#But I keep getting asks about him as if he's perma-dead!

[desultory-novice]

Hey! Since Void is considered to be the "Origin of all matter" including dark matter, would that mean Noir had become a servant to not only 0 but void as well?

And in that case, what were Adeleine's thoughts during Star Allies? At least she wasn't alone, considering that every dream friend had been affected by void and/or the ancients in some way. (Btw, I'm sure Noir would be so proud to hear his little sister had become a great hero)

...!! 

Have you been reading my notes in secret, Anon?! Well, keep what you know under your hat! Apologies will get to Star Allies eventually!

But yes, Noir would be ridiculously proud of her.

(Drawing my silly little AU Dark Matter Blade interp adorned with Clamp-esque angel wings for a series whose cosmology is too complex for plain ol' guardian angels - not to mention, Noir's soul probably isn't lighter than a feather, unless you count the part where Zero munched on it - is cringey but so be it...!! Have an Angel Noir.)

[thefirstknife]

What are the Tones?

Whomst've asked me this. You're fuelling my unending obsession, thank you.

I posted about the tones before! Most of it is listed in this post! But I'd like to add some stuff now that it's been some time since then.

The tones are noises made by the spires on Mercury (Lighthouses). Whenever someone dies, the spires emit a tone. They basically react to death in various ways, depending on how the death happens; there's different tones to dying to Light as well as different tones to a perma-death. This is peculiar because nobody could hear them except Brother Vance.

He made Trials of Osiris to study them (because it's an endless source of Guardians dying over and over). Mara knew about his research (Trials was accessed in the Reef in D1) and warned him to stop because it's dangerous. It's unclear why. Osiris did the same years later. As a matter of fact, Osiris was super dramatic about it:

"What I have discovered…" "…is dangerous enough to destroy every man, woman, and child in existence. You're meddling with forces outside your grasp," Osiris reprimanded.

The tones are interesting because they're still largely unexplained. Mara implied that they symbolise Guardians being attuned to Darkness and being able to wield it, which is true, but Osiris' reaction implies something more. And it has to be more, because Osiris detected the same tones as coming from the anomalies of the missing planets and from the Pyramids. Long post under:

In my previous post I also connected that to the fact that egregore seems to be emitting some sort of sound/frequency attuned to the same thing: anomalies, Pyramids and, obviously, to the source of it all (the Witness). So there's some sort of frequency in Darkness that is audible and comes from all places connected to the Darkness network (and that network manifests physically as egregore). And in this case, anomalies and Pyramids (and ships infested with egregore like Glykon and Leviathan) are fine; it makes sense that they link to the Witness!

But spires on Mercury? Why them? My bestie made a post recently after we went unhinged (again) because the same lore book that deals with the tones also makes a really strong implication that the Vex were deliberately led to Mercury by the Pyramid Fleet in the Collapse. There, the Vex drained Mercury of Light, hollowed out the planet and used its materials to make the spires (and the Infinite Forest, a simulation engine) and then they waited for the Pyramids to return. Which they did, in Arrivals.

To make things more complex, after Titan came back, it was confirmed that the Witness did not take the planets randomly. There was a purpose to each one being stolen. Mars was taken to search through our Golden Age and Collapse database in order to find where the Veil may have been hidden. This could've been just a random coincidence, but then Titan came back and we learned that the Witness wanted Ahsa dead because Ahsa not only knows the origins of the Witness, but also how to get through the portal (and who knows if she has any other potential powers to helps us get in there or help us otherwise).

Io is unclear, but there are many options; it may have been taken for the Pyramidion and Vex stuff which Asher got ahead of. It may have been taken to study the Tree of Silver Wings (the Witness had another seed it gave Calus in Lightfall), or it may have been taken to study the Traveler's past or the Light in general or maybe something else. The point is, there are options that we can understand.

But Mercury? Zero clue. The only thing that may have been of interest is the Infinite Forest, but Vance sealed it so if the Witness took Mercury for that and couldn't get into the Forest, then Mercury would've been useless and probably released sooner unless the Witness is just keeping it out of spite or thought that maybe it would be able to find a way inside. And of course... there's the spires and the tones. Mercury is somehow linked to Darkness and the Witness, it has to be, and we have no clue what the Witness wants with it.

Not only that, but there's another curious thing about Mercury, or rather, the anomaly of it. It was mentioned in Duality dungeon, by Calus. When Calus tried talking to the Witness on the Glykon, the Witness eventually responded and it told Calus to come to the anomaly of Mercury:

Through the Crown of Sorrow, the Voice in the Darkness called out to me, beckoning me to the absence of Mercury. At first, I feared the Leviathan would not survive the journey, as the Glykon had been rent asunder by a similar journey. By my Leviathan, it is strong. Its heart beats anew, and as it pierced the veil of creation... the Voice greeted me. There were such sights to behold.

So when Calus disappeared off the Glykon, he went back to the Leviathan and bolted straight for the Mercury anomaly in which he was able to communicate with the Witness. Why Mercury? Glykon went into the Mars anomaly. Why couldn't the Witness speak to Calus in there? Or in any of the other anomalies? Why specifically Mercury? This is driving me insane.

But if Mercury is somehow connected to the Darkness network through the spires, is it possible that it serves as some sort of a communications hub? Maybe that's why the Witness is still keeping it? And it still is! We can see it in Root of Nightmares, in the Witness' room. Titan is still obviously there as well because it came out before Titan returned, but Mercury and Io are still trapped. This is also confirmed by the tiny excerpt we can see from the TFS Collector's Edition which I talked about in here.

Or the reason for Mercury is something completely different. We have no clue why Mercury was taken and what's going on there and why the Witness called Calus there and why the tones happened and why are they the same tones that can also be heard from anomalies and Pyramids.

To fuel me even more, they decided to drop two lore pieces in Season of the Deep that relate to Mercury and the tones tangentially. I know literally everyone and their grandma thinks that Targeted Redaction is just there to be funny (and so did I at first), but I genuinely can't accept that as being just a joke. The gist of it is that Osiris has no clue who Vance is and that is, to put it simply, impossible.

Obviously Osiris did not like the Cult and they were annoying to him, but he knew Vance. He spoke to him only once, but Vance is the one who told him to "plant the seed," a message that Mara gave him years before. This literally sets up the entire Season of Arrivals. Not only that, but Vance told Osiris about the tones and Osiris was deeply troubled about them. He's the one who continued the research and went around the solar system after planets disappeared, investigating anomalies and discovering that they emit the same tones. He mentions Vance, by name, twice in Immolant:

"Do you hear that?" Osiris asks, turning to Sagira. He turns the ship's scanning array toward the anomaly. "Like the tones Vance described. From the spires, and then the Pyramids. It was coming from the anomaly that replaced Io as well."

"We could use the Crucible right now. Your trials. This will be very helpful. You mean to stay, yes?" "I will. Long enough to show you how to implement the simulation; but tonight, I must disembark," Osiris says. "So soon?" Osiris tenses his jaw in forced silence. He twiddles with code. "I'm worried about what Vance found."

At the same time, Osiris also sends us the seasonal artifact from Hunt, Fang of Xivu Arath. In it, he mentions:

The zealots that followed me to Mercury have proved themselves useful… twice now, actually. They possessed an artifact in their stores: a Hive fang.

The zealots being useful "twice" refers to Vance telling him about the seed and having this artifact kept safely in the Lighthouse (technically, it's three times: in Curse of Osiris, Vance told us where to find the machine to bring Sagira back and it was being kept by the Cult, but it's unclear if we told Osiris the details). Osiris, again, specifically mentions Vance when he recounts where he got it from, in Immolant:

Sagira had chided him for storming the Lighthouse and ransacking Vance's possessions. "They're my relics," he said to silence her protests.

I know Osiris has been through a lot, but his memories are completely and perfectly intact... Except for Vance. That's bizarre to me, given that there's several important points that tie them together, like planting the seed on Io (something he wouldn't have known to do without Vance relaying Mara's message) and research of the tones, something that Osiris spent a lot of time doing and was explicitly worried about; so worried, in fact, that he was willing to part ways with Saint just to continue that research.

In my old post I also mentioned how Osiris even went to Ana to tell her to ask Rasputin if he heard any tones in the Collapse, but Rasputin wasn't up yet. And when Rasputin was finally up, we had much bigger problems to deal with so I assumed that Osiris never asked because the priority was to find what's on Neptune. But now I think that Osiris didn't ask because he doesn't remember. Because the memory of Vance and tones and whatever they mean was deliberately removed from him while Savathun had him imprisoned. Or, perhaps, the Nezarec tea messed with it. After all, Darkness is memory.

This would obviously imply that the tones are something so important and dangerous that Savathun (or someone else) wanted Osiris' knowledge of it removed so that maybe she could have leverage or to know something we don't or perhaps for some other purpose by some other actor. This was such a big point that the entirety of Immolant part 1 is almost exclusively dedicated to Osiris inquiring into the tones.

Another possibility is also that Osiris' memory of Vance was messed with because of Io and the seed and Tree (and then as a consequence, obviously, he would also forget about the tones).

There's also a possibility that Savathun is literally right now messing with me and she did it for no reason at all just to generate imbaru or mess with Osiris or maybe she even wanted to do one nice thing for him and remove the memory of the weird Cult and the tones aren't important at all.

But I don't know. The fact that they're the same thing that the whole Darkness network uses and that ultimately leads to the Witness seems like something that should be important. However, I don't think Mercury will return before TFS, especially since TFS CE has Eido writing about how Mercury is still in the Witness' grasp. But, consider also that we don't know the timeline of when Eido's writing is set. It has to be set after Ahsa's reveal about the Witness' origins, but before TFS. We don't have enough information to tell more. There's also Vex shenanigans to consider, something that will certainly be a plot point post-TFS and Mercury is a prime location for that.

Either way, there's something going on here, added also with the second lore tab release in Season of the Deep that tangentially ties to Mercury, which is Unexpected Resurgence. In it, Shayura is approached by Sister Faora, an incredibly niche character who was leading the Cult of Osiris before Vance. She's shown still wearing the insignia of the Cult. We never learned why she stopped leading them and why Vance took over; she just kinda disappears from the lore book (Trials and Tribulations, the one about the tones). But apparently she's in the City and she's still wearing the Cult robes and she's back in the story... for some reason??

It honestly feels like some sort of a setup for something in the future, something that might deal with Mercury's return. I need to stress just how small she is as a character: she only actually appears in three lore tabs before Unexpected Resurgence, all in the same lore book. The rest of her stuff is just flavour text on the Kairos Function armour pieces from Curse of Osiris. That's it. Why return her in Season of the Deep? Mind boggling.

This whole thing about the tones and Mercury consumes me every day and night. The fact that Deep mentioned Vance in a way easily dismissed as a joke (but also, note the name of the weapon: targeted redaction) as well as Faora coming back is just too wild to me to be a random throwback or a just a joke. Not when it's beyond clear that Osiris should remember Vance, the Cult, the tones and the rest of it. It's even unclear at this point if he remembers that he planted the seed on Io.

So what are the tones? What are they indeed. They're music from the spires of Mercury that reacts to death and uses the same frequency as the entire Darkness network with the Witness at the top. What is their purpose and what is the purpose of Mercury and why did the Witness take it and what is this plotline and when will it be resolved? Summary:

[anthurak]

Rambling about Perma-Death in Videogame Stories

So is anyone else just completely and utterly done with the trope of ‘If you die in the game, you DIE FOR REAL!1!1’ that we see in untold numbers of stories about characters getting trapped in video games?

Like I was just watching some clips from the Jumanji reboot and now I just can’t stop thinking about the same thing I thought when I saw it back in 2017: WHY does perma-death HAVE to be a thing here?

