#And I love how all that works in the context of Blade's own immortality

[fragmentedblade]

I can't believe they made Blade ask with a broken voice why is it only abominations that come back over and over again. Blade, who can't die, who comes back to life again and again

[comicaurora]

If you've finished The Dragon Prince, S5, what's your opinion? Personally I'm still processing everything and there were a few things I was kind of "ehhhhh" about, but those were just one-off moments and overall I'm satisfied, even though it ended up playing out very differently from how I was expecting (for one, I was certain Aaravos would be getting out by the end of the season).

I liked it a lot!

SPOILERS AND STUFF:

Because I liked it a lot, most of my more specific thoughts are about the few things that sort of jarred me a little bit and felt a little rough or strange. But before I get to that I wanna list some of the stuff I loved:

Soren! My sweet boi has finally gotten the acknowledgement the previous seasons denied him. Soren locking eyes with Deadwood and going "yo same issues" was incredible, and after the last season treated his abduction by and confrontation with his abusive father as 90% comedy funtime hijinks in a nightgown, it was really refreshing to see him get a chance to actually shine in a serious, heartwarming context and be narratively rewarded for it.

In fact, that whole sequence with the pirates was incredible. I knew there was no way they were gonna cleanly outrun the bad guys, but I was not expecting how exactly they would catch up.

They did a lot of elegant work this season setting up Claudia as going from being family-motivated to being anger-motivated, and I like that, because at the rate things are going she's gonna run out of family to be motivated by in T-minus one episode, and if she's going to continue being the main boots-on-the-ground antagonist she's going to need some new motivation to swap out for her dad. Showing her actively reveling in having power over creatures that used to frighten her is a clever way to ease into that.

Viren's arc this season of being forced to confront his own coping mechanism, "I had no choice", was damn elegant. He had to realize he did have a choice the whole time, even if it was a choice between two bad options - he took every step along the path of his own free will, and he can choose to stop walking at any time. I'm not anticipating a redemption arc - my guess is Aaravos is going to let him die and just keep his soul imprisoned with him, "your soul is my treasure" and all that - but it was a very cool way to confront the audience and Viren with his humanity, which is easy to lose sight of when he spends all his time being a horrible dick.

The stuff with the Nova Blade screams "sneaky poetic double meaning" and there's absolutely no way it can actually kill Aaravos. The fact that the novablade and the three quasar diamonds they need to let Ruunan out of his coin after four goddamn seasons are all in the same place called the Starscraper that is so most definitely a boss arena makes me absolutely certain that they won't get there until some sort of final battle or immediately-pre-final-battle confrontation, but it's also almost guaranteed that the novablade is not going to cleanly resolve everything because the characters were realistically sus about that poem but quickly dismissed their entirely reasonable concerns. My guess is the novablade has already stabbed Aaravos once and he's the dude from the poem who was somehow both immortal and "no more," which feeds into the other thing they're 100% setting up, which is that Callum is one thousand percent going to be the one who lets him out in an ill-fated attempt to save his loved ones, which would cleanly make Callum three for three. Which segues into my "things that bothered me a little bit" zone-

Every time there's a story where the heroes are like "we're going to make our way through the incredibly circuitous and hard-to-navigate traps and secrets to finally find our way to the closely-guarded and ludicrously dangerous macguffin so we can take it with us and put it somewhere much less guarded" I feel my investment slip just a little, because how can anybody be surprised when the bad guys then get ahold of it with a tenth of the effort it would've taken them to get through the circuitous treasure hunt themselves? Claudia was not on track to figuring out the secret in time, and Aaravos didn't seem to have a way to tell her directly, and once the deadline ran out she'd have almost no reason to want to release Aaravos anymore. I worry this plotline could've solved itself if the heroes hadn't inexplicably concluded that they could guard a magical prison better than a centuries-deep conspiracy of archmages and archdragons.

The Dragon Prince character writing is usually rock-solid and very good at showing slow growth and development, while occasionally being vulnerable to characters seemingly losing their braincells to facilitate plot points that they would reasonably be too smart to let happen. That happened a few times this season, most notably with Zubeia getting very clearly bit by a shadowbeast - something we know everyone riding on her back saw, because Corvus intervened to get it off her and nearly died in the process, and we later see Soren talking to her about it - which means Amaya at minimum, and probably Callum and Rayla as well, should reasonably be expected to have both the information "a wound from a shadowbeast magically festers and turns the infected victim into a shadowbeast" and "zubeia was injured by a shadowbeast." So it's a bit weird that this doesn't come up and they just leave her alone about it, and only Soren - who doesn't know about shadowbeast stuff - even asks her about it.

I have this theory that there was a draft of the season's plot where the main characters had access to a different space of information - for instance, knowing about Zubeia's wound and its implications instead of her inexplicably brushing it off, hiding its true severity and then nearly dying. The most notable instance of this feeling struck me in the same episode, when right after Amaya's incredibly dramatic "go!" moment and the gang are about to fly away, Callum pointedly looks down one last time, then sees her shove Corvus and herself into the book drop, and he says "they made it into the book drop! they'll be totally fine!" and then they fly away. It feels a little jarring because it seemed like the natural flow of the episode would've been to let Amaya and Corvus's sacrifice play out as expected, with Chekov's Book Drop at their backs to save them as soon as the heroes were out of sight. Then Amaya and Corvus could show back up later in a big heroic moment, possibly even keeping the camera off them until Amaya rides to Janai's rescue a few episodes later - a classic "aragorn goes over the cliff jk he's fine" style reveal.

The reason they didn't do this, I think, is because it would've been hard for the kid heroes to be quippy-fun-time jokey-joking mere hours after losing their last living relative to presumed horrible zombie death. And I get that! But I think that was a notable factor in the way some of the episodes were structured around making sure that the heroes mostly got to spend their time being light-hearted and funny, which meant troubling information was artificially kept from them and encouraging information was shoehorned into their eyeline in slightly contrived ways so they could stay safely partitioned away from the actually heavy emotional implications of their situation. That's why I think the pirate episodes hit the audience as hard as they did, because suddenly the story dipped really seriously into the extremely painful and scary side of this otherwise fun and exciting fantasy adventure, and the characters shone in the unusually serious environment.

I kinda feel the same about Viren, but in the opposite direction. He spent the entire season comatose and safely partitioned away from the other characters, and while his highly symbolic coma dreams were extremely cool and revelatory to see, it feels like a squandering of his character potential to keep him from interacting with anyone but Aaravos - which is why I think they're gonna keep his ghost around at minimum. Hell, maybe Claudia will take a page out of his book and store him in a coin for safekeeping. Either way, they've had no problems sticking Viren on the proverbial shelf for seasons at a time and it seems like it's just too convenient for them to stop now. Viren's inner life is very cool, but I want to see him actually interact with the real world, because he's so bad at it.

I don't really know why the sunfire civil war thing is still happening, and my only theory is that Aaravos is still influencing the bald elf guy he possessed to kill the Queen back in season 3, meaning that these guys will be bolstering the ranks of General Problems in season 6 onward. I don't mind that concept, but I kind of feel like the problem they're running into is they killed their actually interesting Dickhead Royal back in season 3, and without Prince Kasef they have to make do with We Have Kasef At Home, aka Karim, who's not good enough at machiavellian scheming to be interesting and not enough of a dickhead to be fun to watch. They didn't even let Amaya take one of his eyes and make him look cooler, so I can only assume he'll be usurped as the primary threat next season and replaced with someone actually threatening, aka Aaravos. It seems plausible that Aaravos is going to sell both the poison and the cure, promising a way to fix Lux Aurea's corruption, but it's just a weirdly disconnected plot thread at present.

The thing with the ocean archmage felt like a very transparent Yoda homage, which started out cute and then went on about three times longer than I wanted it to, and it kind of highlighted the running theme of how every new character in this story is introduced saying "I absolutely cannot let you do this thing you need to do to progress the plot, no way no how." and then after some arguing and quips and ten minutes of wasted time and optional sidequests they're like "you may now proceed with the story." The ocean archdragon had the exact same gimmick in the opening scene, even the pirates were introduced that way. I think part of the reason the pirate episode felt so different and cool is that it broke the episodic formula in almost every way and highlighted some character tropes that the lighthearted tone doesn't normally allow for, which is why people keep describing it as "like a fanfic, but in a good way!" It took the characters we were at this point very familiar with and put them in a Situation, and fans love it when characters get put in Situations.

Kinda feels like the show only remembers Ezran has geopolitical kingly responsibilities when it's most inconvenient for the gang, and while I find his presence in this season refreshing, it is a little weird that he can just run around adventuring and getting kidnapped by pirates without anyone bringing up how the throne and the crown are burdens like they've been banging on about for the previous four seasons. I assume that'll come back into focus later, but it ties into the same thing I've observed where it feels like the characters are very carefully contextualized to only have to consider serious responsibility things in very specific contexts, usually when it will facilitate actively frustrating character arcs and decisions, so they can just loosely quip and react to things the rest of the time.

Anyway I had a dang good time, excited for more! Harrow is one thousand percent in that bird.

[midnight-in-town]

Why do you think, if manga/anime characters fall in love at the first sight? In my case I prefer it, if their relationship develope slowly.

Hello Anon! Well, in general I find it depends on context?

There are series in which characters are already attracted to each other by the time the story starts and it’s fine.

Some other times, it takes as long as the story goes for characters to realize they’re attracted to each other and that’s also fine.

Finally, there are characters who experience love at first sight and I have no problem with that either. 

The point is, as long as it’s well-written and not meaningless or halting characters’ development, love & relationships can take on many forms and I have no problem with how and when it happens. 

Especially for love at first sight, I think, since it can be really challenging for an author to introduce it and then roll with it, without too many expected and boring developments. Overall, I’d say love at first sight is not any different from obvious ships who aren’t canon just yet but that will be without a doubt one day. 

Some examples of interesting cases of love at first sight, even when in the background of a plot: /!\ S P O I L E R S /!\

Love at first sight: Anotsu Kagehisa/Otonotachibana Makie (Blade of the Immortal)

Clearly a very enjoyable dynamic introduced quite early on in the story and stemming from love at first sight, at least as far as he is concerned (she’s never said it explicitely from what I can remember, but he’s the first one who ever accepted her skills and she loved him from that day, so same difference). 

Many developments happened, but it made the characters so human and their romance so very moving, because they kept finding & losing themselves, their feelings for each other set in stone and yet it wasn’t easy to live by them, due to their respective personal circumstances.

Anyway the point is, it’s introduced as love at first sight when they were kids, but there is still a lot of development for them to reach the stage of being able to be by each other’s side and it was very compelling to read about all of it!

Love at first sight in spite of knowing better: Denji/Makima (Chainsaw man)

Okay, so, it’s clearly on his end since the first chapter or so, because she’s the first person who treated him nicely, she’s a pretty girl, she gave him a purpose and mostly she plays him like a fiddle, but he’s still hung up on her despite meeting other girls and getting more and more proof that she’s no saint. 

Whereas, on her end, it’s more about manipulating him into being a good pawn to her, or so it seems most of the time, because we also get examples that they’re quite similar to each other and that he might turn out to be the only one who can understand her.

Anyway, whatever happens, I’m always enjoying whenever they interact and the weird dynamic that they have. 

Kinda love at first sight: Legosi/Haru (Beastars)

Well, he falls for her quite quickly after all, but she isn’t reciprocating at firs. Tthen he saves her when everyone else had given up on her, so they become a thing: what a happy ending, yay? 

Well, if you read Beastars, you know that’s not what’s going on exactly. xDD Although that doesn’t mean that anyone ever doubts the strength of their feelings for each other either (it’s quite beautiful). 

In fact, they’re one way of exploring that there always is more to making a relationship work than love at first sight and that’s quite refreshing to read about, amongst the rest of the plot. :D

Not love at first sight, but bomb-dropped into the story and I was here like ‘???’: Soumei/Erina (Cuticle Detective Inaba)

Hard to explain if you don’t know the story but...

Consider that the main character is a police dog who turns out to have an unwanted criminal dad & a terrorist younger brother and, way later, Sensei introduced the robot replacing “Mom who was a lab genius & died years ago”. 

The thing is, for a long time in the story, readers are meant to believe that the main character and his brother were artificially conceived, so the police could get their hands on their father’s genes after he betrayed them. Yet, it turns out that there was most likely really something between their mom and dad...

...making their existence less a mean to an end for the corrupted police force, but something way more meaningful, at least for their parents and themselves. 

I loved it personally, it created a particularly emotional final arc and it was quite an unexpected plot twist, to be very honest!

Horrible idea to fall in love at first sight: Kaneki/Rize (Tokyo Ghoul)

Yeah, what a bad idea to go on dates, right? I’m sure you’ve heard of it, haha!

Anyway the point is, yes, at first it greatly complicated Kaneki’s life and caused him a lot of pain, but...

...Eventually, as he looked back on it, he reached the conclusion that the misfortune that Rize brought him was short-lived compared to all the people he met and the path his life ended up taking, as he found love and a future with a different person (Touka). 

Quite meaningful there as well, especially since we get to follow him through so many hardships before he manages to call himself “happy”. It was still love at first sight as far as Rize goes though and that’s meaningful for all that it ended up triggering. 

There you go! Again, I love that love and relationships can develop in many different ways and these are just a few examples. 

TL;DR as long as there is interesting development, I’m not one to complain, haha!

To each their own tho’! Have a nice day Anon. :))

[mattzerella-sticks]

Four of Swords

Destiel, 7.1k, M, Ao3 link

Super happy I can finally share what me and my amazing partner, @maleyah-givemetomorrow, cooked up for the @supernaturaltropecelebration

Hope you all enjoy! (story below, but if you go to ao3 there’ll be pretty pictures - I definintely recommend viewing them and showing love to the artist!)

The Four of Swords, in the present position, means you don't want to interact with the rest of the world. Because of stress, you need to spend some time with yourself - unhealthy always being 'on'. That the healthiest thing to do is to escape.

Dean might crave escape, but it's not something he thinks he can have. Something he deserves, even. After his and Sam's most recent hunt, this cancerous feeling has grown heavy and weighs him down. He cannot escape on his own, as best he tries.

Luckily a guardian 'former angel' angel swoops in at his lowest. Helps pick up the pieces as best he can and lovingly put them back together. But he can only do so much. The rest is up to Dean.

Can Dean take those final steps, say those final words, and finally free himself?

        His leg bounces, foot playing with the pedal while forcing the speedometer past its limits. Fingers squeeze the wheel tight enough he knows will leave permanent indents in the leather. Dean feels, more acutely than ever, how small his car’s interior is. Her cabin walls closing in around like the Death Star’s trash compacter. Aided by Sam’s ever-present stare, weighted by all the questions Dean will not let him ask. Forbade with a shake of his head and a rough flick of the ignition.

        The sun creeps past the horizon, morning rudely greeting them. Beams of light pierce the glass, its glare interfering with his driving. Dean swings a heavy paw up towards the visor and pulls down, hard. It blocks most of the sun but gives Dean a worse distraction.

        His gaze strays from the road to the tiny mirror embedded within the visor. Bounces around the borders of his face, studying the features and additions. Green eyes burdened with purplish bags. Dirt smudged around his hairline, disappearing into his short, mussed locks. Scratches peppered his cheeks like freckles, and the dried blood around his lips looks almost comical. Like he overlined them with an ugly shade of lipstick, clownlike and surreal.

        “You’re drifting.”

        Sam tugs the wheel closer, straightening their car. Dean wills back the discomfort of having Sam’s hand covering his. Of the memory, hours ago, where their layered hands held different context. Pushing. Praying. Reaching for a spark of Dean that nearly drowned and was lost forever. He shakes his head, focusing on the road again. “Thanks,” he says once his brother’s hand drifted away.

        They reach the Bunker minutes later, Dean parking between the green Hudson and silver Chrysler. Both collecting dust. Dean checks his phone – 8:34 a.m. 3 missed calls, 8 unanswered texts. He swipes for the message thread, not reading any of the grey bubbles and typing a simple message. Back. Then Dean drops it in an empty cupholder and lays his head on the wheel.

        Exhaustion drips along his bones like slime, filling the spaces between joints. His muscles broadcast their pain in full stereo, working in tandem with his brain. Each twinge a reminder of what happened. What he did and what he almost became.

        Someone howls. It is far, but familiar. It sounds like – home? Belonging? Right? More noise, this time closer. Snarling. Snarling and growling. His jaw shudders and bends, reforming. A fire crackles under his skin, urging him forward. Follow the call. Follow the scent. Smell that, hear that, it is all so… pure. Free. You are free. Trust your instincts.

        “Fuck,” he hisses. Dean presses his dirty nails into his palms, a reminder of their usual bluntness. Definitely not sharp enough to pierce the skin. He can’t hurt anyone else with them. “Fuck…”

        Sam shifts at his side, hovering. Worrying. “Dean –“

        “Not now, Sammy,” he says. Dean sucks in a large breath, fixing his armor. Raises his head off the steering wheel, staring out the window. “I’m not ready, not yet.” He wasn’t ready when they watched the barn disappear behind them, burning, smoke drifting into the starless night. When they stopped at the motel so Sam could collect their stuff while Dean idled in the parking lot. When Sam exploded halfway between Denver and Cheyenne, drool wet on his chin, and still unprepared when he apologized minutes later.

        He didn’t deserve his damned forgiveness.

        “Just…” Dean breathes, shivering, “go.”

        The car door opens and shuts with soft clicks. Dean watches his brother stumble over half-asleep legs to the exit, Sam’s gait heavy and awkward. He pauses under the archway. His head tilts slowly right, and Dean tears his eyes from the rearview mirror. Dean counts the beats of his heart, waiting. After thirty he checks the rearview and Sam is gone.

        Flinging himself out the car, Dean falls on hands and knees while his stomach revolts. He coughs, splutters, and heaves with all the force he can muster. There’s not a lot in his stomach but it surges up, splattering against the floor. Mixes with the blood and dirty already staining his fingers. His nausea passes the crest and recedes, body nearly purged. He spits into the bile, running his tongue over the waxy film coating his teeth. Gross, but not enough. The taste lingers.

        Right there. Follow the fear, the rapid breathing – babumbabumbabumbabum. There is sweetness in victory, in the thrill of chasing. No escape, only death. Screams cut short when you tear through the throat. Chestnut fur matted with blood, goes down smooth. Delicious. Filling.

        Dean winces at the mess. “Not cleaning that up,” he says, “at least not now.” With his remaining strength, Dean drags his body up. Leans on his car for a moment, then walks away with the door still open and with bags in the trunk. He cannot remember if he left the key in the ignition, nor does he care if he did.

        There are more pressing matters that need attending.

        He wanders with intention, drifting past rows of doors until he reaches the shower room. Dean turns, slowing to a shuffle and then a full stop once halfway inside. Head bowed, he focuses on the contrast between his mud-caked boots and the pristine tiles ruined by his intrusion. Squints and sees a twig lodged in the loop of his lace. Looks closer and sees a small pawprint left immortalized on the material.

        In one bite the head tears completely off, blood spurting up from the severed neck. Sprays his face while he chews. Dean smiles, teeth catching the droplets and licking them clean off. He greedily stuffs the rest of its small body into his mouth, then licks his hands. Uncurling from the forest floor, he continues on. There is a call he needs to answer.

        Dean hears the twig snap while clawing at the laces. He throws his left boot to the side, followed by his right. Peels his socks off and does the same. The second round of dizziness descends as the cool floor coaxes a more measured response from him. Sighing, Dean closes his eyes and continues stripping.

        Even blind, Dean knows what he throws away. A yellow plaid button-down ripped across the back. Brown t-shirt crusty with dried blood all over the front. Jeans camouflaged in various stains, held up by a belt that worked in saving him from succumbing. And underwear that, while clean, were rather unwanted in the moment.

        Goosepimples rise along the blades of his shoulders, rushing up his neck and over his back. Dean shakes, crosses his arms and tucks his chin against his chest. “Come on,” he says, bouncing on his feet, “In and out… you’ll feel much better.” He steps forward and then returns to where he was. “You’ll feel better and clean and – and like yourself again.”

        “This is who you were truly meant to be…” His voice purrs, sparks firing off pleasurably in his brain. A rough tongue licks up his neck, and Dean nuzzles the hand petting his cheek. “Who we were always meant to be… give into your instincts, my pet. Give into yourself…”

        “Dean what are – oh! I’m sorry!” He whips around and finds Cas standing in the doorway. Hands squeezing the towel, eyes trained upwards and not ahead like they must have been moments ago. The blush on his cheeks clueing him in. “I thought, when you said you were home, you’d be in bed…”

        Dean rakes his gaze over the other man’s body. At the scruff in serious need of shaving, unkempt along his jaw and overrunning his neck. The oversized t-shirt, tie-dyed in various shades of oranges, reds, and yellows. A graphic from a Led Zeppelin album ironed on from a collection Dean found at a garage sale, given over because the angel reminded him of Cas. His shirt’s hem overhangs and covers half of the shorts he wears, hairy calves fully on display.

        A year into humanity and Dean marvels at how he stays so heavenly.

        “No,” he says, “don’t feel much like sleeping…” Then Dean drifts his focus away from the other man and back to the shower stalls. Empty and waiting. In a few seconds he could wash the entirety of yesterday into the drains, dirtied water swirling at his feet. Scrape any trace of the wildness with soap and scalding, hot water. Keep at it, until the knot in his chest unraveled finally.

        Dean stiffens. Someone brushed his arm. Cas squeezes, whispering, “Are you going to shower?”

        He nods. Steps forward, and again. And collapses at the mouth of the shower, scrabbling for the curtain and ripping it from the rod. Dean gasps, the harsh sound echoing in the room, and curls in on himself. The cheap plastic crinkles and sticks to his skin, blanketing his thighs. One of the metal rings completely tore and now digs into his stomach. Cas calls for him, but his voice is distant.

        “We can start anew once your transformation is complete. I can hear it inside you, Dean. There’s a killer in there waiting to be unchained. Let me free you from the prison society forced you in, allow your true self to roam, empowered in its glory and righteousness. You’ll be my right hand in my new pack. All that’s left, is for you to break the final lock…”

        “Dean, Dean I need you to say something,” Cas presses a warm hand into his back, kneading the clammy skin. “Please… I know not to hope for anything good but at least tell me you’re here, with me.”

        “I’m here,” he murmurs, “I’m… I’m here.” More of a reminder than an answer. Dean blinks, leaving the acrid stench of death for faint, lemon cleanser. Shadows and dim lighting for humming fluorescents. False promises for strong foundations. “I’m here,” Dean says again, sliding his hand from the curtains to Cas’s, the other hanging at his side. Squeezes at his wrist. “Thanks.”

        “It’s no problem,” Cas huffs, sizing Dean up. He shrinks under his gaze, conscious of how he must look. “Do you want to –“

        “No.”

        Cas nods, as if expecting it. “You want to clean yourself up?” Dean shrugs. He clucks, fingers skimming his hairline on a wide rub. “Look as if you’ve glued yourself to the underside of your car and had Sam drive across any backroads he found.” The joke inspires Dean’s dimples to appear, and Cas’s overly proud smile forces a small chuckle. “Are you able to stand?”

        “I think I can manage…” Dean winces, the plastic shower curtain peeling off him. Cas keeps his face steady, not even a flicker of interest in peeking as it falls, when Dean exposes himself. A superficial wound. Fortunately Cas’s hand on his back and the other, now holding his, stay and help him up. He wobbles on shaky legs but won’t fail. “Thanks.”

        “No problem,” Cas tells him, thumb tickling his pulse point, “do you want me to give you privacy?”

        He swallows his tongue. Or rather, something living inside his throat snatches it and prevents him from speaking. Dean glances at the shower, dread crawling forth once more. The scant space between him and the handle stretches, vision tunneling. He wants nothing more, if only the thought of it didn’t paralyze him. Cas murmurs at his side. “What?” he chokes out.

        “I might have an idea,” Cas says, “that is… if you’re okay with me seeing you like… like this?”

        Dean raises a wry brow. “Does it matter?” he asks, “You already have.”

        “Just being polite…” Cas moves away from him, Dean following for a beat until he stops himself. The other man looks to the door, than at him. He scoops his forgotten towel, dumped on the floor at some point in the past few minutes, and offers it to him. “Here.”

