughts around for the time being.

If u read all this, thank you!!!!

[dzpenumbra]

2/9/23

I'm just gonna say it. It is difficult to add a Turing test for making a Tumblr account? Is it complicated? Does it cost too much money or something? Or have these bots just gotten smart enough to bypass them? The bot accounts on this site are just like... absolutely insane. At least they have been the past few months, I have no idea how long this flood has been a thing, I've only been here since like... August, I think?

I'll be honest, it's not a good look. Like... I swear, if Tumblr had an answer for this? They'd be in really good shape. This is a really cool atmosphere, I wish I had given it a chance sooner. But the amount of bots creeping around reminds me of that scene in the last Matrix movie (the last "real" one, sorry Lana, I really do appreciate the concepts behind what you were trying to do, but even your sibling tapped out on it, and I have to side with them, unfortunately) - let me clarify, in Matrix Revolutions, when Neo is in the City and all those bug robots are swarming around him. Like that. Just... off-putting. Like, what the fuck are they up to? I mean... they're up to something...

Today, I woke up at a somewhat decent hour. I checked the clock and confirmed 8 hours of sleep, which was awesome. Still catching up on sleep, as always... I decided to watch the Subnautica: Below Zero playthrough I've been following in bed to start the day. Depression and grief thing. I watched the same streamer do a playthrough of Project Zomboid when my dog died, so... I don't know, it's weirdly comforting, in a grim kinda way. Like my dog and cat are together now. And it reminds me of how my cat would cuddle with me and grieve with me. I'm very enraptured with the Subnautica playthrough, I love the series. I just cut an episode short to write this.

I was watching that, and lazily trying to navigate Bumble... with very little luck... I swear, these dating apps are just... it's pure depression fuel. In the 4 years that I've been on Bumble and Hinge, I have had 2 successful matches. One was a very brief text exchange through the app over the course of one night which just... evaporated... like I've had more personal conversations with cashiers before... and the other was an alcoholic woman with an STD who just separated from her husband, and just got out of a psych ward for reasons she didn't fully disclose... though who am I to judge, I've been to mental health facilities as well, but my intakes were voluntary so... I feel like my lesson to learn there was to... get more info... or run... still not 100% sure. This woman, a week after my dog died, brought the skeletons of 3 goats over to my home, made me watch Bo Burnham's special about how he was in the same type of isolation as me during the pandemic, gave me one of the worst panic attacks of my life... which I miraculously recovered from within less than 5 minutes... and then... she got freaked out and left. Called me the next day to do the whole, "it's not you, it's me..." And I - to myself, of course - wholeheartedly agreed with her. She needs help, first from herself, then from others. So... let's just say I haven't had a lot of luck with dating apps... XD

My morning was disrupted by the neighbors above running what sounded like... I mean, I guess it was a vacuum? Or maybe a steam cleaner? But it sounded like an industrial autoclave or something. Like, it sounded big and fuckin loud. And it was like... 10:30 AM? I was a little upset at first reaction, but made hay pretty quick. I went downstairs and decided that the best thing I could do was something with headphones on. I decided to pop on the cans and start polishing a new stone. I haven't done that in a long time. I had been using the tumbler for most of my stones and I'm still waiting on the new polish. (OH but I did get my new yoga pants today so yay!) So I took one of the stones my mom mailed to me from her new driveway that she found that she liked a lot and I worked that thing for 2 fucking hours. I really enjoy hand-faceting stones, it's hard work but I find it very rewarding. I wish I had some sort of rig to hold the stone stable so I could be a bit more deliberate and consistent with my angles, but this was a very organic shape so I just sorta went with it, abandoned symmetry entirely and I think it still came out really nice. And the stone was much softer than I was expecting. I think it's veins of calcite running through slate or something? I don't know, I'm not a geologist, I just like making pretty things prettier.

I did yoga. It was really quick today, just like 10-15 minutes. But it had that pose where you go from downward dog and lift one leg? And you're supposed to have your down leg rooted at your heel... but I can't get myself into downward dog and plant my heels. So I kept fumbling around with it and bringing my hands closer in to compensate... and then I was supposed to like... curl my leg above me and stack my hips, while keeping both hands planted. And I just... I could do it on my left side kinda I guess, with my right foot planted, but once we switched I was just falling over. It's frustrating. But, to be fair to myself, my flexibility has massively improved overall. Like I went to stretch my hamstrings earlier and I could touch the floor, which... well, it's been a while.

I took a shower and started to get ready for meeting up with my brother, nephew and sister-in-law for dinner. We went to a really nice chinese restaurant in town - I mean like... really fancy. Like way above any budget I'd be earning in my lifetime. And my socially oblivious ass just doesn't even mention the bill, which is honestly probably a godsend for them that they don't have to deal with the awkwardness of insisting on paying for the expensive meal they suggested. Idk, my brother works in the stock market and my sister in law is a doctor, and I'm a fucking artist who doesn't sell anything so... I'm just gonna kinda assume it's pretty obvious I won't be paying for dinner... XD

I got there early and parked in a parking garage I haven't parked in in... probably 15 years? They don't do paper tickets anymore, it was super confusing, I had no idea what to do. I fumbled around with the app thing on my phone but I didn't want to take my credit card out in a parking garage to put my number into it, because... I mean, there was a homeless guy yelling across the street at the entrance so like... yeah. So I just said fuck it. I walked down this main street, it's like... one of those streets in a city that is specifically for walking only, you know? And it's just lined with shops and shit. When I used to live in this city, my apartment was a block from the top of this street, and my community college was halfway down the street, so I spent a ton of time there. I mean, I remember sitting on a big rock on the street playing guitar for people, busking and making enough to buy coffee. That's a fond memory. I was so much more confident back then.

Now... I was super overwhelmed. I was amazed, and intrigued by everything. The buildings felt very tall around me, I recognized nearly none of the shops. I found some cool new age shops and a skate shop and I was interested in checking them out, but I didn't have time. I had to get the reservation for my brother and them, they were running late. On my way to the restaurant, a homeless guy asked me if I had a few dollars to spare. And to make it clear how long it has been since I have encountered this... they used to ask "do you have any spare change". And now, with inflation and fucking stupid costs of living, he asked "do you have some spare cash", and even a few dollars isn't enough for these poor people. Imagine how insulted and angry that guy would be if I gave him a 50 cents. I... kept staring wide-eyed at the buildings as I walked by and pretended I didn't hear him. I felt really bad. I did have some spare cash, but... I remembered that in my... inattentiveness... I keep forgetting to take the cash out of my wallet. I don't have anywhere else to put it, frankly. And inside my wallet, I have the cash that the administrator of the retreat I went to to detox off meds gave me for an illustration commission. It was like $400. I'm not fucking kidding. And I don't know what to do with this cash because like... who the fuck breaks a $100 in 2023? And I never leave my damn house. And I don't want to like... leave it in some random doom drawer in my house, it'll just disappear. I don't know what to do with it, honest. So like... I just have it in my wallet. And I'm walking by this guy and going, "I know I have cash, but I also know if that fucker sees that I have over $400 and a pair of AirPods on me, he's taking all of it or I'm getting stabbed." And, to top it off, I'm fucking alone. So... yeah, I was super fucking anxious. And I think rightfully so. It went fine, obviously, but like... that shook me a bit.

I should really just get rid of that cash, I guess I can go to my bank? And see if I can deposit it somehow? It's not like I can feed it into an ATM or something. I'm so fucking dumb with this stuff, I swear, no one taught me any of this. It's super embarrassing. So yeah, maybe I'd be less panicky if I didn't have that cash on me.

Dinner was great. Great to see my nephew, a riot as always. Good catching up and chilling. We did this thing at the restaurant where the chef just picked what we were going to eat and they just brought a bunch of courses out for us. All vegetarian, because my brother has been vegetarian since... I'm gonna venture to say since Clinton was in office. Which was actually cool with me, because I don't like fish - never ate it my entire life, never got a taste for it so it's super overwhelming to my senses now - and I don't really like beef either. Just pork and chicken for me, usually just chicken, if I'm being honest. The food was a big adventure of new flavors, things I'd probably never order off a menu myself. So, it was a big wave of new experiences today.

I was super overwhelmed at the beginning of dinner, and super drowsy because the sun was going down. That's been happening a lot lately. But I bounced back after getting a pot of Jasmine tea in me.

I noticed, in reflection after the fact, that I talk very openly and frequently about my mental health. And I'm starting to think that might not be a good thing. I know it's habit, I mean... how could it not be? Like... since about... 2018? The vast majority of my social interactions have been revolving around mental health. And by vast majority, I mean like.. 80-90% of my conversations, no exaggeration. When that is your life, when every conversation is like a therapy session (or actually is a therapy session), you really are forced to get comfortable with sharing. Like... if you go to group therapy and never speak up, you're just cheating yourself. So, powering through those reflexes and getting comfortable with talking about my mental health has actually... tipped into the realm of maybe being awkward for people.

Like... I'm talking to my sister-in-law about how my PTSD makes it hard for me to open up to a doctor in only 15 minutes, like I start freezing and stumbling over my words on simple questions and shit, and how I can only imagine how hard it makes their job to try to get all the information and diagnose and set up treatment and everything in 15 fucking minutes! Something is just going horribly wrong there. But like... I'm just hoping I'm not making things awkward. I really don't even notice it anymore, like... the way I spoke to them, the way I speak to my therapist and the way I speak here are all like... basically identical. It's just... my thoughts. My pure thoughts. I still have some boundaries, I mean it's not like they need to know about my sexual habits or how my hemorrhoids are doing, especially at a dinner table... But I'm afraid it might be awkward for them to talk about mental health stuff. I don't know, it's hard to tell. Maybe I should ask at some point?

After dinner, I went home. It was pretty warm today, I was getting bummed as I drove back that all the snow was melting. I was getting a big craving to go skate. And then I saw this dude slip on ice as he was walking back from a night class, when I drove by a local college. And he didn't know I saw him, I pretended I didn't see so he didn't feel embarrassed, not that he should be, it's like the lowest friction substance in the fucking world... And that planted a seed, which sprouted once I got to the rotary park where I skate. I scouted it out as I drove by - there was still snow. I pulled into my "car park", as my South African accented Siri likes to call it, which makes me smile. And as I walked in, I put my foot in a pile of snow by the door to see what the conditions were like. The snow was something close to the condition of like... a Slurpee, or something. If you're not American and don't know what that is, I don't know how to help you, like... a slushie? Like that kind of snow/ice. Like sleet that is cold enough to take solid form. That kind of snow is... not ideal because it's right on the edge of going to slush and certain ground/stone/pavement can retain heat... and the friction and pressure from skating can just turn that snow right into a slow, wet, soggy mess. But if the temperature is low enough... you get all the packability of wet snow, and that slush effect doesn't happen, and it also doesn't instantly turn to ice like it does on colder nights... And that's pretty much the conditions I got to work with tonight. So I stretched and I went skating.

But my dumb ass didn't bring my water bottle.

I tried skating the 2-stair, but that whole warm stone turning packed snow into slush thing? That was happening right where I was supposed to pop. Right at the lip of the first stair. It was just crap. But there was snow all over. I skated flatground for a while. My ollie was doing really well today, very consistent, good pop too. I was getting more comfortable and accurate with pop shuvits. I couldn't land a 3 shuv to save my life, unfortunately, when it's slushier it feels tougher to get that extra rotation because the snow has more give to it. At least that's what my head tells me. But I got a moving kickflip, maybe 2? I don't remember. Then I went to that section where I had a long downhill section of sidewalk to build speed and a natural kicker where it goes flat and then inclines down again, and I skated that for a bit until a dude came over and just... sat like 25 feet away from where that ramp was... I got paranoid and stopped skating it for a bit. Then I saw a smoke cloud come from there. And I'm sure it was just weed smoke, and it was probably some college kid who just couldn't smoke in his apartment and wanted to smoke somewhere chill, so he chose the park at like 9PM alone. I get it, I just... I was really anxious from earlier, and in general, so I just stopped skating that spot. I went over to the 4-stair, landed it at least 3 times. Went back to flat and started trying to get varial flip. I've never had it... perfectly consistent. Like... I've landed a few and I got pretty good at them, but I was never really consistent. There was a point where I could pull out kickflip and heelflip (on the right surfaces, at least) pretty much every try. Less so with heelflip, but still. Varial flip was never at that level. But today, I landed like 3 on flat not moving. I clearly remember a moment where it just clicked and I was like "oh, that's what it feels like!" And it felt as easy as a shuvit and I just popped, flicked, floated and the board just lined up right under my feet. And I came damn close to landing it moving, but I just couldn't stick it. I had to tap out.

What I kinda want to get off my chest - which is a fun way of putting it, once you see what I'm gonna talk about - was something I was freaking out about while skating. When I went to the doctor's office, they told me I have high blood pressure. Like... that's not heart rate, right? Like... pressure is different. And they were going to check it again to see if it was just anxiety, but like... they didn't. So that lack of resolution has just been sticking with me. And I got really anxious about it today. Like, I was getting chest pains and tightness and shit. And I've been getting that a lot from anxiety, so like... if I was having actual heart and pulmonary issues, I probably wouldn't notice, honestly. So I would just get a lot of invasive thoughts about like... exercising too hard, pushing myself too hard and then just fucking passing out and collapsing in the park. Like... I'm old now, or something. And I like... I'm not that old. I keep hearing people around my age, mid-30's, and they keep acting like they're in their fucking 60's or something. It's fucking weird, sorry. Like, my body aches too, guys. My back feels like garbage, my neck and posture are fucked, my hips have decided to secede and are staging regular protests against the rest of my body. I'm tired all the time, when I get hurt it takes a lot more to get me back up, I get tired quicker, shit like that. But I'm not fucking old. The people who consider me old don't consider themselves young and they're like 18. So... I'll consider calling myself old when I get to my mid 50s or something, thanks. But on the pulmonary front, I want to make sure I'm not being too cavalier and overlooking potential health issues that are avoidable, because I do have a history of blood-related issues (clots) and I do not have the best diet. I actually have a pretty poor diet. So... yeah, just wanna make sure that didn't creep up on me, and today was especially bad anxiety-wise in that department.

But, on the plus side, some kids saw me skating from their apartment... and they actually saw me land my first varial flip of the year and fucking cheered! I was listening to music in my headphones so I was just oblivious to the outside world, and they cheered so loud that I could hear them! It made me so happy. I wanted to say something about like... if there are any gods that give a fuck about them, I hope they throw some good stuff their way, but man, it's been a hot minute since I've heard anyone talk about religion publicly and that... feels a bit scary, honestly. Feels like people are just gonna come after you if you're polytheistic in 2023, you know? Weird shit, when we're supposed to be all evolved and progressive and whatever but yeah. I guess... I hope good fortune finds those two young men, for bringing excitement and joy to the heart of this grieving, depressed 36 year old snowskater.

Since I didn't have water, I ate a bunch of snow when I was out, but that wasn't nearly enough and I just came back early. And that was basically my night. I finished the night by polishing another one of those stones and watching another "episode" and a half of the Subnautica VoDs. Now I'm here.

Another cool idea I had, which I shared with my brother because I know he's really into languages... I decided to search Twitch today for streamers who speak French. I took 3 years of French in college, and I surprisingly still understand a lot. I could never speak it, but I can read it okay, just really slow. So I found someone who was playing League of Legends, a game I am pretty familiar with (but haven't played in like... 5 years?) and just... had that going in the background. And I got the Google Translate app thing for Chrome so I can just select a word that I don't know in the chat and it will real-time translate for me. I could follow a surprising amount, considering I haven't studied French since like... 2004. Wow, almost 20 years. Crazy. I'm pretty sure if I keep that up and just periodically try to like... figure out where they are in conversation? I'm sure I'll start picking up more and more. And maybe eventually I'll be able to chime in some short sentences every now and again. Who knows. I thought it was cool, something new to spice things up and to contribute to intellectual/skill development.

I am fucking tired. I need to go to bed. Byeeee.

[umarfarooqzahoor]

A Triumph Of Argentina on Winning FIFA World Cup

Soccer icon Lionel Messi glorified Argentina. The FIFA World cup 2022 finally delivered the victory on penalty kicks. Want to know more about FIFA World cup 2022 winning tales, continue further reading to catch up on all crucial facts!

Although, it was the most dramatic sporting event in history. Teams had tied 3–3 even after the extra time. The French missed twice in the shootout. After that Gonzalo Montiel decided to execute an emotional and glorifying victory.

How Did It Happen?

Let’s catch what happened that made it an unforgettable history!

Argentina since its winning pace has dominated lots of matches. But, they were 2–0 going for approximately 10 minutes. This FIFA World cup 2022 they were bursting with France having star Kylian Mbappe who scored twice.