If you haven’t seen it, the premise of the reboot is that the magic board game of doom from the original 1995 film realized that board games are getting less popular and thus upgraded itself into a videogame cartridge/console to be more appealing to would-be players. And has now sucked in four unsuspecting teens for an adventure now parodying videogame tropes instead of a board game.

Now the big ‘threat’ posed to our protagonists is that they each start with multiple ‘Lives’ which allow them to immediately respawn when they die. But they only have three lives each, which of course leads to the implicit idea that if they can’t lose ALL their lives or it’s GAME OVER, ie; they’re dead for good.

But the thing is, nothing in the movie actually DEMONSTRATES to our protagonists that this is actually the case. They just… assume that if they die three times they’re dead for really realsies.

And while watching/rewatching the movie, I just kept thinking WHY did the threat of perma-death have to be a thing? And also the fact that it didn’t even make SENSE in this context.

Like the Jumanji game is clearly sentient to a degree and seems driven first and foremost to get people to play it. So I have to ask; WHAT sense does it make for Jumanji to outright, permanently KILL its players? After all, if the players are permanently dead, they can’t exactly PLAY now can they?

Furthermore, just look at the old-style sidescroller games that Jumanji clearly based its new form on. What happens in those games when you lose all your lives? It doesn’t permanently lock you out and keep you from playing ever again. Instead you lose your progress and are sent back to the start of a level. Or in those particularly hard games, you are sent back to the very START of the game.

So don’t you think that makes WAY more sense for how Jumanji would work?

Imagine in the film when the heroes’ fifth party member Alex, the kid who got trapped in the game twenty years earlier, starts to lose his last life, the rest aren’t able to save him. He seemingly dies… and then there is this bright flash.

Then all five of the players are suddenly back in the jeep with Rhys Darby hamming out exposition at them, right back at the start of the game.

I don’t know if that would make for a better paced film, but I definitely think it would make for a more interesting story that could explore some of the real underlying aspects and nuances of how playing a videogame actually goes. Because now this is no longer a challenge of luck or split-second intuition, but of trial and error. You know, like most ACTUAL videogames!

Now that our heroes know there ISN’T actually a threat of permanent death (because this is, you know, a GAME!), they can engage in one of the most FUN parts of playing a big, open-world sandbox game: trying any number of crazy, nonsensical ideas to see if one of them actually sticks!

And I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a great way to ratchet up the dark-comedy as the characters start trying all kinds of crazy ideas that get them killed more often than not. And if you think that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining movie, let me point you to a little-known flick called Groundhog Day! Not to mention the fact that story would still have stakes. The characters still have the goal of completing the game and there’s always the threat of them losing their progress and having to start over. Plus it makes for a great method of character development and bonding as the five are forced to learn how to work together until they’re functioning as a seamless unit.

This is really my overall point about how the threat of perma-death in these kinds of stories feels like such a crutch to needlessly generate generic drama and stakes. Not to mention kind of going against the very thing that makes something a GAME in the first place.

It’s why my actual favorite ‘people getting sucked into a videogame’ story is actually the anime Log Horizon. Because in that series the respawn mechanic of the MMO the characters are sucked into still works, and the story instead revolves around its characters learning to adjust, adapt and live in this new reality. Not to mention it still finds an interesting way of maintaining stakes and consequences to characters dying even if they can respawn: Namely that because the game’s respawning mechanic involved taking away a certain among of Experience Points from a player as a ‘cost’ for reviving, this means that players now lose pieces of their memory every time they respawn.

All in all, while I understand its appeal to writers as an easy way to generating stakes and danger for characters, this whole trope of ‘die in the game you die for realsies’ feels SUPER old and super cheap at this point. And I have serious respect for any story that subverts or averts it.

[starlytenight]

sorry if ive already asked this i forgot if i sent it in or not. is dark meta okay after the whole revival thing 😭 did he reform or did he stay dead? what about mirror galacta in that case? how is he feeling about dark’s apparent death and possible revival? theyre twinning now ig

Nah, no one's asked this but it's pretty safe for anyone to assume Dark Meta is fine, he's back too, he's just got his own version of rebirth where he's got perma-mirror cracks where Meta has scars and also lacks his own Warp Star. Shadow Galacta was also furious---in original scenes he was going to burst in and yell at everyone for daring to let the OG Meta die, but for constraints and focus reasons I cut this.

The other Morpho and Necro had their own things going on in the outside of Nightmare as well, so you can presume most things went down similarly. Kinda like this:

They went home once they saw regular Meta was fine, though that didn't stop the reflections from getting upsetti spaghetti over the end of days nearly happening sooner than expected because of sheer stupidity and melodrama. They cleared things up pretty quick though since the reflections are pretty chill once you kind of just accept that yeah, you do have that aspect of that self within and don't deny it or excuse it.

In later bits, like in the Allies Arc, Meta would have met with Dark Meta again and he would have absolutely been teasing him about the ordeal and how crappy he was at keeping in touch with his darker side despite basically being family with a bunch of Demon Beasts at this point---from there, he'd be helping him with the whole Jambandran issue and would have filled him in on his part of what happened where he fought his Morpho as well and dealt with the same shenanigans. Honestly they would be more chill and friendly at this point and greet each other like old pals.

After all, who else would better get you than yourself---even if he acts like you if you were stuck in your angsty teen phase?

[blackbackedjackal]

In comparison to other GSDs, is Lobo's energy level any different? The only ones I've known have been high-strung and very, very driven (tho probably due to poor breeding)

Lobo is a little freak (affectionate). He's nothing like I planned for when I started looking into GSDs and nothing like any of the ones I've seen or interacted with.

Both his parents were Euro working lines. I met his mom and she was super jumpy and hyper and loud (very sweet tho). His brother is apparently a big rough and tough guard dog, don't know much about his sister or his dad.

But Lobo is basically the opposite of any GSD you'll meet. He is SUPER mellow, absolute couch potato. He hardly barks and basically makes a series of 'ooo' sounds. He does that thing where dogs mimic thier owners words and that's the main way he communicates, by making those sounds then running to the front door or kitchen depending if he wants food or wants to go out. I walk him a lot but anytime I'm sick or busy I can just let him out to go to the bathroom and substitute exercise with something for him to chew on and he's pretty satisfied. He's really good with other animals, especially cats. His owner told me he was very gentle with his puppies when they were born and 100% believe that seeing him interact with the baby goats.

He's perma nervous but not like in a bad way. I've worked with him a lot to build his confidence so he's really good with most strangers and enjoys attention from other people. There was this one time this woman was in the same aisle as us and he kinda crept up to her and made and 'ooo' noise to get her attention. He startled her because she wasn't paying attention but she fell in love with him immediately because of how polite he was being (she had GSDs as well just not with her).

He has some drive and knows how to do basic herding tasks but it's not his thing or the only thing he wants to do. He'd honestly make a better cadaver dog then anything because he's really good at scenting out things and finding dead animals on our property, including tiny stuff I would miss otherwise. He's also the kind of dog where like, say if he accidentally knocks over a piece of paper, he will run away and then turn around to check and make sure the paper is OK. He picks up on changes super well too! My dad had a stoke earlier this year and he LOVES my dad. They used to chase eachother around to play but now he can't run or be as active anymore, and Lobo completely changed when he noticed that and is now very gentle and calmer with him. Even let's my dad lean on him while he walks. We didn't teach him that, I just told him to 'be gentle with Grandpaw' and he was and has been since ;-:

He's just not normal in the slightest lol. I'd compare him more to like, a rough collie in personality, and a border collie in intelligence. He's insanely smart. He knows at least 60 words now, probably more because I've never counted, and is constantly picking up on my behaviors so I have to change things up a lot to keep him guessing 😭

I got a GSD because I wanted a guard dog when I moved out here but instead I got the smartest and sweetest dog I could have asked for ❤️

[darby-draws]

1 and 12 for Quinn, 18 for Andre ?

Thanks for asking! [questions]

Read More for big long post! <3

1 What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

It was right after Art Fight and I desperately wanted a Queer Horror OC before Halloween season. There was a lot of talk about what kind of horror we wanted to go towards. (which maybe still is not quite settled as there are multiple "Horror Movie Plots" in our Whorror Movie story.) But we settled on demon possessed with some religious trauma and a bit of delicious revenge, and Darla and I both worked on designing our own guys separately and see how they would fit together. I sketched these:

I thought the demon might be similar to an AU demon we have, Goopy, who possesses Lucky and Nate in a story, so that's why I have the drippy drawing in the corner and the inspo for the top surgery tattoos. That's how Goopy was! But Quinn's Demon is a bit different now! Black hair with horns was a must but it mostly became spiky hair with the Vibe of horns. (… unless! rule of cool: draw them as horns anyway its badass!!)

In an early iteration of the story Quinn and Parker were going to find a baby possessed by a demon, from an Evil Cult Town. Quinn's demon and Parker's strength (and bloodthirst) destroyed their Big Bad leader who was doing the baby/demon sacrifices, and the baby was abandoned, maybe thought to be dead? They were like sure… We'll see what we can do with this little thang. They named it Blair Belladonna. They knew of an older witchy/demon knowledgeable grandma figure (literally Domino's Grandma before Domino was a character) who could help them learn about this baby's demon and how to raise a little demonling. BUT That never settled into canon, there is no baby Blair. (However! Much of the baby demon possessing cult thing turned into Domino's backstory. 👀)

12 What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC?

Remembering the dripping perma crying eyeliner down his cheeks. Yes it's supposed to be a permanent feature. 😔 Also figuring out how to draw the hair in between the "horns", how to make it spiky but not distract from The Big Spikes, which direction its going off in, etc. Otherwise I think Quinns pretty easy to grasp for me! 🤔 I love when I get to use flat black for hair and clothes when I'm just doodling so thats always a relief.

18 What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

This was trickyyy ahh Andre's such an old character that hasn't been the main focus lately, so a lot of thinking of him recently has been like. Reminiscing on old facts and not necessarily bringing in anything new. If theres something I've recently discovered of him, I can't think of it!

One thing I've recently decided after some consideration is that I'm going to fuse the Original Andre story where he adopts Delilah the robot and the AU where Andre has an Actual Human Baby instead of the robot together. So now, Delilah and baby Leia exist at the same time! Yay, two of them!!! It's gonna have to make me rethink and plan out his timeline a bit differently and see how he reacts to things now. I just haven't actually set out the time to plan the combined story yet. I feel like I softened up Andre's story a bit in the baby AU, (less drug use, less bad relationships with sketchy people, etc) so I'll have to see if I end up keeping it slightly more balanced or if it'll stay more true to the Actual Canon events, maybe just pushed around the timeline a bit.

Something else that feels new from semi recent times: I thought of an AU where all three of his parents actually like. Get together/stay together polycule it up and raise Andre together rather than the usual backstory of:

two good friends in college befriend and get a crush on the same woman

the guys start a business together

one of them marries the woman and they have a kid together but he gets way too into his work and neglects his wife, oops :(

she then goes to their friend for comfort, which leads to cheating, which leads to she GETS PrEGNANT (WITH ANDRE!) (NOT her Husband's child!) oops :(

she tells her husband the truth and they talk about separating

The Friend leaves The Business and is told to basically never speak to them again

Husband decides will simply raise this child as his own and works on bettering himself and the marriage (if only for appearances and/or for their older daughters sake) and he will simply Not resent the New Child for any reason, it's That Easy! (he said, you know, like a liar.)

Andre finds this out (Accidentally! From his SISTER) as a full grown ass adult and it fucks him up for a bit. oops :(

⬆ this is a lot to Get Into. And also it's Not the new stuff, although I probably haven't actually delved into it before…!