        “Like I said, Cas –“

        “I know,” he interrupts, “but I doubt you want to walk the halls like that, where at any point Sam could stumble on you and… assume.” A hell of an assumption. Favorable too, he thinks. Dean blushes and bites his lip. He accepts the towel, lazily wrapping it around his waist. Not bothering to tuck it, holding it with his hands so they wouldn’t hang without purpose. Cas finally dips his gaze towards his crotch and relaxes. “Okay,” he says, “follow me.”

        They leave the shower room, Dean practically hitting Cas’s heels with how closely he trails the other man. Enough that he could swing his arm and accidentally brush his hip. He won’t, though the possibility is tempting.

        It’s not a far enough walk for that.

        Cas turns the corner and leads Dean to the second door on the right. “I found this awhile back, early on in our stay here and carried it to this room one day when you were out.” He opens it for him, gesturing inside with a lackluster flourish. “Glad I did, don’t know how I would have managed without my angel strength.”

        Dean steps inside, searching. There is not much waiting for him. Smaller than most rooms, he can imagine it being a closet with ease. Spots the tiny holes where screws must have been. Hidden in the outlines of where shelves once were. “Didn’t know you were handy.”

        “I learn fast.”

        “I’ll say,” Dean says, “plumbing’s a bitch to do.” He smirks at the large, stainless steel faucet. There’s another outline underneath against the wall that marks where a sink used to be. Removed so the porcelain, clawfoot tub can rest. “You take baths?”

        “When I can,” Cas tells him, “I find it very healing. Even when I could mend broken bones and turn jagged cuts into flawless, smooth skin with my grace, I found myself drifting here every now and then, sitting for a soak.”

        Dean taps at the rim of the bathtub, pouting. “And you brought me here, thinking I want to…” He doesn’t finish, instead studying the other man. Watches how the innocent question rocks the boat of his good intentions. Cas pouts, folds his arms and scuffs his toe on the floor. Dean softens, “Thank you.”

        “…You’re welcome,” he shifts, turning his back, “Now, do you want to get in? I find that when you twist the handle on the right, the water is warmer.”

        He waits. Panic rises, thinking Cas might leave. Worse that he can’t find it in him to ask that he stay. But then Cas settles, staring at the closed door. Dean smiles and starts the faucet.

        When the bathtub is halfway full Dean climbs in. His knees poke from up out of the water, too tall to stretch his legs. He slides in further, so the water laps at his chin and more leg is on display. Already it fogs over, a filmy layer swirling on the surface. Dean cups some of the water and splashes it on his face, all too aware of much red drips. “I’m as decent as I can be,” he calls, splashing.

        Cas sighs. “How does it feel?”

        “S’nice,” he shrugs, “Not that I get to do this often but…” Dean sees Cas walk over, grabbing at a nearby bucket. “What are you doing?”

        “Helping,” Cas says, dropping the bucket. He kneels, presenting a washcloth and a soap bar he must have pulled from below.

        “Aw, no Cas,” Dean starts, sliding into a low crouch. Braced on the edges of the bathtub. “You don’t have to –“

        “Please, Dean,” Cas whispers. Two fingers rest over his knuckles, feather light and barely there. “Let me do this for you… after what you must have gone through…”

        Dean will not break his staring contest with his navel, sure that if he glanced in Cas’s direction another episode like the one in the shower room will happen. “Fine,” he mutters, plopping back into the tub and spraying Cas with a few errant drops. “If you want, go right ahead.” His arms encircle his knees, stricken expression hidden. Sitting in the center of the bathtub, Dean never felt so small.

        Cas carries on wordlessly. Runs the soap under the faucet before turning it off. It’s filled to about a few inches from the rim, any sudden movement able to cause a good spill. Which is why Cas talks him through the steps. Like a skittish animal, provoked at the tiniest snap of a twig or rustling leaves.

        Defenseless. Unaware. Fattening itself for the lucky prey that happens across it. His lips peel back for his teeth to appear, spit dripping from them. His fingers lead him forward, nails glinting when the moonlight breaks through the foliage and hits them. One clumsy step and what sounds like a gunshot echoes in his ears. It stops. Then it sprints off. So does he, a fraction of a second later. The chase begun. He huffs, he smiles, he growls. Hungry.

        Dean hisses when the cloth rubs over a badly healed wound, reopening it. “Sorry,” Cas says, dabbing the spot again and pouring some water from a cupped hand over the skin. “I didn’t see – I’m so sorry.”

        “It’s okay, Cas.” He offers a wobbly smile, shrugging. “It’s okay.”

        Cas grimaces, Dean staring on the thin, chapped line. Better than blue spotlights running across his face. Soon his lips smooth into something more neutral, and Cas resets.

        He focuses on how the washcloth feels, Cas lathering soap across him. Doesn’t fight when he grabs Dean’s arm and holds it up, running the fabric over and leaving soap bubbles in its track. There’s a jagged cut slashed across his knuckles from a misplaced lunge. Cas, prepared, gently dabs at it. His hold is firm and touch careful.

        Too careful. Too caring. The special treatment makes his skin crawl. Dean winces again as Cas drags the washcloth along his shoulder blades and onto his other arm. “Sensitive?” Cas asks, because he notices. Add too observant, too. “Days like these make me miss my powers.”

        Dean snorts, “So you could fly on out of here without any problems?” That escapes easier than he would like. He curses under breath, sneaking a peek at Cas. Like Dean expected, Cas’s expression makes his heart sink into his stomach. “Shit, sorry…”

        “I don’t need wings to ‘fly on out of here’,” he says, “if I wanted, I could get on a plane tomorrow.” Cas finishes lathering his arm and soaps his chest. Rubs the washcloth over and over his tattoo. Its ink vibrating erratically because of his words, the possibility, and Cas’s closeness “The operative term being wanted. What I want right now is… well, I want you to not feel any pain.”

        But he should. It’s all he should feel. Dean deserves the pain. For yesterday, what he almost did. For now, what he callously said to Cas. For years and years of causing so much hurt and enjoying it and taking pride in it. He should drown in all this pain. Instead he has an angel bathing him in kindness.

        He tries every day to be better than his darkest moment. When he and Cas stared across at each other, fully ruptured. Dean throwing more dynamite into the divide until the ground crumbled beneath their feet and the landscape of their relationship was unrecognizable. After Purgatory he made a promise. His pain should remain with him, not forced into the hands of others.

        Some days they wriggle, others they slip. Dean tries every day. If only every day, he succeeded.

        Cas washes his face, leaning half over the tub so there’s barely a breath of space between them. A simple turn and their noses brush together. He cannot do more than breath, sharp puffs out his mouth. Sometimes muffled when Cas wipes at the dried blood marking the skin around it.

        It’s too much.

        “I almost killed Sam.” Cas pauses, frozen at the corner of Dean’s lips. Some of the soap drips into his mouth, and he can taste it. “Yesterday, on the hunt I… I almost killed him.”

        His brain steams ahead, thinking how Cas might wish for the plane ticket now that he knows. Imagines him dropping the washcloth into his hands and leaving without a word. Again, wiping his hands of Dean’s garbage and climbing out the hole before any more shovels in to bury him.

        Instead Cas runs his fingers through Dean’s hair, smiling. “Tell me what happened.”

        His walls crumble immediately. Dean savors the touch while he begins his story. Cas already knew the beginning – driving into a town beset by murders, where killers left heartless bodies for the police. Rolled in with the script memorized, asking all the right questions. Found the pack’s den and attacked. “We said we got all of them,” Dean sighs, ducking his head, “but that wasn’t the whole truth.”

        The leader escaped. They only realized it when counting the bodies, battle too confusing that losing track of one werewolf in a dozen was unavoidable. Risky in their line of work, but a quick perimeter search kicked up no trace of him. Dean and Sam closed the case, driving off to the motel and licking their wounds.

        “I was careless, or… or I don’t know, didn’t think much of it but…” Dean holds his arm up and looks at it. There’s no mark on the skin, but he traces the bite from memory. “Got me when I wasn’t looking. By the time I knew what was happening it was like I… like something had come over me. I heard howling and I tore off after it. Sam coming back to an empty motel room with a broken lock.”

        If he stays too long in his memories, he will lose himself in them again. Racing through the woods with newfound agility and grace. Jumping, launching himself over fallen trees and boulders. What it felt like ripping apart the first woodland creature he crossed paths with. The soapy taste in his mouth turns sour.

        “The leader was crazy… had this whole philosophy that I believed because he said it and all I could think was how much I trusted him. Thinking was too difficult while all fanged out and slobbering and – and so when he said to trust my ‘instincts’ I… I bared my neck. His instincts were my instincts. By that point Sammy snuck in, and – well protect is a pretty strong instinct.”

        Sam plead, rallying all his strength so Dean’s claws wouldn’t eviscerate him. Dean straddled his brother, raging. Spat on him while gnawing for his neck. The last werewolf cheering Dean on. “Free yourself of your human burdens and join me in total freedom!” he sang, “Eat of his heart and you will be mine forever!”

        “You don’t want this Dean,” Sam said, struggling. The syringe nearby looking damaged but not completely broken. “I know you. Fight him!”

        Dean growled, “Want… want free… want blood!”

        Sam sneered, tightening his grip on Dean’s wrists. He shifted and kicked Dean off. Dean flipped, landing on his back. They both scrambled upright, not wasting any time. With misguided fury Dean pounced for Sam, his brother twisting at the right second. Their fight continued in that fashion. Sam dodging Dean’s attacks, the latter growing more frustrated and sloppier.

        Exactly what Sam planned.

        Dean dove and smacked into a wall, knocking the breath from him. Stunned, Sam dove for his belt and slipped it over some exposed pipe. Not knowing any better, lost within the wolf, Dean struggled helplessly until brute strength won.

        By the time Dean ripped the pipe from the wall Sam killed his sire. Injected Dean with the cure when he scurried towards the corpse and mourned. When all traces of his bite left Dean’s system, he mourned again. Sam standing overhead, watching, unable to lay a hand on his shoulder lest Dean bite at it in his familiar defensiveness.

        “So Sam is fine?”

        He bristles at the placid tone. Unbothered. Like Dean mentioned some off-hand piece of gossip that he happened across while scrolling through his phone. “Yeah,” Dean says harshly, “but I… I almost did him in. Nearly ate his heart before skipping off with some werewolf Charles Manson to start another werewolf cult and...”

        Cas raises a brow. “And?”

        Processing the events aloud help him realize how wildly he overreacted. How Sam clearly held no anger towards him for being on the menu. How there’s no reason for the inky sadness clinging to his heart and soul that makes him feel bad.

        Except it’s there, and having no reason makes it even worse.

        “And…” he fumbles, “And I think I’m getting too old for this.” Dean huffs, sinking against the bathtub while Cas continues petting him. “I’ve been doing this for what? Nearly forty years? That was how it’s going to end… Because I let that werewolf creep bite me and nearly turn me into his slave? Kind of makes everything I said about free will look like I pulled it from my ass.”

        Cas chuckles, laying the washcloth on the porcelain rim. He pulls back, laying both arms along the edge and resting on it. Smirking, “No one will call you a hypocrite because you were under the influence of a werewolf bite.”

        “Yeah, but…” Dean sighs, “I’m supposed to be better than this.”

        “If I’ve learned anything from my time on Earth – from you – is that sometimes we have our off days,” Cas says, “We have to forgive ourselves for them.”

        “Maybe if I tripped and scratched Baby’s paint or-or took a risk on some leftovers I don’t remember, sure,” he scoffs, “but when it comes to hunts… an off day can easily become my last day. Hunters don’t get off days. Heroes don’t… don’t…” He digs his nails into his knee, willing away the waterfall hovering around the edges of his eyes.

        “Well, as true as that is, the fact you were able to see the sun rise means yesterday definitely wasn’t your last day.” The faint traces of humor in his tone barely lifts the corners of Dean’s mouth. Cas sighs. A few droplets splashing at Dean’s exposed leg, his hand now gently splashing the water. “I stand by what I said. Yes, you could’ve been more observant during your battle. And more conscious of your injuries. Then neither you nor Sam would still carry what should have been a simple hunt on your shoulders.” Mentioning it makes his shoulders sag further. “But then again, I could be beating myself for staying here watching Netflix while you and Sam got your hands dirty –“

        “You kidding, Cas?” Dean bursts in, brows furrowed, “The Hell should you feel bad for?”

        “A third set of eyes could’ve seen the werewolf escape – or stop him before he did… make sure you were checked over for serious injuries…” His fingers circle lazily, Cas’s mouth tugged down in a way that unsettles Dean’s stomach.

        Dean sits straighter, glaring at the other man. “You needed the rest, Cas. After that ghoul tore your back up something fierce in Missoula? Even if you knew you could do something, I’d still have kept you –“ The tirade cuts short, Cas’s prideful smirk stealing the words from him. He sinks into the water, so low that water hides his burning cheeks. Adjusts by fully removing his legs from the bathtub, bracing his feet on the wall. Faucet between them.

        Cas chuckles, rustling Dean’s hair. “See. Hindsight is only good for the future, to learn from our mistakes. Time is better spent in the present. Accepting that you did the best you could and… glad there are people who care about you, who will do anything to see you feel better.”

        Dean looks up at Cas, the overhead bulb shining. Mimicking the effect of a halo. He lifts his chin enough to free his mouth. “I don’t know how you can put up with my stubborn ass.” I don’t know why I deserve you.

        “I recall you calling my ass stubborn many times.” I don’t deserve you.

        They always end up circling the drain. Never quite going in, a piece of hair clogging the passage. Right now, with Cas petting Dean’s hair and gazing into his eyes, Dean exposed under him in more ways than one, it cannot get any more tender. It’s still not enough.

        At the top of the peak, you can only go off. They never jump.

        Dean knew his reasons. When it felt like they could, there was never enough time. Something more pressing to deal with, a battle to fight. Always promising that when the moment was right, Dean would do something. But then when those moments came Dean and Cas were never there for them. Kept apart by circumstance, by death, by each other. Compelling. Dramatic. Completely frustrating.

        But then Chuck vanished, he and Amara – light and darkness, creation and destruction – becoming one. Becoming entirely new. Blinked off into somewhere that Dean doesn’t care knowing about. As long as, on their way out, they cut the strings hanging over their heads.

        It seemed like it. Life went on, as normal. Monsters needed hunting and beer needed drinking. Except there wasn’t anything more.

        Hell stayed relatively calm with Rowena reorganizing it. Jack, seated on the throne of Heaven, brought a righteous humanity in his leadership. Even Billie took a holiday.

        When the dust settled, Dean was ready for Cas to be on his way, too. One was offered.

        “Are you sure?” Jack asked, eyes still aglow. Hand raised inches from Cas’s bloodied head. “I can give it all back to you. Give you more… you’d be the most powerful angel in my new Heaven. You can help me make it even better than it was.”

        “Thank you, but… I think it’s time you left the nest, Jack,” Cas smiled, stepping back from him. “Heaven is in capable hands because they’re yours… I… we trust that you can do this without us.”

        Jack nodded, light snuffed. He dove into Cas’s arms, then, hugging him. Then Sam, and finally Dean. “I’ll visit when I can,” he promised, trying not to cry.

        Dean coughed, swiping a finger under his eye. “Soon!” he barked, “I don’t want to see you when I’m eighty!” Their laughter was bittersweet. Fully bitter when Jack disappeared with a flap.

        Sam scuffed the ground, turning. “So,” he said, “what do we do now?” He scanned the area, Dean tracking the same space alongside him. At the scorched earth, barely recognizable from when they arrived. Green drained away and left lifeless, with a few serious scorch marks in certain areas. Like the one near a cracked mausoleum, where Chuck threw Cas. Where he held him by the neck and spit serious venom. Where he drained the little angel grace he had left and made him human again.

        Cas clears his throat, drawing their attention. “After a shower and a change of clothes,” he said, “I think some sort of celebration. At home.”

        Dean’s heart skipped over itself. “Home,” he repeated, “Yeah, I like that.”

        Cas chose and chose again, and his choice never wavered. It was Earth. It was humanity. It was him, and it was home.

        “Why are you staring at me like that?” Cas asks, frowning, “what are you thinking?”

        Dean rises somewhat. “I love you.” He would rather he weren’t naked, nor shaken from a hunt. And a forgotten supply closet with a dirty bathtub in it is hardly the number one place for a confession. But waiting for perfection screwed him over so many times.

        “Oh,” Cas relaxes against the bathtub, sinking his hand back into the water, “is that all?”

        Or maybe he should have kept waiting. Dean pouts, “I love you.”

        “I know. You’re repeating yourself.”

        “No, like…” he drags a wet hand over his face, “I love you. Like, I love you love you.”

        Cas chuckles, light and carefree. Lines around his eyes crinkling in delight. “I know, Dean. I know.”

        Dean gapes, chin slapping the surface of his bath. “You have?” Spurred into action by Cas’s growing laughter, Dean sinks his legs into the tub and sits up again. “For real?” The other man nods. “How long?”

        Cas shrugs, “Awhile.”

        “Why didn’t you say anything?”

        Joy retreats from Cas’s expression, leaving him somewhat guarded. He breaks with Dean’s stare. His hand glides through water and finds Dean’s leg. Strokes it. “I thought nothing needed to be said.”

        Dean raises a brow, clicking his tongue. “So you were happy with…”

        “I was content.”

        He frowns, courage leaping up inside his chest and banishing the lingering traces of sadness and self-pity clinging inside his chest. “Well, I wasn’t,” Dean says. Waits for Cas to look at him again. “Do you know how many times we sat together and I wanted to hold your hand, but didn’t? Roll over on my bed and wake up next to you only to remember that you were down the hall? Sit in a diner and-and when the waitress came by I could say, ‘I’ll have this and my boyfriend will have that’ but was only able to order for myself? I won’t even mention the amount of times I wanted to kiss you because at this point I’ve lost count…”

        Cas squeezes Dean’s thigh, lips stretched wide in a tight grin. “You want all of that?”

        “And more. A hell of a lot more.”

        “Then… late is better than never, I suppose.”

        Dean blinks, “What?”

        He resumes stroking his leg, smiling so openly all his teeth are on display. “I’m saying,” he continues, “that if you want to do all that, I find myself being… amenable. We can even start now.”

        “Are you sure?” Dean asks, too experienced with his luck that he knows he needs more. “Is this what you want? You said you were –“

        “Content,” he says, “But not happy. Doing all of what you described – and more – will make me very happy.”

        Dean smiles, “Really?”

        “Ecstatic.” It’s so deadpan, so blasé, and completely incongruent with the mood of the room that Dean cannot stop the snort escaping from his lips. Followed by hiccupped giggles and, finally, laughter that echoes in the tiny space. Joined by Cas, their voices swell to fill the room. Until Dean snatches Cas’s collar with his wet fist and drags him in for a kiss. Closes his eyes and savors the taste of the other man, taking note of every sensation he guessed right and scribbling over what he got wrong with the parts he never could have imagined.

        In the midst of their makeout session, when Cas presses their foreheads together and laughs about not needing a shower after all. Because Dean hauled him into the bathtub with him despite protests, water leaking onto the floor. When he can, without guilt, lose himself in Cas’s eyes, Dean remembers the werewolf from yesterday. Remembers what he thought freedom meant, and how the monster hadn’t the first clue what it actually was.

        Freedom is not power. Freedom is being yourself. Freedom is the ability to show others the deepest parts of yourself and have them stay and love you for it. Freedom is acceptance.

        Freedom is the way Cas’s fingers scratch at the nape of his neck. Freedom is Cas pressing lazy kisses against his cheek. Freedom is the way their feet knock into each other on the edge of the porcelain bathtub.

        Dean, for the first time in his life, feels free.

Epilogue:

        Midnight is a terrible hour to crave bacon. Time cannot stop Dean’s watering mouth or his growling stomach. He disentangled himself from Cas and blindly pieced together an outfit that, in the hallway’s clinical lighting, included his cowboy pajama bottoms, Cas’s dried shirt, and his robe. Dean shrugs and carries on his way towards the kitchen, hoping for a quick trip.

        Seeing Sam hunched over at the table crushes that idea. He perks up at Dean’s entrance, faltering. Rises for a second before thinking better, instead fiddling with his coffee mug. “Dean.”

        “…Sam.” Unsure, Dean’s own hands run rampant. Closes the robe and hides Cas’s shirt, tying a neat, little bow and securing it tighter. Then he unravels it and lets the robe swing open like curtains. “What’re you doing up?”

        He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep anymore. You?”

        “Hungry.” Dean winces, the image of Sam struggling underneath him flashing into view. It fades almost as instantly as it arrived, replaced with a more annoyed looking brother. Mouth pulled taut like a bowstring, aimed and ready. Dean glances at the mug for safety. “You make enough for the class?”

        “Check the pot.”

        Shuffling over he sees more than enough coffee inside for him. So, he pulls out two mugs and prepares them. Three teaspoons of sugar in one, four tablespoons in the other. A dash of milk on the left, because Cas thinks it muddies the taste of the coffee. “Thanks.”

        “Dean…”

        His tone draws a quiet sigh from Dean. Settles the hunger that dominated his stomach and replaces it with a slight nausea. “Sam,” he says, “can you not…”

        “We need to talk about it,” Sam continues, “Please, Dean, I –“

        “We will.”

        Sam pauses, stunned. Dean turns around and tamps down the laugh bubbling up. Hard given how rare Sam’s jaw drops so far. In the blink of an eye Sam shakes his surprise off. “What?”

        “We will,” Dean repeats, leaning on the counter, “I promise. I just… I’m not ready, yet.”

        It’s not the best answer. Sam doubts him, evident by the gleam in his eye. And the follow up, “Are you ever gonna be ready?”

        His eyes never strayed from Dean’s face. If he dropped his gaze a few inches Sam would see Cas’s shirt. But he didn’t. Dean can rewrap the robe and pretend it’s not on him.

        Except Dean hadn’t the urge. Instead he draws attention to it, rubbing the hem between his fingers. “Hopefully soon… Cas and I had a good talk and – and well, maybe in the morning I might be okay enough that we can sit and talk about it, or whatever…”

        Sam finally looks at his shirt. Then at Dean with a subtle awe. He braces for an onslaught of feelings, exactly what Dean tried avoiding. Why he thought using Cas as a distraction from talking about those was a moment of delirium. Dean sips at his mug, hiding ruddy cheeks behind the rim.

        Thankfully Sam says nothing. Instead mirroring his sip. “Okay.”

        “Okay?”

        “Okay.”

        Dean nods, drumming his fingers on the counter. There’s kindness in how Sam offers the escape tunnel, even though so much is brewing under the surface. A rarity that Dean never expected. He should take it.

        But there’s more. Dean figures ripping the band-aid off all at once is better than peeling it and feeling every single hair torn from his arm.

        “I think I’m gonna stop hunting,” he says. Sam spits a mouthful of coffee into his mug, choking. “For a while,” Dean quickly explains, “Like, maybe a few months?”

        Coughing, Sam wipes at his lips. “Is this because of the werewolf hunt?”

        “Yes?” Dean says, “No – I mean… Look, it’s not because I’m too scared to get back into the game because of what happened but I am kind of… skittish?” He frowns, staring at the light brown pool in his hands. “Like I’m running on empty and… and I don’t think I have enough in the tank. That’s what happened yesterday, but thank God there was a little more in yours to get me to the next rest stop! Who knows what might happen on the next one so I… I’m making the adult decision and taking myself out of the game before the big loss.” Dean gulps at his coffee, throat suddenly dry. “But not forever,” he adds, “Long enough to sort things out… do the stuff we said we were gonna do when the Chuck mess ended. Maybe go on a road trip or, ah… give Cas a proper first date –“

        “First date?” Sam croaks, a tiny snort escaping, “Think you two’ve past that by a few years. Third honeymoon, maybe.”

        Dean rolls his eyes. “Yuck it up… but I’m not the only one who can use this opportunity to focus on important things… things that you’ve been neglecting… when’s the last time you and Eileen had any quality time together?” Sam answers with a blush. “Thought so… at least I’ve had two honeymoons, or so you think.”

        “Shut up,” Sam huffs, drinking his coffee again. His gaze drifts from Dean over to the door, and the fluster drains off his face. Replaced with a more gleeful expression, lips curling. “Hey Cas,” he sings, “how’s it going?”

        Dean accepts all the awkward energy Sam shed. His grip on the coffee mug falters when he sees Cas. Dressed in a stolen pair of sweatpants and nothing else. “Sam, Dean,” he yawns, shuffling closer. Cas squints at the untouched mug on the counter, “Is this for me?”