The game was very interesting as both traded missed chances, followed by goals. This stretched extra 30 minutes. And, the final penalty kicks in. This tournament announced surprising results. The fairy tale run follows the game between two giants to compete and gain the title.

Mbappe effortfully solidified his claim. He tried to put it as a pretender to Messi’s throne. Scoring a hattrick was very exclamatory. France was very close to being the first team, then, it changed.

But finally, Messi,35, made the ultimate shot to carry the glory. He secured the trophy and cemented his status. He was tagged as the greatest ever player of the same. He successfully sealed the third title for his country, which is soccer mad.

Messi in his views expressed his desire to play as a champion as he is not retiring from the national team. The phrases were recorded by TyC Sports after the finals.

Things You Must Not Miss About FIFA World Cup 2022-The Finals

Every game has its highlights. And, when it comes to FIFA World cup 2022 it is impossible that this game would have no such crucial facts. Although, the game was really interesting and those who have witnessed live or live telecasts can relate. Still, here, are the few things enlisted below you need to know for sure:

Argentina won the title due to penalty kicks as the dramatic final ended in extra time still at 3–3.

France scored twice in the game within 90 seconds. This led to tie the final with Argentina.

Due to Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria, Argentina was able to score 2–0, half thanks to them.

On Sunday in Lusail, a city that was clouded with criticism of hosting Qatar’s human right record. This also includes the financial and environmental costs.

When Argentina Sensed Their Victory

It’s true that Argentina defeated France and sealed their glory. This South American country secured its first title since 1986. However, the Sunday game was the deciding factor.

The Final on Sunday was the battle. The battle was of wills. This time competitors met shot for shot, and that’s too with extra time. Lastly, Argentina minimised France’s hope.

In the very first half, Argentina took the lead by scoring two goals. France was at the defensive end. They thoroughly outplayed. But, they rained for another half, and also made more time.

It is likely to be the last appearance of the 35-year-old Lionel Messi, captain of Argentina, in the tournament, as he solidified an incredible legacy. This also sparked a debate, if Messi is the all-time greatest player. But, must say he met with young startup France’s Kylian Mbappe. He tied the game twice. As the 23-year-old scored three goals. The man who added a penalty kick graced him with the Golden Boot.

The Point When He Scores Over France

The team from Argentina was mobbed. Just after their greatest player did the winning kick. They knew he could no longer be dogged by the new trophy, at least not on his mantle.

As they already were winners seventy times of the Ballon D’Or, along with the members of almost 10 Spanish league championships including those 4 UEFA champions League-that’s too a winning side. Fans made a comeback home with the glorious title of FIFA World cup 2022 trophy.

Last year Copa America Title was also won by Argentina. But, the fans were still waiting for the most awaited crowning glory. This time Messie’s side satisfied them with the ultimate sports prize.

Famous Personalities & Sponsors Love That Made The Event Happen

There was love from millions of fans to organise the FIFA World cup 2022 along with blessings in the form of various support. A few sponsors of FIFA World cup 2022 were BYJU’S, Budweiser, McDonald’s, Vivo, and more.

Partners & sponsors of FIFA World cup 2022:

Adidas: They have a very strong relationship, dating back more than 50 years.

Wanda Group: Immensely supporting FIFA until 2030.

Hyundai / KIA: Ground transportation provider at the official.

Visa: A worldwide FIFA worldwide since 2007.

Qatar Airways: A business partner of FIFA Since 2017

Coca-Cola: It is one of the longest corporate partners of FIFA since 1978.

Apart from these, there are some new sponsors at FIFA World cup 2022 including Qatar Airways, Nike, New Balance, Majid, Marathon, etc. businessmen like Sheikh Umar Farooq Zahoor were also spotted in Dubai.

Umar Farooq Zahoor is one of the most renowned businessmen at present. He is settled in the mesmerising place of Dubai.

He is a very successful philanthropist who has successfully established his empire. He truly came a long way as he started his career at the age of 18 only. According to his revelations of this success, he expresses his love for making a difference in the world.

Bidding Goodbye With Closing Ceremony FIFA World Cup 2022

Lusail National Stadium was chosen for hosting the closing ceremony. The stadium has a quite high capacity. It is also a gig to be responsible for improving the country’s tourism economy. The euphoria was actually at an all-time high. The world’s largest football event was hosted in Qatar. With spectacular performances and unforgettable memories Qatar bids goodbye with the closing ceremony.

[xbadgerbearx]

i guess they are pretty funky

word count: 1.5k

Can’t Sleep: [2] … [4]

Your team prepared themselves as you started your journey to your new destination. You and Abner were talking about random things as you walked.

"You really like the dots?" Abner timidly asked.

"Are you kidding? Of course! You're so colorful," you said quietly with a smile.

Abner smiled to himself before motioning to your outfit. "I like your uniform too, it suits you. It makes your eyes stand out."

"Thank you! Ya know, I always thought you had a really nice nose- whoa, Abner, are you doing alright?" You cut yourself as you faced Abner for the first time during this walking session. He had those glowing dots on his face again.

"Oh! Those?" He was nervously covering his face. "Don't worry about-" splat. Abner tripped over a rogue tree root and fell face first into the mud. As you went to help pick him up, Flag turned around.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Everyone turned around to look at you two, well, minus Cleo, but she was sitting on a fallen tree almost asleep.

"We're tired, Colonel. We need a rest," she whined.

"Goddamn hobbyists," muttered Chris.

Soria turned to Flag, "We cannot stop. We need to hurry if you're going to help my people."

"Hey," DuBois intervened. "We're not here to help your people. But she's right, we gotta keep moving."

"I carry friend?"

"It's okay, Nanaue," Cleo said before turning to Abner. "It's happening to his face again."

"It's nothing, I tripped," he brushed off.

"Hey," Peacemaker said as he shoved Abner back. "Norman Bates, if that shit's contagious, we need to know."

"It's not," Abner tried moving forward before he was pushed again.

"What is it?"

"What's your deal, Chris? Stop pushing people around before I turn into something you're really not gonna like. And what's up with the obscure references?" You were getting fed up with Chris' bullshit.

"Oh yeah? And what's that?"

"I don't know, how about your dead father? The one that killed himself in front of you when you were a kid?"

"How do you-"

"You'd be surprised how much your mom loved recording all your childhood achievements. Your fifth birthday—ring a bell?" Peacemaker had an unreadable expression on his face as you got in his face and lowered your voice. "You wouldn't believe how much information you can get on your hands if you're able to disguise yourself as a high ranking employee in Belle Reve."

Before any of you could make the situation worse, Abner cleared the tension with a sigh.

"It's a... it's an interdimensional virus."

"Fuck is that?" Peacemaker asked after seemingly forgetting what just happened. You think he was trying to not think about it.

"My mother was a scientist at S.T.A.R Labs, and she was obsessed with turning me and my brother and sisters into superheroes."

"Oh, Abner," you softly said as you placed a hand on his arm. Peacemaker looked between the two of you with a hard expression.

"She infected me. Now, if I don't expel the dots twice a day..."

DuBois asked, "Then what?"

Abner made a face that was hard to read as he said, "They'll eat me alive." He then chuckled dryly as if he himself couldn't believe it.

"What happened to your brother and sisters?" Flag questioned.

"Some lived. Some... died."

Cleo, now standing, asked, "And your mom, where is she now?"

Abner looked to you before turning to his team.

"Almost everywhere."

Everyone just looked at Krill for a few moments.

"Okay," Flag turned around. "Let's move out."

"Come on, we must hurry, or we'll be late to meet my contact," Soria ushered.

Sooner or later, well, later, you made your way to this blockade where a driver in a large van was being investigated. During your trip Abner had to expel the dots, and although he was embarrassed about the situation, you and Cleo tried keeping his mind off it. The soldiers surrounded the van after a minute and started banging on the door. That was your cue.

Peacemaker started taking people out with a silenced pistol, Bloodsport shot with his arm crossbow, and King Shark ate a guy. The rest of the team moved from their hiding spots once the soldiers were dealt with. Success.

Bloodsport banged on the van's window before asking, "Are you Milton?"

The driver choked out a tearful "Si."

After Soria directed him to a nearby pull off spot, you started looking at the contents in the boxes that were pulled out.

"Milton will drive you through town and to La Gatita Amable. There are clothes in the boxes for all of you so you can blend in." Cleo started putting on a random pair of sunglasses as you pulled out a fedora. Soria continued, "That said, the walking tiburon is gonna have to stay out of sight."

"I wear disguise," Nanaue said.

"Ohhh," Cleo drawled. "You're going to wear a disguise?"

"Si."

"Hey, he's learnin' Spanish," Peacemaker said offhandedly.

"And what kind of disguise?"

"Fake mustache," he said smugly.

"Yeah," DuBois interrupted as he moved more boxes. "Fake mustache isn't gonna cut it, mate."

"Aww come on," you cooed. "What if he wears a hat?" The fedora you picked up earlier was now sitting on the King of the Ocean's head.

"You still look exactly like yourself."

"That's the worst fake mustache I've ever seen," Chris added.

"And if you had fooled us, we'd have to kill you, shark-shaped bloke with a mustache creepin' up on us like that."

"FUCK!" Nanaue yelled as he stomped off. You snickered before turning to Abner with some clothes in your hand.

"What do you think?"

"Hmm? Oh, those look nice, although I saw something in another box that I thought you might like. Let me go get it."

As he walked away towards another box, you dropped the clothes you were holding as your face softened. Someone saw something and thought of you? That hasn't happened for a very long time. You started sifting thoughtfully through a nearby box when he came back.

"Here," he showed you the clothes. "I hope you like it." It was sweet how anxious he was getting over this. He must not socialize often.

Taking the clothes from him, you observed the material. It was... actually really good. It was something you would've loved to wear if you weren't forced to wear that stupid prison outfit, and it looked like it'd fit.

"Abner, this is great! It's a lot better than what I was originally going with," you laughed. "Oh! Here, I saw these pants and thought it would match the shirt you picked up."

"Thank you," he said shyly.

"I'm gonna change over there. Stand watch, please?"

How could he say no to you? "Of course," he said while respectfully turning around. As he waited, Peacemaker appeared.

"(L/n) around?"

"Huh?" Abner said, startled from Chris's sudden presence. "Uh, yeah, they went over there to change into their disguise. I'm looking out for them."

"Oh, you're looking out for them? Well look out for this, Patrick Bateman," Peacemaker wasn't looking so peaceful as he leaned in towards Abner. Dropping his voice, he continued. "I don't know what you think is going on between you two, but leave it, you understand me? Why would The Mimic want to go for someone as lame as you? You throw polka dots at people?" Peacemaker scoffed before finishing, "Quit getting in my way, or else."

Stay away from you? There was no way he could do that. You were seemingly the only person who liked him, and now he would have to end that? Fuck that.

Abner, admittedly with a little less confidence than what he hoped for, challenged him. "Or else what?"

Gosh, three words and his heart was already pumping.

"Excuse me?" Chris raised a brow.

Luckily before anything could be done, you emerged oblivious from the jungle while dawning your new attire. Your uniform was neatly folded and tucked under your arm. Both men looked at you and... wow. Abner was speechless. Literally. For the second time within you knowing him, you made his breath hitch.

"You look stunning," Peacemaker quickly said before Abner had a chance. That wouldn't really matter since your response was quite the cockblocker.

"Thanks! Abner picked it out for me," you smiled. You even gave a twirl to show off the outfit to your teammates. Abner just looked at you with such affection in his eyes.

"Anyways, your turn," you ordered as you took Krill's watching place so he could change. Peacemaker tried making some move on you, but you were clueless. Instead, you went into Mission Mode™ and discussed some tactics and strategies you could implement. Sighing, Chris humored you and joined your planning. Not too long later, Abner walked out with his disguise on.

"I'm not sure about this," he said while standing awkwardly.

"You look like an idio-"

"You look great!" you voiced over Peacemaker. "I love those pants on you."

"Really?"

"Yeah," you laughed. "They're funky."

"I-" Krill let out a laugh of his own. "Yeah, I guess they are pretty funky."

"Alright, well, we've gotta get back to the van," you announced while walking away. Abner blindly followed you with a dumb little smile on his face while leaving Chris just standing there in disbelief.

[bambeptin]

the map of infinity was wild as hell: an analysis

ok, let's get this out of the way first: there's no reason why Professor Paradox had to make the Map of Infinity other than "for fun".

which makes sense! he’s immortal, he’s been travelling for a while, and he’s likely very, very, very bored. anything he does is probably to chase new stimuli. his sense of morality is off, from human standards.

it's the complete space-time map of 17 different dimensions, which Paradox doesn't technically need, since he has the Chrononavigator and his own innate time powers. he doesn't even need it to reach the Forge of Creation, since he can literally just like, walk there whenever. Paradox was the person that made the barrier between the Forge and the rest of the Universe in the first place. was it even always outside of the universe? did he send it out there? I imagine it sort of went like this:

"boy, am I bored today!"

"let's see if I can make an in-depth map of a bunch of different dimensions"

fought Celestialsapiens when he reached the Forge of Creation, K6BD-style. they can't kill him (his powerset matches up well against theirs) and he can't kill them all (and they’re starting to mess with his time plans), so eventually they agree to a treaty. he found the war sorta fun

bored again

"what do I do with this map I made? destroy it? no, that would be pointless..."

"oh! I know!"

"split it into 4 parts, 2 of which are keystones to a world and 2 of which are in death trap temples, because that would be 1. fun to make and 2. could lead to fun situations in the future"

let's go over them all!

Map Piece 1. Mykdl'dy

gesundheit. if you don’t remember this planet, it’s the half hot/half cold one that Paradox made a death trap temple on, which is now guarded by Necrofriggian cultists.

"welcome to my crib....... I enjoyed creating brutalism-inspired shapes of dark grey prisms against the ever-changing backdrop of ice and fire. in front are two statues of a mysterious person in robes, because I thought it would look cool. within are some dastardly traps that I designed myself, so watch out! the Necrofriggian colonists making a religion out of it wasn't my intention though. it's just a coincidence that they're the same species as the statues! I felt like the high point of this temple is dragon-wyrm that I created! the acid is a fantastic extra touch.”

“dungeon design is my passion.”

it seems like he decorated the inner parts the most, lovingly, with his shade of blue, used a bunch of magical spells (presumably; elaborated on later) for that part too, then realized that it would be a bit of a pain decorating the rest of the place and made the rest plainer. I wonder if he made it all himself, or like, hired some dudes

Map Piece 2. Piscciss

it’s hidden as the anti-gravity multiplier that holds Piscciss together.

“huh?” you might ask. “why would that piece have that power?”

I don’t know, maybe they all had that power or something. maybe if Aggregor just took one and started blasting everyone with anti-gravity the arc would be over way faster. maybe it’s magic. maybe Paradox is fucking with you.

“wait???” you might ask next. “it’s hidden as WHAT????”

that’s right! this is the little thing that keeps Piscciss a planet and not a bunch of water filled with dead fish floating around in space. “haha yeah this works perfectly... trust me it's not a macguffin that will be stolen and break your planet apart and someone in the future will have to sacrifice an alien to replace it lol...” - Paradox handing the anti-gravity multiplier to the Piscciss Volann when they were making an artificial water planet for them to live on

either that or the Piscciss Volann stumbled on the piece in an unseen other death trap temple, found its powers, and decided to use it, which sort of goes against the whole “Paradox hid all the pieces” thing if he simply never checked up on them

Map Piece 3. Perplexahedron

I know they went to Ledgerdomain third but that is saved for the end because it’s fucking mental. so we’re gonna talk about the Perplaxahedron. it’s the cube from Cube (1997).

if you don’t know what that is, it’s an absolutely huge artificial planet/building that’s entirely made of death traps. each new room is an exciting and fresh way to die. invigorating! while it does have a simple design, it’s efficient at what it does, and the clinical nature adds to the theme of being an unknowable deadly object. that’s what he probably describes it as anyways. again, did he build all of that himself? can I make a “Paradox construction squad” OC?

maybe Paradox made these dudes to help build the place, and kept them around as guards, because that’s efficiency.

this dude’s sole purpose in life is to wait there and hand over the Map of Infinity piece to whoever’s smart enough to get inside. I assume Paradox made him, because he disappears from reality like ten minutes after he hands it out, but Paradox has hired people to be guards in his temples before. the pay must be really good. maybe their culture is like that. maybe he didn’t disappear and actually it was an actor to squeeze the most drama out of the universe.

anyways, if he was real, Ben basically ruined his life before he died by tossing out the very important piece of the Map to Aggregor for basically no reason. oops!