But basically, all this to say, this New 3 Parent AU leads to Andre being much more well adjusted, because so much of his… THing in his life (in canon timeline) has juust been. family treating him unfairly for something he had no part in and resenting/reacting to that. 🥴 And his two dads are such opposite strict/lenient personalities that they'd balance each other like, reallly wellll if they had that opportunity to both raise him from the start, and Andre would have someone in his corner when he's Going Through rough times in life. AUgh. If only… (Also his bio dad is … probably autistic like him so I think someone would like, UNDERSTAND him and the way he does things while growing up which is like, wow groundbreaking.)

[wrdn-tabris]

hi! i just found about your blog and about your oc, nico, and i am obsessed already :D! could you tell me more about nico, and what his relationship with jason is like?

WAH THANK YOU sorry for the late response, i was working all day and then i took a nap fdjsl

NICO IS MY SWEET BABY he was a weird little kid who grew up to become a weird adult. he and jason were childhood friends who were both very small kids, tho jason was a little bigger than nico, so he tried to look out for them.

they ended up separated when jason ended up homeless after his mother passed, and during that time nico started coming into his sort of natural 'magic' in a sense.

his family is apart of a magic cult and bc of their connection with that hes got sort of a spooky connection to the afterlife, so it started when he was younger by hearing things, sort of seeing things, and seeing visions in mirrors of people who were going to die (he saw jasons death before it happened! actually! or an apparition of his dead body), usually violently OR near him. this understandably caused him a lot of stress.

i think his mother who really had no idea about the cult stuff:tm: tried to get him help. nico was medicated for a while, tho im not sure if it helped or not. he just learned to sort of stop talking about what he was seeing and hearing, kept his head down.

nicos very much a quiet and friendly person. hes sort of shy, not used to people, but enjoys talking about his interests. before he 'died' he really enjoyed like. exploring abandoned places and walking in the woods and things like tht, nico likes to write and play video games and is a horrible cook. aside from his total anxiety about going outside sometimes hes a v happy person!

and so him and jason! they meet again sometime after utrh maybe in ocverse sandbox haha, get to know each other again. jason has no idea who nico is at first bc he remembers a weird little girl who went by a different name and not who nico is now, but hes privately excited to get to know them again. and also to have someone whose totally separate from the whole vigilante thing

they got a good amount of trust with each other for a while, until nico DOES find out abt the vigilante thing and gets a wee bit upset. he doesnt tlk to jason for a while UNTIL the cult finally needs him for their whole ritualistic summoning of their demon god and asks jason for help. and he tries. jason tries really really hard, but with him trying to keep nico safe from cult stuff + batman whose investigating this new group in his city, the chips r kinda stacked against him. nico sees a vision of jason dead again, and he cant kill his friend, so he ends up slipping out n contacting his father and ends up sacrificed and killed.

he comes back! spends like 4 months trying to get back to gotham and sometime after coming back and learning tht he is like. perma possessed and stuff, he n jason end up dating n nico starts learning how to use his own magic and etc

he and jason r very sweet. jasons a lil protective over him, and vice versa with nico, whose a lil paranoid and wants to make sure his loved ones are safe constantly. he doesnt sleep much, because the demon gives him bad dreams, so he stays up until jason comes home from patrol. theyre just very sickeningly cute.

and id be remiss if i didnt mention my friend kits oc keeva, whose nicos cousin, or my friend romans oc isaac, who nico is also dating. ot3 polycule baby.

[countercharmd]

a cursory write-up of story beats for ren's act iii arc/companion subplot ( will make a proper post for the entirety of his quests later ) cw for transphobic parents

POST 1 OF 2.

+if you meet nine fingers keene with ren in your party, you get a cutscene similar to when you have jaheira with you in which she reveals to the player (and the party as a whole) that serendipity is an angemont, and that she went to his funeral +she reveals that aniki, ren's younger sister, was taken under her wing soon after ren left to attend the college of lore (with intentions of making her a lady of the court, one day) +there's a conversation prompt to ask ren about his family after this, when you speak to him, but he only answers with 'sorry, all will be explained in due time, but -- let's find my sister first? please?' (if you agree to go find her immediately after this, you get his approval) +aniki ambushes you later in the sewers, alongside some other thugs; if you have ren in your party during this fight it stops when she's at half health and a cutscene is triggered where she breaks her cool assassin front to confront ren about how she mourned him, how she felt abandoned by him the moment he left home +you can either defend ren, take aniki's side, try and calm her down, or stay silent; when you stay silent, ren explains that he was just following his dreams, and that he's here now +(defend ren / try and calm aniki down: ren approves) +no matter your choice here, aniki leaves ren with an ultimatum: help her take down their parents, or he's truly dead to her +(if you don't get this fight with ren in the party, you can still get this cutscene if you turn on non-lethal damage; she'll show up in your camp next long rest to confront ren) +(if you kill her, ren perma-leaves your party) +after this cutscene, ren's '!' that follows is an apology for keeping his family a secret from you up to this point, and how relieved he is to see his sister again -- even if she seems to hate him still +conversation prompts after this: ask about the angemonts as a whole, ask about aniki and why she's Like That (more to come i'm sure i just can't think of any at the moment) +you can talk to aniki again after this if you return to the guildhall; she'll give you more proper info about the angemont mansion and what their parents are up to +you learn that they've recently started corresponding with gortash, promising something of value in exchange for safety from the chaos that is to come to baldur's gate +there are essentially two options you can choose for this approach: burst in through the front doors and start fighting, or infiltrate the house with subterfuge +subterfuge option, ren offers to act as the bait; he starts going through the motions to cast disguise self, but decides against it. 'no. no more running, no more hiding'

[dzpenumbra]

4/9/23

I saw the moon a good portion of the night last night, I keep looking out the window expecting to see it and see nothing.

Today was pretty uneventful. I spent a good chunk of the day studying astrology. I have had mixed feelings about not accomplishing enough and not seeing research as "work". I guess a little story might put it into perspective, but let me preface it by saying... my reasoning is that I want to take this time as an opportunity to learn about something that interests me. Rather than... rush it... and then learn after the fact.

This story isn't entirely related... it's just something I observed today. Something I really don't know how I feel about. So I might as well put it out there. I've been watching a lot of roleplay in Red Dead Redemption lately. And sometimes, in roleplay, they will make "perma characters", where the death conditions are basically... anything that incapacitates your character is an automatic death. Where, normally, you can sorta... choose how injured your character gets and when your character actually dies. Which... to a degree I understand, but always felt a bit... abusable. But I get that everyone is different and I do a lot of permadeath games and a lot of people really aren't cut out for it.

So this roleplayer decided he wanted to make... a Native American perma character. A warrior, who lost his entire tribe. Who spoke broken english. And walked around with a bow on his back and rode around bareback with a hatchet out and all that. Now... this guy is pretty notorious for playing pretty much exclusively villains. Arch characters. And this one... it had me genuinely scratching my chin.

I think it should be 100% not just okay to play characters of other races, but encouraged. Especially in roleplay communities that are predominantly white. Otherwise you just end up with a giant culture of white people, which is the exact opposite of the desired effect, diversity and cultural representation are just... gone. As long as you are playing an actual character. A person. Not like... a trope. I guess? I mean... yeah it's like... the line is super blurry there, you know? Like... okay... I was trying to ask the streamer periodically like... well... he was giving mixed messages about like animals being sacred, and being one with nature, and hating the invaders because they just "take take take" from the land, and all that. Then an hour later, he goes out and fills a buffalo full of arrows. Hacks it with a hatchet when it's down. Skins it. And leaves the carcass out in a field to rot. And this was after he heard a really well-delivered traditional Native origin story about what the buffalo really were to some tribes - basically a precursor to us, humanity, like a first wave of people that came to the world who were tricked and tempted by spirits, and they ended up becoming trapped and transformed into buffalo, and their purpose was to be here for us essentially... to utilize, but also to learn from. Like they gave in to temptation, and we have the gift of learning from their mistakes. It was a really powerful story that 80% of chat were spamming nodding-off-emotes in response to. And I tried to ask him about like... hunting... because he kept talking about how the bow and arrow... he, as a player, wasn't used to and shit. And people were encouraging him to go and practice, so I was trying to ask him... with his whole expressed beliefs about nature all being one interconnected web, and a failed confrontation of a European person for "taking" a wolf unjustly... I wanted to know how he felt about hunting... in general. You know, before just riding off and slaughtering an animal literally for money so that he could get a fancier bow.

Like... okay. Just, for the record, the second that buffalo went down, I tabbed out of the stream and went back to astrology study. I was just done... yeah. So... if you're going to play a Native character... please do! I mean that. I am so fucking tired of seeing the same fucking generic white male tough guy cowboys, or generic white female sheriffs or stereotypical Italian gangsters. You occasionally see some black people, which is good, honestly. You do not often see Asians, which... has always been odd to me. I feel like the whole Asians in the old west thing really doesn't get enough screen time, it's such a fascinating culture clash. But I have legit like... barely every even heard mention of Natives on that server. Like, one time, I heard someone mention a guy who was from the Wapiti tribe. That was it. So... maybe they do RP, and they just keep to themselves? Maybe because it can be hard for people to... gauge how to politically interact there, and it makes it awkward and people feel pressured? Especially if there was going to be like... conflict RP or something? It's delicate... and it really needs to be tasteful.

And, despite how talented the streamer I was watching today was, he was... not tasteful. Leading to a bit of my point here. If you're going to play a character from another culture... I think a pretty important part of that is... doing research. Accurate, comprehensive, immersive research. Not just... "okay... I'm... British. And my name is... George Stanford... and I'm from... hmm lets pull up a map... Okay... Nantwich. Right. That's a random spot no one's going to ask about." Okay, bad example, because European culture is pretty similar... so... let's say that same process I just did there, but with... Vietnam. Right? So now we have our Vietnamese guy and he's from a random city that no one will RP check you on, so... who is he? How does he act? I mean, it's more than just a fucking voice, okay? Getting an accent right is one thing, any idiot with enough time and enough confidence to screw up over and over until they get it right will get it eventually. People literally adopt accents subconsciously, it's definitely possible. But if you want to make a fucking person. You need to get in their head. You need to see through their eyes, you need to think like they think. You came from a fishing village where you didn't even have cobbled roads, and you get dropped in the heart of St. Denis... where you barely understand the language. The technology is different. The food is different. The customs are different. Like... it's a leap! And understanding your character's experience of that moment is really what ties you into their motives. To know who they are, you need to know where they came from. Their culture, their beliefs, how they see the world, their moral compass.

This guy was... stereotypical generic Native warrior #7, and he was designed to be a throwaway character. I would really call that... as close to a caricature as you can get without intentionally being one. Which is good. It's good that it's not a caricature, that it's not intentionally poking fun or mocking or expressing disgust. But honestly... it's lazy.

Especially when you have S-Tier roleplayers handing you source material in-game on a silver fucking platter. The chief that he magically stumbled upon in stream sent him on a short journey to find himself. Which I thought was fucking perfect, because he was a cardboard cutout of an "Indian" in a "cowboys and indians" movie. He needed a story, he needed motives, he needed history, identity and direction. Even if he only had 4 hours to live, or else he was literally only a savage Native, which... is really not a fair representation of anyone. Like... animals have more personality than that. It's lazy at a culture's expense, honestly. And the chief noticed this (I would wager) and, instead of flipping out or RP-checking him or bullying him or calling an admin... gave him an opportunity to build his character. The character was called "Moon Dance", he mentioned hawks and eagles, so the chief - I admire the fuck out of this RPer and I wish they were streaming, I was actively looking for them because of how stellar their performance was - the chief sent him on a night-time quest to the top of the sacred mountain, where eagles nest, at night, under moonlight. It was perfect. And this "warrior" heads off down the trail on his quest, and sees a pack of wolves between him and the moon on the trail he was supposed to go up. And the streamer was... he was fucking scared. He was scared of getting his perma character killed by wolves within minutes of meeting these people. Because wolves are strong on this server. And he only had a bow and arrow, which he had zero experience using. So he was like... actually put to the test! Immediately! Under the moonlight! It was flat-out cinematic, it was like... spiritual! Surreal! I was cooking dinner while that was happening and I was just like... "no fucking way". And the streamer? He says he's going to wait until the wolves leave at dawn, and went to take a piss and make a coffee. He went fucking AFK! XD Someone even went to check on him, and he was still AFK, it was awkward as fuck.