        “Yeah,” Dean says, handing it over, “just the way you like.” Cas purrs, kissing Dean’s cheek before sipping. Sam's chuckles accompany his approval. “It wasn’t too much of a problem…”

        “So, Cas,” Sam starts, “what got you out of bed?”

        Cas scratches his head and presses against Dean. Slides an arm around Dean’s waist. “Pee,” he says, “and then I noticed Dean wasn’t there so…” If Cas didn’t drive the point home clear enough Dean would worry after his brother’s intelligence. He feels Cas’s chin rest on his shoulder. “Why did you get up?”

        Dean gestures at the stove. “Hungry.”

        “Hmm… I can eat.” Cas taps on Dean’s stomach, pushing off. He moves and joins Sam at the table. “Whatever you were going to make yourself, make double?”

        “Triple?” Sam adds, “All this talk of food is making me hungry.”

        “Yeah, yeah…” Dean flicks the stove on, dropping the pan on the active burner. His hunger returned, aided by the easy conversation flowing between the three. Cas settles across from Sam asking a question about something he read. The conversation quickly devolves into nerd speak, Dean throwing quips in every few seconds.

        He lays a strip of bacon down, and then another one. And another one. Greases a second pan and cracks an egg on the surface, tossing one half of the shell at Sam and the next half at Cas. They retaliate by pelting him when he retreats to the refrigerator for more bacon. Dean doesn’t care that they hit, nor that he steps on one and has to spend time between the eggs frying and the bacon cooking to pick pieces of eggshell off his heel. What he cares about sits giggling at the table, watching while he cleans.

        Dean is happy.

[svankmajerbaby]

13, 20, 30, 40 !!

thank you so much for the ask!!!!!!

13.  Describe your writing process from idea to polished i’m not really sure, but i think i’d go something like this: i get the idea usually by either being obsessed with a property (whether it’s frankenstein, beetlejuice or barbie) or by thinking up characters and adding traits and backstory to them, and then thinking up possible dynamics for them to have with other characters. then, i try to figure out a particular context (place and time) that could fit these characters, and i make sure to think it up in such a way that it doesn’t really conflict with the source material (for my barbie-frankenstein fanfic, for example, i didn’t want to set it in early 19th century, because i wanted vivianna to be able to become barbara roberts at some point, and as such it was more comfortable to preserve the victorian aesthetic while also being closer to the 20th century); if there’s not a proper space and time these characters can feel comfortable in (whether because of a particularly tense political situation, persecution, or simply The Wrong Aesthetic Choice), i make up one. after that i begin to write dialogues and location descriptions, try to picture it all in my head as clearly as possible. then, after i have some scenes written and some interactions done, i try to organize them, thinking what should come first, what can lead to a good finale, what would be the most important moment for each character and so on. when this is done, i usually already figure out the ending and can structure everything to lead up to it. after that, it’s all a matter of sitting down and writing between the scenes i’ve already done, editing them and adding whatever new ideas i get in the meantime. usually this is what takes the longest, because by this point i’m losing steam and interest and become distracted by new projects... but sometimes i manage to finish it and by then the editing process starts on full, checking for any grammar or spelling mistakes, wrong pronouns or words or names, usually cutting down on redundant descriptions or dialogues, adding things if i think something is not clear enough or erasing things if they seem too on the nose, and then i do this over and over until i feel it’s good enough.

20.  How many WIPs and story ideas do you have? oh boy do i have plenty. i’ve sorta finished the first novel of the story of Olimpia Gómez -the first one is simply called “La Ejecutora, 1938″; i’m currently writing the second, the third and the fourth ones -”La Ejecutora, 1946″, “La Ejecutora, 1954″, and “La Ejecutora, 1966″ respectively. then i also have almost finished my stage adaptation version of “Corpse Bride”, which i renamed “Death and Marriage”. i’m a chapter away at finishing my toy story fanfic, “Sitting On The Shelf”. i’ve written a single chapter of a beetlejuice fanfic about the maitlands that i still haven’t found a proper name fore, but which i’m very excited about. i’m writing several chapters at once of a massive addams family fanfic, focused on most of the main family characters’ backstories or developments beyond the nineties movies, which i’m calling “Family Beyond Blood”. i’ve started a little princess tutu fanfic that i’m not sure if i should continue, but which is a stylistic deviation of what i’ve been writing so far, so that’s good. i’ve kind of abandoned another fanfic idea i had, “Vulnavia & Vulnavia”, from one of my favorite horror movies, “abominable dr phibes”, which i have to come back to... and like the madwoman i am, i’m planning on rewriting the star wars sequel trilogy, so i got that in my to do list, as well. besides those fanfics, i got a sci-fi novel being developed, called “Los Prototipos”, about two twins that escape the enclosure where they had been raised to find out they were being studied to make a single-minded working force (kind of like the replicants in blade runner) with an expiration date -all this set in a dystopic 1960s country somewhere in latinamerica, tackling issues of economic imperalism, forced labor and independece through revolution. this is one of my most political works, so i’m giving it a lot of space to breathe. i’ve also began some time ago a series of noir/horror short stories set in Buenos Aires, one of them based on a short movie script i’ve written, which i’m really excited to do -because i’m usually crap at writing short stories -but i’ve left it in standby until i finish the bigger projects first... and then I Have Scripts, Baby! “Mi Amiga Carolina”, about a possessed doll that emotionally manipulates a depressed teenager that moves alone into her grandmother’s old house; “El Moderno Prometeo”, a (mostly) faithful retelling of frankenstein set in Argentina, focused on the family drama of the frankenstein family and on the relationships between victor, daniela (justine, here being his older sister), quique (henry) and elsa (elizabeth); a screen adaptation of a novel of a friend of mine, “La Chica Que Trabajaba Los Sábados”, about a non-practising jewish woman in Buenos Aires who falls in love with a rabbi, and how their relationship ebbs and flows; and “Verano en los Manzanos”, about a boy who lives in rural Córdoba who falls in love with a girl from Buenos Aires (i try to write what i know, usually), and who as they grow up become a couple, have a kid, and ultimately wind up apart due to his struggle with depression and her own struggle with acute anxiety, all of this interweaved with his own return to the little forgotten village he grew up on, where he reflects on the life he used to have. so, in total... 16 WIP. plenty.

30.  Favourite idea you haven’t started on yet i just now realized that i forgot to mention it in the last point, but technically i havent’ even started, so yeah, it’s just an idea: a series of sci-fi books about a parallel history in which India was the first country to go to the moon, and in which South America has the ASADE (Asociação Sul-Americana D’exploração Espacial), where they train cosmonauts to explore the vastness of space: set in an alternate 1930, a team of specialists on several fields and from several countries (the ones I got thought up already are captain Alfonsina Shua, from argentina, and copilot Adolfo Chaviano, from a paraguayan-argentinean couple) go on the fifth ever tripulated voyage. on an exploration, copilot Chaviano gets lost and disappears in space, cut off from his crew, and ends up going through a wormhole and crossing a threshold between sci-fi and fantasy of a blooming star -rendering him immortal but extremely radiated, which allows him to continue exploring space (ending up in several planets, registering his encounters with varied extraterrestrial cultures) while back in Earth the ASADE and his family try to locate him and bring him back home -it’s basically “The Martian” meets “The Little Prince”. and then, there’s the sequel series, about the three grandchildren of Adolfo Chaviano, who, after his death, discover that their grandfather had been developing a time machine alongside Alfonsina to go back in time and look for a way to revert the effects of the radiation in him, in order for him to live longer -and, perhaps, to find the way to become immortal and continue exploring the deepest limits of space. set in an alternate 1971, where space travel is now commonplace, the three siblings, Lena, Majo and Laucha embark on a space mission, meeting all sorts of new characters similarly affected by radiation and some mysterious magical/space properties, in order to find Alfonsina and ask her to give them one more chance to ask questions and say goodbye to their grandfather. so yeah, i got a lot of ideas, but i haven’t been writing any scenes yet -it’s still all in my head so far.

40.  Share some backstory for one of your characters well, the original character i’ve got developed the most is Olimpia Gómez (whose birth name is Beatriz Moreno), the orphaned daughter of two spanish union workers who were killed in the Semana Trágica on 1919 by the mysterious Society (of course, working in cahoots with the repressive government), and taken in by that same Society and raised to kill supposed “criminals and dangerous subjects”. trained in the countryside, taught to always be ready to die an honorable death for peace and justice while on duty, she’s taken to Buenos Aires to prove herself by stealth-killing the targets she is given, who she is told are people beyond salvation. she’s never been popular, but her closest friend, Eugenia Menéndez, always tries to get her to open up and join her own attempts at having a normal social life -which is quite difficult when being a spy and “executioner”. Olimpia has a boyfriend, fellow agent Evaristo Gutiérrez, but by the time they’re nineteen their relationship feels cold and strained, and at the same time there’s the pull of one of the most powerful members of the organization, Azucena Velázquez, daughter of two high-ranking agents: she’s kind-of out as a lesbian (only able to be so because of her high status), and has always been interested in Olimpia; Olimpia has to wrestle with her own internalized homophobia, feelings of guilt and bisexuality in order to finally decide who she wants to be, alongside her discovery of precisely how the Society is corrupt and extremely politically motivated when electing its “targets”, which leads Olimpia to try to escape it -despite knowing that the Society is everywhere, and if she can manage to escape, it’s because the Society allows it in the first place.

[vateacancameos]

Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1555 Fandom: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus Characters: Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Gideon Nav Additional Tags: Autumn, Established Relationship, Foliage, Picnics, Post-Canon, Post-Alecto, Banter, sort of but not really a wedding, perfect lyctorization, lyctor? i barely know her, One Shot, Victory Tour Series: Part 4 of snapshots of autumn Summary:

Part of the snapshots of autumn series, which tells stories of ladies in love during autumn, this story can be read independently.

Harrow and Gideon have won against God after several years of hardship apart. They deserve some time alone. Harrow grumps. Gideon frolics. The end.

Story:

“Holy shit, I’ve never seen this much color in my life,” Gideon groaned, head whipping every which way as if she’d miss something if she wasn’t looking at everything at once.

Harrow rolled her eyes and flapped her arms, hoping for a breeze. It was too warm, and the sun beat on her dark hair, making her sweat in her black robes. Gideon had stripped down to a tank and trousers in the shuttle, leaving her robe in a messy pile on Harrow’s seat.

“Are you frolicking?” asked Harrow, absolutely zero percent surprised, but feeling like she needed to at least make an effort at being annoyed. Gideon once said her resting bitch face was one of the things she loved most about her, so she tried to make it at least once a day. Gideon had argued that the point of RBF was its natural state, but she’d kissed Harrow anyway, then promptly wiped her mouth and “yeched” at the paint that had stuck to her lips.

read the rest under the cut

“Why shouldn’t I frolic?” Gideon yelled, halfway across the meadow they’d landed in. “We’re the good guys that beat the bad guys. We deserve a victory tour, adoring fans, parades, music lauding our heroic deeds.”

“Then why are we in a garish field on a foreign planet by ourselves?” Harrow pulled her robes away from her neck in hopes of coaxing a breeze to cool things down. The only thing it coaxed was a whiny bug that bit her on the back. “Ugh.”

“Because you don’t like crowds or music or anything fun, oh night mistress of zero fun.”

“So you brought me to hot meadow filled with bugs, sun, and bright colors? Are leaves even meant to have that many colors? I thought they were all green.”

“We did the dank and dead church thing yesterday. My turn to pick. And it’s not hot, it’s just a little warm from the sun. Also, Camilla said the colors were fantastic here this time of year. It’s called autumn.”

“I know what autumn is, dumb ass.” Harrow crossed her arms over her chest, even though it was far too warm to have anything touching.

Gideon sighed dramatically, made a final prance, then loped over to skid to a halt in front of Harrow, who raised an eyebrow. Gideon simply grinned.

“What are we doing here?”

“Looking at pretty colors! Have ever seen red this deep? Orange this bright? Gold this glimmering?” She waved her hand at the nearby trees at the edge of the meadow.

“Yes, I saw red this deep yesterday evening when you pricked your thumb while testing your blade. I see orange this bright always when I look at your ridiculous hair, and gold this glimmering every time I look in the mirror.”

Gideon winked one her own now-black eyes, which still threw Harrow off. At least they were the familiar black of the Ninth, and not the creepy oil sheen of God’s own. Thank God (no pun intended) that Gideon shared very little physically with her birth father, apart from their brown skin. And the horrendous sense of humor, but that wasn’t physical and therefore could be ignored by tuning the woman out. Which happened less these days, as Harrow was still so grateful to once again be able to talk to Gideon face to face, no longer parted by the River or physical distance.

“Come on.” Gideon grabbed Harrow’s hand, hauled her back to the shuttle, where she rummaged around until she reappeared with her robes and a knapsack that she slung onto her back. She grabbed Harrow’s hand again and this time hauled her to a nearby stand of trees, where she threw her rumpled robes onto the shaded ground in a sort of flat manner, then pulled the two of them down on top of it.

“Nav! You’re going to ruin your robes.”

“Better mine than yours. Although, you really should take those off. You’re going to roast. And there’s no need for roasting, I already think you’re hot.”

Harrow’s glower was hot enough to start a fire, but Gideon just laughed.

“Come on! We are the champions! Take a load off. Eat some lunch. Enjoy the views!”

“The colors are making my eyes hurt.”

But the protest was half-hearted. It was hard not getting caught up in Gideon’s enthusiasm. After the past couple of years, they deserved a break from the madness, and although this was so not her scene, she had to admit it was a nice change from space and people and death. She closed her eyes to feel the thalergy of an un-flipped planet, safe from future run-ins with Resurrection Beasts. The life wriggling around her was an unfamiliar shock, even after all the time she had spent flipping thalergy to thanergy during her training. It was nice to not think about wading into the disgusting, brackish waters of the River and taking all of this away. It was nicer seeing Gideon happy and goofy and alive, even if her eyes still weirded Harrow out. A small price to pay to have the person who understood her best back by her side. Forever. Well, for myriads at least. The perks of perfect lyctorization. This terrible meadow didn’t even seem that bad when she put it in that context.

Gideon sprawled on her side and leaned on an elbow as she dug through the knapsack, materializing a few half-smooshed sandwiches, apples, two bottles of something, and a box strong enough to come out of the knapsack unscathed.

“White bread, no crusts, bland tofu and cheese for Miss Picky,” Gideon dropped the sandwich in front of Harrow’s crossed legs, “and a gorgeous everything sandwich for me.” She kissed the package before unwrapping and taking a big bite, some sort of pink sauce dripping down her chin. She grinned. “Eat! And for Me’s sake, take off the damned robes. You’ll sweat out any calories otherwise. Plus, I have to sit with your stinky ass the whole way back in the shuttle.”

Harrow pinched the bridge of her nose. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not God. You can’t curse in your own name, Griddle.”

“God, daughter of God.” Gideon shrugged. “Same same.”

“Not remotely. Thank- somebody.”

“Thank me.”

“Definitely not.”

“Please, Harrow?”

“I’m not thanking you.”

Gideon waved a dismissive hand and furrowed her brow. Harrow knew that furrow. It meant she was about to be mother henned. “Not that. I mean, please relax. Eat. Enjoy the colors. Soon enough we’ll be back on dreary Ninth. Home sweet hole-in-the-planet. You’ll be busy running the House, I’ll be … I dunno, posing for tourists to feel my amazing biceps? Re-enacting the battles I fought in? Whatever.” She looked remarkably serious for once. “I just wanted us to have a little time to ourselves, before things get crazy again.”

Despite the solemnity, Harrow felt a grin lift a corner of her mouth. “This isn’t a victory tour. This is a honeymoon, isn’t it, Griddle?”

“What? No. Not- No.” Gideon looked away, scratching the back of her neck. “Just, ya know, some … quiet time.”

“What if I want it to be?”

Gideon whipped her head back around, eyes wide. “You’d want– But it’s– We’re not married.”

It was Harrow’s turn to pretend nonchalance. She shrugged. “Well, it’s just that there aren’t too many immortal people in the universe, and you’re the only one I can stand. I’m not about to go search out another partner, just after I got you trained up.”

A suddenly shy smile played at Gideon’s ever expressive mouth. “You like Pal and Cam well enough.”

“At a distance. I’m happy sending letters and visiting on occasion. But you’ve been by my side most of our lives. It’d be weird for you to leave.” Starting to panic after showing her hand, Harrow began to backtrack. “That is, if you want to. I know you hate the Ninth. And you have friends scattered all over. I’m sure you want–”

Her mouth was stopped by another mouth, warm and soft and comforting yet somehow exciting.

“Yes.” The words were whispered against her lips before the kissing began anew. Having this, for eternity, Harrow could get used to.

They eventually fell back onto a robe-covered ground softened by leaves that crunched. Harrow looked up into the fiery canopy above them as Gideon traced soft squiggles up and down her bare arm (yes, she’d finally removed the robe). The orange really was remarkably close to Nav’s hair. She could finally see the beauty in it that Gideon had seen upon landing. She didn’t want it forever, but for now, it was … very nice.

“So,” Gideon whispered into her ear. “I just realized that as your cavalier primary, and us being basically married, I can now say that I–”

“Don’t you dare, Nav. I had to hear it from Magnus already. I do not need an encore to that terrible joke.”

Gideon cackled and kissed Gideon’s cheek. “You’re no fun.”

🍁🍂🍁

Forever perfectly preserved on Harrow’s desk was a black metal frame, the clear plex displaying three leaves—one as red as blood, another gold as coins (or eyes), and the last the same riotous orange of Gideon’s hair. When asked what they were for, Gideon always answered first: “a marriage certificate.”

[cedarmoons]

reversed nadia & tragic heroism

aka, stop dismissing complex female characters as bitches you heathens

to preface this meta: i’ve included screenshots where i can, but as tumblr only allows 10 images, i’ll also include transcripts of scenes i want to discuss. screenshots have been cropped to only include the text, and should be read from left to right. i have left out some filler text, and “blank” boxes are only meant to keep the image even. all mentions of “Nadia,” unless otherwise stated, refers to Nadia in her Reversed route.

tldr: Nadia is Textbook Tragic Hero, it wasn’t animal abuse, Nadia did not sell MC to Satan for one corn chip, and it certainly wasn’t “bad writing.”

Long ass character meta under the cut! obviously contains spoilers for Book XX, Judgement - Reversed.

So. I originally had no intention of playing any of the reversed routes, but there were some claims about Nadia (i.e., she abused Mercedes & Melchior, she killed Lucio in cold blood, and she sold out MC for her own power) that made me think HMST and play it myself. Unsurprisingly, every single one of the above takes does not provide any greater context whatever.

I changed four (4) things to get Nadia’s reversed route: I never encouraged her to talk to her sisters or ask them for help; I told her to send Portia away; I did not allow the Flooded District partygoer to talk to her in Temperance; I told her to kill Lucio in The Devil.

And playing Nadia’s route seemed incredibly familiar to me, though it took a little while for me to realize why: Nadia, in her reversed route, is the textbook Tragic Hero. The Tragic Hero has a “fatal flaw,” which leads them to commit catastrophic errors in judgement, which leads to their allies, family, and friends abandoning them and their own isolation, which leads to the Tragic Hero realizing (too late) the gravity of their own errors.

I can’t believe I’m busting out my degree for a mobile game because some people like to twist things, but here we are. Someone has to go to bat for Nadia when the narrative surrounding her the past 48 hours has been doing her so dirty.

Part 1: The Lucio Problem

Now, let’s get straight to the first bout of character analysis: Lucio’s death. Nadia does not, in fact, cut Lucio down in cold blood. Lucio actually gets her to stop, and she allows him to explain why he should be allowed to live, which essentially is “because then I can help you overthrow the Devil.” The following is a transcript of their conversation, starting with Lucio explaining how he was supposed to be the Devil (instead of the ghost goat form we see in early-to-midgame), up to and including his death:

LUCIO: “It should have worked too! It was supposed to work! It wasn’t my fault. The Devil played dirty, he cheated me out of my chance to win! But together, we can defeat him. We can do it right this time!”

Nadia stares at him for a very long time, then throws her head back and laughs.

NADIA: “Yes, because you’ve been so trustworthy in the past.”

NADIA: “You would become the Devil and spread your treachery further than even Vesuvia. You would do the same thing he is attempting. You would cause death and destruction. Neither of you deserve the title. If you want something done right... do it yourself.”

LUCIO: “I won’t lose here! I don’t lose!”

Lucio lurches forward, anger flashing in his eyes. He reaches forward with a gold-gauntleted glove - And stops, as blood gurgles up from his mouth, trailing down his chin. Nadia’s blade is plunged deep in the center of his chest, the blade finally finding its mark.

LUCIO: “...”

She pulls the sword out and he crumples, his last words lost.

It should be noted Lucio’s sprite isn’t bloodied during his “...” dialogue. It’s interesting that no one mentioned Lucio lunged for Nadia first, isn’t it? Of course, one can always say he sensed his incoming death, and only attacked in self-defense: this is a reasonable and valid argument. But he unquestionably moved first, and Nadia also killed him in self defense: hardly the cold-blooded murder I had expected going in. 

It is not Lucio’s death itself that struck me in the writing, but the aftermath. After he is dead, MC can respond with either “Why did you do that?!” or “He had it coming.” I chose the former, and the following is the transcript:

MC: “Why’d you do that?!”

My head is still spinning. Nadia just killed someone in front of me... and she doesn’t seem to be bothered by it at all.

NADIA: “We knew it would come to this, MC. I couldn’t risk him causing more chaos and destruction. He would have always remained a threat.”

She pauses, reaching out slowly toward me.

NADIA: “You understand, don’t you?”

I’m interpreting MC’s “Why’d you do that?!” as a horrified growing realization of how far Nadia has fallen. They were the primary influence over the course of 20 books in shaping Nadia this way, but the way Nadia kills Lucio really cements her fall from grace for them. And Nadia, when she “reach[es] out slowly” toward MC, seems to know that MC has realized this. She says “You understand, don’t you?” — words that can easily be considered a plea.

You understand why I did what I did, don’t you? You understand I had no choice, don’t you? You understand there was no other way, don’t you? You understand I am not a monster, don’t you? You understand I do not want to lose you, don’t you?

I take a deep breath, still staring at where Lucio’s body was, then nod slowly. Nadia lets out a soft sigh of relief, and strokes my cheek affectionately.

NADIA: “Good. I couldn’t handle you turning from me, MC. It had to be done. I had no choice.”

Nadia already considers herself alone against the world. The MC is the closest thing she has to an ally; the MC is the closest thing she has to a confidant(e). Yet her anxieties and trust issues keep her from truly allowing MC to be as close as they are in her Upright route. This is seen as early as Book 9, when in the carriage ride (and immediately after discovering Portia’s betrayal), she wonders if MC will betray her, too, and whether she is destined to stand alone in the world. 

Over the course of the 11 books from Book 9 to Book 20, she has come to realize that if she loses MC, she is truly, truly alone in the world. Thus, her hesitation (“slowly”) to reach for MC. Thus, her blatant relief in MC staying with her. Thus, her admission that she would be unable to handle MC turning away from her.

Part 2: Becoming the Devil

In any heroic story, the hero must achieve a seemingly impossible feat: saving the world; defeating the unstoppable Big Bad; et cetera. Tragic heroes also seek to achieve impossible feats, but their “feats” straddle the line between good and evil, or their reasons — why they want to achieve the impossible heroic feat — are not grounded in conventional morality. Tragic heroes attempt to achieve their impossible feats, but their efforts, whether successful or not, always have catastrophic consequences.

Hamlet’s impossible feat is to avenge his father: his efforts to do so result in the deaths of his (debatable) love interest, his mother, his step-father, his friends, and himself. 

Solas in Dragon Age: Inquisition’s impossible feat was to stop the Evanuris: his efforts to do so created the Veil, stripping elves of their immortality and power, leaving them open to exploitation, enslavement, and death (and opening the way for him to undertake a second impossible feat: destroying the Veil to restore the elven people’s power). 

Clarke Griffin in the TV show The 100 had the impossible feat of saving her people from having their bone marrow harvested by Mount Weather: her efforts to do so saved her people, but killed hundreds of innocent people who had nothing to do with the cruelties inflicted on Clarke’s friends; gave her and another major character PTSD; and led to Clarke’s self-imposed exile from her people.

Nadia’s impossible feat is to defeat the Devil Arcana. 