Map Piece 4. Ledgerdomain

“he can reach the Forge of Creation. so obviously he can reach Ledgerdomain, a dimension of pure mana. what’s the problem?” well, there’s really no problem. it’s quite cool! no, what’s wild is that nobody really thinks about the ramifications of this piece of the Map of Infinity. for a refresher, this is what it’s hidden as:

“It is an object as old as time itself, through which all magic flows. It is the keeper of the true name of [Ledgerdomain]; source of ultimate power! And it is mine!“ - Charmcaster

the secret true name of magic. if you have it, you have power over magic itself.  it can revive the dead or instantly kill people. that power corrupts its wielder easily. also, if it’s removed from Ledgerdomain, the realm loses all natural entry/exit points, destabilizes, and begins the crumble. that’s right! it’s the Alpha Rune.

Paradox is confirmed to have actually made the Alpha Rune, not just hidden a piece as the Rune. I implore you to think about what that entails.

he knows magic (3-page minicomic I made about that topic). he doesn’t just know magic, he knows the secret name of magic, automatically making him a disgustingly powerful mage. either that or it’s possible to get the secret name of magic without knowing magic, which is fine too, but just being around the Alpha Rune makes you able to cast spells. he probably ripped the Alpha Rune from the Omniverse and bound it to his will because he had nothing else better to do that day. could he make even more Alpha Runes (even if they’re weaker copies), since it knows it already? did making it into Rune form rip it from his own mind? I like to think that the reason why he can’t lie is because if he does, his latent magical abilities will automatically attempt to cast a spell to make it real.

here are three ways you can interpret “Paradox made the Alpha Rune”.

he found the secret name of magic and made the Alpha Rune out of it

he literally made the secret name of magic. i.e. he made magic itself. that would be wild as hell.

the writers didn’t really think about the ramifications of any part of the Map of Infinity past “cool artifact”, which, to be honest, fair enough.

he probably finds all the magic really useful, since it helps streamline all of his temples and stuff. all of the bright blue lines connected to Paradox’s creations might even be magic! or his time powers.

by the way, he pulls the same split-something-into-pieces-and-hide-them-with-death-traps stunt with Maltruant, so I think this is his hobby.

[hold-our-destiny]

5 times tony comforted Peter and the one time Peter comforted Tony

This is for @bluesweatshirt for the friendly neighborhood exchange!

(also i’m really sorry i couldn’t add in a cut off on mobile)

________________

1.

Peter wasn't a sad person.

He wasn't too sad when his parents didn't come home from their business trip. Yeah, he was sad when Ben died- he died in front of him for god’s sake- but he didn’t show it, he sucked it up and helped May with the new struggles with money.

Peter wasn't sad, no. He was tired though.

God, he was so tired.

It had been two weeks since homecoming night and Peter was catering between not being able to sleep at all and waking up every night from nightmares.

This night was different, though.

Because for some reason… Mr Stark was in his nightmare.

It was never anyone but peter. Always Peter stuck under rubble, falling from a plane, stuck in the fire. Never anyone else so why now would it be Mr Stark?

That wasn’t exactly the first thought on his mind when he woke up.

___________

Peter woke up with a start, breath stuck in his chest, tears already escaping his eyes.

He threw the covers off him, needing to be free from the confines, before reaching for his phone.

He’s hurt, mr stark’s hurt and he can't help him- oh god he can't save him-

“Hello?” Mr Stark’s groggy voice shook him out of his thoughts.

“Mr Stark?” Peter asked, almost scared for any reply.

“Pete? You okay?” His mentor’s voice took on a new tone. Worry mixed with… something.

“Yeah, sorry, i just- I’m sorry for waking you- I’ll hang up now-”

“Peter. Are you okay?” The question made him want to cry, made him want to curl up and let it all out with how safe it made Peter feel.

“Yeah I’m-” he took a breath, “I’m fine,”

He could tell the billionaire knew he wasn’t, “Okay, well you might as well help me anyway,”

“Help you?”

“Yeah, i've been up for hours trying to figure this problem out,” He lied.

“O-okay”

The mechanic explained the problem to him, Peter letting the words wash over him, breathing through the explanation. He pretended not to notice when Mr Stark didn't ask for his thoughts, when he reminded him to breathe every now and then, just letting his words soothe the kid from the evident panic attack he’d just gone through.

God, he was so out of his element.

Maybe this was a good thing- maybe it was good for him to comfort this kid- this kid who he barely knew. Just for tonight, only tonight.

2. 

Tony was tired. No, scratch that- he was fucking exhausted.

He was pretty much ready to drop on that wednesday, ready to curl up in his king size bed and sleep for 16 hours straight.

And yeah, maybe he forgot it was lab day.

Peter walked- more like stumbled- through the lab doors, somehow racing and also shuffling to his seat, dropping his bag with a thud and sitting in his chair in almost the same manner.

Peter’s hair was messy, curls more unruly than usual, and Tony would bet that if he could see the kid’s eyes, they wouldn’t look healthy. 

“Hey kid,”

No answer.

“You okay?”

A delay, then a slight nod. Peter still hadn’t put anything in front of him, just simply sitting at the desk.

“You wanna skip lab day today?” 

Peter’s head shot up, eyes wide and concerned. And yeah, Tony was right, he had dark bags under his eyes.

“What? Is something wrong? Do you need me to leave?” Tony raised a hand to stop him.

“No- no- I mean more like…” He didn’t know how he was going to say this, “I’m pretty tired right now, do you wanna just order a pizza and chill out on the couch?”

Peter looked at him suspiciously, before nodding, already getting up and heading to the other room.

Yeah, tony thought to himself, you’re doing okay

.

______--

Peter was passed out on the couch within 5 minutes, remote laying in his limp hand and head lolled to the side awkwardly.

Tony brought the pizza in, setting the boxes down on the coffee table and gently shook Peter awake.

“Hey, kid,” He whispered as Peter woke up, matching the tone to the dark room, “You wanna have something to eat? Or at least get into more of a comfortable position,”

Peter nodded groggily, sitting up so Tony could sit next to him, legs touching as Peter moved closer. Tony raised his arm up and around the back of the couch, resting on the teenager’s shoulders and allowing him to relax into the billionaire.

Tony put a random star wars film on the tv, letting it drift into background noise as the kid fell asleep next to him.

For years, Tony had been scared of fucking a future kid up, becoming his father and eventually pushing everyone away. Somehow, now, his fears have receded, his mind reassuring him repeatedly.

He trusts you. You’re doing okay.

3.

Peter woke up under rubble.

No, no, this wasn’t a nightmare. The air was too thick, dust invading his airways. He choked on it as he took a breath. It was too dark, way too dark, the rocks were crushing him, piercing his skin in multiple places. He groaned with the weight, reaching for his watch instinctively. 

He pressed the side button three times, letting red light illuminate his surroundings and trying to breathe with the rubble pushing down on his chest.

His watch lit up blue, and Tony’s voice started speaking through it. 

“Peter? Pete- you there?”

“Y-yeah I’m here” He choked out, a waver in his voice.

“Okay, how are you feeling, kid?” 

“I- The rubble- it’s crushing me- i can’t-” His breath started to speed up at the reminder, panic invading his senses.

“Kid- kid! You gotta calm down, okay? We’re getting you out now, i promise- we’re gunna get you out real soon- but you gotta calm down for us to do that, okay?”

Peter made an affirmative noise, closing his eyes and trying to even out his breaths. His memories were resurfacing much quicker than he could cope with and Tony’s voice was only helping slightly. Peter didn’t know what he was saying, letting the noises meld together in his mind as he calmed himself.

After a few minutes- or hours, he didn’t know- he’d calmed down somewhat, finally able to focus on the voice coming out of his watch. 

“We’re getting you out of there now, kid. You’re doing so good for me, Pete- just keep breathing for me, okay?”

With the panic receding now, Peter was much more aware of his surroundings. He was also aware of the fact that his brain was slowing down, unable to process things as quickly as he normally could. There was a reason for that in the back of his mind but he couldn’t reach it. 

There was something wet underneath him, soaking up into his clothes, he didn’t like that. He wanted to move away from it but only made it hurt worse when he tried- he cried out in pain.

“T-tony!” 

There was a scuffle on the other end of the line- “Yeah, pete? You okay?- what’s happening?”

“T’ny- t- tony! T’y please- g’t me out- please- please- i- i can’t-” 

“Peter- what’s happening?”

“H’rts- my- my chest- there’s- it’s-” The panic was back now, confusing him even more than before, “S’mthing- und’r- something wet- under me- t’ny please-”

“Shit- Peter- Pete- breathe, okay kid? Breathe for me. We’re gunna help you,”

Peter took a breath, then another, and another, steadying his heart before whimpering when the rubble shifted, “Kid, we’ve almost got you. I need you to stay awake, okay? We’re gonna get to you soon but you gotta stay awake so you can tell us if we move the wrong thing, okay?”

Peter made an affirmative noise again, wanting nothing more than to move away from the pain, but listening to Tony.

Tony talked again a while later, surprising Peter when he did. 

“Pete? You still awake for me, bud?”

“Y-yeah im- im here,” 

He heard Tony breathe out slowly, “That’s good, Pete. We’re only a few feet away from you, but the next thing we’re going to move is gunna shift some stuff, okay? Tell us if it hurts you, okay, kid?”

“Okay- I’ll tell y’u”

He waited a few seconds, hearing some movement to his side, before the rubble shifted and his legs screamed in pain. He only let out a grunt, not wanting to stop the team’s efforts, and only a moment passed before he saw his father figure knelt down beside his head, cradling it with one hand. He smiled up at him.

“T-tony-” He sobbed.

Tony nodded, “Yeah, yeah, kid, i’m here now. Sorry we couldn’t get to you sooner but I got you now, i promise. You did so good for me, bud,”

“Good?” Peter’s eyes were closing now, relishing in the relief of pain after hours of panic.

“So good, kid. I’m so proud of you for staying calm. You can sleep now, okay? Let us do the rest.”

He smiled up at his mentor again, letting his eyes close and his body relaxed as his mind gave in to the not-so-distant pull of sleep.

4. 

Tony woke up that morning to a call from midtown tech.

Of course, he was confused as to why Peter’s school would call him at midday on a random tuesday.

“Is this Tony Stark?” The caller sounded dubious- doubtful.

“Yes, it is,”

“This is Julia calling from midtown tech. Are you the emergency contact for Peter Parker?”

“One of them, yes,”

“Would you be able to pick Peter up soon?” Tony was already getting some more presentable clothes on, worried as hell.

“Yes, of course. Can I ask why?”

“To be completely honest with you, Mr Stark, I don't even know. There’s a police officer in there with him right now, and that’s all i know.”

Tony froze. A police officer could only mean two things, and Tony didn’t like either option.

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” And with that, he hung up.

Peter practically fell into his arms when he walked into the office. Tony instinctively went to cradle the back of his head as he processed everything that was happening. One of those things being that Peter was crying.

Peter was crying.

He wrapped his arms around the teenager more firmly as the police officer stepped toward them.

“Mr Stark, I’m officer Langford,” Tony nodded curtly towards him, waiting for an explanation.

“You may want to sit down for this,” 

It took some time for Tony to maneuver Peter into a more comfortable position on the couch in the corner, the kid not wanting his mentor to see his face- in fear?- but they got there in the end.

The officer sat down in a chair opposite them, “I’m sorry to tell you this but this morning May Parker was involved in a car accident, she was rushed to the hospital but unfortunately, she was pronounced dead on arrival-” Peter held him slightly tighter, “We called you here because you were Peter’s second emergency contact, and in situations like these, we need a temporary home for him. If you agree, you can take him home now, and if not we can move him to a separate-” Tony held a hand up to cut him off.

He moved the hand back down to rub across Peter’s back, meant to be a soothing gesture but somehow made him more tense. 

“I’ll take him now, and i can sort out the paperwork for a… longer arrangement soon,” Officer Langford nodded before wishing them well and leaving, but Tony didn’t pay any notice, his mind too caught up in what just happened.

It wasn’t caught up in May’s death, somehow in the back of his mind, he knew, he knew that police officers didn’t just show up at a kid’s school for no reason. He wouldn’t have been called if it was anything else.

No, it wasn’t caught up with that.

It was caught up with the fact that Peter- his kid, his Peter- upon hearing Tony’s agreement to take him in- he lost all tension in his body. As if he was relieved, as if he feared Tony would leave him, as if he would abandon the kid he’s grown so close to lately.

Tony couldn’t process it.

“Hey, kiddo, can you look at me please?” Peter minutely shook his head, burrowing into Tony’s shirt even closer than before. His tears had long since stopped, now just seeking comfort from the billionaire.

“We’ve gotta be clear about some stuff, okay, bud? Just a few minutes and then we can go back to whatever this is,” Tony wasn’t good at this.

But, still, Peter pulled back from their embrace, head turned down towards his legs. 

“Kid-” Tony was stuck for words, “i want you to know that you can stay with me for as long as you like, okay? If it’s just for this week, for a while or if it’s for the rest of your life, okay? I need you to understand that i’m going to stick with you through all of it, anything you need from me, I’ll get it for you,” He took a breath, “You’re not alone in this,”

Peter crumpled.

As if against his own command, his body surged forward, arms clumsily reaching for his father figure, breaths coming through as gasps, head still downturned. 

But still, Tony caught him.

__________

Tony took Peter back to the tower, he set him up in his room, gave him food and sent him to bed. He figured they’d deal with talking about it tomorrow, after some good sleep and a long fucking think about how Tony feels about this kid.

That went to shit at around 4am.

Tony was up on his feet before he could process the scream, legs rushing him to the only inhabited room on his floor. Pushing the door open and hoping for the worst.

He really didn’t expect to see Peter in the corner, bed sheets crumpled around his feet, breaths barely present.

He kneeled down a few feet away, unsure about whether Peter needed him close or not. But upon seeing the kid reach out a trembling hand towards him, he surged forward, pulling the teenager into his arms.

“It’s okay, whatever it is, it’s okay, we’re safe. I’ve got you.” He repeated in hushed whispers, rocking the two of them back and forth.

It was only a few minutes later when Peter responded to him, breathing normally now, hand clutching his mentor’s shirt as he mumbled into his chest.

“Couldn’t- couldn’t save y’u- i- i can’- can’t do i’- pl’se t’ny-”

Tony hushed him. 

Peter repeated the mantra for another- god, tony didn’t know how long- until tony was finally able to hush him. The billionaire carefully picked him up, walking him the few feet over to the bed and laying him down in it. 

Tony hesitated by the door, before hushing his brain of all negative thoughts, turning off the light and retreating back into the teenager’s bedroom. He climbed into the bed with the kid, curling up next to him- relieved when Peter immediately turned to cling to his chest.

Slowly, he fell asleep.

5.

To say Peter was worried about this mission was an understatement. Him and Tony were going undercover together and honestly… it was already awkward. 

The thing is, Peter wouldn’t have any trouble going undercover normally but now, they were going in as father and son. 

There was this guy- this villain they’d started calling the ‘poisoner’- who was targeting father and son couples, poisoning the son and leaving the father with the body until they were found. They’d tried everything to arrest the guy but… he kept getting away- going undercover was the only option- the last ditch attempt before the avengers started knocking on doors.

It was weird how Peter was more scared to act like Toy was his dad, when he could actually die if the other guy got the upper hand.

_______________

They were sat in the hotel room, waiting. 

They saw the guy- the poisoner- earlier at the bar. He’d followed them all night, back to their room but… he hadn’t pushed his way in, always staying just too far away to be apprehended by Tony.

It took a few hours for there to be a knock at the door, Tony standing up and casting a quick look at Peter before going to answer it.

He opened the door to see him- the guy- the poisoner- dressed up as a waiter or something, pushing a cart in front of him.

“Can i help you?”

He smiled, “Room service, sir,” He started pushing his way past Tony.

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t order room service,”

The poisoner turned around quickly as he heard the door blow shut, quickly pulling Tony into a headlock and facing Peter, who was frozen in the shock of it all.

“Now I’m going to say this one time only,” He ignored Tony struggling in his hold, pulling out a gun from his waistband, “There’s handcuffs under the cart. You’re going to cuff yourself to the bed or I’ll blow your dad’s brains out,” 

Peter moved slowly, sliding off the bed and keeping his hands visible. The man was the same height as Tony and didn’t look much bigger than him. Tony should be able to get out of his hold easily- there was a reason he couldn’t- and now he had a gun to his head.

He reached under the tablecloth, feeling the cold metal and pulling out three sets of handcuffs. He moved over to the bed again, cursing the hotel for having actual bed posts, and cuffed his left wrist to the bed, laying down on it to make himself more comfortable. 

The man then pushed Tony away from him, pointing the gun at Peter this time and making fear rush through him, “Now you- cuff his other hand to the bed,” 

Tony hesitated, making the man cock the gun, and Tony then quickly moved towards Peter, efficiently cuffing the teenager’s wrist, giving it a small squeeze of reassurance that didn’t do much to reassure him.

“Pull the chair away from the desk,” The poisoner commanded, “And cuff your hands behind it,”

Tony did so immediately, not risking Peter’s safety again. Only once he was situated did he start talking.