So he went to the top, and an eagle flew away, and he was going to shoot it but.. didn't. And I was like screaming (okay, internally, obviously not literally because I live in an apartment now) "DUDE, you are being fed your spiritual realization on golden fucking platter right now! YOU ARE NOT A WARRIOR ANYMORE!" I even tried typing it into chat. I... shouldn't, honestly. I bitch about backseating a lot, but like... it really would've saved the character. INSTEAD, I shit you not, he Googles "native american wisdom" and acts like he had some epiphany out of nowhere and suddenly just opened his eyes and saw the world in a new way, that we are all one and connected and we are all connected by blood or something. Like... it had zero connection to his character's actual experience, it had nothing at all to do with personal growth, it didn't even really have personal growth in mind, it was like... existential musing. It was done to try to like... "get it right", or "prove something". Like it was an algebra test or something, idk. It was so frustrating, that character turn could've been so impactful, so powerful. Especially for someone who tends to always play villains. To, instead, play a warrior who... after seeing all of his family and friends slaughtered, and failing to defend them. Failing his purpose. And left to wander the country, the last of his kind. Second guesses his place as an actual warrior. Because like... what is a warrior if they don't have a faction? Who is he even fighting for? What is he fighting for? Who is he fighting? Right? And this is a man who genuinely fears wolves, too. AND, because he's a perma character, he fears death way the fuck more than any other character in The Crossing. It's such a compelling framework for a really tense and transformative character. Good lord, I was like, foaming at the mouth seeing the potential in this character.

And instead... He goes on a canoe trip. He buys a new black and red outfit with a skull mask. He goes and slaughters a buffalo for money, and then hacks it to death when it goes down.

And I... died a little inside. And... another player even saw him do it. And confronted him on it. "Hey, isn't that animal sacred to your people?" And I was just like...

I don't like saying this. I really admire this streamer's abilities. I really like his work, I think he's talented and deserves the credit and popularity he gets. But in that moment, I was a little ashamed to be subscribed to him.

And... I see what he was going for. He likes to do crazy characters. He likes the deep south inbred murderer trope. He made a violent mutated circus freak character. He likes villains; insidious, arch, explosive, violent, vengeful, dark. But... Not to a buffalo. Not right after the Chief told you the origin story, how those were essentially people, and they were cursed to walk the land like that because they gave in the the same impulses you are giving into right now. It was just like... blatantly apparent that he wasn't listening to some of the best RP I've seen on his stream. It was such a shame.

So... I really don't know how you would make a Native villain in RP. I think it's very possible. I just... I think you really really need to build a backstory and context around them to make it very clear that you are not just a "savage primitive man". And the whole broken english thing really didn't help, honestly. And riding with no saddle. And simple clothing. Like... the Europeans had been settled on the continent since like... when was Plymouth and all that? Like the 1600's? And this takes place in 1901? And they wanna act like the Natives don't know how to speak English? Or don't have guns? I mean, many tribes were allied with the French in the French Indian War like... 150 years before that!

Watching someone who has over 9 years of experience in RP be in that position made me suddenly very confident in my abilities. It really was inspiring, in an odd way.

So... seeing that really helped reaffirm that... if you have a chance to learn about something? Like Moon Dance being given a spirit quest and an origin story on a silver fucking platter, or me having some extra time and an interest in actually learning how to create, read and analyze a horoscope (rather than just... estimate and make something that looks like a horoscope)... Just fucking go for it. Learn. Dive in. Take a few days. And that was me. I was reading about astrology until 6:30 AM on my phone in bed. I had to stop myself to go to bed. So... as much as I'm deeply compelled to just go and put something on the hoodie... this research will be helpful for more than just one art piece. It's helping me expand my world view and grow as a person. If I wanted to, I could even go and put up a flier at one of the entrances to my building and offer to read peoples' horoscope and tarot, if they wanted! I think that could be really cool. I just need to build up the confidence, and maybe make my home a bit more... theatrical. Which could be fun anyway... Could be cool.

I'm very disoriented right now. I'm hearing what I think sounds like... a vacuum cleaner? Coming from upstairs? And... it's 4AM. So... that's... not normal... So I'm gonna take a pee break and do some recon to confirm this.

Whatever, it's none of my business. It's so weird to hear human activity this late! I'm so used to the silence. Makes me wonder if they're okay. I know some people stress-clean. And doing that at 4AM in an apartment building is just... idk, either their just oblivious or they're really not doing well.

So yeah, unfortunately that was pretty much the bulk of the day. Cramming an insane amount of astrology information into my head, which I really didn't absorb a ton of... watching the stream... which inspired and then devastated me... then back to astrology.

I just rabbit holed again while the neighbor was vacuuming. Just... it was hard to hear my thoughts. I did more astrology reading. Welp, the whole thing just gets more and more complicated.

So... this one that I'm reading is saying stuff about how the zodiac is a season-based system of measurement that splits the sky along the equinoxes and solstices. (I'm following...) And then subdivides those by 3. (Kinda arbitrary but go on...) Full 360 degree circle with 30 degree sections. (Sounds math-y, but this is all math so, I'm onboard.) Then they start talking about how the zodiac isn't a constellation map, it's a separate thing, just regions of space used to symbolize those constellations. That it's much more connected to the movements of the sun and planets in regions of the sky, and those regions were just associated with constellation concepts, not direct representations. And I'm with all of it. And then they claimed that the constellations were actually named after the zodiac, that the zodiac came first. And I started to get a bit like... well... big claims require big evidence, right? And I just have this person's word here. So... I searched a bit and found an actual research paper from around 2009 on trying to find the origin of the 12 zodiac constellation system. I, admittedly, did not read too in-depth because... it's 4:30 AM... but from what I skimmed... it seems like constellations weren't really referred to openly, that we've discovered, in association with cycles before around the 10th century B.C. Now... this was 2009, so... we may have learned quite a bit since then. But at the time, that was the oldest documented association in writing to the moon cycle, and they mentioned 18 constellations, referred to as "gods". But constellations were often referred to in other documents prior to that, apparently. And from this research, it seems like the Mesopotamian solar calendar (30 day months, 12 months) was sorta superimposed on it, and a few constellations were doubled up to make it fit. They discarded Orion and "The Field" (Pegasus square and part of Pisces).

God, I'm getting so lost in this and I'm super tired. Basically, that kinda just smells like confident bullshit. The part about the constellations being named after the Zodiac. That just doesn't seem true. The constellations were known for ages and ages before, like there is documented evidence of that for over 1000 years before the mention of zodiacal arrangement, and some of what we consider bigger constellations like Pisces and Taurus were actually broken up into smaller ones, like "The Swallow" and "Anunitu". So... again... with history that old... it's really hard to know for sure what is the true story there. Not that any story is like... better or worse... culture melding and borrowed practice is like... the cornerstone of occult expression. It's kinda what defines it, in a unique way. Esoteric practices tend to borrow from many cultures, which creates very creative and unique hybrid practices which absolutely fascinate me. I just don't like it when claims are made like "well, actually... duh..." and then... there's zero evidence to prove the bold claim. Just word of mouth or something. I'm sorry, but if there's a cuneiform document from 700 BC that says they are using an 18 constellation zodiac... I mean... it's right there. Are we going to assume that they... split the 12 constellations and renamed them, then put them back together? Or does it make more sense for that to have been a precursor prior to trying to sync those discoveries to the seasonal calendar?

History is so fascinating. Infinitely frustrating, I'm sure, but so damn fascinating. We think we know so much but we know so goddamn little.

Anyway, I don't need astronomical precision. I like seasonal associations, I like element associations and deity associations, I'm not married to literal planets in literal constellations in the visible sky. Houses and evenly spaced zodiacal regions are totally fine with me. And they make sense in their own way. It makes way more sense from a timekeeping or rhythmic standpoint.

Wow, I was all over the place tonight. I gotta go to bed. The moon is up and high in the sky now. Goodnight!

[feelslessfoodmore]

Ok so after going through the tag I feel like I'm really not seeing enough people talking about how narrowly Orym avoided an Absolute Perma Death this last episode‽‽‽‽ Laudna making that perception check (which Matt was very reluctant in allowing to begin with!) single handedly decided Orym's fate.

Let's break it down real quick: 1) Matt said they were 300-400 feet up which is above the cap for max fall damage but below the height where you take more than a single round to hit the ground. Orym would've fallen to the surface of the planet and taken a fuck ton of fall damage well before Imogen could cast fly and catch up to him. (The fly spell makes the target hover so by rules as written, she technically wouldn't have been able to catch up anyways since she wouldn't've been able to free fall and would've had to descend at her 60 ft. fly speed.)

2) in the keyfish incident, Keyleth's body did not remain in one piece and I doubt Orym's would either. This combined with the time it would take to get the body back to F.C.G. would put them well outside the time like l limit of revivify.

3) And finally, all of that is predicated on the condition that they can even find his body at all!! That air ship was high in the sky, moving notably fast, with strong winds perfectly capable of blowing a halfling around mid air. Predicting where Orym would land would be way more difficult than just retracing steps. I can't remember if they were still above jungle or not but if they were they'd be pretty much fucked unless F.C.G. had locate object prepared (dead bodies are objects RAW but they also could just target something he'd had on him and hope it didn't go flying in the fall.) It could take days to find Orym and I don't think the captain would be willing to risk it since as they said falling overboard is usually a one and done deal.

Like that wasn't just the usual "Oh Orym is putting himself at risk in battle again and might die" because in those cases F.C.G. is right there, diamond at the ready if healing isn't enough.

This was Certain Death.

This was Liam makes a new character because the Hell's Bells do not have the connections to bring him back yet. No church connection, the only person they even know of capable of bringing him back is Keyleth and while there might be some Watsonian reasoning that the characters would think to go to her I just can't see the players wanting that. Asking Keyleth to fix all their problems just doesn't make for a fun campaign.

Orym keeps dancing with death but this was something so infitesimaly close to the end of his life that I'm convinced if Laudna had failed that roll Liam would've narrated how during the fall Orym sees a Raven and just watches it peacefully has he grips his tattoo. His last words before he hit the ground would be "I'm sorry" and then something about his husband being on the other side and getting to see him again, maybe even a "didn't make you wait as long as I thought I would I guess".

P.S. How poetic that it was Laudna who once again when faced with Certain Death –instead of kneeling to Fate– took that shit in hand and said fuck no.

[frombeyondtheblackhole]

Hermit DSMP Swap AU: Part 9.1

[TW: Blood, violence, severe injury, bone related gore and zombie/undead related body horror. Please take care of yourself and stay safe. Warnings bracket the worst of the potentially triggering content and a summary is provided if you feel the need to skip that part. Some violence and minor injuries are outside the brackets. If there is a specific TW that you would like me to include in the future feel free to let me know and I will do my best to add it.]

Quackity, Purpled and Charlie, spent over an hour searching through the woods and the land around Las Nevadas, well mostly just Quackity and Purpled while Charlie hovered around asking annoying questions. Neither The Zombie nor Foolish were anywhere to be found. 

Quackity told Purpled and Charlie to Head back to Las Nevadas and look there while he did one more check around the perimeter for any clues as to what happened. Quackity took his time. Now that he was by himself he was able to think more clearly. He shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned.    

Quackity wasn’t exactly sure what he had witnessed. He’d never seen something exactly like it, one minute Foolish was standing in front of him and the next he was gone and this zombie lady was in his place. He might argue with the other Las Navadas recruits, and they might not have the best opinion of him, but one thing was certain, if anyone messed with them, especially on Las Navadas property, They were messing with him and he wasn’t about to let anyone push him around, not anymore, never again. 