Where in her Upright route she believes MC is powerful enough to bind the Devil’s powers, essentially limiting him to his own realm, in her Reversed route she does not believe this: she thinks it is too risky to MC’s safety, and she is unwilling to lose MC after they “nearly died binding Vlastomil.” Instead, she will replace the Devil Arcana herself, as it is the only way to guarantee that the Devil’s threat would end. 

VALERIUS: “It’s a terrible idea [to replace the Devil Arcana]. You want to be trapped here, forever?”

NADIA: “I see no other option. The Devil cannot be allowed to continue his machinations.”

THE HIEROPHANT: “Interesting. I hold no love for the current Devil. He oversteps his bounds. ... Yes. I believe you’d make a lovely Arcana. At the very least, you’d mind your own business.”

The Hierophant tarot is all about tradition, convention, authority, “staying within your own bounds.” The Devil’s attempt to escape his realm and merge the magical and mortal realms certainly disrupts the accepted status quo. If Nadia replaces the Devil, then the status quo is maintained (“at the very least, you’d mind your own business”). Of course the Hierophant is going to encourage her to do this.

VALERIUS: “And give up your own humanity in exchange! I’ve been there, Countess, it’s no way to live.”

Nadia shakes her head, looking out the window to the vineyard beyond.

Nadia looking out the window the vineyard beyond is not only a description but symbolic of her own reasoning. Her attention is diverted by looking out the window, so she is not fully attentive to what Valerius is saying. She is unwilling to look at, and thus give attention to, those who disagree with her; she has turned her face away from reason and disagreement.

NADIA: “What choice do I have, really?”

MC: “There’s always a choice!”

NADIA: “Not this time, MC. You’ve been with me through it all... but this last thing I must do alone. I won’t risk you.”

MC then has the choice to say “I’m with you” or say “I won’t risk YOU!” here. I chose the latter option for thematic relevance: MC is panicking, now, fully understanding what Nadia intends to do — and fully understanding that they might lose Nadia forever. They are trying to undo the damage they have done in the earlier parts of the route, but it is too late. Nadia’s heart has hardened.

MC: “I won’t risk YOU!”

NADIA: “MC... That’s my duty. As Countess of Vesuvia, as Princess of Prakra... as your lover. I will do what no one else can. I will drag this world, kicking, screaming, and ungrateful, to safety.”

Again, Nadia is the only one who can do this. She will drag this world “kicking, screaming, and ungrateful, to safety” — she knows she will not be thanked, or praised, but it is necessary. It is for their own good. Nadia knows best, and Nadia can only trust herself to get things done. 

MC: “We’re in this together, Nadia. I’m coming with you.”

NADIA: “You cannot follow me into the darkness, MC.”

(It should be noted that Kevin MacLeod’s “Wounded” is playing during this. This is the tragic piano that is also heard in Asra’s route on the Lazaret. I mention this because the tragic piano always fucks me up emotionally, so y’all have to suffer too.)

Nadia’s line — “You cannot follow me into the darkness” — is typical of a Tragic Hero who wishes to protect others, especially their love interest. Using my prior two examples from Dragon Age: Inquisition and The 100:

When a Lavellan Inquisitor who romanced Solas tells him, “let me help you, Solas,” Solas says: “I cannot do that to you, vhenan.” 

When Bellamy Blake asks Clarke to stay at her home, instead of impose self-exile, Clarke says: “I bear it so they [her people] don’t have to.”

The point of these kinds of statements is this: This terrible undertaking is my responsibility alone; only I can accomplish this impossible feat; I do not want you to be hurt; I would rather something happen to me than you.

But where the Tragic Hero usually succeeds in isolating themself from their love interest, MC inverts this aspect of the archetype: they convince Nadia to let them accompany her to the Devil’s realm. If MC had told Nadia in earlier books, “I’d follow you anywhere,” this is truly an echo of that sentiment: MC is willing to go to Hell for Nadia Satrinava. 

THE HIEROPHANT: “If you go down this path, you cannot hesitate. If you lose your nerve, he will come back. If you waver, he will see it. If you do this, you need to mean it.”

NADIA: “To keep the world safe. To keep MC safe... I’ll do anything. I won’t lose.”

It’s important to state Nadia does not want to become the Devil on her own merits. It’s not a power grab (at least, not consciously). She realizes it is dangerous. She genuinely sees no other option to end the Devil’s threat, and thus save the world, that does not risk harm to MC. As stated before, MC is the closest thing Nadia has to an ally: it makes sense she is unwilling to consider any options that have even the slightest chance of her losing MC. It makes sense that she is willing to do “anything” to keep MC safe.

She is constantly stating there is “no other choice,” even though the other characters (Valerius and the High Priestess) offer alternatives, namely binding the Devil in his own realm (what happens in the Upright end). It is not that she is not hearing these alternatives, or unwilling to listen to reason: it is that they are unacceptable to her, by virtue of the danger posed to MC. It is that [Solas voice] every alternative was worse. It is that [Solas voice] terrible choices are all that remain. If you have to kill Stranger A to save 100,000 lives, and someone offers Stranger B to kill instead of Stranger A, it is an unacceptable alternative.

An essential aspect of the Tragic Hero is colossal mistakes in judgement. In Nadia’s case, this would obviously be her decision to replace the Devil’s Arcana. But this has been reinforced to her over the course of 20 books through critical decisions made earlier in her route:

Not talking to Nadia’s sisters, which accomplishes two things: 1) reinforces to Nadia that you are on her side; 2) reinforces to Nadia that she is right to maintain her grudge against her sisters. Her first instinct is to resent her sisters. There is no challenge to Nadia to change her mind, or move past old hurts. She remains static, stubborn, and seeking to prove herself - not only to her sisters, but to herself.

Encouraging Nadia to cast out Portia, which reinforces to Nadia that she cannot trust, confide in, or believe others: she will always be betrayed. Nadia’s first instinct is to send Portia away. Agreeing with her reinforces that she is right to distrust everyone, and only believe in her own competence and ability. She remains static and closed off from others.

Encouraging Nadia to kill Lucio. Nadia’s first instinct is to kill him, as she sees “no other way”. MC agreeing with her reinforces to her that her decisions are best, and that sometimes there are no other choices, or at least [Solas voice] terrible choices are all that remain. She remains static and unchallenged in her viewpoint(s).

Part 2.1: Trusting Nadia

Nadia’s “betrayal” is framed as random, coming out of nowhere, and only for her own power. I was suspicious of this framing from the moment I saw it, because characters like Reversed Nadia — straddling the line between good and evil, isolated, pursuing their impossible feat — tend to place high priority on the people they love, to the point of over-protectiveness, obsession, and/or obsessive devotion. An excellent example would be Victor Fries/Dr. Freeze in the Batman comics, who is willing to commit evil acts in pursuance of his impossible feat to save his wife.

I never doubted Nadia’s love for MC, even in the reversed route. As stated before, Nadia thinks that MC is not like the others in her life, who are incompetent fools, or simpering power-seekers, or her detested sisters. They are unique. They are special. While she may not be able to trust them fully (again! everyone can betray her! she is the only one she can trust!), she certainly loves them for what they mean to her.

Working under the assumption that Nadia truly loves MC, then, following the precedents of other tragic characters who came before her, she would be utterly unwilling to allow any harm to come to MC. This would extend to her allegedly offering MC to the Devil without any remorse. I was more inclined to believe (even before I played the Reversed route) that it was some ruse of Nadia’s to trick the Devil.

And so imagine my surprise when Nadia and MC left the Hierophant’s realm to go to Nadia’s gate, and the book provided the following scene: 

NADIA: “I have a plan, MC. Lucio failed to defeat the Devil. But that does not mean it cannot be done. Unfortunately... I cannot risk telling you. I need your reaction to be genuine. Will you be loyal to me, MC? Will you trust I want what’s best for you?”

MC: “Yes.”

NADIA: “Good. Everything that happens is for you, do you understand? Promise me you’ll remember I’ll always keep you safe.”

Boy, it would’ve been nice if someone mentioned this when discussing Nadia selling out MC!

This is such obvious foreshadowing of Nadia playing the long con it’s painful. She cannot tell MC her plan about how to deal with the Devil, because she needs MC’s reaction to be genuine; she needs MC to be surprised. If the Devil realizes he is being played, everything is over, and her efforts will have been for nothing.

For Nadia, the stakes are high. She either:

Tells her lover what her plan is, i.e. to use MC as a bargaining chip, which could have backfire in multiple ways: MC could be uncooperative, or MC could play their part unconvincingly to the Devil, and tip him off. She might stay with MC, but risk the world.

Or, she withholds it from MC, so that their surprise and shock (and, yes, feelings of betrayal) are genuine, and thus more convincing to the Devil. She loses MC, but saves the world. 

Her decision is pragmatic: she will sacrifice MC, even if it means she loses MC’s love, for the greater good (saving the world). She understands that the healer has the bloodiest hands. She is accepting the blood to make things better. By choosing the second option, she is choosing to trust herself and her plan instead of trusting MC to pull off a successful deception. (In a similar vein: remember how much she enjoyed deceiving Valerius in Book 6, The Lovers.)

Still, she does not want to sacrifice MC, but sees no other way. It is painful, but for the greater good. Thus why she emphasizes why Her Decision Is Best, and In MC’s Best Interest: “Everything that happens is for you, do you understand? Promise me you’ll remember I’ll always keep you safe.”

You may be hurt, but it is for the greater good, don’t you understand? Don’t you trust me to do the right thing? Don’t you see that I have your best interests in mind? Don’t you see that you can trust me? That you should trust me?

She even goes so far as to test MC when MC promises her that they will know she’ll always keep MC safe. I call it a test, because that is what it undoubtedly is: she holds MC’s throat, and asks, “Even now?”

This is a lead-in for a premium scene, but it goes deeper than that. Implicitly, she is saying: Even when I have you so vulnerable, even with my hand around your throat, do you trust that I will keep you safe? Can I let myself believe you when you tell me that yes, you do trust me; that yes, you know I have your best interests at heart?

MC has the option of proving it to her (premium choice), or simply saying “yes”. I chose the latter. It is simple, and honest, and depending on people’s MCs, undoubtedly true. MC is willing to go to Hell at Nadia’s side; this is a minor thing, by comparison.

MC makes the interesting observation that Nadia looks at them “like a pet.” Sure, it could be a reference to Nadia’s obvious petplay kink, but I think it’s indicative of their deeper relationship: Nadia may love MC, but she does not consider them her true partner as she does in her Upright route. Again, she can only trust herself, no matter how important MC is to her, because MC, too, might end up disappointing her. They are lovers, and they are partners, but Nadia and MC are not equals (unlike in Upright). Nadia sees MC like a pet (to cherish, love, and care for, but not treat as equal) and I fully expect she will continue to do so in the next update.

Whether or not Nadia is aware that this isn’t the healthiest way to love someone is up in the air, but I’m inclined to believe that she is not aware, and she is demonstrating her love in the best way she knows how: protecting MC (which leads to making MC’s decisions for them), providing for them (which extends into petplay and spoiling), and praising them (you are special, you are unique, you are not like everyone else in my life, who disappoints me). 

Later, approaching the Devil’s realm, she reminds MC of the conversation they had in her gate:

MC: “You have a plan. One you can’t tell me about.”

NADIA: “Yes. And I need you to trust me for it to work. Do you still trust me?”

MC: “I do.”

NADIA: “Good. Remember that when we’re in there.” 

NADIA: “... I love you.”

(Edit March 22: Nadia’s sprite during her “I love you” line is her embarrassed/uncertain face. A subtle signal that she, too, has doubts, even if she’s trying to hide them.)

The whole point of the cliffhanger was to shock people, but I think that people who are saying that Nadia sold MC out for her own power are misguided. Nadia spent the entire book talking about how she had no choice but to do this and foreshadowing that she was going to do something that would be unpleasant but necessary. To say that Nadia sold MC to the Devil for her own power is to completely ignore everything that’s been set up throughout the book.

Also, if you still don’t trust her / consider her a bitch after I’ve gone through this whole section talking about how Reversed Nadia is a character type that would never let someone important to her (i.e., MC) come to harm (though she may use them for her own gains) and that it’s 99% likely she has no intention of actually following through on this “deal”... that says more about you than it does Nadia.

Part 2.2: The Dogs

The way the dogs were framed made me think that Nadia was straight up cruel to them. I thought the dogs were physically there, and Nadia was actually abusive to them (though I was inclined to believe it was neglect, not abuse. again, quibbling). 

Considering Nadia’s treatment of the cheetah, and even the vampire leeches, I should not have taken these accounts at face value, because they are flat-out misleading (at best!).

For context, Nadia and MC have left Nadia’s Gate to go to the Devil’s realm. The Hierophant has just warned them of a perilous journey. They leave the Hierophant’s realm, go to Nadia’s Gate where they have the discussion about trust, and then enter the frozen forest background. What happens is the following:

MC: “Where are we?”

NADIA: “There are many roads connecting the realms. Lost paths in the dark. The forest is an illusion. It is likely our minds cannot comprehend the true shape of these spaces. Instead, the world changes into metaphors we can understand. But you must remember they are only metaphors, MC. Keep your wits about you.”

We continue walking, wary of every strange noise that flickers off the narrow path we follow. Every step we take causes more fog to swirl from the ground, until we can barely see in front of us once more. I hear a snarl behind us, close enough that I can feel the breath. Without thinking, I turn around to face it —

Two figures emerge from the fog, their mouths dripping red. Mercedes and Melchior. Everywhere the blood from their mouths drips onto the ground, a cluster of flowers sprout. When I look closer, I realize... they’re all poisonous.

NADIA: “They must have gone mad with Lucio’s death.”

She tugs me closer behind her, but the dogs don’t try to approach. They just haunt our steps like specters, snarling and howling.

(Edit March 22: I just realized Nadia tugs MC closer behind her after seeing the dogs. She’s putting herself between MC and perceived danger, i.e. the dogs, further reinforcing her fear of losing MC and determination to protect them against anything. But sure, she doesn’t care about MC at all and is only using them for her own power.)

None of the posts I saw discussing Nadia’s treatment of the dogs ever mentioned that this happens in the magical realms, or that Nadia and MC discuss the forest’s visions being metaphorical immediately before the dogs’ appearance. Which is a shame, because it completely removes any context of the scene and does the double whammy of demonizing Nadia. 

I guess it’s easier and faster to type out “Nadia abused Mercedes and Melchior!” over “The magical forest in the Arcana realms manifested a bloody Mercedes and Melchior [whose sprites are their pomegranate juice sprites with a little bit of blood added] as a metaphor for the line that Nadia has crossed, i.e. killing Lucio, and the possible guilt that she is either not feeling at all or is feeling and is simply pushing away so she will not have to acknowledge it.” 

But the dogs’ mere presence — they follow always at a distance, like ghosts — is enough to force her to recognize it. She remarks that they must have gone mad, and moves on. She has come too far now to doubt herself. If she looks back, if she doubts herself, she is lost, and everything will have been for naught.

Part 2.3: The High Priestess

Leaving the icy forest, Nadia and MC come upon an old pavilion, where the High Priestess and Chandra await them. MC notes that “the dogs wait [behind us], never coming closer.” Further evidence that the dogs are metaphorical visions, not actually Mercedes & Melchior. 

THE HIGH PRIESTESS: “You’ve strayed far from the path, child.”

NADIA: “High Priestess. What are you doing here?”

THE HIGH PRIESTESS: “I was calling to you. Did you not hear?”

NADIA: “I have been quite busy, High Priestess. I did not have time to answer.”

Nadia’s personal card is The High Priestess. Reversed, the High Priestess means one is ignoring their own intuition and/or subconscious, to their detriment. In Asra’s Book X, Nadia states that her intuition is more like a curse than a gift, which certainly echoes here in the meaning of the High Priestess, Reversed: “Perhaps you doubt yourself or feel silly or guilty for listening to your intuition, and as a result, you deny your ability to tune in and receive this potent information.” 

This conversation also echoes Judgement, Reversed: “The Judgement reversed often appears when the Universe is trying to send you a message and invite you to something bigger, but you’re not listening. You are doing your best to pretend you didn’t receive it and are [...] hoping it will go away.”

The conversation continues:

THE HIGH PRIESTESS: “And so I come to you. These are words you cannot ignore. If you continue down this path, Nadia, all will be lost to you. Your family. Your intuition. Your humanity.”

NADIA: “If I do nothing, I will lose it just the same.”

THE HIGH PRIESTESS: “You know there is another option. You can bind the Devil instead.”

NADIA: “What, and lose MC instead? Slap the Devil on the wrist and throw him in jail? He’ll break free eventually. What’s a thousand years to an immortal being? This is the only way. The only permanent way.”

Note she corrects herself: the only permanent way. She understands there are other alternatives, but hers is best. When the High Priestess offers a solution, binding the Devil, Nadia angrily rejects it because of the risk it poses to MC, and she is unwilling to lose MC again.

It’s important to note that, within the course of a few hours:

Nadia went with MC to confront Lucio in the in-between realms, only to watch (helplessly! a thing she detests!) as Lucio stole MC’s body. (The Devil)

Nadia woke up without MC beside her in her Contemplation Tower, not knowing what Lucio had done or what had happened to MC until she went to the ballroom. (The Devil / The Tower).

Nadia had to send MC to the magical realms for their own protection, alone, where she could not protect them or ensure their welfare (The Tower).

Nadia watched MC struggle to unbind Vlastomil, suffering in the process. MC passes out, and reversed Nadia states that MC “almost died” unbinding Vlastomil (The Moon).

That is four experiences of Nadia being unwillingly parted from MC, either through separation or through a near death experience. That is why she refused to let MC go through the maze alone in The Star. That is why she is so set on not risking MC once again with the plan to bind the Devil. The scene continues:

THE HIGH PRIESTESS: “In a thousand years there will be another like you to step up again. Why must you do everything yourself? Why must you alone fight this threat?”

NADIA: “Because I am the only one I can trust.”

Nadia turns away, anger flashing in her eyes.

NADIA: “You have wasted your time in coming here, High Priestess.”

me 24 hours ago, blissfully unaware of this conversation: mc has spent 20 chapters reinforcing that nadia is the only one nadia can trust me now: wow i hate being right :(

An essential component of the Tragic Hero’s cycle is the hero’s isolation: disgusted by or despairing of the hero’s choices, their family, friends, and allies abandon them, or the hero themself abandons their family, friends, and allies to self-isolate. In Nadia’s case, it is both. She rejects the High Priestess’s wisdom, confident in her own choices (or, at least, unwilling to show the High Priestess that she is anything but 100% confident). In doing so, she pushes the High Priestess away.

And then there’s Chandra, who lands on Nadia’s shoulder and “nips at her ear sadly.” (The tragic piano is still going strong in the background!) The High Priestess, seeing this, says that Chandra “mourns [Nadia’s] loss already.” MC notes that Nadia “swallows hard, stroking Chandra’s neck gently,” and then the following exchange happens:

NADIA: “Must I lose you too, Chandra?”

The owl chirps and flies off her shoulder, going to land next to the High Priestess instead.

NADIA: “... I see. You will come around in time. You will see how necessary this is. Until then... goodbye, my friends.”

Like the dogs, I’m inclined to believe that Chandra is a metaphor, and not the actual owl. Chandra has been with Nadia since her childhood; she is the only thing Nadia took with her, from Prakra to Vesuvia. Chandra abandoning her is another metaphor for how far Nadia has fallen: she is utterly separated from who she once was. She is now, completely, a new person, unrecognizable to her closest and longest friend.

NADIA: “I know I’m right. I know this is the only path to victory... So why won’t anyone listen to me? It feels like I’m speaking to a wall. Do they think me foolish? I’ve considered every possibility. I’ve examined every other avenue. This is the only course of action left. They think I cannot do this. They think me incompetent.”

This is after Nadia leaves the High Priestess, and before the Hierophant informs them that Valdemar and Vulgora are attacking the palace. Note the progression of her thoughts: frustration and certainty in her own decision; questioning why other people think her choice is the wrong one; re-affirming her certainty; assuming that people who do not support her plan are like that not because of any concern for her welfare, but because they doubt her capabilities. I know I am right, but no one listens to me; thus, they are not truly concerned for me — they only think I cannot do this. 

Implicitly, her thoughts that follow: Well, I am going to prove them wrong.

MC can either tell Nadia that they listen to her (to which Nadia praises MC, once again: You are special; you have always been by my side; I know I can trust you, unlike everyone else in the world), or that people who don’t listen are foolish. If the latter, Nadia agrees, saying that people who don’t listen to her end up not doing well, and cites Lucio as an example.

In either case, the exchange reinforces Nadia’s mindset, which has been shown through Nadia’s small vent: She feels as if no one is listening to her, and she is stubbornly convinced that her choice is the best one. She is frustrated that her friends and allies have turned against her, and she does not understand why, because clearly Her Choice Is Best. 

If MC says they are listening, it reinforces that MC is the only one Nadia can keep close (as close as she can allow; trust no one but yourself, after all, is her modus operandi). If MC says the others are the foolish ones, it reinforces that Nadia is Always Right, because when people don’t listen to Nadia, they end up going astray or being worse-off, which just feeds into the cycle of Nadia is Right >> People Who Don’t Listen To Her Are Wrong >> Those People Suffer or Fail >> Thus Proving Nadia Right.

Part 3: Her Sisters

For me, this was easily the most heartbreaking aspect of the book. Nadia leaves the High Priestess angry, and she and MC arrive in a vision of Lucio’s wing. Nadia remains unswayed, telling MC they must keep going (if she looks back, if she falters, she is lost!), but MC, if selecting “I think this is real,” convinces Nadia to go to the ballroom, because Nadia wonders about why her sisters and guards are not stopping the chaos. (Implied in this statement: Why are they incompetent? Why are they useless? Why does everything fall apart without me?) The music is played sped up and backwards, symbolic of how wrong things are without Nadia’s presence.

In the ballroom, MC and Nadia find Natiqa, Nasmira, and Nahara attempting to get the crowds to safety, but the crowd isn’t listening to the Satrinavas. Then Nafizah sees MC and Nadia, and the following absolutely gut-wrenching exchange occurs:

Suddenly Nafizah, who is standing off to the side of her sisters, turns her head and looks straight at us.

NAFIZAH: “Like looking through a mirror into the fog... Why are you so far from us, sister mine?”

NADIA: “You can see us? Of course you can. Why should I be surprised?”

NAFIZAH: “The others need you here. They flounder without your guidance.”

NADIA: “Need me? NEED ME?”

Nadia’s sprite when she says “Need me? NEED ME?” is not an angry sprite. It’s her laughing sprite. You can just hear the angry disbelief. NEED ME? What are you talking about? Immediately with her next line, her sprite transitions into anger.

NADIA: “Since when have any of you needed me for anything? Perfect Nafizah, always looking down your nose at me. All of you did!”

NAFIZAH: “We have only ever loved you, Nadia. As much as you have allowed. The people are in a panic. They will not listen to us. They do not respect us. You must return.”

NADIA: “I will not! All my life, none of you have ever listened to me! You always thought you knew best! I’m doing what has to be done. If I returned, it would give the true villain time to escape. I’m striking now. You will see. And don’t you dare die before I’ve proven myself.”

And don’t you dare die before I’ve proven myself. Holy shit. Cold, but understandable, when taken into the context surrounding Nadia’s relationship with her sisters.

The youngest of seven, Nadia has always felt inadequate to the rest of her sisters. That is clear even in the early route, when she worries that Nasmira will take MC away from her. She is obsessed with proving herself to her sisters. It’s why she married Lucio, to prove to her sisters that she could pull Vesuvia up by its bootstraps. Reversed, that obsession is maintained, and she has no reason to change because MC does not challenge her. 

When asking for her sisters for help in Book XIII Death, she blames the servants for the Masquerade troubles: “I have everything under control, of course. But the servants, they’ve made a mess of things.” It is not her fault that the Masquerade is not ready, it is the servants’; she has everything under control, she is perfectly adequate at hosting a party on such a grand scale. Do not blame me for these failures, sisters, blame others, it is they who are incompetent and untrustworthy, not me.

Now we have even more context for Nadia’s choice to replace the Devil. Not only does Nadia feel the need to achieve her impossible feat — defeating the Devil — for the sake of saving the world and her lover, but as the ultimate way to prove herself to her sisters. They can never consider her a vulnerable baby sister to be coddled and over-protected if she literally defeats the actual Devil.