“You know you’re going to regret this,” The poisoner laughed.

“You really think so, do you? I know you’ve got this room bugged, i know the avengers are probably on their way here. But I’m here to send a message,”

“And what message is that?” 

He paused, pulling the lid off the metal plate he brought in on the cart, it revealed a neat line of six vials, all full of a blue liquid.

“You need to pay for what you did,”

__________

As it turns out, the poisoner doesn't actually inject the poison.

No, that would be too merciful.

Tony’s handcuffed to the chair he’s sat in, facing the bed. The same bed of which Peter, his kid, the teenager who he’d grown to care for so much in the past year or two, was handcuffed to in an ironic parallel. Father and son. Mentor and mentee. Tony, the merchant of death, destined to lead anyone he comes into contact with to a gruesome fate.

Peter happened to be that person.

Tony remembered the first few days after the fight with the rogues, how he regretted taking Peter with him, knowing he was going to ruin the kid. The few months after had only solidified that claim, and so he’d taken the suit.

There was no way he was getting out of the situation now.

The poisoner- that son of a bitch tony was going to kill as soon as he could get out of this damn chair-

The poisoner, had strapped a mask to the teenager’s head, slowly screwing in a vial of that fucking liquid on either side.

And now he was breathing it in- the gas- the poison that Tony just sat there as he’d been strapped down.

Now, Tony thought it was bad enough when he’d had all those thoughts running through his head, memories of Peter before they’d gotten to know each other, before Tony had taken him in. He thought that had been bad enough.

But no, it was so much worse when all those thoughts suddenly screeched to a halt.

Because Peter had just turned his head, linking eyes with Tony, a desperate plea moving between them.

Because Peter was scared- he looked terrified. 

There were unshed tears laying in his tear ducts, enough to easily see as you looked at the kid. His lips barely visible within the mask but from what Tony could see, they were held in a strained frown, lips being bitten.

Peter moved his head towards his mentor, linking eyes with the man. And that, right there in that moment, was when the teenager let go.

“T-tony-” A sob cut him off, choked out between his lips.

“T-tony please- i can’t- i don’t-” Tony shushed him from where he was sitting.

“Kid- Pete- I-” Tony was speechless, all known reassurances dying in his throat as soon as he’d thought of them, what were you supposed to say to a kid who was dying and you couldn’t do anything about it?

“Tony- please- dad- i can’t-” that kicked his instincts into gear.

“Kid, you need to stop talking, okay? The team’s going to get here soon, they’ll get this shit out of you and you’ll be okay, then you can tell me whatever you need to when you’re better, okay?”

Peter nodded, eyes still wide with tears but he listened to the billionaire. and somehow, that made it so much worse, the kid would follow him into fire if he asked him to, and now Tony got him into this situation.

Tony wanted nothing more than to look away from what was happening, as Peter breathed in the poison, helpless to do anything, but he couldn’t not be there for the kid. He needed his father figures comfort.

“he’s right, the teams gunna get here soon, i don’t know when but we’ll get you out of this as soon as we can, and then we can spend a week watching all of the star wars movies, and the clone wars if you want, anything you want kid” 

The poisoner was sat in the corner of the room, on the other bed. He was watching them, watching Tony desperately give his kid comfort without being able to touch him. 

Tony looked at him, “you’re a fucking psychopath, you know that, right? he’s 16, he’s just a kid. why don’t you kill me instead if you want me to pay so much, huh?”

The poisoner chuckled, standing up to walk over to them, “If you die, you wouldn’t feel the pain i did as my kid died in front of me, i’m going to make you watch as your kid suffocates in front of you”

He got two new vials, replacing the almost empty ones. Peter’s wheezing had gotten a lot more prominent now, trying desperately to bring in air. 

Tony’s always been around death, it greets him at every corner. but every time, someone else dies instead of him, or at least, they come close to it. 

He doesn’t know what he’d do if Peter dies.

______________

He’d already changed to the last set of vials now, Peter's breath was barely there. 

Tony was fucking terrified, obviously.

The team was close, he was sure of it, but that had been what he’d been telling himself the whole time. 

They were barely minutes out by his assumptions, but he didn’t know if Peter had minutes, vials nearly empty as the liquid in them turned to gas for the teenager to breathe in, slowly suffocating him.

He was still facing Tony, eve after this long, still trusting him to save him. Even as his body could barely pull in breaths, eyes drooping, they didnt stray from his face.

“Peter, you gotta keep your eyes open, i know it’s hard, i know- but you’ve gotta stay awake for just a few more minutes. We’re gunna help you, but you just gotta stay awake,” 

Peter looked at him sadly, but his eyes stayed open and Tony counted that as a win. He started to say something but Tony shushed him quickly.

“It’s okay, kid. Don’t try to talk. We’ve been over this already, you can talk to me after the team gets here- star wars marathon and everything, remember?”

Peter’s eyebrows creased inwards, and Tony’s heart dropped. Either he just forgot about that whole part of their conversation or… or… 

“You just gotta stay awake for me, okay? I believe in you kid, dont let me down,”

_______________

The door seemed to explode inwards when the team got there, Tony didn’t look up.

He didn’t look up as they arrested the poisoner, Bruce and sam moving to Peter, while two others moved to get Tony out of the seat he was in.

As soon as the handcuffs were undone, he surged forward, one hand reaching for the kid’s- which now rested on the bed after being released- and the other going to rest in his curls. Tony quickly wiped the tears off the kid’s face, staying away from his mouth as the others tried to give him as much oxygen as he needed.

Peter choked on a sob when he realised Tony was there, mouth slightly upturning even as another oxygen mask was placed over his face.

“I’m here kid. I’m so proud of you for staying awake, okay?” He looked to bruce, as the man looked away from Peter’s vitals, nodding to Tony now, “You can go to sleep now, I’m so proud of you kid, it’s okay,”

Peter’s eyes didn’t leave him, even as he fell asleep.

Tony cried as he was carried away.

__________________

Peter woke up in the medbay. That was his first sign that something bad happened.

The next sign was his mentor-father-figure-dad asleep on the side of his bed. 

Peter’s eyes widened as he saw the tear tracks lining his cheeks. Tony never cried, not even when he dropped an engine on his foot that one time. If Tony was crying now, this- whatever it was that happened- it was bad bad.

“Tony?” 

Tony startled awake, as if he meant to be on guard, and took one look at the kid in front of him before reaching for Peter and bringing him into his arms.

“Oh my fucking god, kid. Holy shit, you’re okay. Oh my god-”

“Tony what happened?” Was the teenager’s muffled answer, not complaining about being smothered in his da- Tony’s shirt.

“There was this- this guy we went after- had to go undercover and he got to us and he poisoned you, kid- and i couldn't- i couldn't do anything about it- i just sat there and you- you did so good-”

Peter shushed him as the memories arose in his mind, “Tony, can i talk for a second?” He received a nod in reply, “You called the team, Tony. I didn’t, you did. They got there in time and now I’m okay, aren’t I? You did everything that you could, if anything i should've done something, I’m the one with powers here. No- i know- i couldn’t have done anything but you were there the whole time telling me to stay awake and i did, Tony, because of you.”

Tony didn’t say anything, seemingly processing what the kid said. He looked up slowly, tears falling down his cheeks, leaning forward and pulling the kid into a hug again.

Slowly, Peter got tired, nearly falling asleep in Tony’s arms. So, of course, Tony moved into the bed with him, pulling the kid to rest his head against the man’s chest.

“I got you, kid, don’t worry. You can go to sleep,” Peter didn’t know if Tony was reassuring himself or the kid.

Stil, nonetheless, Peter seemingly couldn’t hold back from murmuring a last thought as he fell asleep.

“Love you, dad”

Tony froze for a moment before replying, “Yeah, i love you too, kid,”

[badass-at-fandoming]

Just Little Ventrue Things ~

I finished a Camarilla Ventrue run of VTMB. Mostly, the only thing Ventrue these days know how to do is Dominate, run screaming, eat hot chip, and lie, and [high falsetto voice] here’s a list of other nonsense I discovered:

PC’s name is Christina; she’s a Dominatrix because I’m bi. Her sire was one of her clients, and she’s actually very, very angry about his death. She doesn’t mind being a vampire. She’s Wiccan and part of a coven

In this Camarilla run, I decided I would only do quests given by Camarilla members. My justification was that, while Christina is intelligent and curious about lore, she focuses on tasks that immediately relate to her and her goals. She’s not curious about others; won’t go out of her way to talk to them. She’s not a bleeding heart, like my other PCs, and she believes in the Camarilla’s laws. She just hates LaCroix for killing her sire. Her plan during the game is to curry as much favor within the Cam as possible and cozy up to LaCroix so she can stab him.

Enough backstory

Nonsense time

Smiling Jack laughs at you if you don’t eat a rat in the tutorial. LOL. The Ventrue dialog is like “I could barely choke down the homeless man: please don’t make me eat a rat!”

The blood in the Santa Monica haven’s fridge is now blue blood. Does regular blood make Ventrue sick? I was too scared to experiment.

[spots Mercurio] I am going to steal that ghoul

Rosa: The people you’re looking for are up there. Christina, assuming Rosa is a Cam agent: Okay, thanks, bye

Never spoke to the Thin-Bloods again (sorry Lily baby ;-;)

Everyone except Julius still leaves when the PC reaches Hollywood

If you try to feed on Julius, he WILL kick you in the head and you WILL glitch into the fire, be on fire; run away screaming in Prada

You can skip the whole basement of the Ocean House Hotel if you manage to jump over the hole in the staircase???? Like?? You mean the spookiest fucking level has been optional this whole time I”M

[ghost appears] [Christina smacks it with an axe] None of that.

Club girls speak to Christina and I’m on the FLOOR

Therese “kills” Jeanette, even though I had enough oompa to make that not happen.

Therese joins the Camarilla and says she’s in good position to be the next Prince??? Hello??? Where is our Prince Voerman ending????

Went straight to LaCroix, called him “sir,” and he name-dropped Napoleon.

LaCroix tells Christina to go visit the Anarchs. She blows the Anarchs off (Nines made a growly face, Damsel dialog yowl-exited out after I asked if she wanted to join the Cam; Skelter threatened to murder me twice). When LaCroix told Christina that, while he admired her Cam loyalty, she must listen to her enemies to understand what they wanted, it felt like he was actually being a good sire and mentor.

That’s weird.

When Christina asked for his history, he very carefully explained his lineage, like the important part of Ventrue culture it is.

Overall, I found LaCroix-being-nice-to-me extremely unsettling.

Sir. Stop smiling at me, sir. Stop being impressed I don’t ask for money. STOP MAKING ME UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE LIKE YOU, SIR.

In contrast, LaCroix sounded genuinely betrayed at the end

Also made it more obvious when he started to lose track of his marbles

Ventrue PC seems juuuuuuust tall enough for her forehead to glitch into the ceiling of literally any confined space

The dirty Elizabeth Dane policeman didn’t psspspspsp at Christina so the whole ship was 15 white-knuckled minutes of making police dance and scuttling about

There is!!! A lot less!!! Talking in this game!!! Than I remember!!! She is only good at talking and ordering people around i am bEGGING

All EXP goes to Dominate and making Christina extremely charismatic and buff.

Ventrue himbo????

Beckett un-himbo-ifies her

She insults Beckett on their first meeting, spitting out “What do you want, wolfie?!” I thought this was appropriate because she died like, 4 times on that warehouse mission and was Extremely Stressed And Under Duress

Beckett’s response of “Oh, you’re too young to have mouthed off to the truly old ones yet.” makes his later snide remark of “the young ones are so temperamental” 900% funnier. Yeah, LaCroix! Beckett thinks I’ve grown and am now more mature than you! XD

Missions involving sex workers hit different when you’re a sex worker.

Christina was incandescent with rage at the Brotherhood

Grout’s mansion mission was a lot of “I have no interest in this nonsense.”

For the first time ever, I didn’t kill anyone during the Museum quest! This is because Christina ran very fast and Dominated every guard as quickly as possible. Every single fucking guard knew she was there, but could do nothing about it, because they were dancing. The door to the sarcophagus locked (it will do this if too many guards are agro), but locked doors are no match for noclip hack.

Entertaining image of a tall woman absolutely blasting into this museum room and Beckett tackling her to the floor like wait! I must snark at you! You are legally obligated to speak with me!

Isaac is still somehow a pretty chill guy to work with if you’re Camarilla.

Christina didn’t visit VV or Ash. Interestingly, Ash didn’t show up at the hunter monastery later. Did he just die in his club? Is he still there, waiting, deciding?

Christina @ Andrei: what the fuck is this shit

“I don’t care. It’s ugly. Clean it up.”

SEWERS.

Not as bad as I was expecting

Did take shortcut, run away from fights, ducked out in the middle for a snack, and bring 7 blue blood packs tho

Gary threatened to shred her face with a cheese grater, which I thought was Toreador only dialog?? It must be connected to the Appearance Stat. Which Christina has maxed out.

When Heather became Christina’s ghoul, I was delighted because I thought this meant Christina would always have fresh blood.

No

If you ask to feed on her too soon after the last time, Heather says she feels light headed and wants to lie down. The dialog exits out

I love you, Heather bb

Perfected the art of nudging NPCs into corners

Mitnick’s quests now feature Enforced Nap Time for all guards

Seriously, Dominate is ridiculously powerful, hooooly shit. I get why people like it. I also like it when people do things I ask them to do.

Christina can’t sneak, but she CAN strongly encourage everyone to choke on their own tongues.

Very high contrast in the beginning of the game: 2 punches would knock her over, but anyone she spoke to would obey immediately and without question

Chinatown goes by ridiculously fast if you can’t sneak and don’t do any sidequests besides Mitnick’s.

For the first time ever, Zhao survived! This is because Christina made him take a nap.

He just told her to leave

You’re welcome, my good dude

IDK if it’s a game glitch, but Christina would vocalize? In battle, she grunts with effort and pain.

Got to the point where I kept expecting Dominate dialog in every interaction and would get disappointed if it didn’t show up. What do you mean I have to actually convince people? That’s lame.

Christina was polite and charming to Ming Xiao, who also conveyed a deeper betrayal than normal at the end. ;-;

I promise to give you a Ventrue boy toy soon, Xiao

Finale arc quests went by VERY FAST because Christina can’t sneak for shit. Just run in, Dominate blazing

You can skip the outside bit of the Hallowbrook Hotel if you find the open door on the top level what the fuuuuuuuuuCK

[“A Little Party Never Killed Nobody” plays while Christina wipes out the Sabbat in 10 minutes]

Andrei disappeared mid-fight and didn’t come back until I complained that only I was allowed to run away from boss fights

I’m categorizing “triggering the interaction to save Heather” as something quite difficult to do. The timing has to be just right. I’ve missed it twice now. BUT hacking into the game to save her is easy.

I love you, Heather bb

Final Beckett talk had the vibe of “You’re a very different person than me, but you’re also High Humanity and trying to do good. You don’t deserve to die.”

Damsel threatens to kick the shit out of Christina and is extremely reluctant to tell her where Nines is

“Out of all people, they send you? All right, let’s just talk terms.” - Nines because Christina was short with him one (1) time

WEREWOLF HARD

You can just?? Walk out of your haven?? Without speaking to Jack at all???

I didn’t do that

But I could have

[”Dust in the Wind” plays while Christina kills entire Camarilla hit squad in 3 minutes]

You can visit Mercurio and Trip on your way out of Santa Monica??

Mercurio makes no comment on the blood hunt. Business as usual with him. This is fine.

Christina: I’m SO going to adopt that ghoul. And perhaps Isaac can be convinced to part with Romero...

(For the first time ever, my PC boinked Romero. Twice, to receive the break up email)

This is definitely a glitch, but Christina brushed up against Caine, and a worried voice said, “Are you all right?” It sounded like the same voice actor, but a higher pitch?

Always nice to think about Caine demonstrating care

Christina asked Caine who he is, and Caine replied that he “gets people where they’re going. [He’s] a driver,”  which is a nice nod (lol) to both his literal job as a driver and as a shepherd/creator/god to Kindred. Caine creates and makes fate.

Caine triple checks with Christina that she’s sure Strauss won’t betray her. Thanks, Vampire Dad. :’D

For some reason, only other Ventrue guarded LaCroix’s tower. I wonder if this is intentional. Like all the other Camarilla Clans backed Strauss and left? So only LaCroix’s Ventrue lackeys remain? Anyway, it created some weird moments where Christina fought her double.

KILL YOUR DOUBLE

Sheriff laughed in haughty joy that he was to kill Christina. I don’t remember him laughing in other playthroughs.

Christina ruining Caine and Jack’s prank oh noes

[inkribbon796]

What a Beautiful Wedding Ch. 5: For the Dancing and the Dreaming

Summary: Dark and his family try and get out of their little reality bubble.