Quackity looked up as he rounded a sand dune, the walls of Tubbo’s “cookie” outpost looming up on the edge of Las Nevadas land. Quackity Scowled. One problem after another. The whole conflict about the walls hadn’t really been resolved, Tubbo was being stubborn, unreasonable. But that wasn’t a priority at the moment, he would deal with that latter, right now, he had bigger problems. 

Quackity followed along the wall and stopped short on the road in front of the Las Nevadas toll tunnel. Ranboo and Tubbo stood on the road coming from the other direction.

They stared at each other, neither side moving. Then Quackity broke into a smile “Hey there, Fancy running into you two here. You seem to hang around here a lot, have either of you seen Foolish or a strange looking Zombie by chance?”

Ranboo fidgeted and looked away but he was always fidgeting and he was never one for eye contact so that wasn’t exactly a tell. 

Tubbo on the other hand, Quackity had been in the same cabinet with him during Schlatt’s presidency, and in the cabinet during Tubbo’s presidency, he knew what the kid looked like when he lied. 

“A Zombie you say? What makes you think we would have anything to do with that?” Tubbo shrugged. 

Quackity didn’t drop the smile. “Don’t play dumb with me. You know exactly what I am talking about.”

“Honest big man, there are no Zombies here, that's why we built the walls.” Tubbo insisted.

Ok so the kid was getting better at lying. Quackity frowned but the smile returned a moment later. “That's all good. Just be careful, she did something to Foolish, he’s gone missing, I’m worried that if she is allowed to roam free and do whatever she wants then she might do what she did to Foolish to someone else. You understand. I would hate to hear that one of you two went missing.”   

Tubbo and Ranboo looked at each other.  They definitely knew something they weren’t telling him. 

“Thanks for the warning big man, we’ll let you know if we see anything,” Tubbo smiled tightly before grabbing Ranboo’s arm and pulled him aside to whisper in his ear.

Called it. Quackity smiled, his sharp gold tooth glinting in the sunlight. He turned on his heel and headed back down the tunnel towards Las Nevadas. 

---

Cleo looked down at the dark water lapping against the stone pier where she sat, her legs dangling over the edge. The air smelled of salt, cold stung her lungs. She wasn’t shivering despite the fact that a crop top and shorts was chronically under dressed for the weather. She didn’t really notice. 

Her heel bounced against the wall of the peer as she stared out to sea. Snowchester was secluded, nice and peaceful, but it also felt vacant. There were houses but no one lived in them. Not that that was anything all too strange, Hermits built empty houses all the time, but these felt different. The empty houses the Hermits built were intended just for show, or to conceal functional builds. These houses once housed people, and now were abandoned.  

Cleo looked up at the sound of footsteps crunching through the snow and the clunk of boots against the wood at the beginning of the peer. Tubbo and Ranboo stood looking back at her. Tubbo had his hands in the front pockets of his coat and Ranboo stared at her over Tubboo’s shoulder. He never seemed to blink, it was a bit unnerving. 

Cleo pursed her lips “Um, thanks for letting me stay here kids, but-”

“You can’t stay here anymore,” Tubbo blurted out. 

Cleo blinked.

Ranboo flinched “Sorry about all this, it’s just…”

“Don’t worry about it kid,” Cleo said, getting to her feet, “I was going to leave anyway,” She shrugged.   

“Oh really,” Ranboo sighed.

Tubbo frowned “Why? What changed?” 

Cleo chuckled hollowly, “I could ask you the same thing.” 

Tubbo pursed his lips but didn’t push the issue.

Cleo walked past the two of them and started up the path.

“Wait,” Ranboo called

Cleo stopped.  

“Where are you going to stay now?” Ranboo asked. Tubbo just glared at her.

Cleo shrugged and smiled a bit to cheerily “I’m sure I’ll find a nice cave somewhere, after all I am a Hermit,” 

“Um,” Ranboo looked off to the side, tapping his fingers together. “If you need it there’s a hotel in the Greater Dream SMP. It’s big and red, hard to miss.”  

Cleo chuckled, “I’ll be alright, don’t worry ‘bout it.” 

Tubbo was still glaring at her. She turned to leave again.

“Just know that if you try and mess with us we can and will defend ourselves,” Tubbo said.

Cleo didn’t turn around “Oh, I know,” She smirked as she walked away. This Tubbo kid had guts, she could respect that. 

---    

Quackity taped his fingers against his arm impatiently as he waited in the ditch on the Greater DSMP side of the speed tunnel to Snowchester. After talking to Tubbo and Ranboo he had watched from a distance and followed them here. 

The splash of oars cutting through the water reached Quackity’s ears as a boat made its way towards his hiding spot. Quackity took a steadying breath, stealing himself as he listened carefully. The boat scraped against the shore and there was a crunch of sand as someone got out of the boat. Only one person. 

Quackity stood up and moved into view. The Zombie jumped, summoning her sword as she spun around to face him, teeth bared.

Quackity held up his empty hands and took several steps back. “Woe, woe woe. Hold on. I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“You think?” She scoffed. She didn’t attack but she still had her guard up. 

“Just tell me what you did to my friend and maybe we can resolve this peacefully,” He smiled tightly. 

“I didn’t do anything! And even if I did, why would I tell you? You already tried to kill me once?” She said. Then her expression changed, as if just remembering something. She lowered her sword and straightened. “What do you know about perma-death?” She asked calmly.

Quackity sucked in his breath and took a step back. Was this a threat or a legitimate question? He looked at the determination in her eyes… It was both. 

He fought the urge to summon his axe. 

“Do you really think you can kill a Zombie? I’m already dead. The rules don’t apply to me!” She strode forward and pointed her sword at him. Quackity staggered back looking up at her standing over him on the edge of the pit framed by the crystal clear sky behind her.   

Was she bluffing? 

Fuck. 

She spun on her heel and ran the other direction, across the field. 

The trance was broken. 

[TW: Blood, violence, body horror. Skip to the next bolded text to avoid the worst of it] 

“Shit, Get back here!” Quackity scrambled up the bank, summoning his crossbow and letting loose the bolt. It struck her in the leg, but she didn’t even seem to slow down. Had she even felt it? An ender pearl replaced the crossbow and a moment later he felt a sudden rush as he flew through the air, switching to his axe mid-flight. He crashed into her back, embedding his axe between her shoulder blades.

Quackity pulled his axe out of her back and staggered backwards. She wasn’t dead. She hadn’t despawned yet. Maybe she had been telling the truth about being unable to die. Oh wait, she was moving.

She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees coughing up dark sickened blood. She staggered to her feet and turned around to face him again, fire and determination in her eyes.

How was she still standing? That last hit had to have broken several ribs. Quackity glanced at the exposed ribs poking out from under her crop top, edged with decayed flesh. Those had been that way before. Maybe broken bones didn’t matter?  

[TW End: Summery: Quackity chases after Cleo, she tanks a bunch of damage but is able to keep fighting despite severe injuries]

Why were his knees shaking? She hadn’t even scratched him this time, and she wasn’t as good at combat as Dream or Techno. Yet she refused to die? 

He clenched his teeth and scowled, “I’ll give you one more chance. Tell me what you did with Foolish?” He demanded. Now he was bluffing. 

“I. Don’t. Know!” She yelled as she lunged at him, summoning her sword mid swing as she brought it down on him. 

He didn’t have time to block. Instead he moved back and swung the axe up. The blunt side of the head struck her in the chin as he felt her sword cut into his shoulder and graze his chest.

She staggered back and switched her sword out for a gapple. 

Oh no you don’t. Quackity raised his axe about to lung when he felt someone jump on him from behind. Arms wrapping around his neck in a choke hold. The axe returned to his inventory as he grabbed at the arms around his neck. They were invisible, his attacker was invisible.  

“Cleo, Run!” the invisible man shouted. 

She froze, the gapple halfway to her mouth “Etho?” 

“I said run!”

She turned on her heel and started running, only pausing for a moment to eat the gapple and keep going. 

Quackity clawed at the arm around his neck. This Etho guy was invisible. That ment he wasn’t wearing armor. Quackity summoned a sword in reverse grip and stabbed behind him. He heard Etho hiss as the sword grazed him. His grip loosened and Quackity was able to wrestle free. Summoning another pearl he threw it, getting away and landing near some trees. He staggered against one of the trees, coughing and rubbing his neck. He gritted his teeth, his face twisting into and ugly snarl. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She got away. And she had an accomplice.  

They made him look like an idiot. He quickly rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. He had promised never to let himself feel helpless again. Never to let other people control him. Yet he had let himself get pushed around by some random Zombie and one guy with an invis pot. Fuck this. He needed to do something about this. He couldn’t let this stand.

[crowfootwrites]

Bruises | Part II [Nestor Oceteva x Fem!Reader]

Part II of the Nestor two-shot. This part is significantly longer than the first part, but we get to see Nestor takin' care of business, so. Also, there's a Marcus cameo.

Warnings: implied violence; gun usage; language | Words: 1,861

Part I of Bruises

Two days later, you’re back at work, opting for a floral catsuit to keep your bruising covered. Your sides, back, and thighs are starting to look pretty gnarly.

Nestor had indeed taken you to the hospital and stayed with you while doctors performed a series of ultrasounds and CT scans to check for any internal hemorrhaging; he was on the phone for a while and you could hear snippets of angry conversation, likely with Miguel or Marcus about finding the guy that did this. When you were given the all-clear, Nestor had taken you home, insisting on you taking it easy. He had made dinner and curled up with you on the couch, trying to avoid jostling you at all costs. When the two of you had finally made your way to bed, his fingers gently caressed you and he pressed soft kisses against the deep violet bruises blooming across your torso. You saw the quick flash of heartbreak in his eyes at seeing you hurt, and you had curled against him, falling asleep safely in his arms.

It’s a Tuesday and it’s early, so the club is still fairly slow. You’re bartending tonight, thankfully, glad to have a large slab of wood between you and everyone else. You’re not sure what progress Nestor has made on finding the guy, but you still have your job, so you count your blessings and don’t ask questions.

Another blessing: the other bartender for the evening arrives, and it’s an intimidating-looking girl you’ve worked with a few times named Morgan. All but the most confident (or the stupidest) patrons find her pin-straight black hair, severe makeup, and perma-frown a little daunting. No one ever fucks with Morgan and you’re glad to have her beside you for the night.

Things start to pick up around 11 and suddenly, it’s busy, even for a Tuesday. Morgan leans over to remind you about the drink special your boss is promoting, and you groan internally, knowing the tips are the only thing making it worth your while. You and Morgan make a good team, supplying drinks at a breakneck pace while club lights flash around you, obscuring most of what’s happening past the first row of patrons at the bar.

You’re throwing together a Jack & Coke when you hear it. The voice sends panic jolting down your spine as it requests a Budweiser. You stare at your trembling hands, a lime wedge clutched between your fingers.

You force your eyes upward and it’s him. The same slicked back brown hair, the same oily smile, even the same leather jacket. Your eyes widen and he looks back at you with a calculating gaze. Your immediate reaction is a desire to run. But as soon as the thought appears you dismiss it. The club is packed, and it would be easy for him to try something in the middle of a throng of people. No, the safest place for you is behind the bar, where other people can keep their eyes on you.

You force a smile that you’re sure comes out as more of a grimace.

“Sure thing,” you tell him, the pitch of your voice just a little too high. You hand the Jack & Coke to its owner, managing to spill a little on your shaking hands, then head over to the cooler for the beer.

You can feel his eyes on you and your stomach turns, bile burning in your throat. In the dark corner of the bar, shielded partially from view by Morgan, you can feel yourself breaking down. Your eyes flash around you in a panic. Everything and everyone feel too far away. You don’t see the bouncer by the door, and there’s no escape route that doesn’t take you past the man staring at you from the end of the bar.