In her Reversed route, she is still pressured to show both her sisters and herself that she is not the “baby” of the family, which she resents (see the bonus scene about Nadia’s birthday). Considering Nadia is the oldest of the cast, this is obviously a deep, deep wound that stretches back decades, if not her entire life. And MC’s choices did nothing to heal that wound, only keep it open.

Part 4: Wrap Up

Nadia in her Reversed route is a textbook tragic hero. She is a character of royalty (fulfilling antiquity’s requirement that tragic heroes be noble of some sort, because nobility’s fall is always more tragic than a commoner’s); she seeks to accomplish an impossible feat; she isolates herself from her allies, friends, and family; she has a fatal flaw, which is her hubris, aka her conviction that she is in the right no matter what. We have had 20 books of buildup leading to this: the climax of her negative character development. All that remains is the denouement (aka, defeating and replacing the Devil.)

I have every expectation that she will succeed in her impossible feat, but the consequences will be catastrophic. Perhaps she will have to (however unwillingly) isolate herself from MC forever. MC might even become the Fool Arcana to join her, but that is no guarantee that they could actually be together. The Arcana are meant to stay in their separate realms, after all.

The devs promised a bittersweet ending, or a tragic romance. Nadia’s route fulfills both, because the ending is focused on MC and their relationship to their LI, not necessarily the reader’s favorite character, which may hypothetically be a relatively minor antagonist relative to the rest of the route.

Part 5: Last Thoughts

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[aithne]

(Illume) In Deep Water

Reiko leaned on the ship's railing, staring out at the water sliding by, the sun sinking into the western sky. She had an unhappy frown on her face, the line between her brows telling the story of her mood far better than any words. Every so often, she reached up and touched her neck, remembering the feeling of the assassin's blade cutting through it. She had been stunned but not insensible when Takako had tried to use her as a human shield. Unable to move or act, she had been helpless to even employ her own defense of last resort, though she had frantically tried, locked inside her own head.

Another life down. And now I have to start planning in earnest for my own death. Because the last one must be my choice, if it's to happen at all. She wrestled with the thought, trying to come to terms with the idea of voluntarily choosing to end her own life. I'll have to set all of the spirits free, release them back into life. Setto last, of course. But it will mean that I will be without them at the end.

It was a desperately lonely thought. Would they stay with her, given new bodies and a new chance at life, to make up for the lives she'd stolen from them? Or, freed, would they take the chance to live their lives without her?

They are not mine, no matter how much I pretend. They are their own. That understanding had been hard-won, a difficult thing for someone who had spent hundreds of years understanding love simply as possession. She still didn't think she quite had a grasp on it. I remember being convinced of my own invincibility, so certain that anyone who knew me would love me, and they would be mine. But it was all based on a lie. Those who know me for what I am may respect me, be friendly to me, but they do not automatically love me.

Her thoughts were wandering down a path well-trod in the past few weeks. They were interrupted by a step behind her that she had come to know well recently; Jeron's light tread, the Thrykreen general who had saved her life a week before. She turned her head and gave him a small smile. "Jeron. Come to enjoy the sunset?"

"It's lovely tonight. But I was actually going to inquire after your health. Are you all right?"

"As well as I can be, in body, at least. My mind is another story, but isn't that always the case? At least, to hear our human companions speak."

"I think they merely misunderstand you. Your frame of reference is strange to them."

"That much, I fear, is obvious." She sighed, and stared out over the water. Abruptly, seemingly without context, she asked, "Jeron, how old are you?"

The Thrykreen blinked, taken aback by the question. "Old as my kind figures time, lady."

"Old enough that we may lose you soon?" Reiko knew that the Thrykreen lived, usually, no longer than three years.

He shook his head, laughing a little. "No, you don't need to worry about that. I have a long time left before I die. But why do you ask?"

She searched for an answer that might make sense. Because I don't want to grow attached to you only to have you die of old age next month. "Just...an idle thought, was all. I suppose it seems sad to me that your kind has such a short lifespan. But I have to say that immortality doesn't seem like all that much of a blessing to me, at the moment."

He looked over at her, separated by a bare three feet of space. He was blatantly violating the seven-foot rule, but as she didn't seem to be protesting, there he stayed. "No, it can be a burden, I suppose. But it should make you happy that their lifespan is so short, less time for them to hunt you down."

Reiko rubbed her neck once more. "I fear the Thrykreen. But I don't hold a grudge against them. That's reserved for the one who set them in motion."

"Ah, yes. The Demonbane. Savior and devil, rolled into one."

"The sad part is that, given the chance to free him of his hatred without killing him, I would. I suppose the ties of blood run deeper than I thought. I haven't thought of a way to do that, not yet, at least. I'm still working on it."

Jeron shrugged. "His spells are most complex. But I have yet to see one that cannot be unraveled."

"That would take a mage equal to his strength." She wound a lock of midnight hair around her fingers, fidgeting thoughtfully. "Arenro's currently the only one I know of. And he'd sooner spit me than look at me. And I don't know if there's anything that will quell the Demonbane's mad hatred. I don't really want to kill him. But if I must, I will."

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the tall Thrykreen. The setting sun turned his gold hair almost russet, and she remembered touching him, the energy that coursed over his skin. She wanted to touch him again, to see if that had been a figment of her imagination. But she forbore. She didn't know how he would react to the familiarity.

"Mages that strong are few and far between. But soon you will have one. Winter and that orb are pushing Tadaki beyond what he would normally have been capable of. In a few short years, he will become Demonbane's rival. He now controls all the Thrykreen, putting the Demonbane at a severe disadvantage."

She tilted her head, considering this information. "I suppose, if I asked very nicely, Tadaki could order all the Thrykreen to stop hunting kitsune, couldn't he?"

The Thrykreen nodded at her. "Yes, he could."

"I'll work on him. Tadaki can be reasonable, sometimes, but he gets stubborn about the strangest things--and he doesn't actually like me all that much. And I can only hope that I'm going to survive the next few years. If I can, there's hope. But I've died twice in the last two months. This does not bode well."

"Not at all well. Not for you, or the rest of the kitsune, I fear." There was genuine regret in his voice. Reiko thought, he sounds as if he truly sorrows at the idea of kitsune passing from the world. How extraordinary.

Without even thinking about it, she sidled a bit closer to him, the better to see his face. "Since I appear to be the only one free and able to act, as far as we know. If there are any more, they are all in deep hiding. Perhaps if they stop being hunted, they may not need to stay so far in hiding."

He looked down at her; Reiko found that she had come very close indeed to him. Less than a foot seperated them. "I would work very hard on Tadaki. He has become the kitsune's salvation, though I doubt very much he has thought of it."

She ducked her head, biting her lip. "I haven't quite worked out how to get these people to look past the fact that I am, by their lights, a demon. Gryphon's the only one who doesn't seem to care, and maybe Haku. I keep hoping they'll get used to me, but no luck yet."

The temptation was, at last, too great for the kitsune to resist. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. The energy coursing under his skin was still there, she noticed, and she prevented herself from reaching for it. He said, his voice perhaps a trifle unsteady, "If one Thrykreen can look past the demon and see the woman underneath...how much farther can the others be behind?"

As she glanced up into his eyes, startled by that last statement, he covered her hand with his.

And light happened.

The energy that poured into her was like nothing she'd ever felt, a thousand orgasms flowing into her, hot and sweet and thick. Jeron's eyes flared with light, or perhaps she fell upwards into them, surrounding her with blue.

It lasted only a moment. It lasted forever. When Reiko finally came back to herself, she found that she was weak-kneed, clutching the rail with her free hand to prevent herself from falling. With a gasp, she pulled her hand from him, fear coursing in the wake of pleasure.

"I--oh. What was that? What did you do to me?" Her own scent, the tang of her arousal, surrounded her as her body reacted to the energy that had flowed into her. Her heart beat fast, fluttering against her ribcage. What was that, and will you do it again, Jeron?

Briefly, she saw the look in his eyes, a swift wanting that was quickly shuttered. "It is how I am made," he admitted. "Demonbane built the energy into us, to make us appear more human. He had at one point believed that it would be fun to make the kitsune attempt to take us to bed and when they thought they have drained us, for us to take their lives. The energy is a mirage in some. Something that draws the kitsune but can't really be fed upon. In some, like myself, it is real, able to sustain a kitsune indefinitely without causing me harm. Sometimes, the energy builds up, and I must discharge it. As I just did, into you."

She smiled, the flutter of her heart beginning to calm. "That's part of what makes you different, then. You are free to do that to me any time, Jeron. It was most pleasant. Startling, but pleasant. Next time, I won't be so surprised." She paused, suspicions once more entering her mind. "Are you certain that the only reason that my father sent you was because you questioned him?"

"It is the only reason he gave me. He may have other intentions for my appearance here, but none that he voiced." He was still watching her intently, as if to gauge her reactions. She wondered, suddenly, if he was as nervous as she was, if he too felt as if he were standing on the edge of some precipice, pondering stepping out to see if the air would hold him.

"I apologize if I seem suspicious. I have lately learned that very little that comes from my father comes without a price."

His mouth quirked into a wry smile. "Don't apologize, Reiko. I too have suspicions."

"Of me, or of the Demonbane?" She shrugged. "Me, I am what I am."

"Demonbane. His motivations are ambiguous at best. He loves you and he hates you."

She chuckled. "And he can't leave me alone, it seems. It's really far too late for me to protest that none of this is my fault, I'm afraid."

"I fear that he tests you and maybe both of us. But I don't know what the questions are." His hand moved restlessly on the polished wood of the rail, as if by his motions he could rub it smooth as glass.

Reiko's voice was soft, a sorrow creeping into it. "I sometimes wish I knew what he wanted from me. I only learned he even existed less than three months ago. And he has known of me, if not actually known me, for five centuries."

"I believe he wants to know if you are simply a demon as he used to see you, or if you have become something more. And if that's something he could call a daughter."

Her laugh was almost a bark, a note without mirth. "That, Jeron, is a question to which I myself don't know the answer yet. I am not what I used to be, but I'm not sure what exactly I am now."

His smile was soft, those arresting blue eyes seeking and holding hers once more. "Without meaning offense, lady. A beautiful human woman."

Unaccountably, the kitsune blushed. "No offense taken. Though you seem to see something in me that nobody else does, at this point. I am not entirely human. But I may, in fact, be human enough..."

"There is very little difference anymore. The benefit of being kitsune was the lack of guilt, and that benefit has been erased. But has another benefit been added to take its place? You have to wonder."

She was playing with her hair again. She couldn't quite decide what to do with her hands. "Well, already those I travel with trust me more than they would have otherwise. I can be honest about what I am with them. Mostly, at least." She added, "Humanity feels very strange. It's a condition that I haven't quite gotten used to."

"I can relate. We are both outcasts, in a way. Do you love more strongly now or before?"

The question was odd, and she took a few seconds to think it over before she replied. "Can you hold love in a bowl, or a cup, or carry it like water? I don't know if I love more or less, now. But it is different. Love, for me, used to be about possession. Setto changed that for me, a bit. Now, it's a much more complex thing. I find myself with conflicting motives, and doing things detrimental to my own survival, for love. I suppose you might say that I love more strongly, yes."

"I have seen you go into battle, looking to save the lives of your friends. No kitsune that I have ever seen before or probably will again would ever do such a thing. Love has changed you. And with love comes redemption. Maybe that is what the Demonbane is after."

"Perhaps. And perhaps not." She shifted, pulling her kimono more tightly closed against the breeze which was freshening with the oncoming night. "We're both neither one thing or the other, aren't we? But both, it seems, probably more human than not."

Jeron had returned his gaze to the last remnants of the setting sun. "More than we may wish, Reiko."

His reply made her raise an eyebrow. "What about you? Did the Demonbane change you, as well? Or did he do something else?"

"The magic that he used to make what we are is fading. With each generation we step closer back to the original, but we are still changed."

"What were you like, before he got his hands on you? You defeated the Warresh, is all I know."

He kept his gaze out over the water. Reiko wondered if he was reminded even now of the sea he had floated in before his birth. "After the war with the Warresh, humans loved us and we lived very peacefully with them. But some decided that if the Warresh could go bad, then so could their conquerors. They started slowly. One of us disappears, then another and finally whole villages gone. No clue who is doing it. By the time we knew, we were so few that we couldn't sustain a population. Demonbane collected what was left of us and repopulated. Then the experiments began. Stronger, meaner, driven to kill kitsune."

"So you're going back to being what you were. The question still remains, though. I have to wonder if there's enough room in this world for people like you and me. Those I travel with seem to think of kitsune as remnants of a different, older world."

"Yes, expendable to the new world. But you had a purpose, otherwise why were you created? Do you know what that purpose was?"

That was in itself an uncomfortable question. "I don't know why we were created. But I know that we have served humans even as we have taken from them; going among them in secret, bringing pieces of true beauty to them. We were muses, once, even our animal kindred were the subject of endless stories and poetry and paintings. But I don't know why. I would have to ask our gods, I suppose, and they have not yet deigned to speak to me."

"Do you speak to them?" He'd turned back to her, looking down at her thoughtful face.

She paused, listening to her own heartbeat, remembering. "No. Not really, not for a long time. I know all the forms, of course, but I speak much more often to the spirits of the world surrounding me than to the First Foxes. I do not recall them ever replying when I spoke to them, but I have forgotten much."

"Maybe you should try sometime. Maybe you should not look at the kitsune dying as problem but as an opportunity to make a new race. There might be a reason that two kitsune such as yourself have been made. Maybe to take you back to the old ways, rather than what most have become."

Reiko slipped her hand into her pocket, her fingers finding her kitsune ball, taking comfort in its solid presence. From anyone else, these questions would have been too unnerving to stand, and here she was calmly discussing them with Jeron. "Maybe. Perhaps we were not meant to kill, in the beginning. I remember a story about the first kitsune. She was a mere fox, but she saw a human man and fell in love with him. And her love made her more than what she was, but still not quite human."

"Maybe you were meant to give pleasure, to show that beauty and art had a place in the world and maybe you were meant to help them through the centuries to become better."

She said slowly, "I know that over the centuries, we have become different. Maybe, once, all kitsune were like me, troubled by consciences. somewhere, we lost that. Perhaps we abandoned it, or perhaps it was removed by someone on purpose. Someone who thought we would make efficient killers."

"I would look no farther than Funitsu for that answer."

She raised an eyebrow. "The Scorpion, you think? The Black Hand in particular, I suppose. Kitsune assassins would be most useful to them."

"They are among the oldest of families, tracing their lines back to before the current calendar. If anyone would know, it would be them."

"I'll have to learn some Scorpion history from our arrogant Lord, I suppose. Though that arrogance has been better channeled, lately. I would be surprised if he knew, but perhaps he could find out." She untangled her hand from her hair and tapped the railing thoughtfully. "But if he knows...it could explain the fact that, except for Tadaki, he's the one who most sees the demon in me and not the person."

"He has his ways to find such information. He is Lord Soshi after all. and if he refuses, there is Lady Tomika. Strange as she is."

"She is a puzzle, isn't she? A frightening lady, but herself, I think, a bit undone by love. Even if our Lord Soshi is mostly oblivious. Alas, the only way I could think of to help that is an idea that is...somewhat morally shaky, and I find myself with distaste for it, oddly enough. I will let those two work it out."

Jeron's voice was oddly soft. "He loves, I think. Just not her."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yukiko, do you think? He is certainly at his most charming when she is around."

"Maybe, and maybe you. But his thoughts and concerns are always about his half sister. His love for her outweighs anything right now. He doesn't understand how she could have turned against him. They were close, so I have overheard."

She shook her head in pity for the recently minted Lord Soshi. "They were. She was the family favorite, and he spent years missing her. And to find that she has surfaced, only to be on the other side? I am not certain anything in his life has prepared him for that."

"No do I. But maybe you have something more in common that you like to believe." Those crystal eyes met hers again, summer-sky blue, the twilight deepening their color to midnight.

A thought flitted through Reiko's mind and was gone. He will always be able to undo me with those eyes.

Her voice carried just the slightest tinge of pity. "Both of us, in a sense, newly awakened and confused." She hesitated, remembering her responsibiities, reluctantly moving into action. "I am sorry, Jeron, but my evening meditations call me. I must go."

"I understand, Reiko. I have duties to attend to, myself." He began to turn away from her.

Deliberately, this time, she put her hand on his arm, stopping him. She reached up, laying one small hand on the side of his face. And in the silence of that moment, she made a decision that had been awaiting her for more than a week, since she had first spoken to him at length and he soon after had saved her life. "Jeron...afterwards, if you'd like...you know where my cabin is."

And she brought his head down to hers, standing on her own tiptoes, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Even that touch was enough to sear her, almost enough to make her forget that they both had places to be. After she broke the kiss, landing once more on her heels, she felt a flush creeping up her body. Afraid to stay a moment longer, feeling really rather peculiar indeed, she walked quickly away, towards the bow of Shrike and her usual meditation spot.

When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Jeron, seemingly rooted to the spot, watching her go.

----------

Deep in her meditation, Setto was pacing before her, the newly released Miss M lounging in midair, Tsuyoshi investigating how a nearby winch worked, muttering about "biological constructs". Zhane and Kei danced together to music only they could hear, ignoring Reiko.

Rei, how could you? You know how dangerous he is. He belongs to the Demonbane. And he is a Thrykreen.

"I know, Setto. And, somehow, that makes very little difference."

Tell me, Rei, will you still be as passionate about him once you see his mantid form? You know what that human exterior hides.

"And he knows what mine hides. It may make no difference. I may find his mantid form beautiful because I find him beautiful. I may be disgusted by it. I will cross that river when I get there."

And if the Demonbane orders him to kill you, he will obey. What then?

She breathed deeply, her husband's question touching her own disquieting fear. She looked within herself, asking herself the question, listening for the answer.

Unexpectedly, it came.

"Then I die, Setto, by the hand of one who I may by then have come to love. If that fate is mine, I will accept it. Not gladly, but I will. Remember, you seemed to think it preferable to even a death in battle." She breathed in, and said, "If his hand is the one destined to still my heart, then so be it."

Setto shook his head but didn't reply. And they sat there as the summer stars appeared overhead, the wind ruffling the kitsune's hair, the samurai's spirit sitting with his wife, both of their faces turned towards the heavens.

[queenofnohr]

Ok so as a brief departure from OC ramblings, tonight I’m gonna talk about Sekiro’s ending(s) and why they were........... not bad, but a little bit of a letdown for me personally? Spoilers abound for anyone who cares about that.

If any of y’all’s interest was piqued at my Genichiro DLC of dreams this might be a good thing to read to see where I’m coming from before I get into that (I also felt the need to make this before I could post anything about what I had planned for the DLC of Dreams).

ANYWAY. (spoiler tag because I talked too much as per usual)

It’s been a couple months so I finally feel, I guess, good about talking about Sekiro’s ending and Genichiro’s role re:the ending since it seemed, from a cursory glance, to be a bit of a Thing back when the game first came out.

For those unaware, the debate went more or less “I’m disappointed because I wanted the final showdown with Genichiro to be better” vs. “Genichiro was supposed to be easy because it’s supposed to cement that he’s a punk-ass bitch who needs gramps to help out”

And...... obviously I’m biased, but I think there’s room for interpretation on how Genichiro is supposed to be read throughout the narrative (certainly, part of the ENTIRE NARRATIVE is “the people and establishments you thought were the biggest and baddest (aka Ashina as a whole) are actually big fish in a small pond and currently wayyyyyyy out of their depth”) but I’m not actually here to debate whether he’s supposed to be “strong” or not.

What I’m saying is, as the final fight stands, he isn’t desperate enough. I understand why they essentially didn’t change his boss fight - Isshin is the true final boss and they wanted this cinematic seamless flow between Genichiro and Isshin, and if Genichiro was too hard or too different, it would’ve been a pain in the ass, even for a FromSoft game. Still, Genichiro’s unchanged moveset is a huge disappointment on two fronts:

1. He has a reused moveset in a game where 2 other major bosses have largely reused movesets (Guardian Ape and Corrupted Monk) with some added gimmicks thrown in (I’ll give the True Monk’s third form a pass since that did legitimately change it up, although the other two phases are more or less the same (no, her shadow clone intermission does not count))

2. Even if the takeaway you get from him isn’t that he’s supposed to be “powerful,” if anything, the game consistently frames him as desperate. The fact that he can’t use his lightning, his Mortal Blade strikes are just some of his regular moves with added range that don’t even do anything extra, and he doesn’t even pull out his bow even though that’s his defining feature and definitely one of the trickier aspects of his moveset (not to mention the thing he is in-game known for - c’mon people, it’s even in his name) just..... does the exact opposite of giving him that feeling of desperation. He’s an easy fight, he doesn’t even pull out all the stops, and then he hands it off to gramps after what feels like nothing more than a light tussle. For FromSoft, whom I trust with my life with storytelling through gameplay, it feels like a ball dropped even if Isshin is there afterward.

As an aside, I’ll also add in that I really liked how Bloodborne handled its multiple endings. That is, how each ending was punctuated by a different final boss depending on your decisions/what ending you got. Even though the Moon Presence is definitely easier than German, I feel it’s still a battle that leaves a satisfying impact to lead into the true/secret/at the very least hardest ending to get.

In Sekiro, a lot of things are mirrored between each other. We have all the forms of immortality that might stem from the same thing, but are fundamentally different in their mechanics (and all bad in their own ways), we have different types of waters with corrupting influence (Rejuvenating Waters, Fountainhead waters), and even our main characters reflect each other (Okami, Emma, and Genichiro were all orphaned sometime during or very soon after the rebellion, adopted by some of the greats, and have a kind of legacy to uphold).

And, on the last note, the game goes out of its way to have Genichiro mirror Okami, right down to him receiving a Mortal Blade of his own. He also punctuates each phase of the game; The Iconic Sekiro scene is the showdown with him among the silvergrass, his fight atop Ashina castle is more or less when you learn How To Play The Game if you’d simply been geetting by however (like I did lol), and all the details leading up to the end - the cutscene right after you beat him, eavesdropping on Isshin and Emma, the Black Mortal Blade, the time of day slowly changing with the anticipation building for that final showdown under the moonlight among the silvergrass once more..... - make for what at least Should Have Been another punctuation, even if he isn’t necessarily the final boss. But for all they talk of him shedding his humanity, for all Isshin and Emma show both concern and (at least in Isshin’s case) almost admiration/respect (we’ll go into their complicated relationship another day) for his resolve to throw everything away for Ashina, the gameplay takes all of it and throws it out with his mediocre showing. It doesn’t even feel like a bait-and-switch of which good ones have some foreshadowing, some bent to know what will ultimately happen even if it angles hard in another direction (so, when it happens you’re stuck mouth agape holding your head in your hands just like “OF COURSE!!!! I SHOULDVE SEEN IT COMING!!!!), but this..... doesn’t do that. All the information we get goes in one direction - the only thing that’s a giveaway is his association with Ashina itself - but even then, we see Ashina grow desperate, we see Nightjar take the Rejuvenating Waters (and the awful, awful descriptions of their “custom” Bite Downs), we see the Ashina Elite below Isshin’s room apologize to him and take it as well, we see the last stand of Ashina ashigaru, we see soldiers who once stood against us begging us to save their fellows - and we see none of that from Genichiro.

The thing is, I don’t think he needs to be difficult to be able to have impact.

Before getting into his fixes, I’ll note what I did like because, under certain circumstances, I do enjoy the ending in its most vanilla form.

That is, Genichiro having a lackluster fight, admitting his own shortcoming, and taking off his own head to bring back gramps to both metaphorically and literally bring Ashina back from the dead is actually.......... really, really good and - dare I say - Cinematic Poetry........ but only in regards to the Purification Ending. Because he and Okami remain mirrored - Okami refuses to allow the cycles that have persisted to continue and has it end with him as he sacrifices himself to save Kuro. The reason the ending feels too easy aside from Genichiro’s actual gameplay mechanics is because there’s all his talk of shedding humanity, all the talk of Shura...... But him admitting his own shortcomings and passing the torch to someone else is extremely....... human? It’s not that it’s not desperate, necessarily, but it’s so..... controlled. Those are not the actions of a man who downed stuff that would potentially drive him mad and consume him with rage and make him unable to tell friend from foe for the sake of saving the very same people that would be put at risk from his potential madness. But I like it in the context of the Purification ending because Okami himself becomes more human in sacrificing himself, and so it fits that Genichiro would wrangle his humanity in some small way and behead himself, just as Okami does, to save what he loves most.