A/N: I should have had this out yesterday, but someone *glares at Chase* were being difficult.

Title comes from the song “For the Dancing and the Dreaming” from How to Train your Dragon 2.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

//////~~~~//////~~~~//////~~~~//////

Channel 2

//////~~~~//////~~~~//////~~~~//////

The instant Dark mentally came back to himself he pulled everyone back into the Manor. But he also found that Anti and Henrik were within the same bubble as well and grabbed them as well.

The instant he started explaining things everyone started waking up.

“Who knows how long we’ll be here,” Dark finished.

“At least ve’re avake,”[1] Henrik decided from where he was standing with Chase.

Illinois, who had only been away for the past couple of minutes, was trying to remember where he’d been before this before remembering he’d been at his wedding and flying into an immediate panic.

“Eric!” Illinois realized with horror.

He got up and raced through the front door, he planned on running all the way to the park but the instant his feet were outside the door he was already reaching the chain link fence to Eric’s backyard.

But Illinois was not deterred, he was getting his fiancé back if it was the last thing he did. Illinois practically vaulted himself over the chain link fence.

“Eric, dulcito[2],” Illinois called up outside his window before thinking: “screw it!” and used his lock picks to break in and start creeping towards Eric’s room. He’d save punching this fake Derek until he was sure Eric was safe.

Just because he wasn’t real, and more importantly dead, that didn’t mean he could cause Eric a lot of pain.

Eric was asleep when Illinois walked up to his bed and shook him away.

“Dulcito,[2] we’re going home.”

Eric screamed in surprise, and Illinois held his hands up.

“It’s me, it’s me,” Illinois said, already starting to cry in relief. “We need to get home, we got dragged in and . . . please forgive me.”

Eric flinched before letting out a quiet gasp, “Illy?”

He practically threw himself into Illinois’s arms, starting to sob profusely as Illinois held him.

“I’m so sorry, I should have rescheduled the wedding, it should have been the happiest day of your life,” Illinois apologized.

“I wanna go home,” Eric told him, and went to move before he felt a sharp pain stab through his legs, mostly from stress, mostly from not having his actual good prosthetics all day and having to make do with bad ones.

“Eric?” Illinois asked in distress.

“My legs,” Eric sobbed in pain.

“I got you,” Illinois promised, picking him up in his arms.

Eric clung tightly to Illinois’s shirt, and then coiled up when a pounding came from the other side of the door.

The timid young man let out a terrified whimper.

“Eric what’s going on in there?” Derek yelled, trying to break down the door. “Who’s voice is that? Open this door!”

“Shit,” Illinois hissed, prepared to fight Derek.

“Illinois should start walking, quickly before Derek can enter,” the Host spoke up.

Illinois and Eric startled but out of reflex, Illinois began to start walking. He took two steps and suddenly he wasn’t in Eric’s home, he was running into his own. And the whiplash just about made him go unconscious. If he hadn’t been aware he was in a sitcom from hell, he wouldn’t have felt a thing.

“What was that?” Illinois looked around wildly. They were walking into the living room of the Manor.

“The Host used a screen wipe,” the Host smiled.

“This whole place is a shithole,” Illinois snarled as he rushed to carefully set Eric down on the comfiest-looking couch. “The laugh tracks were already giving me a migraine, thanks for stopping them.”

“The Host was not a fan of them either,” the Host agreed.

The instant he realized they were back in the house, Dark checked them over briefly when they came over and then Illinois set Eric on the couch and the two of them almost immediately fell asleep, wrapped up together. Dark stretched a blanket over them and then walked into the kitchen.

Mostly to collect his thoughts and figure out some kind of plan of attack. If it was just himself, Dark would worm his way out and hunt the Actor down. But he wasn’t alone. There was Lunky and Eric to consider, along with the triplets. All of them had no hope of standing against the Actor on their own. He couldn’t see what was out there, and didn’t want to take his chances.

“How yeh holdin’ up?”[3] Chase asked.

Dark was sitting at the large dinner table, he had a coffee in front of him. He wasn’t sure where or when he’d gotten the coffee from but he had it.

The sooner he was out of here, the better. He didn’t like how easily it was for the anomaly to pull him around.

“I’d think you’d want out as soon as possible,” Dark told him.

“Well nothin’s[4] happened yet,” Chase told him and walked over. “Sides,[5] at this point we should prolly[6] stick together.”

“You can do that perfectly fine in any other room,” Dark told him, trying to sound uncaring but he could still remember waking up with Chase in the morning.

“Yeah, but I was worried about yeh,” Chase told him, not taking a seat yet and just leaning against the table. “Sides,[5] Bim was growlin’[7] at me, so I decided ta[8] give him his space.”

“I’m fine,” Dark told him sharply.

“Kay,”[9] Chase agreed, not wanting to push him. The two of them were quiet for a bit.

“What do you want?” Dark growled.

“I told yeh[10],” Chase started.

“No, you’ve given me some thinly veiled plot,” Dark glared, “but not what you actually want. Is it the triplets? Is it boredom? Everyone wants something.”

“What if I just want you? Have yeh[10] thought about that?” Chase asked.

“Don’t play with me, Brody,” Dark scoffed angrily. “What do you want?”

Something in Chase just snapped, something that was always compelling him to take care of Dark. “I’m not fookin’ jokin’. I actually wanna be with yeh. Yeh frustratin’, self-absorbed piece ‘a shite. If I was gonna lead yeh on, I’d be actin’ like Wilf.”[11]

Dark’s jaws clicked shut and he glared at Chase.

Sighing, Dark tried to tune out the anomaly, which was whispering to him. The most tempting of whispers. To just push everyone else out and the anomaly could give Dark what he wanted. Could give him the power he wanted. Could give him a version of Wilford that would never look away from him. Children who would always need him.

It was so tempting, but Dark knew better. The anomaly couldn’t give him that infinitely. It would falter, it just wanted a living battery to feed off of.

“Dark?” Chase whispered, taking a seat next to the Entity. His tone gentler as his anger was fading.

“I can open a portal to let you through, but I don’t know how long I can keep it open,” Dark told him. “I also don’t know what’s out there. We’ll have to be careful. We need to make sure the weaker spawnlings do not go out first.”

“Sounds good ta[8] me, but heads up, Illinois isn’t goin’[12] anywhere without yah[10],” Chase chuckled. “Kid’s a little needy when it comes ta[8] yah[10].”

“Illinois has Eric now, he doesn’t need me,” Dark corrected. “I was safe in here, he was a child again. Once we go back out I have to prepare his territory, I have all these arrangements to make and—”

“Dark, Dark,” Chase urged. “Listen ta yerself. Yer Illinois’s dad.”[13]

“Wilford is his father,” Dark reinforced.

“Bubbles didn’t raise him, you did,” Chase reminded sharply. “Wilf went off an’[14] did whate’er[15] the hell he wanted. You made sure the kids were safe. Granted he didn’t have a choice sometimes but the point stands.”

“I can’t have children,” Dark said, but it was his blue soul that put the words there. “I’m not allowed near them. Demons don’t feel things like love or joy, they just exist.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Chase told him, desperately trying to get through to him. “Yeh[10] adore those kids. E’eryone[16] in this whole fookin’[17] town knows that.”

Dark went quiet, hanging his head, he didn’t have a firm rebuttal for that. “I . . . I’m not . . .”

“Those kids are yers[18] as much as they are his. Our boys an’[14] Tempus are just as much yers[18] as they are mine,” Chase told him. “Yeh can have ‘em an’ see ‘em just ‘cause yeh want ta. Not because yeh need ta pay fer ‘em.”[19]

Chase mentally froze because that last part had just slipped out, he’d never considered . . . He mentally thought about Memento and Mori and how the two of them would show him knives and things Dark had just given them. Of Illinois and his adventurers and power within the city. Or Bim and how Dark just let him literally eat people. “Dark yeh know yeh don’t have ta buy yer own kids’ attention, right? They fookin’ love yeh.”[20]

Dark made a disbelieving scoff.

“Dark, they compete fer yer attention whene’er yer in the room,”[21] Chase told him. “Why do yeh[10] think Bim an’[14] Illinois are fightin’[22] all the time?”

“Siblings just do that,” Dark dismissed.

Chase looked up, “Oh my how are yeh[10] this fookin’[17] dense? Dark, yer[23] lucky yer[23] cute.”

A slightly darker grey blush briefly spread across Dark’s cheeks, he looked away from Chase for a second.

“If that’s how yeh[10] think siblings are supposed ta[8] act, did Damien an’[14] Celine participated in death matches or somethin’[24]?” Chase commented, trying to lighten the mood.

“Something to that effect,” Dark admitted. “Celine was always the favorite because she was able to perform magic. Their father was very harsh with Damien because he was a null. If he hadn’t died the way he did, he would have surely become a demon.”

“Yer[25] old man was a fooker[26],” Chase told him. “Maybe I should have Host use the anomaly ta[8] brin’[27] him back so I can kick him in the dick.”

“Only if I can kill him for keeping me prisoner in his house for decades,” Dark promised.

Chase smiled, before really looking at Dark. “I was serious early.”

“About which topic?” Dark asked.

“I’m exactly where I want ta[8] be,” Chase promised, finally saying when he’d been trying to remember to tell the Entity for months now. “There’s no one else I want ta[8] be with.”

“You’ll get bored,” Dark told him.

“Yeh[10] managed ta[8] keep stuff interestin’[28] in all the years I’ve known yeh[10],” Chase smiled.

���You’re human,” Dark reminded.

“Depends on who yeh[10] ask these days, don’t think I’ve got many ‘a[29] those years left,” Chase confessed. “Henz an’ Marv prolly don’t either. ‘Sides, if someone does manage ta kill me, I’ll make sure my ghost comes back an’ haunts yeh. I’ll bang some pots an’ shite. Make sure yeh know it’s me.”[30]

Dark’s brow furrowed, he was still looking for something. Then, “You’re with the heroes, if you wanted to be with me, you wouldn’t have turned me down when I asked.”

“That wasn’t me turnin’ yeh down, that was me sayin’ no ta bein’ yer hired gun,”[31] Chase told him in exasperation. “I don’t mind the dates, but I’m not killin’ fer yeh.”[32]

Dark wasn’t looking at him, Chase inched a little closer.

“Here, I’ll use my regular equipment, we can make it look howe’er realistic an’ fancy yeh want, an’ I’m there. But I’m not killin’ on yer order. Defending yeh or the kids is one thing. But becomin’ yer private hitman is off the table.”[33]

“That sounds reasonable,” Dark told him.

Chase just about had the urge to lean in all the way and kiss him. But he felt it was all going too fast. This was still so new. So he didn’t.

Instead, Wil broke the silence.

“Awww,” Wilford suddenly appeared next to them, smiling and wrapping his arms around the two of them. “Look at the two of you.”

“Don’t push yer[25] luck, Bubbles,” Chase snapped at him.

Wilford just hugged them tighter, pressing his face closer to Chase’s until the marksman pushed Wil away and kicked him in the shins, cursing at him as he did so. Dark rolled his eyes as he watched them.

//////~~~~//////~~~~//////~~~~//////

//////~~~~//////~~~~//////~~~~//////

Outside the bubbles, the heroes were busy popping the next one they’d jumped into. Freeing Nate, Mare, Marvin, and Quackity among the other heroes, villains, and civilians they’d pulled free.

Phantom was a bit disoriented and started looking around, trying to find an easy escape.

“I had awesome power, this better be worth it,” Quackity rolled his eyes as he looked around. “Where’s Dream?”

“Still in one of the bubbles,” Punz answered.

Quackity stared at Punz for a little bit before smiling, “Hey Punz, how much would I have to pay you to have us just leave Dream in there?”

“Twice what you pay Purpled,” Punz told him, checking his guns.

“Fuck!” Quackity hissed, kicking some rubble. “Come on, dude!”

Another rumble passed through the area as one of the bubbles began to ripple violently and two tendrils snapped out of it, one shot out like lightning and attached itself to the bubble Dark was in while the other snatched up Phantom and pulled him in.

When the first tendril latched on it dragged Dark away from Chase and Wil and before anyone had any time to think it yanked him in and Dark’s bubble popped. The bubble started rapidly growing in size, and it yanked the smallest bubble into it and consumed it. It stopped swelling when it was twice its former size.

“The fuck was that?” Illinois shouted from where he’d dropped to the ground, looking around wildly. “Was that the Actor?”

“No, the Actor does not have the anomaly,” the Host said as he began inspecting the area with his own aura. “That bubble contains Techno and Phil and with the absence of other stories, the anomaly is desperately trying to keep what it does have. Its hold is weakening. Which means the Host will not be able to keep the Actor at bay for much longer.”

“Do you know who are in the other bubbles?” Ponk asked. “Be really nice to have fucking Skeppy right now.”

“I’m right here,” Marvin shot at him.

“I give you one of these books and Skeppy will kill me,” Ponk told him.

“Hey, wait a second, is that one ‘a[29] the,” Marvin recognized the spell book he had as one of the cursed tomnes he’d been trying to get from the Server for months now.

Ponk held the book to their chest, backing up, “Uh . . .”

Sam shouldered his way in-between, shoving Marvin back as he summoned his trident. “We don’t have time to wait around.”

Ponk just stared up at Sam, leaning into him before they looked back at the Host. “So who’s where? Where’s Skeppy and Bad?”

“That one,” the Host gestured to the bubble higher up, “however it needs to be loosened by another two bubbles before it pops. There are too many powerful demons in there powering it.”

“Okay,” Ponk sighed in frustration.

“Techno, Philza, Big Man, and Ghostbur,” the Host pointed with his aura to the largest bubble that Dark and Phantom had been dragged into.

He continued to the farthest one, “That one has the Actor and all of Silver’s friends.”

“Fucker,” Silver spat, trying to fly towards that bubble at top speed but bounced off. “Give me my friends back!”

“And the last one’s got the Sides in it?” Bing asked from where the Google androids were encircled around him.

“That’s the strongest one,” Nate grumbled in frustration. “Why’s he in that one?”

“Because the entire legate is in there, it is likely it will be one of the last to pop for that reason. On its own it’s indefinitely sustainable.”

“Shit, he’s like a living battery,” Nate hissed.

“I’m going in,” Illinois decided, looking at the bubble Dark was in.

“Stay here with Explosion Boy,” Chase told Illinois, gesturing to Eric.

“My dad’s—” Illinois started to shout.

“Let us handle it, we can’t have all ‘a[29] our magically powerful people in one easy ta[8] capture area, stay with yer[25] fiancé,” Chase told him. “I’ll make sure nothin’[34] happens ta[8] him.”

“If I see there are any problems, I’m going in,” Illinois told him.

“Fine, that’s fine,” Chase told him, then he looked back at Jackie. “Jackie, come on.”

The Host lowered the bubble Dark had been dragged into and then ripped a hole in the bubble long enough for Jackie and Chase to go in.

//////~~~~//////~~~~//////~~~~//////

Channel 6

//////~~~~//////~~~~//////~~~~//////

Jackie and Chase walked in and a wave passed over them as their outfits changed. Snow buffeted them as they stood in thick warming fur coats and wool clothes.

Jackie was still in his mask but their clothes colors had changed to deep purples and dark reds

“Let’s go,” Chase yelled over the snow as they followed the road and hoped it would lead to a town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. At least we’re awake.

2. sweetheart

3. How are you holding up?

4. nothing’s

5. Besides

6. probably

7. growling

8. to

9. Okay

10. you

11. I’m not fucking joking. I actually want to be with you. You frustrating, self-absorbed piece of shit. If I was going to lead you on, I’d be acting like Wilf.

12. going

13. Listen to yourself. You’re Illinois’s dad.

14. and

15. whatever

16. everyone

17. fucking

18. yours

19. You can have them and see them just because you want to. Not because you need to pay for them.

20. Dark, you know that you don’t have to buy your own kids’ attention, right? They fucking love you.

21. Dark, they compete for your attention whenever you’re in the room,

22. fighting

23. you’re

24. something?

25. your

26. fucker

27. bring

28. interesting

29. of

30. Henz and Marv probably don’t either. Besides, if someone does manage to kill me, I’ll make sure my ghost comes back and haunts you. I’ll bang some pots and shit. Make sure you know it’s me.

31. That wasn’t me turning you down, that was me saying no to being your hired gun

32. I don’t mind the dates, but I’m not killing for you.

33. Here, I’ll use my regular equipment, we can make it look however realistic and fancy you want, and I’m there. But I’m not killing on yer order. Defending you or the kids is one thing. But becoming your private hitman is off the table.

34. nothing

[mlbthoughtsandships]

Compulsion--8/?