You’re not sure what to do so you call the person you trust the most.

Nestor answers on the first ring. “Amor?” His voice is, understandably, apprehensive.

A whimper steals through your lips before you can get the words out. “He’s here.”

“Are you inside?” Nestor’s tone has lost all sense of worry. His words are clipped, business-like, and you know this isn’t going to end well.

“Yeah, I’m working the bar with Morgan,” you mumble, dropping your head into your hands as Morgan looks over at you with concern.

“Stay behind the bar,” he commands. “If he tries anything, break a bottle, get a paring knife. Whatever you gotta do, mi amor. I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

The line goes dead and you take a couple deep breaths, glad that, despite what’s about to happen, Nestor is coming. You grab the Budweiser out of the cooler, pop the cap and plunk it on the bar top in front of him, not meeting his eyes.

“How’s your night going, babydoll?” The words slither out of his mouth deviously and you swallow around the knot in your throat. Your eyes glance to digital clock beside the register. Thirteen minutes to go.

“Busy,” you grind out through gritted teeth. You move to the middle of the bar to help a waiting customer, and the man’s eyes follow you as you make drinks. He doesn’t leave the bar. He sits and leers and you wonder if he thinks that he’s going to follow you out again at the end of the night. As if you wouldn’t have learned your lesson? Good thing he won’t be here ‘til closing, you think, as your eyes flicker obsessively to the clock, counting down the minutes until Nestor arrives.

Nestor, apparently, makes very good time when he’s angry, because you see him come through the door of the club with two minutes to spare. An audible sigh of relief passes your lips as his eyes find yours over the crowd and he makes his way to the bar. You bite your lip as your gaze lands on Marcus talking to the bouncer who has returned to his post. The bouncer, the same one who was working the night you were attacked, glances at you, then nods to Marcus. Marcus disappears into the crowd behind Nestor. You can’t help the tightening in your chest. This is going to be bad.

You come to stand in front of the man so Nestor knows who to see about their little assault problem. The man, still unaware of Nestor and Marcus’ approach behind him, winks nauseatingly at you and just as he reaches over the bar for your wrist, a firm hand clenches around his forearm and pulls back. The man jerks back on the bar stool and spins to face two vicious looking men in suits.

The man sputters, trying to yank his arm free, but Nestor has no intention of letting him go. “Who the fuck are you?” the man yells. You glance at Nestor’s hold on the man’s arm, his knuckles turning white as his grip intensifies.

Marcus paces around to the other side of the man’s stool, his hands tucked casually in his pockets. “We hear you like to hit women,” he says nonchalantly, bringing his mouth close to the man’s ear. His one free arm flies up, trying to hit Marcus, but Marcus was expecting it. He grabs it and yanks it behind the man’s back. Marcus steps back just slightly, drawing out his gun, keeping it low so as not to alarm the crowd. You see the added length of a silencer on the end of it as Marcus shoves it into the man’s side and you step forward.

“Not in here, please,” you beg, and Marcus smiles at you benevolently.

“Mija, what do you take me for? I would never,” he says, and you cock an eyebrow, knowing full well he would.

Between the two of them, Nestor and Marcus hustle the man outside as he yells frantically over the crowd. He can’t really be heard over the music, and no one appears to notice, likely assuming security was removing him. They take him to the back, towards the back door of the club that leads into the alley where he attacked you. The heavy door slams shut with a note of finality, and you try to put it out of your mind. It’s out of your hands anyway. It was out of your hands the minute you told Nestor about it.

You see Morgan looking over at you as you try to get back to work, willing your hands to be steady. She seems to know better than ask, though, and you’re grateful for that. Thirty minutes later, Nestor comes back in through the front door of the club, nodding at the bouncer as he passes. The crowd has thinned out and the bar is considerably less busy. Nestor makes his way over and you run out from behind it to wrap yourself around him in a hug. The fingers on your right hand find their way to their usual spot around one of Nestor’s braids and you give it an affectionate tug. It’s slight, but you feel him sink into your embrace, seemingly as relieved as you. You pull back and scan him from head to toe, your heart racing. He appears unscathed, but you do notice the tiniest drop of blood on his dress shoe and point it out to him. He frowns and grabs a cocktail napkin off the bar and leans to down to rub it off, as you release a tired chuckle. He crumples the napkin and puts it in his pocket, then caresses your cheek, tucking you against his body.

“He won’t be bothering you anymore,” he murmurs.

You sigh, partly relieved, partly concerned for Nestor. “¿Lo mataste?” you ask hesitantly, not sure if you’re ready for the answer.

Nestor pulls away to look at you dubiously, as though he can read you like a book. “You really want to know?”

“I feel like I need to,” you say with a shrug, but your grip remains tight on Nestor.

A hard look passes briefly over his eyes before he gazes back down at you with a lopsided smile. “We made sure he won’t be touching anything he’s not supposed to anymore.”

Your face contorts as you wonder what they did with the fingers, but you opt not to ask.

“And he’s not gonna come back?” you ask, your voice small. You’re sure Nestor can feel your heartbeat clamoring against his chest.

“Not unless he wants to die,” Nestor whispers soothingly, and you let out a heavy exhale. “And I talked to Jimmy at the door. He gets anywhere near this place, they call me or Marcus.”

Tears sting your eyes, and you sniff as you pull Nestor tighter against you. “Thank you,” you mumble into his lapel. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“So, what now?” you ask, unsure what a person does after they dismember someone in the darkened parking lot of a club.

Nestor pressed a kiss against your forehead, and you could feel his lips curling into smirk against your skin. He pulled away and met your eyes with a shrug. “Now we go home.”

[seraxphim]

Supernatural 15x18, the misinformation and the truth.

Hi, this is a little informative thingy for people who haven't seen the episode/season and want to know what's true and what isn't. 

This is probably late, but better late than never, right?

A Quick summary, TLDR:

Jensen Ackles ISN'T homophobic

Cas DIDN'T get sent to super mega hell for being gay

Cas DID sacrifice himself for Dean

Cas is PROBABLY not perma-dead

The script is VERY vague on the meaning of can't.

Here's a cut, although, I’d recommend you read this if you have not seen the episode or want some Cas revival proof. That is unless you don't want spoilers, then just go watch the episode/season.

1. Jensen Ackles is...

Not homophobic. Shocker, I know. He has repeatedly shown support towards the LGBTQ+ Community, in fundraisers, his family, and even cons (at photoshoots there are some lovely stories). The fact that people are joking about him saying slurs and being homophobic is really stupid, please stop being assholes towards him, he as no control over the plot, and he’s not a scriptwriter.

Also all y'all never heard of micro expressing, Dean was in shock and I *personally* think Jensen portrayed it very well.

2. Castiel's 'permadeath', is it bury your gays?

Its probably not permanent, they know there's no way they can get away with it.

I highly doubt we'll see him in 15x19 but there's almost a 100% he'll be in 15x20*, Misha's mysterious disappearance from the cast lists seems like a similar tactic that I've heard teen wolf pulled with Stiles, although I haven't watched that show so correct me if I'm wrong.

We should reserve our judgement for when 15x20 airs, not before.

*Theres an image of him with Robert Wisdom (Uriel’s Actor) who we know has a scene with Cas from a tweet Misha put out in February of this year.

3. Super-mega-hell?

Nope. Don't know where this one came from, but Cas does not go to hell for being a homo, stop saying that.

Already said spoilers before the cut but here's another warning just in case.

Castiel's godson, Jack, dies, so he goes to heaven to get him back. An Entity called The Empty wants Jack because he's a Nephilim (angel/human hybrid), and it keeps all the dead angels and demons, its not like heaven or hell, its just Empty.

However Castiel (who's met with The Empty before, it does not like him) doesn't want Jack to die, and trades his life for Jack's. Dean was never told about this, and obviously tried to process both this and Cas’ confession.

Now, the Empty didn't want Cas immediately, it wanted him to be happy when it took him, to make it even more painful. Hence him professing his love to Dean as to summon the Empty, which would take death, who was after Dean.

Off topic, the 'fire gifs' are really, really dumb and mis-informative. The Empty is an oily black oozy jacuzzi of eternal nothingness, Angels and Demons literally just sleep there, its all they do. From what I know the fire gif was from some movie.

4. Well, it's still queerbait, right?

Hm, not necessarily, no. While the leaked script does say 'Dean can't reciprocate', that's very very vague wording. Can't and Don't are two very different things, Don't typically would be an end all be all "I don't love you" for example. Can't, however, is another story, "I can't love you" implies a reason, it implies a want, and something stopping it, it has layers that 'don't' just doesn't have. Wording is everything in writing.

'Dean can't reciprocate' implies he wants to, or at the very least isn't fully opposed, but everything happens so quickly that he just can't. As well as this, Misha bringing back 'You're not crazy' and a tweet from a fan asking him if its canon via likes, in his liked tweets, is saying something, and knowing what we do about Misha, well, we'd be remiss to ignore this obvious sign.

Of course, that last paragraph can be ignored if you believe it was simply platonic, which is completely valid :)

.

If I've missed anything out, or got anything wrong, comment it and I'll add it in a reblog/ edit! I'm not trying to start a fight or anything lol, just informing those who haven't or won't see the episode.

[heli0s-writes]

crystalline*

A/N: Instead of attending to the rest of my WIPS, here’s 1.6k words of Bottom Bucky and Service Dom reader. Throatfucking. Erm. Cathartic crying. 

Warnings: Bucky working out trauma. Please stop reading if you are not 18+

brooklyn after dark masterlist

You teach him how to want things again.

His pieces from the past, the joys he used to have taken too soon— you tell him he can have it all back.

It started with food, predictably. No longer being tube-fed slurry, Bucky quickly embarked on discovering all the new flavors of the 21st century.

Chocolate alone was a month-long passion as he attempted to scrub out the standard issued combat rations haunting his tongue. Chalky cuts like cold pressed gravel— fuck that. The first time you broke off a square of unroasted, dark, sprinkled with Himalayan sea salt chocolate, Bucky’s head hit the back of the couch with a pathetic mewl and a million things rushed through his mind of all the ways he could keep feeling this good.

Sleep came next— something he thought he’d had enough of, but the difference between getting perma-frosted every decade and lying face down in whatever memory foam’s made out of is lifetimes apart.

Bubble baths. Streaming apps. Nice clothes.

Attention and affection. Kisses. Braids in his hair. Tickles for extra laughs. His ego’s in overdrive because he has half a thought about anything and you’re fulfilling it like his personal genie. You say he needs all the dopamine he can get and you’re gonna give it to him.

And you give it to him in spades.

Orgasms. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s spoiled rotten.

Morning sex, afternoon sex, sex before bed. Blindsided in hallways and under conference room tables. The compound pool’s been properly christened more than once, and if Tony ever found out just exactly how many of those precious luxury cars have seen the imprint of Bucky’s ass, he’d set them all on fire.

But, reconciliation comes for him eventually. Spend long enough feeling all good he figures it was about time he starts screwing it up. He turns greedy, he starts wanting for too much. His girl’s an insatiable little beast, but even beasts have limits.

-

Bucky went shy when he asked, stuttering about how it’s okay if you didn’t—if you weren’t—it’s kinda strange— but you’d put your hand over his and tilted his chin up.

“Bucky,” you said fondly, “Baby,” and then a sweet smile curled over your pretty pink lips like spun sugar, “I’d eat your ass like a five-course meal. I’ll let you fuck me on the moon. What is it, huh?”

He could’ve kissed your dirty mouth silly.

“I want you to use a toy—"

“We do all the time.”

“—on me.”

And that sweet candy pink smile turned red hot and wicked. No limit in sight.

-

You approach the bed like a fever dream and all the blood in Bucky’s body congregates south.