Even so, I still think that the fight that in the fight that comes beforehand he should at least pull out all the stops, even if it means cutting down his health and/or posture bar to make the fight less obnoxious. (Although the other option is literally just........ don’t make the player fight Genichiro again if they beat him. Just have Isshin there already.)

As for other endings......... I’ll detail the Dragon’s Homecoming Ending in my DLC of dreams post because that, at least, is highly dependent on that lore. But for the Severance ending? That end is all about cycles being repeated, falling prey to what you commit yourself to even if you have to “shed your humanity” for it. Kuro is the only thing it seems like Okami truly cares about, and yet because he is duty bound to follow his lord’s orders no matter what, he kills a part of himself along with Kuro when he performs the Severance. Kuro represents his humanity - their bond is the only way Okami does have different endings to pursue should he indulge that humanity. And so, for Genichiro....... why not have him commit himself fully to becoming a monster? He doesn’t necessarily have to be strong/difficult, but seeing that transformation is key. In fact, give him 5 health bars and make the last three easy as sin. Have him buckle down and commit himself to this even though some part of him knows it won’t work, because he doesn’t know any other way to be. Have him die pitifully, in disgrace, as the player takes out his third health bar, and before he can land a hit in, his fourth, and before he can even get up, take his fifth. Have him desperately becoming more monstrous as his body won’t allow him to die, to no real difference. Land the final blow with the mortal blade while he’s writhing on the ground, willing himself to get up. If he was supposed to be pitiful, if his decision to throw everything away was supposed to be pathetic, with a miserable showing, then make him pitiful. Don’t make him easy. Make him the sorry sight he’s supposed to be.

[goforwardgreenwriter-blog]

The Worm Reads: Kingdom of Ash, Excerpt

I’m sick of The Assassin’s Blade and I just saw the news that SJM released some Kingdom of Ass content, so I’m gonna review the new excerpt just for you guys. Let’s fucking do this, SJM.

The Prince

This is the title to the... prologue of K0A, I assume? It’s sad that I had to pause and think of who this was referring to considering almost every main character in T0G is royalty.

He had been hunting for her since the moment she was taken from him. His mate.

Yay, if it isn’t our beloved Rowboat! /s

Also love how ~his mate~ is supposed to be all dramatic and omg so epic11 but like, it’s such a dumb fucking word to use for romantic partners. “His wife” would work so much better and wouldn’t sound as stupid as his mate.

He barely remembered his own name. And only recalled it because his three companions spoke it while they searched for her across violent and dark seas, through ancient and slumbering forests, over storm-swept mountains already buried in snow.

1. Why can’t he remember his own name? Is he suffering short term memory loss?

2. Who the fuck are his three companions? I assume it’ll be explained in the novel, but if you’re releasing an excerpt for people to read and get hyped to buy the full novel, you can’t leave us confused and unclear. At least just namedrop them or give us some indication as to who they are.

3. Holy dramatic prose, Batman! Yeah yeah I know SJM is trying to show us what lengths Rowboat is going to in an attempt to find his wife fuck you I’m not saying mate but this is so melodramatic and reeks of shitty prose.

He stopped long enough to feed his body and allow his companions a few hours of sleep. Were it not for them, he would have flown off, soared far and wide.

Please do. In fact, soar so far away you never fucking come back.

But he would need the strength of their blades and magic, would need their cunning and wisdom before this was through. Before he faced the dark queen who had torn into his innermost self, stealing his mate long before she had been locked in an iron coffin.

This writing is sooo bad holy fuck, it’s just confusing and choppy. Also, the dark queen is Maeve... how did she supposedly steal Alien before she locked her into the iron coffin? I guess it’s just ~2deep4u~ symbolism or some garbage.

So he stayed with his companions, even as the days passed. Then the weeks. Then months. Still he searched. Still he hunted for her on every dusty and forgotten road.

I hope to god this doesn’t imply a huge time skip between E0S and K0A. The world is trapped in a war rn, you can’t be cutting away from this shit, SJM! A lot can happen in war in a few months especially if a major player such as Alien has vanished from the main roster!

And sometimes, he spoke along the bond between them, sending his soul on the wind to wherever she was held captive, entombed. I will find you.

Remember how in E0S, that “nameless is my price” quote was repeated literally hundreds of times because SJM thinks shoehorning in a quote again and again makes it meaningful? I can already tell it’s gonna be like that for “I will find you” in K0A.

The Princess

Second part of the prologue (???) I find it odd that Alien is The Princess now considering all her ass kissers made it very clear in E0S that they considered her a queen.

The iron smothered her. It had snuffed out the fire in her veins, as surely as if the flames had been doused.

This sentence is redundant, as surely as redundant as a sentence could be.

She could hear the water, even in the iron box, even with the iron mask and chains adorning her like ribbons of silk.

This imagery is very odd. I think SJM wants us to picture how painful and tight her chains are, but ribbons of silk makes me think of very soft and comforting textures. If she’s tied up with silk, her torture surely can’t be that bad!

So in case it isn’t obvious, Alien is still trapped in the iron coffin. Nothing happens in this scene per say, it’s just Alien vomiting up exposition and 2deep4u feelings, so let’s examine what we have.

A sliver of island in the heart of a mist-veiled river, little more than a smooth slab of rock amid the rapids and falls. That’s where they’d put her. Stored her. In a stone temple built for some forgotten god.

So like... what was Maeve’s goal? She just wants Alien to suffer? She’s not trying to torture her for information, use her as hostage or bait for anyone? Is Maeve just going to be a 1 dimensional baddie so we can splooge over how tortured and pained Alien is?

As she would likely be forgotten. It was better than the alternative: to be remembered for her utter failure. If there would be anyone left to remember her. If there would be anyone left at all.

The choppiness of the paragraphs makes me cringe. Doing this once or twice for emphasize is a-okay, it’s one of my favorite writing tools to use, but holy shit not every paragraph!!! Was this book edited?

She would not allow it. That failure. She would not tell them what they wished to know.

So, is them referring to Maeve and her goonies? What is Maeve trying to get out of her? The Wyrdkeys are not brought up at all in this section, so idk what else Maeve would want from Alien?

“But Liv!” I hear you cry. “This is just an excerpt! Surely the final book will hold all the answers!”

Well, my friend my pal my home slice bread slice dawg, for one you have waaaaay too much confidence in SJM. For another, this excerpt was deliberately chosen to serve as a preview for the novel to get readers invested. We should be intrigued by what secrets the books have to offer, not blatantly given shit out of context that makes literally no sense and hurts to read.

She had tried to keep track of the days. But she did not know how long they had kept her in that iron box. How long they had forced her to sleep, lulled into oblivion by the sweet smoke they’d poured in while they traveled here.

I’m side eyeing SJM super hard here. I s2g if K0A starts with a huge ass time skip...

Days, months, years - they bled together, as her own blood often slithered over the stone floor and into the river itself

Also also, if she’s bleeding that much, how the fuck is she not dead? Immortal Fae queen yeah yeah whatever, but the Fae still bleed and can die from blood loss, as Rowboat clearly showed when he was shot in Q0S. Unless Maeve is regularly taking Alien out of her iron coffin to heal her wounds, Alien should be dead by now. This is such bullshit.

A princess who was to live for a thousand years. Longer. That had been her gift. It was now her curse.

That last bit is about us. We’re the ones who have to suffer the no doubt countless sequels that will be written to milk this franchise dry.

She wondered if that goddess of light and flame even cared that she now lay trapped within the iron box - or if the immortal had transferred her attentions to another. To the king who might offer himself in her stead and in yielding his life, spare their world.

Who is this king guy she’s thinking of? Dorito? Can’t be Rowboat, he’s a prince and even if Alien pulled some last minute bullshit by marrying him, that doesn’t make Rowboat a king. He’d still be a prince since Alien is the ruling head of the kingdom.

The gods did not care who paid the debt. So she knew they would not come for her, save her. So she did not bother praying to them.

It’s me. I’m the gods. It’s a metaphor, you see, because I wouldn’t give Alien the dirt off the bottom of my shoe.

Down she would drift, deep into that darkness, into the sea of flame. Down so deep that when the whip cracked, when bone sundered, she sometimes did not feel it. Most times she did.

Ask me if I give a fuck. Also if iron resists magic, how come Alien can reach into her well of magic in the coffin, hmmm? Why doesn’t she shit out a firestorm to escape?

It was during those infinite hours that she would fix her stare on her companion. Not the queen’s hunter, who could draw out pain like a musician coaxing a melody from an instrument. But the massive white wolf, chained by invisible bonds. Forced to witness this.

Massive white wolf? Who is this referring to? Is it... Fenrys? Tbh I forget what happened to him so it may very well be.

A prince of ice and wind. A prince who had been hers, and she his. Long before the bond between their souls became known to them.

Weeks ago I might have been beyond pissed because Dorito was the prince of ice, but now they’re both fuckbois who I would gleefully watch die slow and painful deaths.

The dark queen with a spider’s smile tried to wield it against her.

SJM actually doesn’t know how words work. I cannot call her a writer anymore; she just bashes her forehead against the keyboard and publishes it, claiming it to be fantasy.

Spiders. Don’t. Smile. First fish teeth, and now fucking this???? A snake’s smile or something would’ve been better or anything but fucking “”a spider’s smile”” I’m hsdfaskhfjka

So she told herself the story. The darkness and the flame deep within her whispered it, too, and she sang it back to them. Locked in that coffin hidden on an island within the heart of a river, the princess recited the story, over and over, and let them unleash an eternity of pain upon her body.

I don’t care bye.

This excerpt is shit and suddenly I’m beginning to appreciate TAB. We’ll return to your regularly scheduled programming next time.

[thecrookedtower]

27. Sanity Within Madness

[context: night of Den of Beasts]

It was well past midnight when the master of the tower appeared in his office, Vitor was tired, but there was still much to do. He dismissed his ghouls and set off down the hall. The relief he felt to be done with this recent bit of business added a certain lightness to his steps. The letter he would send could wait until he’d cleaned up.

               Vitor produced the knife he’d used and placed it on the basin in the washroom, and though the blade and his hands appeared clean, they weren’t truly. Magic may have cleaned away much, but remnants of grime could still be felt upon the skin. Soap and water would remedy that. He poured the cool water over his hands and the knife and scrubbed until he was satisfied. Only when all traces of the deed were washed away did he dry his hands and return to his desk.              

               The wizard gathered the letter he had written and read it once more, before sealing it with wax and affixing it to the leg of his owl. He murmured the address to it, before sending it on its way. Saltmarsh was far, but luckily familiars did not tire like regular animals. The message would arrive in the early morning.  He breathed a sigh of contentment, the night was done, he could relax.

               Walking down the many steps of the spiral staircase, Vitor directed himself to the dining area where he poured two short glasses of whisky. He placed one at the empty place beside him and clinked his own glass against it before sitting down wearily in one of the wooden chairs. He sipped his drink idly but took note as an ethereal figure took shape in the seat across from him.

               Larc’s form was a translucent array of blues, the edges of which dissipated like smoke. He was a moment frozen in time, his fine robes betraying his history as they held the fashion of a distant past. Hair that was wavy and light and fell to his shoulders. It framed an angular and young face. Vitor guessed that Larc had not been much younger than himself when he met his untimely demise; the signs of which were painted upon him. He bore a gruesome hole where his heart should be. Arms crossed over his chest, Larc’s eyes beheld the wizard with the same bitterness that he often carried in his voice.

               “Good evening, Larc. I would offer you a drink, but I know it would do you little good.” Vitor breathed a tired laugh into his glass and savored the flicker of annoyance that crossed the ghost’s features. Larc did not reply with some snide remark, he only stared at Vitor as his eyes seemingly searched for some answer he could not find.

               “Can I assist you with something? I must say your lack of banter is jarring, and I worry you have something more annoying planned.” Vitor placed his glass down on the table, tracing the rim of it with a finger lazily, but his eyes never left the specter in front of him. Larc uncrossed his arms and leaned back into his seat with a sigh.

               “I cannot figure out why you did it. Your recent actions are inconsistent with your history of motivations. I will admit I am tired of trying to uncover your reasoning and have decided to simply ask you. Why did you kill Sebastian of the Dreadful Siren?”

               “Ah, you cannot fathom why I would kill my business partner. Though, given how little you think of me, I doubt it is the charge of murder that surprises you. Explain your confusion, and I will do my best to remedy it.” Vitor’s mouth curved into a smile, his blue eyes narrowing slightly.

               “Sebastian seemed to be an invaluable source of information and other resources for you, and I have known your greed and ambition to have no bounds. To kill him would be a setback to your goals, dark as they are, and you usually do not create setbacks for yourself. I sincerely doubt he had ceased to be useful; the Sea Princes are still strong in the region. From the outside, it seems like an act of stupidity to make an enemy of them and cut off a supply line. You are many things, Vitor Monteiro, but I do not think you to be wholly without wit.” The last sentence seemed almost painful for Larc to get out, and Vitor accepted the trace of a compliment with a chuckle.

               “He threatened Morcego. Told me I ought to keep a better leash on her, and that if she continued to interfere with their business, he would make trouble.” As soon as the answer left his lips, Vitor could tell that it had not pleased the ghost.

               “You killed him for her, you expect me to believe that? Her concerns about his activities never cause you to sever that relationship, you let her leave the tower before you would cast him aside. I doubt this is a symptom of remorse, I don’t think you possess the emotion.” Larc bristled.

               “You don’t have to believe me, your trust or opinion of me have never held value. I will ask this of you, what reason would I have to lie to you?” Vitor waited, but Larc was silent, so he continued.

               “Protecting Morcego has always come first, for if she perishes, my goals will mean nothing. His usefulness for advancing my ambitions ended the moment he threatened her. The price of having to find a new supplier is outweighed by the safety I secured for the woman I love.” Vitor studied Larc’s expression and found it still held notes of distrust, but there was something else there.  

               “I will admit I would sacrifice much to achieve my aspirations, but never her. I am not the heartless monster you paint me as, though perhaps with your own lack of a heart you are simply projecting.” The wizard gestured to the wound in Larc’s chest, and it seemed this jest would be the thing that finally broke Larc’s silence. The ghost slammed his fist onto the table, and the room went cold.

               “Enough, you snake of a man. I have more than enough reasons to expect deceit and cruelty from you!” Larc hissed with a quiet and strained fury. Vitor was unruffled, and mostly curious. It was almost unheard of for Larc to lose his composure and give way to such an emotional outburst.

               “Tell me then of your reasons, then. As far as I can tell, you have despised me since the day I set foot in this tower.” Vitor cocked his head slightly and took a sip of whisky. Larc had hinted to his reasons before, but the necromancer wanted to hear them in full. Perhaps he was going mad if he sought to hear of Larc’s woes, but he suspected he just missed having a conversation partner.

               “I knew a man like you once, and trusted him,” the fire seemed to leave Larc, his posture slumped. “Like you, I was a scholar. I found tutelage under a mage of great power, and though people cautioned that his studies were dark, and that necromancy was an art that only held evil, I did not listen. I offered him my servitude for his teachings, and for years I worked under him, learning all manner of magic.”  

               “He had the same greed that grips your heart and searched for power and life beyond his mortal reaches. And as I fear you will, he succeeded. On the night that he would seize his success I was there, helping him with the ritual that would give him what he sought. As the preparations were nearly finished, he brought me near to him, and thanked me for my service. He cut the heart from my chest and used it to secure his immortality. I had only ever been a tool to him and was naïve to think otherwise,” the last sentence of Larc’s story was told in a quiet softness.

               “You were not graced with a kind master, and for that I pity you.” Vitor’s words were earnest and given with a gentleness that he had never shown the spirit.

               “I do not need your pity, you who came here seeking to learn the depraved arts he left behind. You follow his footsteps far better than I ever could.”

               “I am not him, and Morcego will not meet any such fate at my hands. She is not a tool to me; I will not harm her.”  The compassion was gone in Vitor’s voice, replaced with a venom that matched Larc’s.

               “I would never let you harm her.” Larc promised.

“And why is that Larc? Because you love her?” Vitor challenged, not expecting Larc’s silence and expression to reveal the truth of what he had just exposed. The wizard laughed at the realization.

“Oh, you poor ghost. Perhaps your hatred of me is born also of jealously. You are so clouded that you forget: I have only ever protected her, while it is you that made her heart stop all those years ago. Do not think for a moment that I will forgive you for the danger you put her in on that day.”

               To that, Larc had no response. The spirit looked as if he had been kicked and sat motionless as Vitor knocked back the rest of his whisky and rose to leave the table.  

               “Good night Larc, do not interrupt my studies tomorrow.”  

[alluratron]

How much of my s5 wishlist did i get?

This is just my wishlist as I posted it before with stuff I got bolded. sub points are current discussion

AKA a list of things I’d like to see and theories I want confirmed in the upcoming season(s).

more info on operation kuron. i’d like more hints at what kuron is or even full on confirmation that s3/s4 shiro is a clone.

i mean really we weren't not gonna get anything on this but i'm so fucking happy that we've been validated that kuron is different than shiro and even the characters notice it

a genuine moment between allura and lotor. they’ve both lost their home planets, after all. lotor twice over.

tbf we don't know how genuine lotor was being but even if his intentions are not, the dialogue seemed very much so at times, especially the stuff about honerva and that planet zarkon put him in charge of so i'll take it

lotor’s backstory. when tf was he born??? he knows honerva was his mother, but doesn’t seem to connect her with haggar. hell, haggar didn’t even know about honerva. so, was lotor born before the war? is he 10,000 years old? why does he look so young? was he frozen somehow? why are his eyes blue???? what is up with this guy????

ZOMBIE BABY HAHAHAHAHA. also he's centuries old and he's still alive bc the rift made him immortal(?) like haggar i guess. and he's like....an artificial sacred altean like haggar??

lotor double crosses team voltron. i don’t want him to be an anti-hero. i want him to be undeniably a villain, even if he does have genuine aspects to him. less zuko, more azula (in that we understand that azula is a product of her upbringing, but still evil nonetheless).

not yet but i still strongly believe this will come

allura’s magic. i always want more of allura’s magic. i want to learn more about sacred alteans and why allura is seemingly more powerful than what’s normal even for sacred alteans.

i mean, it was more acquired alchemy than inherent magic but there was still some inherent magic so im not complaining too much. shes still special so :')

the white lion theory. in s4 ep3, acxa says that the two sincline (i see what they did there) ships used 60% of the comet and there’s more than enough left to make the third ship. this extra comet material is definitely going to come into play somehow. it’s likely going to become the head of the sincline ships but i’d love if it became the white lion and allura piloted it. not that i think allura has to be a paladin to be valuable, but she seems to want to be one (and i just want my bb to be happy so yknow).

i mean we got a white lion, just not in the way i anticipated lol. i'm still holding out hope for a robot white lion from the extra comet material tho

keith’s heritage to be revealed. how galra is he? who is his mother?? can we meet her??? we know she was a blade but i want to know how she ended up on earth. it’d make sense if she was half galra half altean/polluxian.

ok so his heritage wasnt revealed per se but WE MET HIS MOM!!!! krolia literally looks like purple keith lmao. i expect that we'll hear the story of how she met his dad next season. also she looks mixed race. here's a post i made on why i believe she's half polluxian

yeah okay so i really think keith is part altean/polluxian. i need an explanation as to why he looks so damn human and that one fits for me.

i also really need to know why the hell keith could sense the blue lion. it’s been 39 episodes give me some answers @lauren @jds @entire vld crew.

the “for narti” squad to join team voltron. i know it’s unlikely because of lotor allying with the team, (and the trailer showing them with zarkon) but i really do think those girls deserve a chance at redemption. they’re such interesting characters and i’d love to see them interact with the team.

i also really need to know what the connection between keith and acxa is. we really haven’t seen any payoff for them meeting in the weblum or him recognising her in s3 ep6. she took a bag of scaultrite which could’ve been hinting that they have an altean (aka lotor) but they just as easily could’ve dropped that hint by how they tried to steal a piece of the teludav. acxa’s connection to keith seems to be something else at play. my hope is twins, or at least siblings.

more hints that there's something there but nothing confirmed yet. but (as explained in my polluxian krolia post linked above) acxa and krolia have the exact same eyes with the light-coloured pupils so i'm almost certain acxa and keith are siblings

narti comes back tbh. i don’t know how that would happen but i miss her and i want her back.

team voltron returns to the original lineup. i like matching colours, what can i say.

ok i massively downplayed that but seriously the bond between paladin and lion was so hyped up in s1 and s2 that the lion shuffle will never quite sit right with me. blue chose lance out of all available paladins. she didn’t go back to the castle on her own and take allura. she chose lance. that’s gotta mean something. and red has gone after keith too many times for their relationship to be over now. 4 times in one season. he loves his tiny fleshy son pls reunite them.

hunk’s family. i want to know about them. i want him to mention them at the very least. i know tyler said hunk’s mom taught him how to cook so please let him say this in canon. also acknowledge him being samoan in canon please and thanks.

he mentioned his mom at least. 

lance’s “i’m just a boy from cuba” line. i thought it’d be in s3 but nope. i don’t mind waiting for his arc because i appreciate that it’s a long one, but i’m really curious as to the context of that line. also i want to know all the people in the picture from s1 ep2.

we got some names! marco, luis and veronica aww. obvs thats not everyone but i've got my guesses as to who's who. marco and luis are green t-shirt and blue shirt, veronica is white dress, mom is orange dress, grandma is pink cardigan, and the rest are his dad, grandpa, aunt, green t-shirt's wife and their two kids (aka lance's niece and nephew)

allura and coran talking about what altea was like before the war. just some cultural background.

coran’s family, if he had one. i want to know more about this man and what he lost when altea was destroyed.

more alteans in THIS reality because there’s no way this race of diplomats were all on the planet when it was destroyed. i don’t buy that, soz.

polluxians! i really want the alteans with two sets of markings in s3 ep7 to be polluxians. mainly because i want romelle to be introduced. apparently she’s badass. more badass girls is always a yes from me.

zaggar dynamic. does zarkon know that haggar was honerva? seems so, considering how he indulges her far more than he does anyone else. does he know that she knows now?

friendship. i know that sounds really lame lmao but i really do want friendship. i want the team to hangout. i want to see pairs or trios hanging out. i want casual team banter. i want wacky shenanigans. blease.,,,,.,. @dreamworks,.,.,,. just let these dorks be friends.

garrison trio......coming through.,.,,.,in clutch. they really just saved my life like that huh.i can't believe im so blessed

lance not being possessive of allura….ever again. please stop it’s uncomf. if they’re going down the romance route for them, cool. but do it by showing allura somewhat reciprocating lance’s interest. please don’t encourage the “guy hounds the girl until she agrees” trope. it’s harassment. lance has backed off from flirting and that’s great but if there’s gonna be a romance there, maybe have allura flirt instead.

it's debatable but i'm gonna give the benefit of the doubt and say he wasn't possessive of her so much as he was worried for her safety with trick ass bitch lotor hanging around

if there isn’t a romance there, just give me them being good friends blease. their relationship has been so good and mutually supportive so please continue with that. facemask buddies would be a blessing. i’d actually cry.

that scene in the training room is actually so blessed. i love life. i love them. i love.

more of that good co-leadership shallura content. keep allura in charge 2kforever. also let them confide in each other. it’s tough being a leader. also also, let them be soft please i beg. throw it back to the softness in s2 ep5. that level of softness is what i crave.

it's not co-leadership shallura bc its not shiro but! they're definitely both in leadership positions so im loving it. allura was very much in charge and i'm so happy

the team convincing keith that they’ll always love him and he doesn’t have to push them away because they’ll never leave him. help this boy overcome his fear of rejection please.

keith comforting lance in a way that actually, uh, works. i appreciate his effort in s3 ep6 but he’s gotta do better than that for them to have a balanced friendship.

lotor’s plan. i really need to know exactly what this boy is up to?? he wants to reap an “untold amount more” quintessence to do what? it’s surely not for the empire’s benefit - he doesn’t care about them. so why? is it something to do with his mother? also, why couldn’t his ships cross into the other reality? they’re made of the same thing as voltron?

[texanredrose]

Symphony of Souls (Pt 2)

People like this I guess? :p But this is probably where I'll lose some of y'all, lol. Due to the... nature of this universe, individual ships will only be tagged if they're the main focus of the chapter, but after this you'll know which ships might appear.