Read on AO3

[1-Imprint on Me/Soulmate–Imprint] [2-Jealousy] [3-Unconventional Proposals] [4-The First Night] [5-Who’s really the sap?] [6-Spoilers] [7-Ask Me Again]

This newest akuma was...different. This woman wore a white and pink maid's outfit; the apron was heart-shaped; and the chest was a giant clock with heart-shaped hands. It was in this clock that her powers lay; at random intervals--Ladybug couldn't stop moving long enough to nail down a pattern, a burst of pink light would rip through the center at in the direction of her target. Chat Noir had already been clipped; a giant, yellow timer counted down from 10 minutes above his head. No amount of questioning would result in an answer; the akuma had just cackled and said that they would both see at the end of the timer. She had announced herself as Countdown, but offered no more information. Since that moment, she had been trying to nail Ladybug with her beam. 

"Why won't you stay still!?" She complained, furiously. Ladybug ducked behind a parked car as Chat redirected the beam into a post. He joined her behind the car. 

"What do you want to do, milady? As curious as I am about this timer, I'm not very eager to see what it does," he stated. 

"I think we're going to need some he-" The car was suddenly blasted away. Chat Noir barely managed force Ladybug's head down as another blast sent the car soaring into the park. They both vaulted to their feet, ready to dodge or fight, whenever another blast--not hardly 30 seconds from the last--slammed into Ladybug's chest. Chat cried out for her as she went flying back into a separate light post. She groaned at the painful strain to her back and looked up at her own timer--now blazing about her head. 5 minutes...and it was counting down faster than Chat's. 

"Oh~," the akuma sang. "Oh my, kitty's gonna have a broken heart." 

"You ready to tell us what it does?!" Chat demanded. 

"If you haven't figured that out by now, then I'm definitely not going to tell you." Ladybug looked around. The epicenter of the attack was close; men and women bore the same timers-counting down. There was a sound of something chiming coming from Countdown's clock. Her eyes immediately darted almost manically around the square; Ladybug's eyes followed hers. One woman's timer hit zero and then she vanished. She reappeared, however, soon after--right as another woman's timer hit the same number. They stood in front of one another in a daze as a pink hue took over their irises. The akuma laughed gleefully. "I knew it~" She sang. "You two were totally soulmates!" She jumped up and down in delight. Ladybug's mouth fell open.

"You mean these silly timers are a soul-mate radar?!" She complained. The akuma's glee died down; a pout came on her lips. 

"Yes, I can't believe I gave the game away..." Her pout disappeared as quickly as it had come. Her smile got wider. "There's also a compulsion charm imbedded into the beam. Those two will be going out to dinner. You two however...will deliver your miraculous once the timer reaches zero!"  

Ladybug's lips twitched. The akuma realized it at the same time and let out a shriek of rage; they would be teleported to their soulmate. Which could be anywhere in the city. "Well, I suppose you'll have 4 minutes to try and take it, Countdown." She taunted as she dropped into a fighting stance. Chat, however, didn't move immediately; he was busy having an internal meltdown at the fact that Ladybug's timer was faster and lower. His timer had only just moved past 8 minutes.

"Ah," Chat shook himself. "I won't let such a silly thing as timers separate us, milady!" He declared with bluster, jumping upwards as a beam shot at his feet. 

"Ah, but they are accurate," Countdown teased. "They'll transport you to your soul's one true fit." 

"And how can you read our souls?" Ladybug asked as both of them crept closer to the distracted akuma. "What makes you the deciding vote?" 

"I'm not~," she sang, "you are." Chat hooked his baton into a sewer drain lid while Ladybug kept the akuma's eyes on her. She shot her yoyo at Countdown's head. The woman dodged. "HA, you missed!" Her yoyo wrapped around the light post. Ladybug used the momentum of the string and the steadiness of the post to propel herself forward. The akuma dodged as Ladybug's feet flew past, but she couldn't dodge the sewer cap that Chat Noir hurled with his baton. It slammed into her and knocked her to the ground, but the clock did not break. 

Which was unfortunate. 

Ladybug's timer hit 0:00. 

 X

Luka yelped as a weight slammed into the deck beside him. He jumped up as he identified the mass on the deck. "Ladybug!" He cried out as she staggered to her knees. She pressed her palm to her forehead as if gathering her bearings. "Are you okay?" He asked as he helped her to her feet. She leaned into him for a moment, naturally, as if they had done it a thousand times, before pushing away. 

"Yeah," she seemed to take assessment of herself and then gave a firmer nod, "yeah. I need..." She looked up at him, their eyes met, and her eyes glazed over in a pink film. Luka's stomach dropped. 'She's under the influence of an akuma,' he realized. He looked around the deck for something, anything that could snap her out of it or save him if the influence made Ladybug violent. "Luka," she called before he resolved himself to using his guitar for blocking. "Luka~" she sang. His eyes snapped over to her; first in alarm at the beautiful voice and then in true shock as her hands reached up for her ears. He realized immediately what the influence was. He grabbed her hands quickly and pulled them down by her hips. The action brought them closer--closer than he had ever thought he would be to the one who gave him the chance to be a temporary hero. "What are you doing?" She asked as she wiggled; a small giggle escaped her. He tried to ignore how jarring that sound was coming from the leader of the miraculous team and how familiar it seemed. 

"Stopping you from making a mistake," Luka told her as he kept hold of her hands. He held her back into the depths of the boat, hidden from eyes.

"But you wanted to know my secret!" Ladybug protested. Luka almost tripped on the first step down into the hull, realizing that she was referencing his akumatization. He almost clipped his shoulder on the wall, but Ladybug pulled back just enough that he stayed on course.

"You don't want to do what you think you do," he told her soothingly. "I never should have asked." 

"You should have! It was within your right to know!" Ladybug argued as she tried to wiggle her hands free. "I do love you, Luka," she said freely. His eyes widened; his grip on her hands loosened for a second. He scrambled to try and catch her hands as they darted up to her ears, attempting to make the most of her time freed. Luka did the only thing he could think of. He slapped his hands around her wrists and pinned them to the wall behind her. Her mouth fell open and a vivid blush spread across her cheeks. He took a deep calming breath. 

"No, you don't." He argued. "It's the akuma making you-"

"No, it isn't." Ladybug retorted, trying to free her wrist in sharp bursts. Luka wondered idly why she wasn't overpowering him; in the suit, she was certain strong enough. 'But the compulsion isn't...there's something else to it. She didn't just appear to me randomly and she's acting almost...lovesick.' 

"Ladybug, why are you here?" He asked. 

"Countdown, the akuma, her beam is supposedly some soulmate timer or something corny like that..." Luka didn't have time to unpack all that, especially since her leg was now sliding up his. She could easily kick him away, all it would take was wedging her knee between them. He swallowed.  

"I'm sorry about this," he apologized as he closed the small distance between them and pressed into her body. Her cheeks flooded with red and he was certain his own matched. "T-The, ah, compulsion is secondary to the timer?" He questioned. 'Get her thinking,' he rationalized. 'Engage her brain and she'll stop trying to expose herself...' Ladybug nodded. "Why is the thought that you love me more overpowering than the compulsion?"

"She's a matchmaking akuma," Ladybug clarified. "She said that I was the deciding vote about who I was transported to." Luka swallowed as he fought the urge to lay his head on her shoulder--even temporarily in exasperation. 'So, I'm gonna have to unpack it, huh?' He thought.

"So, subconsciously, you thought of me whenever she said soulmate?" Ladybug shook her head. 

"No, I thought of you when she said 'my soul's perfect fit'. Soulmate is too...broad of a definition. If that were all, I could have just as easily teleported to Alya--since I consider her a platonic soulmate. But 'perfect fit' means more."

"That...doesn't sound like subconscious," he said weakly. It wasn't just her response; it was the name Alya combined with the way she said  Ladybug smiled, but it was a trembling thing as if she didn't want to be saying all this. Luka's eyes widened. "You can't help but respond to me," he realized with dread. 

"It doesn't seem like I have much of a filter," Ladybug agreed. Luka's mind raced. 

"It's more than that, you have to be honest with your responses..." Ladybug nodded again. Luka pinched his lips together. "Shit, okay. Where is the fight happening?" 

"Near the park that has the Ladybug and Chat Noir statue," she answered. Confusion had slipped into her tone.  

"I want you to take me there." 

"What? Why?" 

"Because you are the only one who can purify the akuma."

"I'm not taking you into danger without a suit, Luka!" Ladybug argued; the first hints of her true self since before the pink glow. Luka pursed his lips. 

"Please, Ladybug," he begged. She jerked as if he had slapped her; he bit into the inside of his cheek. A whine escaped the back of her throat as her head slammed into the wood of the boat. 

"Don't," she protested weakly.

"Please," Luka repeated. He smothered the guilt as her pained eyes met his. He gave her wrists an apologetic squeeze as he stepped away and let his hands fall. His request seemed to overpower the compulsion as she stepped forward and let him out of the boat. She wrapped her arm around his waist and urged him to hold onto her. "Focus on the fight when we get there and I'll be safe," he told her as she swung the rope around a pipe jutting out from a house just a few feet from where they were docked. His breath caught as they were off. It was a jarring feeling, traveling by air-hanging from someone. 

Before the feeling could make him dizzy, they landed at the fight. Chat Noir had broken the clock and freed the akuma. He had managed to cage it in his hands. The timer above his head read 4 minutes. He stared in astonishment at Ladybug and Luka. Luka caught her hands before they could dart back up to her earrings at the realization that there was no akuma, no fight to be had.

"The akuma needs to be purified," Luka tried. He didn't want to ask her to do something again whenever she couldn't resist. Ladybug's lips pouted. 

"Yeah, but..." 

"I need you to purify the akuma, Ladybug," Luka resigned himself. 

"Thank you," Ladybug breathed, stunning him, as her yoyo wiped out. Chat's hands parted numbly, allowing Ladybug to catch it with her yoyo. 

"Bye-bye, little butterfly," she said as the purified butterfly flew off. Now that the akuma was cleansed.

"Is the compulsion still-" 

"No, it's not," Ladybug sighed in relief. She turned to him. Her blue eyes were shining with relief and true affection. Luka's stomach clenched. 'Oh,' he realized immediately. The words she had spoken under the influence of the akuma combined with the way she was looking at him now--'Marinette.' And it was like the mask no longer existed. He could see the freckles across her nose that were hidden by the mask. He kept his expression as neutral as he could. Then, Ladybug hugged him; and he didn't bother hiding the shock. "Thank you," she whispered somehow more earnestly than before.  

"You're welcome," he murmured as she stepped back and let him go. He was aware of Chat's eyes fixed on them, but the black cat didn't say a word. Mari-Ladybug called for her Lucky Charm and threw it into the air. The Miraculous Cure washed over the city, Chat, and herself in turn. 

"I'll tend to the akumatized victim," Chat Noir said in the silence that had settled once the ladybugs had retreated. "You should take Luka home." He added to Ladybug. Ladybug nodded. 

"Right. Thanks, Chat." 

Like before, they traveled in silence. As they landed back onto the deck, Luka rubbed the back of his neck and readied to tell her that he knew. 

"Luka..." She interrupted. "I...know you aren't stupid...and we can eventually come back to this," the this was loaded, "but right now..." 

"Hey, I told you didn't I?" He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I'll be here when you're ready." He reminded her with a slight smile. Her breath caught. Her own smile, trembling with both heartache and relief, pulled her lips. 

"Yeah." They shared a smile and she turned to leave. As she put her foot up on the edge of the boat, she turned back to him. "I meant it, you know," she reminded him. 'I do love you, Luka.' 

"I know," he reassured. 

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, MORE BLOOD Vol. 5: Mukami Yuma [Track 1]

Original title: 贈り物

Source: Diabolik Lovers More, More Blood Vol. 5 Mukami Yuma [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Tatsuhisa Suzuki

Translator’s note: Oh how the tables have turnedーー Since most of the CDs have the guy be in charge of rewinding time, it was nice to see Yuma give it to the MC in this one, only to have it come back to bite him in the ass a few minutes later. I love how she actually did not hesitate to use it at all, even though he warned her not to. We stan a sly, cunning MC in this household, haha.

Track 1 ll Track 2 ll Track 3 ll Track 4 ll Track 5 + Epilogue

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

Track 1: A Gift

Yuma enters the room.

“...Oh! Sow!”

You turn your head.

“Ya were in my room? Perfect timin’ I got this nifty lil’ thing, so I wanted to show ya!”

You ask him what he received.

“This was delivered from Karlheinz.”

*Cling*

You tilt your head to the side.

“Ah. It’s an hourglass. Never received somethin’ like this before.”

*Flip*

“Accordin’ to the card that came with it, it’s addressed to both of us... But why did he give us this? I don’t really get it, but he might be givin’ us his blessings!”

You smile, noting he seems happy.

“Haha. Well, yeah. It’s a gift from the man I look up to, ‘course I’m happy. It’s actually been on my mind this whole time. Our relationship ruined the future that man wished for, right? No matter what anyone may say, no way in hell I’m givin’ ya up still. But...Somewhere deep inside my heart, I felt as if I disappointed him. That I failed to live up to his expectations, ya could say.”

You comfort Yuma.

“However, when I consider he’s still congratulatin’ us now like this, I feel very grateful.”

You nod. 

“Well, that’s all just part of my own imagination tho. I honestly don’t know what truly goes on in that man’s mind just from readin’ this card.”

You point out there’s something on the back of the card as well. 

“Oh! The back? ...Hm?”

*Flip*

“Oh...You’re right, there’s an additional note. Uhm...Let’s see...Ah!? Is this for real!?”

You ask Yuma what is written on there.

“Seems like this isn’t just a regular hourglass. It’s a model from the Demon World which can rewind time if ya flip it over. It runs on magic so there’s only a set amount of times ya can use it but...He gave us quite the dangerous toy, huh?”

You sigh.

“Good point. All of his gifts are always a lil’ over-the-top. Just look at the elaborate decoration on this thing. Ya can just tell it’s no ordinary hourglass. This kinda fancy stuff doesn’t fit me.”

You note it’s pretty.

“What? You like it?”

You nod.

“I’ll give it to ya then. Here ya go.”

*Cling*

You seem hesitant, asking once more if he is sure.

“Yeah. I’d be a waste of a treasure on me, so it’d probably be best if ya hold onto it instead. Ya know...Pretty things like that.”

*Cling*

“Yeah! Don’t ya dare lose it! Ah! Also, be careful not to flip it over, ‘kay? Apparently time will rewind after all.”

You promise to be careful.

“Haah...Will ya actually be cautious? You’re still as much of a klutz and airhead per usual so I’m worried.”

You protest, puffing out your cheeks.

“Nah, ya definitely are. That part of ya hasn’t changed one bit since we met. For example, ya thoughtlessly ate my precious Sugar-chan back when ya had only just arrived at this manor, right? Do ya remember?”

You tell him you could never forgot.

“Heh. At first ya were shittin’ yer pants ‘round us, but afterwards you’d just casually eat our food. Not sure if you’re an airhead, or just shameless.”

You reminisce about memories.

“Hoh! Now that ya mention it, that happened as well! That was when I sucked too much of yer blood and ya collapsed, right?”

You nod.

“Ya were makin’ a long face over at the infirmary, so I had no other choice but to put Sugar-chan between my teeth like this...”

Yuma bites down on a sugar cube before leaning in and kissing you.

“Mmh...Nn...”

*Smooch*

“...Hm~ And fed it to ya mouth-to-mouth, right? I remember, don’t worry.”

You get flustered, making a fuss.

“Hehe...Right, right! Ya made the exact same baffled expression, I had no idea if it actually felt good or not! ...Oh! I remember feedin’ ya tomatoes as well! I just forced those inside yer mouth tho.”

You scold him for doing that. 

“...Aah? Ya still gonna complain ‘bout that now? I fed ya my tomatoes, so don’t be whinin’ ‘bout any discomfort. Actually, weren’t ya to blame back then ‘cause ya upset me by givin’ me the silent treatment? It was basically yer punishment.”

You frown.

“For some reason...Lookin’ back on all those memories, I really fed ya the whole time, huh?”

You giggle, nothing how he likes to take care of others.

“Haah? I’m a carin’ guy (1)?”

You remind him of that one time he nursed you back to health.

“Aah...Yeah, that happened too. Guess I can’t prove ya wrong then. Ya mean that one time ya broke a fever, right? Ya were stumblin’ ‘round the hallway with yer face bright red. It’d be bad if ya had died on us back then, so I had no other choice but to cook up some stew. I actually made it ‘cause I was cravin’ some as well tho. It wasn’t for ya. Didn’t I tell ya back then as well? Yet ya kept on complainin’ ‘bout the size of the ingredients with that cocky attitude of yers.”

You try and explain yourself.

“Ya might have not said it with that many words but I could tell by the look on yer face! ...You’ve been kinda fragile ever since we met, huh? Oh! You’ve always been weak to my fangs as well.”

You protest. 

“No? Don’t ya remember? You’d make that ecstatic expression from the second I latched onto ya. And in the end, you’d come beggin’ for my fangs yerself.”