Nothing on but the 2-day-shipping-because-the-phone’s-a-genie-too leather harness sitting snugly on your hips and a grin. The heaviness between your thighs hangs like both an offering and a weapon.

He asked for it. He wanted it. Just—maybe, to start— can you be rough with him. Then, stuttering once more because he doesn’t know how to justify why. It doesn’t make any sense and it’s hard to say out loud that with all the things you let him have, that after nearly a century of being out of his own body, he… wants to give it away.

He’s messed up, baby. Sick down to his rotten core.

You only shushed him. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll rough you up real fucking good. No why’s necessary.

Fleshy weight brushes against your inner thigh, swinging idly from one side to the other. “This okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, still dressed at the edge of the mattress, skin beginning to prickle, nerves taking a hard left into arousal. When your hand finds rough landing in his hair, he thinks he must be the luckiest bastard in the entire world.  

Bucky drops on his knees like dead weight, nearly tearing off his clothes, feeling the upsurge of heat in his cheeks and chest. His eyelids are fluttering, your face going fuzzy but he can still see that look of adoration you reserve for him.

He’s pondering if that old saying is true—if there can be too much of a good thing, if he’s become spoiled sick, or if he could overdose on pleasure when you start thumbing the edge of his mouth.

“Pay attention,” you say with a glimmer in your eyes. “Open.”

He’s tingling when you put two fingers in, moving around his tongue, scissoring them against his inner cheek. They explore for a while, bolder each passing second. He can tell you’re getting excited too, your chest heaving gradually, watching him with curious intent.

“You like this?” You ask, lip between your teeth, and Bucky nods, leaning further in, spit following the path of your hand down to his neck. You palm the cock like it’s always belonged to your body and he’s mesmerized at how it rises from your grip, moving over his face to rest on his cheek.

“It’s big, baby.” You warn, full on now. You stroke the outline of his jaw with it, leaving a burning path in its wake. “You sure?”

He quietly likes that you ask—honey-toned and patient, needing to hear it, knowing that he needs to hear it from himself. All those things he’d been made to say with his body and not with his mind.

Now he gets it back, as you said. Gets a part of himself back, too.

“Yes—ah—yes.”

Bucky’s words are slurred into your hand, but he’s begging with his eyes. Yes. I want it. Please let me. Please make me. Please fix me.

You replace your fingers, sluicing up the cock with his spit. Then, you fuck his mouth slow, feeding it to him inch by inch before dragging it away. Bucky’s lips are quivering for more, jaw slack, panting hoarsely. He feels overcome at how you stand over him, mesmerized by him, too.

“Yeah, honey,” you croon, and Bucky’s heart swells with pride. “You’re doing so well, pretty boy.”

He’s licking blindly and sucking between ragged gasps when he attempts to say your name, knowing full well he’ll never get the whole word out before you wedge back into him. And god, it’s hot. It’s dirty and filthy and so fucking sweet.

You grasp the base of his skull, keeping his head still and laying into his mouth rhythmically. The cockhead hits Bucky’s throat, pushing into the soft palate, reaching further. His eyes are rolling, whimpers catching where the toy ends, caught in the breath of air in his mouth.

“Take it, baby,” you command, and Bucky gags. One hand scrambles for your thigh, other clawing his own, pressing red crescents into the flesh. It hurts. It hurts good like it never did before and Bucky chokes it down, eyes squeezed shut now, tears prickling from the ducts and collecting at the corners.

“Oh, you’re so good,” and his body just keeps lighting up. “You good boy. You perfect, perfect boy.” And he’s nodding desperately, needy, gut coiled tight like a spring.

“So fucking dirty,” you hiss, pulling hard on his hair, “Look at you— leaking all over yourself.”

He is. He’s a goddamn mess, sticky lines of precome down his shaft and collecting at his base.

“Drooling all over my cock like this. You’re hungry for it, aren’t you?”

“Uhhngg— hnnng—” He moans weakly at the things you do to him and for him.

“That’s right, you are. Keep going, show me how much you want it.” Jesus, the way you make him feel— like he could be exactly who he is and never have to apologize for a goddamn thing. Broken and ruined but you’d still give him the whole fucking world.

The noises Bucky’s making are muffled and obscene as he fists himself, shuddering and pumping erratically. One more final drive from your hips and he’s bursting at the seams, shattering to pieces, coming with a strangled cry.

You don’t let up, taking his throat unrelentingly, watching him sob and fall apart. He’s going limp in your clutch, letting his eyes well up like pools, your smiling face so beautiful in the crystalline light.

If he’s sick, then you must be the fever he can’t sweat out. The fire burning through his bones until he’s nothing but smoldering bits of debris afterwards. Grains and soot of him floating in the steady flow of your faithful current.

When he’s made a perfect mess of himself, come-covered and quivering, you finally let him breathe again, pulling out wetly.

“There you go,” you say, kneeling to kiss his panting mouth, “Did that feel good?” 

Your lips are a cool balm on his swollen ones and Bucky hums a response, body still thrumming. “Yeah,” he sighs, sensitive like a wound, raw and open and tender. “Real— good.”

You rub his back and run your fingers through his hair, letting him rest in your arms. You wipe away the tears on his cheeks and over his trembling eyelids.

Gentle words tumble from your lips. Promises of love and of good memories to replace the bad ones. More kisses. More affection. More reclamation.

All those little granules of fractured time, you collect in the soft surrender of his mouth. Wet and salty, they fall together there, and Bucky feels himself clicking into place. Perfect and whole and treasured like an iridescent pearl.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stalker X Stalker, Part 6

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Perma tag: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever

Just remembered I had a plot so oops

Marinette wasn’t stupid. Nino had a brother only a few years older than Robin, and that brother had never acted so young or clingy at Robin’s age (and it surely wasn’t a thing about Robin, because she had yet to see him cling to anyone else). She knew that Robin was just using her to mess with Red Robin.

But she didn’t particularly mind. It was kind of funny to watch Red getting all worked up over his little brother and friend being close. She was glad she had her mask, because otherwise she definitely would have given away the act by this point.

Robin, for his part, had been upping things more and more every time he saw her. She wasn’t sure whether this was because he knew that she knew or because he was testing the limits of what he could do without her saying anything.

Red looked like he was at his wit’s end with Robin held out a hand for Marinette right before crossing a street. She took it, which was when he finally snapped:

“He’s twelve, not five!”

She pulled her face into a mock frown. “Are you saying that twelve-year-olds should get hit by cars, Red?”

Red Robin sputtered.

“Miss Ladybug, why is he so mean to me?” Robin asked with wide eyes. She could see the corner of his lips twitching in an effort not to smile.

She winked. His eyes narrowed just slightly then he widened them back to their wide-eyed sadness.

“I don’t know, sweetie. He’s just a meanie, I guess.”

Red Robin threw his hands up in either anger or defeat. It didn’t really matter which one it was, they counted it as a win.

~

Tim wasn’t surprised to walk into the Batcave one day and see Marinette’s face on the Batcomputer. The only thing he didn’t know was whether she was up there because they had figured out her identity or because Tim had started hanging out with her as a civilian.

He took a long sip of his coffee as he considered this, then he trudged over. Might as well find out.

“Hey guys,” he announced his presence.

He watched Duke out of the corner of his eyes. Duke was the newest of them, he could usually count on him to have more pronounced reactions.

Duke didn’t seem all that awkward. So it must have been them finding out her identity.

Tim sidled up beside them. “Sure that’s her?”

Bruce, never one for using his words when he didn’t have to, held up a small container of blood.

He hummed his understanding and intended for that to be the end of the conversation… but it was getting increasingly hard to ignore the eyes boreing into the side of his head. Tim fought to keep a straight face and unclench his jaw and ignore the stupid ‘d-d-don’t be suspicious’ song playing in his head.

And then Cass tapped him on the shoulder and he cursed quietly.

“Fine. Fine. I knew. Happy?”

Cass was not. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I saw her run into an alleyway and I followed -- obviously, it’s Gotham and alleyways are dangerous -- and she transformed right in front of me.”

She nodded and let it go.

Bruce, however, did not.

“You knew her identity and didn’t think to tell us?”

“I thought to tell you, I just didn’t,” he said with a cheeky grin.

Ah. The Disappointed Dad Stare. He had certainly not missed that.

His grin melted into an awkward smile. “It felt weird to reveal her. She clearly cares about her identity since she hasn’t told us herself yet, I figured I’d respect that as long as I could.”

“... you weren’t making progress on her identity on purpose. God, that makes so much more sense,” muttered Steph.

He shrugged. “Easy to avoid someone’s identity when you know who it is.”

Bruce was still looking at him disapprovingly.

“Don’t worry, I have contingencies,” Tim said.

His father relaxed, finally. He motioned for him to go on.

“Well, a few need confirmation. I still don’t know if her yoyo can be cut and it’s hard to tell if other people can unzip her hood or not. But if the hood is open then The Flash or Superman can easily get the earrings from her -- beyond those she’d just a normal person with some fighting skills, same contingencies as The Arrows or any of us. If not then Green Lantern can probably neutralize her.”

Bruce nodded.

The other kids looked mildly concerned.

“Wait, he has contingencies for us?” Duke said.

Bruce was back to looking dismayed. Tim showed them all where their files were (he wouldn’t hack them for them, obviously, he didn’t want to break the news of exactly how messed up Bruce’s contingencies were). He could practically see all the sweat beading itself on his forehead beneath his cowl.

(Tim hid his smile. He’d finally gotten revenge for the time he’d made him stay inside after The Chloroform Incident. And revenge was sweet.)

… it wasn’t until he started seeing his siblings on the rooftop across from Marinette’s apartment that he thought that, maybe, he should have gotten them into their files. It definitely would have distracted them from the Marinette Is Ladybug situation.

At least Cass trusted Marinette -- she would have slipped up and showed her intentions at least once by now -- and therefore wasn’t likely to come by. Cass would be the one to figure out that Tim coming up to the roof was more than him just checking on his siblings.

The first person that came by was Damian. Fair enough, he’d been around Marinette the shortest amount of time and what little friendship they had was based on his lies.

Now, the youngest sibling sat, cross-legged on the rooftop. He was sketching in his sketchbook between quick glances over at Marinette. He looked up when Tim pulled himself over the side and squinted at him.

“Drake.”

“Dami,” Tim greeted, because it always annoyed his younger brother when he used the nickname. “Having fun spying on Marinette?”

Damian was silent for a few moments before clicking his tongue. “She needs to close her blinds more often.”

“Aw, do you care about her?” Tim teased, reaching over to ruffle his brother’s hair.

He pushed his hand away. “She’s a Gothamite and is therefore under our protection.”

Tim snickered and shook his head, taking a seat beside him on the rooftop. “We can tell Duke about it once everyone else has had their chance at checking her out. He’s the only one that can get away with asking her to close it.”

Damian nodded firmly.

Tim hid the fond smile on his face by diverting his brother’s attention: “So, what’re you sketching?”

Damian’s eyes lit up.

The next person to drop by was Bruce himself. He was sitting there, in all black despite the fact that it was less useful during the day, with full spy equipment.

Tim dropped down beside him and was offered a set of headphones. The two of them stayed there in silence for a long time, listening to Marinette going about her day. She was currently cooking something and singing along to a song:

“I always feel like... somebOdy’s watching meeEe… andIhavenoprivacy~.”

Tim was choosing to ignore the song choice in favor of giggling about her inability to hit the notes. He could feel Bruce watching him out of the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t say anything and neither did Tim.

Next was Steph.

Steph raised her eyebrows at Tim when she saw him.

“Come here often?” She asked in a tone that was only half-joking.

“Only recently,” he lied. “Trying to figure out if any of you trust my judgement.”

“Doubtful.”

“Yeah, Duke is my last hope.”

She snickered and shook her head. “To be fair, you’re whipped. You could have been biased.”