Weiss sat at the cramped table in the dining area, hiding her rolling emotions behind a smooth, patient, polite mask. It never failed to sting, how she carried so many memories in her heart while those she longed for remained blissfully ignorant. After all this time, she'd turned the entire process into a simple pattern, tailored to the one she found first. Despite the agony of slowly explaining, she took more than a little solace from having found her sweet Nightowl first.

"So... let me get this straight," the Faunus said, both hands wrapped around her cup of hot tea. Weiss had suggested it the moment her question brought back more suspicion than before, feline ears laying back into midnight hair. Usually, tea helped Blake think and calm down, but modern blends never quite reached the same quality, the same taste, and the slight frown on her lips hinted that she might finally know why something never seemed quite right. "You're a goddess from over three thousand years ago, forced into immortality that you'll lose without receiving enough... praise, and I used to be one of your priestesses?"

"That's the basic gist of it," Weiss replied, a small sigh slipping past her lips. She'd learned, through trial and error, that too much, too soon, would do her no favors. Forced to rely on vague summaries, she did her best to convey the important details, the ones that stood a chance of jogging memories. "There's a few more details, but we can cover those later."

"Assuming there is a later." Blake bristled, frowning again. She remembered a time when the Faunus smiled and laughed freely, but it seemed time and time again that fate conspired to give her more than enough reasons to be hostile towards the one she'd once trusted with all her heart. Weiss tried not to take it personally. "I mean, this is a lot to buy. You're basically telling me you're a succubus and that you used my roommate to 'recharge' yourself." She took a steadying draught of her tea but lowered the cup quickly, apparently not trusting her guest to leave her immediate line of sight. "That doesn't exactly sound like a benevolent mistress I'd willingly serve."

The words hurt. They always did. Ancient mortals had whittled away her powers by creating a new myth to vilify her. No longer did she stand as the goddess of creations, mistress of the harvest, patron of childbirth- no, she represented night demons come to lure away the soul and rend the flesh. They turned her into a monster... but her chosen refuted the claims back then and remained loyal to her and she to them. However, before the memories of their past lives took hold, they repeated the myths each time she found them again. Weiss tilted her chin up in defiance of those who'd cast her down so long ago, confident she hadn't lost the fight quite yet.

"I don't hurt people and I don't take unwilling partners. I didn't use Velvet."

"She's not the type of person to jump into bed with someone she just met," Blake replied, anger creeping into her tone.

"But it's happened before, hasn't it?" Already, she could tell her window of opportunity was closing. She hated taking the route rife with conflict, but she had little choice. Even if she lost the battle today, she still had tomorrow; she had the rest of eternity. "She's met someone and had an instant connection, inexplicably deep despite its brevity, but it always felt like there was something missing between you two." The Faunus flinched, prompting her to press forward. She had the advantage now and could press it, could prove her claims true. "You likely blamed yourself, broke it off but stayed friends, because conventional wisdom doesn't apply to the way she made you feel. It scared you, because only a few people can make you feel that way, and you've yet to find an answer for any of them. You love her, just like the others, and you feel conflicted about that, like some part of you much older and wiser is calmly weathering the expectations of the world around you while bemoaning how much has changed, even though you don't remember it ever being any different." Weiss leaned forward, staring deep into amber eyes. "But at least when you dream, she's there with the others, and you feel content lying in the field beneath that ageless tree-"

Blake shot to her feet, anger pinching her expression. "Get out."

She didn't feign surprise. This result always seemed the most likely when she crossed paths with her beloved Nightowl first; she'd avoided it twice but had yet to recreate the results.

Rising in one fluid motion, she started for the door but spoke over her shoulder as she went. "Next time you have that dream, try looking behind you."

As she let herself out, Weiss felt confident in two things: that Blake would take her advice and that she'd hear from neither Faunus for at least two weeks.

Another sigh escaped her lips as she stepped out into the weak morning sunlight. Time meant little to an immortal but the wait would be agonizing all the same.

Weiss spent her days preparing her living space for guests, dragging out the sentimental essentials and arranging the largest room in her penthouse to pay homage to the six souls she stood on the brink of finding again. During the times she found them, the fallen goddess did her best to recreate the temple- their first home together- but when they eventually passed from old age, she would put everything away, store it safely until next she could find them. At first, she tried preserving it, as if leaving a room frozen in time would ease her agony by some small amount. It never did; it merely exacerbated the lack of laughter, the missing warmth, and the decades that would creep by until she had her chance once more.

Blue eyes, still shining bright, scanned over her work, lingering on the spot where she'd set up Blake's things. If her sweet Nightowl could just see her collection, the memories of her soul would be fully restored, but exposing any of them to their previous lives too early would be a dire mistake. The confusion from her claims would call to those memories where they'd been their most lost and, many times, that included their first death. Without context or a guiding hand to help them make sense of the images and sensations being relived, they would turn against her, and she couldn't fault them the reaction. So, the process had to be slow, first presenting the idea and allowing them to wrap their minds around the concept before introducing any of those old memories. The phrase she'd repeated- the one linked to some of their happiest moments- could only unlock the door, not open it. The waiting hurt, especially with the harsh dismissal, but Weiss had patience and faith. Blake usually turned her away, rebelled in some way- it was part of her very nature to do so.

Still, the thoughts crept into her mind. Whenever the first meeting went poorly, the immortal considered letting this time be the last- that retreating back to the crumbling remains of her temple to wither and die alone stood as the better option. She wasn't even sure if she could die; so few had escaped the reckoning and she'd lost touch with them all. Only her sister- the shining edge of a blade, the former master of war- had sought her out during the intervening millennia, and she hardly looked living much less healthy. Dull and dark, a shadow of her former glory, just like Weiss, but she left in higher spirits usually, except for the last time. They stood atop a hill, watching a group of mortals prepare a siege tower- revolutionary technology at the time. They'd just buried her beloveds yet again hardly a week before and the loss always chaffed, always brought out the ugly, vengeful tendencies Weiss thought herself long past, and her sister bid her farewell. For the last time, she'd said, before turning to march into the mountains to wither like a blade left to dull and rust. Did she still linger as a spectre, roaming the mountains during twilight? Did she fade into dust? Weiss didn't know... but perhaps she should find out firsthand.

She shook her head, turning away from the enshrined room in a bid to dispel her troubling thoughts. It should be old hat by now but the worries gnawed at her. She remembered vividly that night so very long ago, when her beloved Nightowl first walked into her temple. Back then, Weiss expected nothing more than the daily prayers from all over Remnant to sustain herself, but then she had this brave Faunus, who'd traveled so far from home, standing before the altar, seeking something she could hardly articulate and hoping she could make a difference.

Her homeland couldn't support her people, couldn't give enough food to keep them from starving or provide shelter from the bitter storms, and while her family exhausted every option available to a mortal's ingenuity, she put her faith elsewhere. Blake had run as far as she could, seeking the answer to her people’s plight, and found herself at the temple of an ancient goddess, ready to offer portions of a harvest in exchange for the ability to grow the crops in the first place. For her part, Weiss had grown bored with watching mortals plod along, toiling through their lives; it didn’t seem to be anything more than a bleak existence, and she didn’t have much occupying her time either. So she went, crossed the sea to the little island where the Faunus had gathered after being forced from the other lands, a place they could make their own, with a little help. Just like Blake, they had the gleam of defiance in their eyes and looked upon the deity- who appeared to all the world like a human among them- with suspicion.

Honestly, she rather liked the change.

Then she rose her voice in song. The sands receded to the beaches and a few patches dotting the island. Lush fields and dense forests sprouted in their wake. Lakes and ponds swelled up from the ground and rivers descended from mountains that reached high into the sky fed them. She called forth beasts- cows and pigs and sheep- to give the Faunus food and fur, and deer for game and wolves to keep them from becoming lax. Pretty birds to sing them to sleep and rouse them in the mornings, and a few others that they might eventually keep as pets. When her song ended, the Faunus had not an island; they had a utopia to call home.

In turn, they raised their voices in song, beneath the stars of a calm night as they spread out in the field and picked ripe fruit for their feast. Weiss had never felt so powerful, recovering all the energy spent in creating this home for them, and she took it as recompense. She needed nothing more and made the long journey back to her temple with just her constant companion at her side, the creature gifted her by her Mother- the Mother of all things- and she thought fleetingly of the Faunus she left behind, with their bright eyes and their powerful voices.

Hardly a month passed before her precious Nightowl entered the temple again, this time seeking something for herself rather than her people. Somehow, through their talks late into the night during their journey, she'd come to see Weiss as more than a goddess. It constituted the first time the immortal deity realized that the fierce soul dancing in amber eyes called to her differently than any she'd encountered before. That night, Weiss shared herself with another and took what was offered in return. Her power surged, yes, but what would always stick with her was the next morning, opening her eyes to see another body beside her own, light breathing in her ear, and a heartbeat she could listen to for all eternity pounding just beneath supple skin.

Soon, her Nightowl discovered a thirst for the stories of the world- history of humans and Faunus and tales of the pantheon- and together they built a little library in one wing. They spent their long nights among the book stacks, the heavy scent of ink and parchment enveloping them as they poured over words. Weiss fell in love with the mortal, declared her a high priestess, and tied their lives together using the strings of fate themselves. She started a trend.

She caused her own downfall.

The ringtone of her phone snapped her attention away from her memories. Pulling it free, she glanced at the screen- an unnamed number- before answering. "Hello?"

"Weiss?"

Her lips curled into a small smile. "Velvet. It's good to hear from you."

"Yeah, I'm- I'm sorry it took so long." She paused. "I just... well-"

"You don't owe me an explanation," she said, entering her bedroom and taking a seat on the edge of her king sized bed. While she resigned herself to using the contraption more nights than not, she found herself hoping its use would soon diminish until it became a forgotten placeholder altogether. "I believe I owe you one, though."

Velvet remained silent for a moment. "Blake said you gave her one."

It wasn't an accusation, just a simple statement, but Weiss felt a pang of remorse all the same. "Where would you like to start?"

"In person, first. When are you free?"

“All the time,” she said, unable to hide her amusement. “I tried being employed, once. Didn’t work out.”

The Faunus hummed. “Well, how about tomorrow? Noon, the water fountain off Central and First?”

Weiss got up and walked to the window, looking down at the location suggested. “Very well. Tomorrow at noon. I look forward to it.” She waited to see if Velvet would hang up or bid her farewell, but the silence stretched too long. “Is there anything you’d like to discuss now?”

Nothing for a while, and then she spoke softly. “How did I almost forget you? If I hadn’t found your number while going through the junk mail, I’m not sure if I would’ve remembered at all. That’s... not like me.”

“After you awoke, Blake confronted you, did she not?”

“We... got into an argument, yeah.” Velvet sighed, shifting her position slightly, the shuffling of fabric and her cheek against the microphone conveying slight discomfort. “She told me you’re crazy.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s wrong.” Turning away from the window, Weiss opted to set her sights on some meaningless task to occupy her hands. “And I’m sure she had some other unflattering things to say.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“She’s angry; it’s understandable.” Her fingers found their way to a handmade jewelry box from millennia ago, the paint chipped and cracked along the lid. “Painful memories are a burden on the soul. I gave both of you the choice- to remember or to forget. When you sought to forgive and forget your argument, all memories of me followed.” She pulled a necklace from within, a cat’s eye gem set in a flowering replica of deadly nightshade, framed by winds and tinted black. “It’s... probably for the best if you avoid mentioning me. If she wishes to remember, she will in her own time.”

Velvet sighed. “I think she already has. Blake’s been... distant the last few days. I couldn’t get her to tell me why but... she’s the one who usually tidies up. She probably saw your number and put it with the mail. Now... I just get the feeling that she regrets-”

“It’s not regret; it’s confusion,” she said, a frown touching her lips. “She has memories without context, over a dozen lives lurking behind her eyelids. Give her time.”

“If you say so.” A pause. “I was thinking about making her dinner tonight, see if that might cheer her up.”

“That sounds like a splendid idea.” Weiss smiled, replacing the necklace. “If you’re looking for ideas, there’s a website called ‘Eating for Six’ that has a robust menu. I’d suggest checking the ‘Nightowl’ tab.”

Over the past twenty years, she’d constructed the website, tweaking it here and there to help fill her days. Sometimes, her mouth would water just glancing at some of the recipes, remembering so many meals shared amid light laughter and good company.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Velvet replied. “And I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.”

When the line went dead, she pocketed the device and proceeded to beat down the rising tide of sadness welling in her heart. Finding her Nightowl- Blake, she supposed, since that seemed to be her name again- always proved to be the most emotionally arduous of reunions. She knew why, of course, but that didn’t make the process any less painful.

At least she could take solace in knowing that, when she dreamed, Blake enjoyed the peaceful serenity of her slumber.

Weiss sat on the fountain’s ledge wearing a modest, light blue dress, feet crossed at her ankles and hands in her lap. Unlike the other night, she neither wanted attention nor gained it, managing to blend into the dancing water well enough to escape most mortals’ notice. Remaining unseen continued to be a difficult skill to use, requiring her to concentrate; as a deity, she craved acknowledgement, desired attention, fed off adulation, for it would always be godly to be narcissistic, so to remove herself so forcefully from mortals’ perception drained her, but she couldn’t afford the distractions today.

She’d arrived early, at least half an hour prior to their meeting, to ensure she would have the time she needed to organize her thoughts. Ever since Velvet’s call, she found herself facing a bit of a dilemma on what to do at such a critical juncture. On the one hand, she could appeal to the Faunus as she had countless others and secure a reliable source of energy for at least a few years. However, she’d yet to encounter this particular conundrum, where a temporary partner shared both a soul that appealed to her and a living space with one of her chosen. On top of all this, she’d found Blake, who always seemed to be one of the trickier ones when it came to rebuilding their connection. They were all difficult to find at first but winning them over... her beloved Dragon always seemed the most ready, even after all these years, and her sweet Thief remained the most difficult, so she supposed her situation could be much worse.

In the end, there remained no contest between any new connections and those she’d endured almost three thousand years just to spend a few more decades with, her chosen few so dear and precious to her. In the same vein, it would be rude to cut all contact with Velvet sans explanation, so she diligently waited, noting the top of the hour by the oversized clock on an adjacent building chiming out.

“Weiss?”

She allowed herself a small smile. “Had you asked, I would’ve gladly joined you at the cafe.”

She turned her head, watching as the Faunus approached with a cup in her hand. “You saw me, I assume?”

“No. Sensed you would be more accurate.” Weiss watched as she was joined at the fountain’s edge, noting the abundance of signs that her companion was nervous. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“I just... don’t understand why your voice sounds so different from the night we met... or how, I suppose.” Her brows furrowed. “It’s obviously your voice but it’s... not at the same time. Somehow.”

“Ah. Well, simply put, neither of us is in the mood for liaisons of that nature.” She smiled wider. “Besides, you are immune to my tricks by this point. Those with souls like yours... I can capture you attention and appeal to you the same as any other, but my sway erodes very quickly.”

Velvet’s expression pinched together, gaze darting up and down the deity’s form. “You look the same but sound different- so your powers lie in your voice?”

“Yes,” she said, letting out a bitter chuckle. “Ironically, my ability to physically appear as the epitome of a mortal’s desires faded when they began claiming I only did so to consume the souls of men.” Her brows furrowed. “Which, frankly, is rather preposterous. I don’t like men, generally speaking.”

At that, the Faunus seemed to relax. “Then, when I first saw you and immediately wanted to introduce myself, before you started singing, that was all me?” She nodded. “Good.”

“I’m glad you find me so attractive.” They both laughed lightly. “All I truly did was encourage your inclinations. Provided additional motivation, one might say.”

“I tried telling Blake that,” Velvet replied, a frown touching her lips. “She seemed convinced you were just using me, that it wasn’t mutual.” Brown eyes turned to her. “She was... extremely adamant.”

“Don’t hold it against her. She has every right to be wary of me.” She reached out, covering the Faunus’ hand with her own- a comforting gesture, she hoped. “Blake and I have a history going back several millennia. In a lot of ways, she’s overwhelmed right now, processing half remembered emotions on her own. In time, she’ll decide to confront me or forget me, and I’ll have to live with that, but it’s her choice. Let her make it.”

“You make it seem so... final.” She looked away for a moment. “I... guess you’ve just gotten used to it after, what, three thousand years?”

“Over three thousand years and six amazing people.” A sigh slipped out as her expression fell, her gaze diverting to watch the dancing water. “I wish I could say it’s gotten easier each time. Unfortunately, it’s only more predictable with every iteration. Despite that, I’ve yet to find a sure fire way to regain those connections. It seems some new challenge arises every time I find one and... I am forced to do the best I can, the same as any mortal, and hope for the best. It’s my eternal punishment.”

Tears sprang to her eyes but she held them back through sheer force of will. In the spray, she could see a time long past, a small waterfall behind her temple where her chosen few would play in the summer. Laughter rang through the air, water splashed, and voices intertwined in mirth and light admonishments alike- it didn’t matter that she personally preferred colder weather; the warm summer days were some of her fondest memories.

“Weiss?” She blinked, pushing aside her recollections to focus on her present companion. “Do you talk about them often?” Velvet shuffled a little closer. “I... don’t mean to pry if you don’t want to talk about it but you seem like you could use a friend- someone to just listen.”

A wistful smile curled her lips. When necessity forced her to take partners to survive, she never mentioned those she sought and they never asked. Those she’d chosen had lived through the memories by her side; recalling them always required a careful approach, for there lurked pain around every corner if they crashed recklessly down memory lane. Thus, the ancient deity had only spoken of them aloud with the moon as her audience. She’d forsaken all other connections to her old life so she could move freely through mortal society and her sister rarely wanted to delve too deep into their halcyon days.

“I’d rather like that,” she said, standing up and offering a hand to Velvet. “Would you like to see them as well?”

On the way back to her penthouse, Weiss told their stories. Her fondest memories, their own explanations of life before coming to her temple, and the moments when she realized they were special and dear to her, but she never used the names they bore back then. Too confusing, too difficult for a mortal to keep track of, and she refrained from describing them in great detail for how often those little traits changed, too. All but the eyes, where their souls sparkled and shone brighter than the stars, and the names she gave them in her own mind to thread over a dozen lives together.

She spoke of her Nightowl first. Velvet thought it odd that Blake’s nickname had nothing to do with her Faunus heritage- though that, too, changed from life to life- but, when viewed through a classical lens, it made more sense. When she became the first of Weiss’ chosen, she would spend hours composing poetry and chronicling the stories of every member of the pantheon, from Mother down to the demigods who ran amok until they were crushed by Winter’s sword, and ultimately assembled a considerable library. Within the temple, she became the embodiment of wisdom and knowledge- and she burned more candles and oil than the rest of her attendants combined, staying up late and sleeping in until midday. Apparently, Blake maintained the same sleep schedule on her days off, something that brought a smile to Weiss’ lips.

Next came the Thief. A lonely orphan, forced to steal for survival- she crept into the temple seeking valuables and goods one night, hoping to raid the offerings left for the goddess. Red eyes, wide with terror when confronted by an angry deity trying to protect the only mortal who slept within the temple’s walls- it made for a poor first impression. But her Nightowl calmed her and her Thief possessed more than just the skills of her trade, falling to her knees and genuinely begging forgiveness. She offered her talents in penance and decorated the temple’s walls with artwork, many of which depicted either Weiss’ fury or her benevolence- warnings to others who might trespass in her sacred home. After a time, the deity forgave her Thief and watched in slight fascination as the two mortals inhabiting the temple grew closer. Her Nightowl taught her Thief to read and in return she drew the scenes from poetry and history, whatever to accompany the library’s contents. When given food and a proper bed, the woman saw fit to steal bits of their hearts and Weiss eventually took her as a lover, giving her a permanent place in the temple as the avatar of earnest penance.

“Did they- uh, Nightowl and Thief... were they ever together?” Velvet cocked her head to the side as they waited for a street light to change.

“Of course,” she replied, a smile on her lips. “None of my beloved chosen had want for company, carnal or otherwise, by the end. They had me and each other, though each had their preferences, of course, but they got along very well.” A laugh bubbled up as she shook her head fondly. “Though, it took some time, initially. They might have danced around each other for decades more were it not for my brave little Dragon.”

Her Dragon was a sight to behold, especially that first time she stepped into the temple. Bright and vibrant with smiling lilac eyes, she’d come from far away with all the strength of a warm summer storm crashing on a beach. Louder than the others, her sense of humor and adventure grated on the quieter Nightowl and Thief, but she’d come to the temple seeking something she’d lost: a sense of belonging. Behind her cheer lurked pain and, once she’d settled down some, her fierce loyalty and desire to help and protect won them over. She could build and craft- wood, metal, rock, the material didn’t matter- and constructed whatever was asked of her. Acclimated to her brash personality, the others began to bend as well, and laughter became commonplace. Her earnest devotion won Weiss over and her energy never faltered, enthusiasm only growing as she carved out her own spot within the temple and a place in the deity’s heart.

Then came perhaps the most... troublesome of her chosen, through virtually no fault of her own. Even considering the Thief’s introduction, the fourth to come to the temple seeking her had a difficult time finding her place among the others. With every addition to her temple thus far, Weiss’ popularity grew among mortals. She’d come to represent virtues they prized- wisdom, penance, loyalty- in addition to her longer held duties as keeper of elements and goddess of the harvest. However, taking the three mortals as lovers also gave her a reputation as a beacon of love, for she doted on her Nightowl, Thief, and Dragon often and any pilgrim to her temple could see that. Many tales circulated about how deeply she cared for her chosen, how all should aspire to obtain a love so pure, and the sort of boons she supposedly granted to those who endeavored to love as deeply.

When her sister- a deity of conflict and combat, war incarnate- became enraged at a slight paid her by a mortal tribe, Winter demanded they send their finest warrior to become a servant of the gods. Somehow, the message didn’t get relayed correctly, and Weiss found a woman marching into the temple and falling to her knees one chilly autumn day, swearing her allegiance a few months later. Her Gladiatrix, thinking her life now belonged to the deity of her choosing, had turned away from the combat she’d known all her life for the chance to serve one who encouraged love, something she’d longed for but never truly had during her time on the battlefield. Weiss couldn’t send her away, seeing the open honesty and brilliant hope shining in emerald eyes, and allowed her Gladiatrix to stay. She taught the others to fight and learned just as easily- she drank in their presence and reveled in a type of camaraderie that had been denied her for so long, being held up as a paragon of her people since she was very young. Among Weiss’ chosen, she was just as special as the others, and they crafted their own type of normal amid the scrolls and murals and benches. The deity came to adore her poise, which never seemed to diminish no matter how much she relaxed, and her Nightowl and Dragon took a liking to the warrior themselves, the Thief more content to remain companions rather than become lovers.

When Winter learned of the misunderstanding, however, she was furious.

“What did she do?” Rabbit ears twitched with concern as they stepping into the elevator together.

Weiss couldn’t help but laugh at the old memory. “Oh, I know my sister well enough. When she came to my temple seeking the mortal she’d demanded, I made an excuse of having to go find Gladiatrix in the fields and had Dragon entertain her in the meantime.” She lowered her voice, despite the two of them being the only occupants of the lift. “Two hours later, my sister had completely forgotten her anger. For all her fury, no one can stay mad around Dragon for long. She’s especially adept at lifting the moods of others and her laugh is absolutely infectious.”

“That’s it? She just... forgot?”

“Wars start and stop at the drop of a hat- sometimes, they’ve begun before anyone is even aware, and who you call friend one day could be foe the next, while a foe could be a friend when a greater threat appears. Such is the way of all conflict and my sister embodied that,” she said, sighing. “I let them talk for a few more hours before bringing Gladiatrix in and things worked themselves out from there. Winter couldn’t bear to upset Dragon by taking Gladiatrix away and admitted that her presence at my temple satisfied her demand.“ She smiled. “I saw more of her after that- my sister, I mean. She came by to visit Dragon and eventually bedded her as well, which worked out well for the mortals of the time. Content and happy from her visits, my sister saw fit to leash the dogs of war, so to speak, and Remnant enjoyed a period of peace.”

Confusion splashed across Velvet’s face. “Wait, so Dragon... you and your sister, uh, shared her?”

“Yes. She always had so much energy- there were some nights, I don’t think she even tried to sleep, more content to sneak into bed chambers and entice each of us into a few hours of either love making or cuddling. I daresay she’s almost always the most amorous, the most adventurous, with the softest heart and too much love in it.” Weiss noted her companion’s raised brow and eventually remembered; some things struck mortals slightly differently than they did her. “I never intended for her to take my sister as a lover, of course, but it made them both happy. I couldn’t begrudge them that. And it’s not like the three of us were ever together in that sense; when Winter came to visit, we saw less of Dragon for a few days outside of meals and the occasional walk through the fields, but things returned to normal when Winter left. It worked for us.”