You deny it.

“Nah, I’m not wrong. Just admit it. Ya are weak to my fangs. Ever since we met and ‘course, to this day.”

You pout.

“Take for example that one time I sucked ya by the window? Ya were makin’ a shameless expression even tho someone could have easily spotted us.”

You flush bright red. 

“Heh! How’s that? Can’t deny it, can ya? You’re weak to my fangs!”

You shake your head. 

“You’re damn persistent, just admit it already...”

You refuse.

“Che...I’ve given ya this much proof and ya still won’t acknowledge it? Ya can be surprisingly stubborn at times, huh?”

Yuma walks over to take a seat on the bed.

*Thud*

“...’Kay, as you wish. Let’s fight it out then.”

You tilt your head to the side, clearly confused.

“Yeah. ...Well, take a seat over here for starters. I’ll explain it to ya.”

You take a seat next to Yuma.

“Listen up. I said ‘a fight’, but we won’t be throwin’ fists. I’ll continue suckin yer blood like usual. However, if ya end up beggin’ for them yerself at any given point, ya have to admit that you’re weak to my fangs.”

Your eyes widen in shock.

“...Don’t seem so surprised. If ya really aren’t weak to them like ya claim to be, ya can easily endure as much, no?”

You ask him how long you have to endure it. 

“The time limit? ...Geez, ya sure are cocky. Let’s see...How does one week sound to ya? If ya beg to have yer blood sucked within the time frame, it’s yer loss. If ya endure it, ya win.”

You agree with the rules.

“Heh. Ya think ya can manage for that long? In that case, let’s get this challenge started right away.”

*Rustle rustle*

“Pretty sure just bein’ honest and acknowledgin’ it would be the easy way out tho. You’ll only end up sufferin’ more if ya drag it out.”

*Rustle*

“After all...I’ll make sure to torment ya plenty, you’ll be cravin’ me so badly, it’ll make ya go crazy. ...I’ll start by plungin’ my fangs in this nape of yers and suckin’ yer blood.”

Yuma bites you.

*Sluuuuurp*

“Haahn...”

*Sluuuuurp*

“Haah...Heh. You’re already cryin’ out sweetly.”

*Rustle*

“I’m holdin’ back a lil’ more than usual, but seems like you’re already feelin’ good? However, this is child’s play to ya, isn’t it? Then get yerself together. ...Heh. This is only the very beginnin’. I told ya, didn’t I? That I’d toy with ya to my heart’s content. ...That bein’ said, bite marks really look great on ya.”

He runs his fingertips across.

“Hm? Does it hurt when I touch them? But bein’ stimulated that way makes ya ache as well, doesn’t it?”

You shake your head.

“Don’t think ya can deny it. Even if ya do, yer body tells me you’re enjoyin’ it. Mmh...”

*Smooch*

You flinch.

“...See? You’re enjoyin’ this after all, aren’t ya? ...Ah, speakin’ of which...Ya liked this too, didn’t ya?”

*Smooch*

“Hehehe...You’re givin’ me some pretty interestin’ reactions. I’ve turned you into quite the slut if ya get excited just from havin’ yer ear kissed.”

*Rustle*

“In the end...Yer body is no match for the pleasure. Say...Ya want more, don’t ya? Then just say so. ...It’s easy, isn’t it?”

You refuse.

“You’re a stubborn one, huh? Then...How ‘bout this?”

*Smooch*

“...Heh. How’s that? Yer whole body should be tinglin’ all over just from a few bites here and there.”

¨Rustle rustle*

“Hehe. Judgin’ by the look on yer face, you’re really feelin’ it. Seems like ya can’t give a proper reply either. If I were to suck ya one more time, you’ll...”

*Cling*

“...Haah!? The fuck...? Whatcha gonna do with the hourglass?”

You tilt the hourglass to the side.

“...Ah! You! Don’t tell me...!”

*Tick tock - Tick tock - Tick tock - Tick tock*

“...Uwaah!?”

ーーー

“...Ah!? ...What happened just now...!?”

Yuma looks around.

“Wha...!? Ya used the hourglass just now, didn’t ya!? So...Time has rewinded!?”

You blink in confusion.

“Why does the person who used it look so damn puzzled!? This feeling...We’ve definitely gone back in time! ...Ugh. Yer clothes don’t look disheveled anymore, nor do ya have any bite marks. Which means...We’ve really rewinded to before I sucked yer blood...”

You grin.

“Fuck...Ya brought us back right as things were gettin’ good too! Ughー! I was literally one hair away from pushin’ ya over the edge! ...Hm? Actually...Was that yer goal? Did ya use the hourglass ‘cause ya knew ya were ‘bout to lose our bet?”

You admit it. 

“Tsk. Look at ya bein’ all sly. I didn’t expect ya to pull that sorta trick. I shouldn’t have thoughtlessly handed it to ya. Well, whatever. Let’s start over from zero. I’ll suck ya relentlessly this time, so ya won’t even have the time to think ‘bout usin’ that lil’ hourglass of yers...”

*Rustle*

“Now I won’t stop even if ya beg me to.”

You quickly make a run for it.

“...Ah!? Oi...! Where are ya goin’...!? Don’t ya dare think ya can get away! Hold it...!!”

Yuma chases after you.

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

Translation notes

(1) 世話好き or ‘sewa-zuki’ is used to refer to someone who finds enjoyment in helping others out, or looking after them. 

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Zyphus, the Grim Harvestman

Neutral Evil God of Accidental Deaths, Graveyards, and Tragedies

Domains: Death, Destruction, Evil, Plant, War Subdomains: Blood, Catastrophe, Daemon, Decay, Murder, Thorns, Undead

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 88~93

Obedience: Spend an hour sitting on the grave of someone who suffered an accidental death. You must reflect on how chance has wronged you and vocally reject the influence of any gods associated with these wrongs. If no suitable grave exists, spend an hour telling strangers how their religious beliefs and hopes for a just afterlife are folly and of no consequence. Alternatively, you can write this screed and post it in a public place within a settlement. If you’re away from civilization, you can instead spend an hour sabotaging a path, bridge, tool, or other device so that it’s dangerous for the next person who uses it. Benefit: You gain a +4 profane bonus on Craft (traps) or Disable Device checks, chosen when you complete the obedience. 

i’m glad the grim harvestman covers his basis but also jesus

Anyway, Zyphus is one of the most petty and spiteful of the gods, and this is no better shown than in this Obedience. A typical adventurer wandering the countryside must actively make the world a worse place for everyone else involved, and the clause “next person who uses it” means that you have to either toss aside your party’s good will, or take up the dreaded spot at the back of the marching order. Should you find yourself in a public area, you become just as much of an obnoxious git as a follower of Groetus, except this time you’re personally spitting on their beliefs... However, if you wish to be significantly more tolerated by society, you should do as Zyphus encourages his followers to do and disguise yourself as a Pharasmin or the faithful of another god of order and afterlives and very carefully disguise your blasphemy as “misguided” teachings. At worst, you can feign ignorance and/or explain that you’re new to the faith and had no idea that what you’re saying is wrong. You can even blame other Zyphans for muddying your understanding of the truth, an act I’m sure the Harvestman finds extra ironic!

Telling someone that their practices don’t matter because Pharasma has already decided your fate is the easiest way to go, and the best part is it’s not even inaccurate! NPCs don’t have the spiritual freedom PCs do, so their path is already nearly impossible to change! Get pranked, idiots! Masquerading as one of Pharasma’s flock comes in especially handy when performing the first and ‘easiest’ ritual, as well, because tending to graves is something the Lady of Graves wants people to do in the first place. Make sure to be careful with how you word your vocal casting away of the god’s will, however, or you may arouse more suspicion than you soothe.

The benefit is subpar. Crafting traps is alright, but you’ve likely got better things to use your gold on--wait, there’s no restriction on the CR of traps you can craft, so long as you can beat the DC and have the gold? Well. Go crazy, go stupid, I guess! Here’s a list of everything you can make! The most cost-efficient and useful, however, is the CR 1 bear trap, which--make no mistake--will absolutely shred lower level encounters, but will lose a lot of its spark later on. At least it costs basically nothing to make! Traps are usually the domain of the DMs, but if you need to hold an area? They can come in very, very handy. Otherwise, you’re just leaving them behind you on lonely roads in the hopes some fool will step on them.

Disable Device is normally the way you want to go, shutting off traps that could be a potentially lethal danger for most of the party at most levels. And, of course, rearming them so some fool behind you can stumble into them later. Even if your adventure doesn’t contain many traps, you should never underestimate the strength there is in doing something as simple as popping a lock.

Boons are acquired slowly: the first once you reach 12 hit dice, the second at 16, and the third at 20. However, the Evangelist, Exalted, and Sentinel Prestige Classes can be entered as early as level 5; doing so grants you the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14 instead. As Zyphus is a true deity and does not require Fiendish Obedience, you earn the right to enter the classes earlier than those who serve fiends!

-------- EVANGELIST --------

Boon 1: Champion of Cruel Chance. Gain Deathwatch 3/day, False Life 2/day, or Healing Thief 1/day.

Decent all around! And by “decent” I mean “they have niche uses, but shine in those uses.” Healing Thief is the most interesting one, establishing a link between you and a creature you touch that causes the victim to heal only half as much from magical or supernatural means, with you gaining the other half. Creatures who gain Fast Healing or Regeneration through supernatural circumstances can become a boon to you, while enemies relying on Channeled positive energy or in-combat healing will find themselves struggling. The best part is that it doesn’t even offer a saving throw!

Of course, it’s still a touch attack, and you have to remain within an extremely tight radius around the enemy (25ft + 5ft/level) to maintain the siphon. This is a little riskier than I’d like, not to mention it’s completely useless if your foe doesn’t use any in-combat healing. Also, at only 1/day, I’d probably settle for the significantly more boring False Life for a nice 1d10+8 (up to +10) temp HP that lasts for a million years. It’s not much, but you can use it twice and it might stop some scratch damage, and every point between you and 0 HP is nice.

Deathwatch lets you instantly know if you’re looking at an Undead or disguised Construct, which is its primary function in my book. With a duration of 10 min/level, it’s likely to last for entire dungeon floors and makes you an expert at calling out foes who’re on their last legs but otherwise looking healthy. It’s a decent spell if you’re unsure of what you’re going up against or want to be the pointman for your team, but otherwise False Life is the typical go-to.

Boon 2: Resiliency. 1/day, you can gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your Hit Dice, lasting for 1 minute. Activating this ability is an immediate action that can be performed only when you would be brought below 0 hit points, and can be used to prevent you from dying. If you have the Resiliency ability from another source, you can activate these abilities separately or as part of the same immediate action.

As far as I can tell, there is exactly one source for the Resiliency ability as it’s written here, and that’s a single Rogue Talent. It’s... eeeeeegh, not so good. It lets you stall death’s timer for a single minute, usually long enough to end the battle (or be ended) and get some real healing. It will likely save your life at least once in a campaign, but the goal here is to avoid being brought to 0 in the first place! Especially since this will, if obtained ASAP, only shield you for 11 HP, which is one--maybe two--attacks from a creature with a similar CR and basically nothing against spells being flung around at that level. This Boon is actually worse in many ways than just giving +1 HP per HD you have, especially since you technically already have access to the same amount of temp HP in False Life.

I suppose the most amusing use of this power is to fake being down and out until your foe turns away, but that carries risks of its own. If you’re brought to -20 or something and the temp HP only takes you to -5, you’re still knocked out but at least have some mercy time before you start dying for real. I’d advocate for combining this with Diehard if you want to get the most out of it, because otherwise this is an extremely subpar “Life Insurance” Boon that will really only impress the group maybe once or twice in a campaign and be boring or underwhelming in all other moments.

I’d want it to be at least 2 or even 3/day.

Boon 3: Tragic Minion. By spending 1 minute praying over the corpse of a Humanoid opponent or a Humanoid who has died a tragic death, you can summon an Allip to serve you. Unlike a normal Allip, this Allip is of an alignment that matches yours, and has a number of hit points equal to half your total. It receives a +4 bonus on Will saves to halve the damage from channeled positive energy, and it can’t be turned or commanded. This Allip serves as a companion to you and can communicate intelligibly with you despite its madness. You can dismiss it as a standard action. If the Allip is destroyed or dismissed, you can’t summon another for 7 days. This ability allows you to have only one Allip companion at a time.

Oh, that’s cute! You get a little insane friend! Unfortunately, as you can see here, it’s about 10 levels too late to actually be useful. At the level you can finally summon one, your Allips are extremely fragile, as even with their boosted HP they’re still only protected by an AC of 14 and no outstanding resistances aside from their incorporeality. Enemies with magic weapons are almost a certainty by level 14, and even enemies without magic weapons will rarely ever fail their save against the Allip’s Touch of Madness, whose save DC doesn’t scale past 15. You’d be relying wholly on it scoring critical hits, which make the Wisdom damage and drain irresistible, but that’s obviously not viable.

Really, all parts of Tragic Minion are ironically accurate. The Allip can’t even really serve as a scout, because they constantly Babble to themselves in a way that hypnotizes everyone within 60ft of them. Even with their +8 Stealth, a bunch of mooks suddenly stopping and standing still will alert enemies who can succeed the DC 15 Will save that something strange is going on. Adding in that Allips have no ability to hide or disguise themselves, just walking around with one is enough to turn heads. And don’t even think about just dismissing it and summoning another one, or using it in combat with any level-appropriate foe, or this is a blank Boon for an entire week!

Seriously, the 7 day ban on summoning another one is a serious kick in the teeth when the “only one at a time” limit was restrictive enough. You’d think Zyphus would be happy to grant his most powerful Evangelists more than one CR 3 minion at a time, but no! If you lose this extremely fragile minion, no more for 7 days! That’ll teach you to take good care of your toys! And that’s more or less the Allip is; a toy. An accessory.

-------- EXALTED --------

Boon 1: Catalyst of Destruction. Gain Break 3/day, Find Traps 2/day, or Spiked Pit 1/day.

Well I certainly hope there’s traps, given who you’re working for! But it’s good to have insurance that they’re not aimed at you. Find Traps lasts a decent time (1 min/level) and grants a monstrous Perception bonus to spotting them, automatically triggering a Perception check if you draw too close to a trap as well which--depending on how you interpret the spell--alerts you to the fact one is nearby even if you don’t see it. Then you can use Zyphus’ granted +4 to Disable Device to knock it out!

Break can have its uses, shattering enemy equipment even as they wield it. Just remember that targeting an attended object allows the wielder to make a saving throw in its place, while an unattended object gets no saving throw (provided it’s nonmagical). And since Break targets Fortitude, it’s not likely to affect the targets you’d really need it to (Fighters in heavy armor and Barbarians with big weapons), but if your teammates can knock their weapons from their hands, they’re free game. However, the use of Break in combat doesn’t nearly compare to what it can do out of combat; weakening doorways, crumbling containers, sabotaging enemy equipment they’d otherwise grab later, and cracking open items made of skymetal. Note that a second casting of Break outright destroys an item that’s already broken, and you have three each day! Personally, I’d save it for the times you need to sabotage something or bypass a small obstacle, rather than risk a high-Fort-save enemy succeeding in combat and wasting your turn.

And I’ve spoken about Spiked Pit before, here and here, but to reiterate:  it’s a pseudo Save-or-Suck that seriously waste the time of anything without a decent Strength score or some Climb skill as they crawl back out of the pit, while you and your allies either deal with other foes, or rain destruction down on them from above. Even if the victim makes their initial save, the pit doesn’t go anywhere, letting you push your targets in one at a time if need be. Since it’s literally just a huge hole in the ground, you can even hurl multiple enemies inside! AND it’s filled with damaging spikes! The spikes don’t do much, but every little bit helps.

Boon 2: Ever Vigilant. You are protected by a constant Death Ward, The immunity to energy drain ends after the effect has prevented a number of negative levels equal to your Hit Dice*, which resets when you next perform your Obedience. In addition, you gain a +2 profane bonus on saving throws against effects that occur before your first turn in combat.

*it says “Exalted level” but that would mean that this could have zero effect if you don’t class into it, so it’s been changed to prevent it from being a dead Boon.

Huh, this is pretty g--wait. Hold on, let me read this a little closer

“The subject gains a +4 morale bonus on saves against all death spells and magical death effects. The subject is granted a save to negate such effects even if one is not normally allowed. The subject is immune to energy drain and any negative energy effects, including channeled negative energy.“

and what did Ever Vigilant say? “The immunity to energy drain ends--”? But that implies that the rest of Death Ward stays up, right? ... right :)

A lot of Boons grant you an everlasting spell effect for your trouble, but none of them are quite as potent as this one. Death Ward UTTERLY stops negative energy effects, crushing the entire school of Necromancy underfoot, crippling the offensive power of most forms of Undead, and ironically making the devotees of the God of Tragic Death some of the hardest sons of guns to actually tragically kill. Even if an incoming death effect offered no save (such as Power Word Kill), Death Ward forces one, and because you’re Ever Vigilant you don’t even have to know you’re going to face one to begin with!