“I guess that makes sense.” She blinked as a thought occurred to her. “How long did all this take? I mean, the last time all of Remnant was at peace ended four thousand years ago, but it started... five?”

“Closer to six now, but you’re not wrong. I met Nightowl- Blake for the first time just over seven thousand years ago. Over the course of three thousand years, I met the others, when I and all the members of the pantheon were revered the world over in some form or another, when I had all my strength.” Weiss glanced up at the lights indicating the floors as they ascended. Sometimes, living at the very top had its downsides. “These precious souls- I couldn’t lose them, so I extended their lives so they could remain at my side, tied their souls to mine with the strings of fate. My Thief, Dragon, and Gladiatrix had no families to go back to and my Nightowl watched over hers from afar. Of them, she understood my pain best, the sort of agony immortality places upon the soul- especially a lonely one. Nightowl lived in the temple for almost four hundred years before Thief arrived.”

Velvet’s eyes went wide. “Wow.” She blinked rapidly, likely trying to process the information. “So when you say you two have history... you’re really not joking.”

“I’m really not.”

“And there were two more?”

Weiss smiled, though a touch bittersweet. Of the six, she spent the least time with her last two chosen but they had grown just as dear to her, and their entrances into her existence came with their own special brand of fanfare. She still vividly remembered the commotion caused when the Seamstress arrived.

By then, the deity had come to represent love and the arts, and the mortal traveled far to see the temple for herself. She hailed from some noble lineage but, upon encountering the temple’s inhabitants, forsook her birthright to remain. She saw the artworks on the walls, the craftsmanship in the furniture, the elegance in the written word, and the dedication in their blades- all of which impressed her and spoke to a deep seated desire to create. From the offerings brought by pilgrims who visited the temple, she pulled fabrics from all over the world and wove them outfits fit for every occasion, each with their own distinctive flair. Chocolate eyes found every small detail and Weiss even procured threads and skins from her fellow deities to give her Seamstress, fascinated by the magic in her fingers and designs. Soon, she found her own place at the temple like all the others, and she combined her talents with theirs to create timeless masterpieces.

For the last of her chosen, though, the road to her temple had been the longest, and to her heart longer still. Another orphan, younger than her Thief, had come to the temple, seeking a home like her Dragon. Hearing the stories of a powerful deity who took mortals as lovers had enticed one abandoned by all others. She’d quite nearly sent the newcomer away on principle but the others begged her to show mercy. It didn’t make sense to her at first but she couldn’t deny them and she eventually came to admire how little her initial coldness seemed to bother him.

“Him?” Velvet’s ears perked, likely at her words and not the ding as they arrived at the penthouse.

“Hence my initial rejection,” she said with a wry grin while stepping out of the elevator. “I find myself drawn to the female form almost exclusively- and my Jester is that ‘almost’.”

At first, he helped where he could. He organized books with Nightowl, he fetched paint for Thief, he worked the bellows and hauled lumber for Dragon, he cleaned gear and sharpened blades for Gladiatrix, he picked flowers to make into dye for Seamstress- whatever task her lovers gave him, he would comply, always with a smile on his lips, just so happy to have a place to call home. As the years passed, he remained a bright spot at the temple, with just as much energy as Dragon and a mischievous streak a mile long, grey eyes shining as he climbed every surface imaginable and used his tail to startle or tickle whoever passed too close to him. To this day, she believed he never expected anything different; he certainly never pursued any of them or even suggested things should change, even jokingly referring to himself as their big brother and laughing at the misnomer. He could’ve lived out all his days at the temple and died, content he’d lived among those who accepted him without question. But she saw the ways the others looked at him- first Nightowl and Dragon, then Thief and Gladiatrix, and even Seamstress glanced a time or two- and she told them they could do more if they so wished. She loved them, all of them, and wouldn’t begrudge them this; they shared her and each other. What was one more? Her smiling Jester had earned his spot among them, for she did love him as dearly as the others. When she finally took him as a lover as well, she realized that the differences in their anatomies didn’t overpower the light in his soul, the same light that existed in her other lovers.

“We found a balance after that,” she said, leading the way up to the second floor of her penthouse and stopping in front of a locked room. Every security measure known to mortals and enough of her residual strength went into protecting the contents from any and all intruders and she carefully undid each one. “For a millennium, the seven of us lived in the temple together, and our days and nights were filled with joy. Sometimes, my sister would visit, and we’d all sup together- we knew true peace. We were friends, family, and we indulged our passions without restraint.” The door unlocked after she input the last code and slid aside. “They were good times.” Before stepping inside, she paused, a slight frown coming to her lips. “Oh, and there was also Myrtenaster but... I’d rather not speak of him.”

“Bad memories?” The Faunus’ brow pinched in concern but she waved it off, not wanting to delay any longer.

“Yes and no- it’s a much longer story for another time. Right now, I have a question.” Weiss watched her companion’s face, trying not to betray the hope rising in her heart. “With each name, each story... did you suddenly think of someone you know? Someone with the same eyes as I described?”

Velvet’s expression conveyed her surprise. “Well... yeah, now that you mention it. How did you know?”

“There’s no cause for alarm." She smiled, trying to keep the expression small but feeling the hope bolster all the same. "My chosen are drawn to each other. When I took them as lovers, I bound them to me with strings of fate, prolonging their lives.” Her gaze dropped as the memories began to creep at the edges of her mind. “When I lost them, I bound them to each other instead, fating their lives to be intertwined, that they might find their lost family and have the support they deserved if I couldn’t find them in time. They are drawn to each other because of this and it seems you’ve landed among them.”

Without further ado, she lead the way into the room, allowing the Faunus to follow at her own pace. She waited for the shocked gasp to turn into muttered wonder before steeling her nerves and looking around herself. In the years after she lost them, the deity had collected every painting, every sculpture, every depiction of her lovers that remained in the world. Most days, she couldn’t bear to look at them, especially during the lifetimes when their appearances deviated from her memories. It pained her now but she had to know, even as her gaze fell on the painting of Blake in her library, pouring over a stone tablet with a candle softly lighting the scene.- she had to know how close they would be to her memories this time.

“I’ve told you the names I have for them,” she said, pausing briefly to brace herself for the answers. “What do you call them?”

Velvet looked at the portrait of Blake, the spitting image of the Faunus she lived with, and nodded. “Well, that’s Blake.” She looked at the one depicting the Thief, brush in hand as she contemplated a half finished mural- one of the rare times her Nightowl and Seamstress joined forces to produce something truly beautiful. “That’s Emerald.” Next, her Dragon, bent over her work bench with the setting sun catching in her hair. “Yang.” The Gladiatrix, spear in hand and shield raised. “Pyrrha.” The Seamstress at her loom. “Coco.” Finally, her Jester, in the garden with his wide smile. “And Sun.”

“... six for six.” Tears pricked at her eyes. “That’s only happened once before. Do they- do they look like their portraits?”

Velvet nodded slowly. “Exactly like them.”

Her knees nearly buckled as she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that burst from her chest, tears slipping out to roll down her cheeks. That hadn't happened before- the one time they had their old names, they looked different, just enough details off to make the decades bittersweet. She'd waited and hoped for this day to come but could hardly believe it.

“I’ve found them. I’ve finally found them.”

[one-more-miracle-gatsby]

I just finished Impyrium by Henry H Neff and I’m gonna talk about it because I have a lot of feelings so spoiler warning

-I completely forgot the demon’s conditions for the Red Winter Treaty so I saw the Prusian Sea on the map and I was like “huh I wonder what the crafty bastard did to get an ocean named after him” and then I got to the line about underwater demon kingdoms and I was like THAT’S RIGHT THEY BANISHED HIM TO THE SEA and of course he still managed to go make himself a successful kingdom like ffs Prusias just enjoy retirement.

-Sigga Fenn is my new favorite character. What a bro. I mean yeah she played Hob like a panther stalking a rabbit and absolutely would have killed him in an instant and we don’t still know what her exact orders are but there are times when she does seem to be as sincere and friendly as she can professionally be and like honestly it’s nice to have such a chill agent. Disguising herself as the old lady was hilarious like that was so unnecessary Sigga you didn’t have to steal her dessert

-I love the dynamics between the triplets. Isabel is great.

-homunculus breeding is fascinating oh my god

-”Hazel saw that Harkün had also drawn a dagger with a wavy black blade” TFW you’re such a die-hard Cooper fan you can recognize his weapon 3000 years later

-speaking of the devil, I hope that Mystic with mismatched eyes was a descendant of who I think she was because please imagine Hazel Cooper’s reaction to finding her greatx3k granddaughter gambling with a domovoi

-Like. I know Prime is not going to turn out to be Cooper but there’s a tiny part of my sappy fangirl heart going, “if anyone were to volunteer themselves to be turned into a statue for all eternity to protect Rowan it would probably be him”

-Hob’s sass is beautiful can he give me lessons

-THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SHROPES COOKING AT ROWAN

-I love the quotes at the start of the chapters, not only did they bring more meaning to the chapters but they also provided some context and backstory, like how old David lived to be.

-Honestly Hazel’s mentality was so unapologetically realistic like she was so innocent and oblivious but then she started learning things and I love her revelations that she can take control of her own life. But like she was still allowed to be delicate and cry and sleep with a stuffed giraffe and it wasn’t depicted as weakness.

-I will be forever be impressed at the all the political webs Henry weaves

-Montague’s character development

-I wonder what Ember really did with Mina like did he really eat her or is she chillin in his mouth under the sea

-The two perspectives were so great and it was awesome because you can’t trust the Fellowship and you can’t trust the royals, you can only trust that the main characters themselves will see the faults of their respective sides and make the right decisions. I love how they opened each other’s eyes to new things.

-It’s so cool because The Tapestry was so heavily based in Irish mythology and now Impyrium is based in Tapestry mythology like the original series became the mythology of the new series, which means that our world is part of that mythology. I remember Henry saying something about how The Tapestry was partially a story about human perseverance and that really spoke to me in some parts of this book too. That ancient, scratched-up, barely-working Disney film was so unsettling but so wonderful. Burke’s line about “would you believe we lowly little humans once walked on the moon?” The part where the Fellowship is explaining about how humans once built flying ships and split matter to its smallest components without any magic, just with the sheer power of their minds. It’s inspiring. And it was interesting seeing that different perspective of the destruction of the Book of Thoth, like we were just starting to explore the heavens themselves and then that technology was taken away from us. But like it said, at least we’re still walking on the Earth. It’s surreal reading this and realizing that in this book we are the ancient civilizations. Much of our history is either not known at all or considered a nonsensical fairy tale. But Disney films and the Brothers Grimm tales still exist. Stories persevere, no matter how rare or expensive or illegal they may become. Getting even more meta, it’s just like the stories of the original series becoming the mythology of this one. Stories stick around, no matter how much they may change, and apparently the same applies to humanity.

-I would love to talk to someone who read Impyrium without reading The Tapestry first and find out what that realization was like, when it suddenly dawned on them that this had once been our world.

-It’s also really interesting and kind of funny seeing the empress and the princesses have the whole week-long pilgrimage and put themselves through such physical and mental duress to go worship this mysterious scary god-king from another world when those of us who have read The Tapestry know that this all-powerful warrior is the same guy who got repeatedly bossed around by a talking goose and once used magic to leap 20 feet in the air because he got startled by a robot centipede. The Hound of Rowan, everybody. One thing I always admired about Max’s character was that no matter how much he grew and changed the core of his personality, his kindness and his humor, stayed the same (and even when he went full supernova god in the Workshop he was still able to keep from destroying everybody because of the love he felt for his friends). And I’m glad that even just from that little glimpse we got of him we can see that he still holds that same personality, that he was so eager to help this teenage girl that he forgot about the FATAL WOUND that would literally kill him if he went through the gate like Max never change

-I was not expecting this story to give me so many Max feels like I thought I was over the end of The Red Winter but apparently not. I actually laughed when they brought out the lyrmrills as offerings because it was so beautifully nostalgic and sentimental but also like, what else would it be? The man loves his lymrills.

-Speaking of Max getting bossed around by Hannah I seem to remember her saying she was immortal at the end of The Red Winter so are she and her goslings still wandering around the Direwoods oh god

-Again it must be such a different experience reading this without the context of the first series because that whole Direwoods field trip was kind of a punch in the gut. I remember in The Hound of Rowan reading about the abandoned charges wandering the Sanctuary and forgetting that humans ever cared for them and I thought that was so sad and now the entire Sanctuary is like that. The Sanctuary was such a beacon of hope and peace and now it’s just a creepy haunted forest where little rich kids are afraid to get their feet dirty. Who knows how long selkies live, that could have been Frigga or Helga in the lagoon being so glad to have some humans to play with again. And the ruins of the Warming Lodge and the dvergar brother’s forge. Dude that one classroom had Nile Croakers and domovoi and stuff in cages and the selkies were described as “water beasts” like that was so sad it feels so wrong and it’s such a good representation of how the culture has changed

-Like honestly it’s just such a message about the nature of history. It reminds me of Church’s monologue from the end of season 13 of Red vs Blue, where he talked about the hero never getting to know if his sacrifice was worth it. Max didn’t know what became of his friends or the world he left behind presumably until David’s death (and don’t think I don’t have a fanfic idea about that), and then Max and David and everyone presumably don’t really know what became of their world 3000 years later, like they know the gate and the dragon exist and they know about the Faeregines coming on pilgrimage every few years, but I guess they probably don’t know much beyond that. They never get to see the long-lasting effects of their efforts, and they don’t get to know the perspectives with which people view them and the legends they’ve become. They didn’t want Rowan to become a place for snobby elites, and they didn’t want nonmagical people to be discriminated against, but they can’t do anything about it. Because we can act to change our history, but in the long run we never know how our stories will end up being told. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take action to better our world for the present and the foreseeable future.

-I love all the subtle parallels, intentional or not, between this story and The Tapestry. Kids sneaking out at night for a sleepover on a ship, kids sneaking out for a duel. A man losing his face. Workshop specimens getting stolen. Being betrayed by a friend (honestly, I didn’t suspect Viktor at all until he suggested that they collect firewood and then my mind immediately went to Rolf and Connor for some reason even though there was no real connection). The illustration of Hob outside Hazel’s tent with the House Blade next to the fire reminded me so much of Cooper sneaking into Max’s tent with the poisoned Atropos blade, and it was Scathach the shadow who saved Max and Sigga the shadow who saved Hazel and Hob. History repeats itself. No matter how much some things change, some things still repeat.

-Olly was such a great character, like he had flaws but he acknowledged and apologized for them and he was so great. Sniff.

-Seriously Sigga is that teacher who’s like “I know you’re going though a lot so I’m going to conveniently forget to close the submission box until a while after the due date so I won’t know if you turned the homework in late but if I do catch you turning it in late I gotta fail you sorry”

-Also can we talk about the fact that Ember apparently fell in love with Astaroth’s hell dragon that he conjured from dead people like oh my god Ember plz you guys almost killed each other

-I feel like remember Henry saying something about us eventually getting to hear more about the grymholch from Prusias’s arena and the world it was from and I hope that happens

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Andrew Offutt, The Broken Sword, Walt Simonson, Siege of Malta, Lovecraft Lunch Bags

Authors (The Silver Key): Andrew J. Offutt was a complex, deeply flawed man. A resident of rural Kentucky, Offutt was a husband and a father who supported his family with a successful insurance business, a job which he did not love and ultimately abandoned to make the bold leap into full-time writing. He was at one time a promising science fiction writer. He also subjected his children to emotional neglect, held baseless grudges against various personages, lacked a full emotional maturity and cohesive personality, and held a life-long obsession with pornography.

New Release (DMR Books): Next week will see the release of the 20th title from DMR Books. After publishing numerous excellent authors past and present, for the first time I’ll get to release a collection of my own writings! Necromancy in Nilztiria contains thirteen stories of adventure and wonder with a touch of gallows humor. A few of the tales have appeared before in other publications, but most will see print here for the first time (including “A Twisted Branch of Yggdrasil,” which was supposed to be included in the ill-fated Flashing Swords #6).

Fiction (Dark Herald): It was written in 1954, you can tell it was written in 1954 because it couldn’t be written today. This is a work of high tragedy that is strongly influenced by the Norse sagas.  If you like Game Thrones but would prefer that it be written by a non-sadist that can actually fit a story that should only take two hundred pages, into two hundred pages.  This is the book for you.

  RPG (Kairos): A speculative element is what sets the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror apart from literary fiction. There’s no element more speculative than magic, and it’s become a common term of art to speak of an SFF universe’s “magic system”. By reader request, here is my philosophy of magic in genre fiction–with advice on how to handle magic in your secondary world.

    Lovecraft (Tentaculii): So, kiddies, it’s back to school on Tuesday 1st September. Here are a few suggestions for last-minute rush-orders for school stuff, to arrive Monday. All available now on eBay… The H.P. Lovecraft shoulder bag for all your stuff, robust in black and blood red…

History (Compagnia san Michele blog): A common misconception is that the siege of Malta of 1565 was a one-on-one battle between an army of Hospitaller Knights against an all-Turkish invasion force. The opposing forces, in reality, were composed of troops hailing from a number of locations. In this write-up we will look at some foreign forces assisting the Order of St John in the defence of Malta. According to contemporary sources such as the diary of Francisco Balbi di Correggio, who served as a harquebusier during the siege, and from later historiography such as the work of Giacomo Bosio, the total defending force comprised of approximately the following:

Art & Philosophy (Chrislans Down): Over at Amatopia, Alexander Hellene discusses nihilism, primarily in art. It’s a good post, worth reading. There’s one segment of it that I want to discuss, though, because I think that it somewhat misses the bigger picture. There are two ways in which this misses the bigger picture.

Fiction (Amatopia): The Fall of Hyperion may as well be titled Hyperion: Part Two, as it picks up right where the first book in Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos abruptly ends. Yet The Fall of Hyperion doesn’t merely pick up the story, it runs with it into wild, exciting directions before delivering a deeply satisfying conclusion that actually resolves mysteries while creating a few new ones to propel the narrative into the final two books of the series.

Pulp Science Fiction (Pulp.Net): Ray Cummings (1887-1957) is one of the “founding fathers” of pulp science fiction who unfortunately never got out of the “pulp getto.” During his career he wrote some 750 works, most for the pulps, and mostly science fiction. I was surprised to learn he had written quite a bit outside of sf. His most well-known work is Girl in the Golden Atom. This was his first original professional sale as the short story “Girl in the Golden Atom” in All-Story Weekly in 1919.

Science Fiction (Porpor Books): ‘Cestus Dei’ (283 pp) was published by Tor Books in June 1983. The cover art is by Kevin Eugene Johnson. This novel first was published, in greatly shortened form, as a hardback book titled ‘The Strayed Sheep of Charun’, issued by Doubleday / The Science Fiction Book Club in 1977. ‘Charon’ was John Maddox Roberts’s (b. 1947) first published novel. Roberts went on to be a prolific sci-fi and fantasy author during the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, writing novels for the Dragonlance and Conan franchises, as well as for his own ‘SPQR’, ‘Stormlands’, ‘Cingulum’, and ‘Island Worlds’ properties.

History (Western Fictioneers): Happy National Rum Day! This Sunday (August 16) is National Rum Day. I felt inspired to write an article about my personal favorite form of alcohol – along with some other libations your character would have been exposed to in the Old West. The first North American distillery began making rum in present-day Staten Island, New York (or New Amsterdam) in 1664. The earliest spirits distilled in the colonies were rum, gin, and brandies.

Comic Books (Diversions of the Groovy Kind): Walt Simonson’s birthday was this past Wednesday. If you ever wondered how much Ol’ Groove loves the handiwork of Walter Simonson, just check out any of the 66 (this will make 67) posts he’s featured in here on DotGK! There’s a reason the Marvel Bullpen nick-named him “Wondrous”! Here’s a huge pile of spectacular Simonson masterworks for you to ooh and ah over–then go check out all those other posts to give it all some context–and yourself added joy! Happy 74th, Mr. Simonson! Groove City loves you tons!

Edgar Rice Burroughs (DMR Books): The two defining works of ERB’s career, A Princess of Mars (1912) followed shortly after by Tarzan of the Apes, hit the pulp readership of All-Story Magazine like a bombshell. Nobody had ever read anything quite like those novels. Movies and hardcovers soon followed. For the mass market impact, the movies were more important. However, the hardcovers allowed young, aspiring writers who never had a chance to read the original pulp appearances–authors like Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore and Fritz Leiber–to devour the early Burroughs classics.

  Alt History (According to Quinn): One of the causes for the decline and fall of the (Western) Roman Empire is the revival of the old enemy Persia under the vigorous Sassanid dynasty. This gave Rome a major military threat to the east at the same time the Germanic tribes were growing larger and more organized and the weaknesses of the Roman imperial system (namely how the armies could make emperors in the provinces) were becoming apparent.

Pulp & Comic Books (Mens Pulp Mags): Lately, I’ve been on a Mike Shayne kick. My reading and watching involving that famed Miami-based Private investigator has led to a series of posts on this blog, starting one about the first appearance of a Mike Shayne story in a men’s adventure magazine, “The Naked Frame” in BLUEBOOK, February 1953. I blame my Shayne trip on my new friend Bill “Mad Pulp Bastard” Cunnigham and my old friend, novelist, editor and retromedia maven Paul Bishop.

RPG (Monsters and Manuals): Dickheads bring sexual content into a gaming session. This is one of the fairly large number of things that traditional conservatives and woke types can merrily agree on: don’t bring up the issue of sex unless you are really sure it’s appropriate. And never bring up the issue of rape at all, because: why are you doing that other than to either be deliberately edgy, or be a creep?

Dickheads hog the limelight. If you feel like you are talking too much, you probably are. If you don’t, you still probably are.

Fiction (Chrislans Down): Over on Twitter, Benjamin Kit Sun Cheah wrote a very interesting thread on Wuxia (Chinese heroes) and the meaning of this genre. He kindly gave me permission to quote it in full here since that’s much easier to read than a Twitter thread if you’re not used to Twitter.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): Using a combination of the names Ian Fleming (James Bond) and Alistair MacLean (Where Eagles Dare), author Marvin Albert (1924-1996) conceived the pseudonym of Ian MacAlister in the early 1970s. The prolific author of crime-fiction, tie-in novels, and westerns authored many books under his own name as well as the names of Al Conroy and Nick Quarry. Conveniently, at the height of the 1970s high-adventure market, Albert used the MacAlister pseudonym to write four genre novels.

Paranormal and Fiction (Tellers of Weird Tales): Six months ago, before the world fell apart, I wrote about the evolution of the flying saucer from nineteenth-century airship to twentieth-century flying disk. Now I write again. It seems to me that the conceit of the nineteenth century was both progressive and romantic. The conceit was that Science, this new and exciting force, could be and would be used to solve previously intractable human problems. Airships were a symbol of this kind of thinking, the belief being that airships, because of their great power, would render war impossible to wage.

Crime Fiction (Pulp Serenade): I initially reviewed Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg’s By Hook or By Crook, and 30 More of the Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year (2010, Tyrus Books) when it was new, and when we could count on new anthologies from its editors every year to highlight a fine array of stories from writers new and old, our favorite writers of today and tomorrow. How I miss those times. Cancer robbed readers of both of them, Greenberg first, in 2011, and Gorman in 2016.

Manga (Karavansara): Hiroaki Samura’s dark fantasy Blade of the Immortal was the last manga that I bought regularly before I decided it was too expensive a hobby, and I did not like the local fandom anyway. The fact that the Italian publisher of the series went belly up halfway through the comic’s run was also part of my decision to let it go, and with it let go of the whole hobby for a decade or two.

RPG (Skulls in the Stars): Operation Seventh Seal (1985), by Evan Robinson. Let’s look at an adventure from another TSR roleplaying game, Top Secret! Top Secret was introduced in 1980 as a contemporary espionage roleplaying game, designed by Merle M. Rasmussen and published by TSR. Looking back on playing Top Secret as a teen, I’m struck at how strange it is: it is effectively “spy D&D,” with a group of 4ish spies accomplishing missions. But can you imagine anything less practical than doing espionage as a *group*?

Sensor Sweep: Andrew Offutt, The Broken Sword, Walt Simonson, Siege of Malta, Lovecraft Lunch Bags published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/