Also, a universal +2 bonus to saves when out of combat, and for the first round in combat! A nice and cute addition, making it slightly harder for enemy casters or monsters relying on their powers to get the jump on you. Ever Vigilant makes you one of the best Undead hunters out there... Which is why it’s--ironically--tragic that Zyphus, an Evil god, gives it out. In an Evil vs Good campaign, you’re not likely to actually be combating enemies who use negative energy, death effects, or anything else Death Ward protects against. The real sauce in this ability comes from an Evil vs Evil campaign, or a campaign in which you’re pretending to be Good, or at least Neutral! Just... make sure it ends before level 14, because...

Boon 3: Visitor From Abaddon. 1/day as a standard action, you can summon a pair of Greater Ceustodaemons as if with Summon Monster II, and gain telepathy with them to a range of 100 feet. The Ceustodaemons follow your commands perfectly for 1 round per Hit Die you possess before vanishing back to their home on Abaddon. The Ceustodaemons don’t follow commands that would cause them to perform overly good acts or save mortal lives other than your own, and they immediately vanish if your orders contradict these restrictions.

...it’s going to be very difficult why a Pharasmin can summon two daemonic gorilla-men who breathe electricity. Ceustodaemons are bred to be the dumb muscle of Abaddon, but they’re still capable warriors in their own right with decently damaging claws (2d6+6) and a bite (1d6+6) and the ability to exhale 6d6 points worth of Electricity damage in a 30ft cone. There’s also their spell-likes, an at-will Dimension Door letting them infiltrate and scout for you, a 3/day Fly to make your party a nightmare to fight, and a 3/day Dispel Magic to crack enemy magic open.

However, they’re only CR 7, unlikely to stand up on their own against level-appropriate threats. So, the key here? Don’t use them against level-appropriate threats, as is normal with summons dramatically weaker than you are. They’re terrors that shine brightest against enemies hovering around the CR 10 or so range, their resilience and immunity against--and I’m not exaggerating--nearly every status effect in the game except petrification and their DR 10/Good or Silver letting them slug it out with mid-level foes and rip apart nearly anything else lower than that.

There’s also the fact that they can be summoned as a standard action with a range of Close, letting you teleport your gorilla fiends right at the enemy’s vulnerable backline or in front of their melee bruisers to tie them up while the rest of your team flanks. The standard action summoning is the biggest treat here, because being able to have two more beefy bodies available immediately shifts any battle in your favor... But know that if your campaign keeps going past level 14, your gorilla men are going to have a harder and harder time standing up to level-appropriate enemies, and it’ll eventually cause them to be summoned to fight against minibosses only or--eugh--being sent on scouting missions. They’re good at them, mind, but you know how it is.

At their absolute worst, though, they’re still six castings of both Fly and Dispel Magic. There’s worse things out there.

-------- SENTINEL --------

Boon 1: Walking Disaster. Gain Bungle 3/day, Spontaneous Immolation2/day, or Deadly Juggernaut 1/day.

Bungle is a fun spell, slapping a target with an insurmountable -20 penalty to their next attack roll or check requiring a d20 roll, but since the spell is only level 1 and takes your concentration to maintain, it’s not likely going to stick. Granted, it lingers for 2 rounds after you stop concentrating so you can focus elsewhere, so there’s certainly worse spells to use... but it only affects one attack roll or check at a level where most enemies have two or even three attacks, making it significantly less useful than it looks. It’s best if you use it out of combat to scramble a skill check a foe is trying to use, but it’s negated by a Will save entirely so it loses a lot of potential oomph. And I just read the spell even closer and it says it only works on Humanoid targets, so it’s even worse than I previously thought!

Spontaneous Immolation is infinitely funnier to use, anyway. Why make someone flub a speech or fail an Escape Artist check when you could have them suddenly burst into flames from within? With no component requirements, Spontaneous Immolation is TRULY spontaneous, the victim exploding into fire without having an idea of the source. You could potentially make people believe it’s the wrath of your god, the power of some curse you possess, or even the wrath of their god if you can spin it well enough. The damage is middling--3d6--and is halved on a successful save, but it’s got a range of Medium and sets its victim alight if they fail their save so you can create a single spark in a crowd that becomes a roaring inferno as the panicking victim grabs onto whatever they can to try and put themselves out.

As God of Sudden Death, it’s a perfect spell for both in and out of combat, slaying random citizens in bursts of horror and pain they’d have no chance to realize is coming, I’m sure Zyphus approves of using it to malice citizens just as much as he enjoys watching his faith’s foes burst into flames. This leaves Deadly Juggernaut, a spell that a martial character such as yourself would normally LOVE getting... if it weren’t for the final clause stating that the effect doesn’t trigger unless you slay a foe within 4 HD of yourself. While that prevents the effect from being exploited with a Sack Of Rats, it also makes it far less likely to activate if you’re fighting swarms of lower-level enemies. It DOES mean that battling creatures of roughly equal strength to your party has some pretty high snowball potential, but since you, personally, have to reduce the target to 0 HP, unless you’re the party’s DPS you may just end up missing out on most of the spell.

I’d personally just tuck Makes You Explode under your belt each day. If nothing else, it’s a funny prank to pull on the locals.

Boon 2: Tragic Accident. 1/day as part of a successful attack, you can target your opponent with either Inflict Critical Wounds or Poison as a free action. The DC for this ability is (10 + 1/2 your Hit Dice + your Cha mod). You don’t have to declare the use of this ability until you know the attack is successful.

More than almost any other god I think I’ve encountered, Zyphus encourages lying, subterfuge, and you looking as harmless as possible. Even the ostensible God of Secrets and Murder, Norbergorberburgerhurger, inspires less subtlety in me than Zyphus, because his domain is specifically accidental deaths. You gotta make your kills look like mistakes no one could have seen coming, which makes Tragic Accident yet another tool in inspiring fear and terror than actually being useful in a fight.

Give someone a playful slug on the shoulder and scream as they fall over, dead. Deck some guy who’s hitting on you in a bar in the chest and feign horror as he suffers an apparently fatal heart attack as Poison rips through his body. Hit someone with a blowdart or even just hurl a pebble at someone and strike them down with nearly no trace, since this ability can work with ranged attacks as well. Coming up with subtle ways to use this power out of combat is significantly more fun than thinking of ways to use it in battle, because as a 1/day negated (or halved, in Critical Wounds’ case) by a save is just asking to be disappointed.

Especially in the case of Poison, because if you want someone dead in combat, hitting them usually works better than slowly, slowly, slowly hoping and praying that their Con hits 0. Inflict Critical Wounds is a little more useful if you’re using it to speed up an opponent’s death in combat, dealing 4d8+11 (+1 per level) damage... or healing an Undead ally. Yes, you have to hit with an attack, but as I’ve already stated above, the attack doesn’t have to deal much--or ANY--real damage to trigger a Tragic Accident. I do appreciate that Zyphus assures your attack connects before you trigger this ability, a lot of other Boons are not so gracious. Like...

Boon 3: Unfairness of the World. 1/day, you may fill an attack with negative energy. You must declare your use of this ability before you roll the attack roll; on a hit, the target gains a number of negative levels equal to 3 + 1/2 your Hit Dice unless it succeeds at a Fortitude saving throw (the DC for this ability is the same as Tragic Accident’s DC). If you openly wear an unholy symbol of Zyphus, the saving throw DC to resist this effect increases by 2.

... This one!

Hah. Well. Whatever you hit with this is dead. Like, straight up dead. The name of this Boon is as accurate as can be. There is NO recovering from being slapped with ten negative levels (+1 for every 2 levels you have!), because even if your victim survives the initial onslaught of energy, that’s a -10 to every single roll they make and the loss of some or even all of their high-level spells and most potent abilities. This isn’t so much a Save-or-Suck as it is the mother of all signals for your entire party to unload every SoS they have on their person upon your victim.

IF it lands.

Because not only do you have to succeed an attack roll to use this ability or have it dissolve into the aether, but they also have to fail a Fortitude save. That’s two possible points of failure for this ability which seriously reins in its potential, but with just a LITTLE bit of setup you can cut your unfortunate victim in half. It’s definitely both a possible end to a fight AND something you can smite a random citizen with by using the same “things that count as an attack roll” exploits I listed Tragic Accident. By the time you get this power, you can also shamelessly reveal your faith in the Harvestman to make the DC 2 higher, but you may want to keep that to yourself if you’re still masquerading as something else, breaking it out only for boss fights.

Most gods in Inner Sea Faiths leave a lot to be desired, so it’s nice to see a god give so generously! It’s just too bad it has to be the God of Pettiness and Inconvenience.

You can read more about him here.

[deafblindshorty]

New Resistance Headcanons

So, I made a few posts of headcanons for Star Wars Resistance characters. However, I made those before the series ended and before TROS came out. Now that the both series are over, and we got to know the characters better, I thought of new ones!

Kazuda Xiono:

CB-23 helped Kaz through the loss of Hosnian Prime and PTSD. He didn’t want to give the FO the satisfaction of being broken emotionally, which is why he’s his normal, cheerful self in seaosn 2 (and TROS, apparently)!

When he was little, he wanted to be like his father, that is, until he attended a sky race. Since then, he has wanted to be a racer.

His squadmates from the premiere (Hugh Sion and Mia Gabon) had been his best friends since childhood.

He had every hologame ever created

He never wanted to go to military school. In fact, he did everything he could to get himself expelled. But, when he found out his father was pulling strings to keep him there, he gave in and started behaving better.

He was in his first year of military school when the napkin bombing (In the Bloodline novel) happened. When he heard about it, he freaked out and was really worried about his parents. When he heard that Leia saved all the senators, that’s when he began to admire her. That admiration didn’t fade when he found out she is the daughter of Darth Vader. Of course, his father didn’t agree with him, in fact, they got into a shouting match, which ended with Senator Xiono smacking Kaz across the face and grounding him for an entire season.

Wedge Antilles was Kaz’s flight instructor. He told Kaz stories of the Rebellion, which got Kaz interested in joining the Resistance.

He has gone on a few dates, but the girls he dated were only with him because he was rich or because they felt sorry for him.

He’s actually pretty smart when it comes to academics. He got the scar on the side of his head from a training accident. He tripped and fell onto a sharp ledge and had to have surgery. The injury affected his mobility, which is why he’s so clumsy.

He is (was?) close to his mother, who loves him and supports him in everything he does.

He had a nanny droid who was like a second mother to him.

His mother would take him to the Hanging Gardens and lunch at the cafe there, and Kaz secretly loved it.

He thought about starting a family when he was good and ready, and vows never to treat his children the same way his father treated him.

He has only been drunk once. He stumbled around town and broke into a store and made out with a mannequin. Since then, he vowed never to drink more than one glass per week.

He hated attending Senate dinners and banquets, but, in order to please his father, he kept still and hid his emotions behind a smile.

His only other language is binary, but he picked up a few languages after being on the Colossus.

He often imagined telling Tam, Neeku, and Torra the truth about why he was on the Colossus. Deep down, he knew that Neeku probably would have told the entire station within the hour, and Tam would have turned him in the first chance she got.

After Torra told him she knew he was in the Navy, he was secretly relieved that at least one person besides Yeager knows some truth about who he is. He would tell Torra stories about the Navy and Hosnian Prime. He promised her he would take her there someday.

He started to develop a crush on Torra, but instantly shook off those feelings when he found out how old (well, young) she is. If he pursued her, then Doza would kill him slowly and painfully.

He had nightmares about the Hosnian Cataclysm. Every time he’d close his eyes, he saw Hosnian Prime being destroyed.

He hid his grief for his home and his family and friends from everyone. In private he would sob his eyes out while clutching his lucky trophy like a lifeline, but otherwise, he’d put on a smile. Yeager and Torra know he’s lying, but decided to let him grieve his own way.

He bears no ill will towards the Resistance for not coming to their aid or failing to save the Hosnian System. Instead, he’s grateful they saved his life by recruiting him.

He feels bad about doubting Captain Doza, and even worse when he found out his wife is in the Resistance.

On their way to their missions, Poe would tell Kaz of his adventures throughout his life. Kaz loved hearing those stories, and was surprised to learn that Poe was from Yavin 4.

Deep down, he cannot understand why Tam is so intolerant towards him, but is okay with Neeku.

Initially did not like Yeager that much, but over time, he became like a father to him.

Kaz found a big brother in Poe, a little brother in Kel, and little sisters in Torra and Eila.

When he meets Rey, he is in awe. He’s never met a Jedi before. They instantly hit it off, bonding over mechanic-ing, piloting, and having an evil family member (If Hamato is with the FO).

He tries not to show it, but he is beyond sick of people doubting him and teasing him about his clumsiness and shrieking every five minutes.

It took every ounce of his willpower not to attack Hux at the Titan.

Jumped at the chance to join Lando’s fleet at Exegol.

“Hit those underbelly cannons. Every one we knock out is a world saved.” Kaz knocked out eight: five for the Hosnian system, one for Tehar, one for Aeos, and one for Castilon.

He was shocked that Poe used to be a spice runner, but accepted it and moved on.

He helped the Resistance rebuild and redeem the New Republic.

Yeager:

Yeager was born on Batuu during the end of the Clone Wars. Marcus was born ten years later.

Yeager joined the Rebellion a few months before the destruction of Alderaan.

His parents were killed by the Empire before the Battle of Endor.

He was in Green Squadron with Shara Bey (Poe’s mom).

He met Leia, Han, Luke, Cassian, Mon, Ackbar, Wedge, Norra, Shara, Kes, and Hera. He actually had a little crush on Leia until he heard she was taken.

He met Doza during the Battle of Jakku.

He and his squadron took down the main star destroyer. That destroyer had all the main computers and weapons for the battle.

He met his late wife after he was injured at the Battle of Jakku. She was a doctor.

He looked after Marcus after their parents died.

He and his wife tried for many years to conceive a child, finally succeeding nine years after the Battle of Jakku.

His ship was named after his late wife, Ayala.

He babysat Poe a few times.

He was there for Poe and Kes after Shara died.

After the death of his family, he punched Marcus, told him he never wanted to see him again, then disappeared.

Like Kaz, Yeager grieved in private. He became emotionally detached. When he hugged Marcus after the Platform Classic, that was the very first time he hugged someone since his family died.

Each night, he’d take his family photo to bed and talk to it about his day.

When Tam applied for a job at his shop, Yeager was instantly reminded of his late daughter (as well as Marcus). He accidentally called Tam by his daughter’s name once. They never spoke of the incident again. Tam was everything Yeager imagined his daughter would be like.

Over the years, he came across attractive women, but he never acted on them because he felt he’d be betraying his family.

The destruction of the Hosnian System reminded Yeager of Alderaan and his own family’s deaths. He hugged Kaz, but it was uncomfortable for both of them.

He was initially glad that Poe didn’t recruit him for the spy mission, but as he grew to care about Kaz, he kind of wished he agreed to do it in the first place.

Tam:

Tam was born on Kuat. Her mother died when she was a baby.

Once she was old enough, her father dragged her along to all of his races.

She heard stories about the Empire and the Rebellion from her father, who watered it down.

Her grandfather was actually forced to work at that Imperial factory. Sort of a reversed Jyn and Galen thing. Jyn thought Galen worked for the Empire because he loved it and hated him for it, but realized he was forced to work for the Empire. Tam actually loved her grandfather for working for the Empire, and thought he worked at that factory because he loved it.

Tam’s father died of bloodburn when she was eighteen.

Tam was angry after losing her ship and that race. Yeager calmed her down and talked to her a few times about it. He became like a father to her.

Hype was her first real friend. When he forgot all about their friendship, Tam took it really hard.

She was hesitant upon making friends with Neeku, but over time they became really good friends.

After Kaz joined Team Fireball, and everything that’s happened afterwards, she felt like her world was collapsing at an alarming rate. Kaz took her friends, her ship, and her father figure. She even envisioned smothering Kaz in his sleep.

She was surprised when Supreme Leader Ren wanted to meet with her. They bonded over joining the FO because they were lied to and deceived.

She gave the Fireball to Kaz, feeling that she doesn’t deserve it after everything that happened.

Neeku:

Neeku grew up on Tatooine (he came from a long line of bantha herders, and his species prefer desert climates).

He is the anti-Anakin: loves sand, was born and raised free, and did not like racing; but loved watching races.

He is either autistic or he has Asperger's.

He spent some time at Mos Eisley, which is where he’s seen bounty hunters.

When he arrived at the Colossus, he wandered around trying to make friends.

He and Rey would instantly bond over growing up on desert planets and being mechanics.