“But I’m not.”

“But you’re not,” she conceded, then turned her gaze back on Marinette. “She’s cute. I approve.”

“Glad to know you trust her.”

“I wasn’t talking about it like that and you know it,” Steph said with a wink.

Tim blushed and pushed her face away. “You’re the worst.”

~

Marinette was having a little difficulty figuring out the not-quite-a-language that the bats spoke with her. She wanted to learn it because she cared about Black Bat and, though she could use ASL, it was clear that she wasn’t comfortable with any particular language… but wow was it hard to learn a language when there wasn’t any actual language involved.

Thankfully, Signal had said he would teach her since he had learned it the most recently and therefore might have an easier time teaching it.

Now, it was just after they had finished their lessons for the day and the two of them were relaxing together between their patrols. He had his head in her lap as they both scrolled through Twitter, occasionally laughing and showing each other the dumb things that the other bats had supposedly done. Her favorite so far was the picture someone had discreetly taken of Robin while he was petting their dog.

And then Signal suddenly sat up straight, eyes so wide beneath his domino that she swore that the lenses were going to pop out.

“Uh --?”

“We need to go,” he said.

She felt his hand wrap around her wrist and now she was being dragged somewhere else --.

There was a rush of air and next thing she knew she was being held just barely off the ground.

She blinked all the dryness out of her eyes and then looked up to see that her captor was none other than Superman himself. He had grabbed both of them and taken them to where the Batcomputer was, holding her by her hood and Signal by the back of his shirt. He looked angry, but not particularly at her. She followed his gaze to where Batman was sitting in his Batchair.

“B --.”

“Batman,” said Batman sternly.

Oh, so Superman got to know his secret identity and she didn’t?

(She was ignoring the fact that Batman’s civilian name started with a B.)

“Batman, what do I have here?”

“Two children?”

“Two. Metas.”

“Technically, Ladybug isn’t a meta. Her powers were given to her by a god that lives in her earrings,” Batman informed him.

Marinette tried not to smile too much. Look at how much he had grown. He was using her excuses now.

Superman’s eyes narrowed. She’d say something about how ‘if looks could kill, Batman would be dead’... but, considering the fact that Superman could kill someone with a single look, it didn’t really work.

“And is the god allowed in Gotham?”

Batman didn’t have an excuse for that one. He just grunted a specific grunt which Marinette had learned meant: “What’s your point?”

Superman also knew this specific grunt, apparently. “My point is that the last time I was in Gotham you put kryptonite in my coffee! You said no metas, and we listened, but now you have two!”

“They’re my kids.”

Marinette blinked. “News to me.”

Signal tried to reach across Superman to punch her arm. Superman was a very wide not-man, so he came up short.

“Do you want to be kicked out of Gotham?”

“Guess I’ve always wanted family here,” she said quickly.

Superman squinted at them for a long time before, finally, dropping them.

“You’re lifting your no meta rule.”

“No --.”

“Yes. If even you’re not going to listen to it, neither should we.”

Batman didn’t seem happy. Superman didn’t seem to care. Probably because he was a good head taller and had far more superpowers than Batman did.

Superman left soon after.

Marinette knew it wasn’t the time, because Batman was back to his Batbrooding, but she couldn’t help the grin slowly spreading across her face.

“So, Dad, can I have the new Xbox for Christmas?”

~

Duke had visited Marinette. Tim hadn’t seen him visit, but he definitely had because Marinette had closed her blinds and they hadn’t been open in days. She was still in Gotham, though, she had gone on patrols and, as far as he could tell, she didn’t have any places in Gotham in her name. She had to still be in the apartment, so Duke must have visited as Signal and told her to close them.

And he should have been happy about this. It was far safer that way. The less people knew that there was a woman living alone in that apartment the better.

… but he couldn’t help but be concerned.

The blinds being closed was his best indication of when she was about to leave or currently not home. He didn’t like that he no longer had a way of figuring that out. How was he supposed to watch over her while she was getting groceries if he never knew when she was going?

He gives her a necklace with a tracker in it the next time he sees her as Tim.

She raised her eyebrows at the box he was holding out to her. “Don’t you think it’s a little early to propose?” She joked, but he could hear the slight wariness bleeding into her tone.

He grins easily. “It’s just to thank you for the outfit you’re making me.”

“You pay me,” she said. “That’s thanks enough for me.”

“Maybe I just feel a little bad about guilting you into making it in the first place.”

She hesitates, but he could see the shiny red gem inlaid in it winning her over. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t a gold digger, she was a fashion designer and he had purposefully chosen a common gem color so she’d be more inclined to wear it more often. It worked with a lot of outfits and it came from someone she -- hopefully -- considered a friend? There was little reason to say no.

As expected, she gave in.

She turned around and he carefully clasped it behind her neck. He pressed a tiny kiss to the back of her head.

When she turned back around her face was redder than the gem. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her along to the newest attraction.

~

Marinette fell back on her bed with a huff.

“Tikkiiiiiiiii,” she complained.

The kwami slipped out of her purse and came up to float above her face. “Did you enjoy your date?”

“It wasn’t --!”

Tikki laughed at her dismay. Because Tikki sucked.

She dropped the pillow back beside herself and curled up in what had used to be Tim’s jacket (she wasn’t joking when she’d taken it, he was never getting it back).

“Tim better be Red Robin. I’m not doing the whole ‘two crushes at once’ thing again.”

~

You know, there were actually times where Tim felt bad about chipping Marinette. He wasn’t out of it enough to think that it wasn’t messed up, he knew that there was a reason he didn’t want the other bats to know.

And he knew that, if he had to keep his habits from fellow bats, his habits had to be pretty bad. Every single one of them had a tendency to watch over their loved ones from time to time, it just came with the territory of having friends that are a) vigilantes/heroes/Rogues, b) stupid enough to live in Gotham, or c) an unfortunate mix of both. And, really, when you have the entire world at your fingertips it’s hard not to cross a few lines from time to time.

But Tim couldn’t bring himself to care about that line when she didn’t seem to care about her own safety.

She left the house constantly. Tim was beginning to suspect that she’d had her blinds open so often in order to feel closer to people rather than because she liked sunning herself. This would be fine… if she wasn’t leaving as a civilian. Marinette cared about her secret identity almost as much as Bruce did, so he knew that she probably wouldn’t try too hard to escape attackers for fear of them finding out who she was through her very particular fighting style. The bats had drilled her on the best ways to deal with being held at gunpoint and everything, but not every criminal was completely predictable. Bruce’s parents were a prime example of that.

She also had a tendency to take food without checking to see if it was laced. She did it especially when Tim handed her food and, while he liked that she trusted him, he didn’t love that she was as trusting of him as she was.

Marinette had trouble detecting when people were watching her, too. He figured it was just a byproduct of having most of the stuff she did as Ladybug filmed by tv crews and random civilians… but understanding why she was like that didn’t make him any less concerned about it.

Most damning, however, was how she dealt with catcalling.

Tim never felt a need to intervene when any of his siblings got catcalled on the job. He could trust them to tell whoever it was to stop with however much politeness was correct for the situation (usually not that much).

(The only exception was Damian because, unlike everyone else, Damian was still very obviously a minor. And even then the temptation to beat them up was mostly sated by the fact that Damian knew far more nonlethal ways to hurt them than he did.)

But the few times Marinette had gotten catcalled in front of him she… had just very politely asked them not to say that? And, when they didn’t stop, she had just sat there in her discomfort until they were done?

And Tim had done nothing but watch in stunned silence the first few times. It hadn’t been on purpose, he had just… not been expecting it. She usually acted far more confident, usually had some sort of retort on her tongue, why was this any different?

He didn’t know. Both he and Steph had tried to ask but she shut down both times and they didn’t want her to be more upset than she already was so they’d stopped trying.

The bats just silently agreed to check in on her through comms when she was quiet for too long and, if she didn’t respond, head towards her last known location and start looking.

So, yeah, his paranoia wasn’t completely unfounded.

~

Marinette blinked at the envelope Black Bat had handed her.

She turned it over in her hands, wondering if it was some kind of test, but that wasn’t really as much of a Black Bat thing as it was a Batman or Red Robin thing. So, she figured it probably wasn’t dangerous. She still found herself examining it. It was done in an old style, with a rough and slightly yellowed paper, a red wax seal with a pointy hat emblem she didn’t recognize, and ‘Ladybug’ written across the front in gorgeous calligraphy.

“Uh…?”

Black Bat only smiled at her and made a motion to open it.

Marinette hesitantly opened the letter and pulled out more weird paper. It was splattered with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. In the same elegant script that had decorated the front, it read:

Your spirit has been summoned to my annual Halloween Party!

Dress to kill!

This was followed by a bunch of directions and timings and stuff about RSVP-ing.

Marinette looked at Black Bat, somehow even more confused than she had been before.

Thankfully, Red Robin chose that moment to run down the stairs, waving his invitation excitedly.

He stopped short when he saw Marinette already holding her invitation and huffed, sending Black Bat a halfhearted glare. “I wanted to tell her.”

Black Bat’s smile morphed into a smirk.

“Rude,” Red said. Then, he turned to Marinette. “We got invited to his Halloween Party!”

“Yeah… whose Halloween Party, exactly?”

“Scarecrow’s, of course!”

… what?

[danniburgh]

Carlos; a RushBit extra

From chapter 24 // ao3 // fic index // Masterlist

So, @disgruntledspacedad​ asked when she read chapter 24:

“Okay I have just one question. What is the backstory on Carlos???

Alligator gars are impressively large and prehistorically scary, and the fact that Chucho has one mounted in his home says so much about him. I am genuinely intrigued.”

And that question made me laugh a lot, so here we have the story of Carlos, the alligator gar fish;

Thanks to @purplepascal042​ that helped me a lot with this one bc I know NOTHING about fishing, love you always.

The beginning of Carlos' story starts in 1960, in which Chucho started going fishing with some neighbours and their kids; it had started as something Javi (aged 9 here) had asked and Chucho being somehow (fully, Margarita would add) wrapped around the kid's finger, had put together.

Just a trip to go fishing with three neighbours from the nearby ranches and their kids.

It became something they did every month and then, something they did without the kids.

Margarita would say, years later, that she was happy her husband was bonding and making friends with other men but she really disliked that they had left out the children, even if Javi moved on to something else, like tending to the baby cows.

To celebrate a year of their fishing trips, one of the guys would mention something about going onto a larger road-trip to see if they could catch larger fish.

What Chucho didn't know, and wasn't informed because his friends were little assholes, was that the trip was focused solely on catching the large, trashy, monstrous alligator gar.

Those years, that fish was seen as a threat because what the fuck do you mean there's a combination between alligators and fish?????? so when Chucho let his wife and kid know he was going to be gone for a full weekend to try to catch big fishes he got two reactions:

"Oh, hell no." and "Llévame, pop!" (take me)

You already guessed; Margarita was pissed, Chucho was a hands on dad, and he would take Javi with him to work after school and on weekends so his wife could have a rest, Javier wasn't a bad kid or naughty, but he was just so fucking curious and active that she just didn't have energy to keep up with him, so, for Chucho to be gone for seventy-two hours was a NO from her.

Chucho had to beg and promise he would take Javi for a road trip the next weekend so Margarita would have the house to herself.

Javier was pissed too, though, he wanted to go and spend the weekend with his dad fishing, but Chucho told him it was a grow-up's trip and promised the same thing.

So, a six-hour road trip with four men on a van later, Chucho confirmed a suspicion just by looking at the river and at the bait... They were gonna use actual fish. And of course, the other people around hanging their large catches.

But, as a good Mexican man, he wasn't chickening out; he grabbed his fishing rod, and he didn't even ask his friends if they were completely out of their minds, he knew they were.

Up to the challenge, you could see four men standing on a boat, on the place where two currents converged, talking about how amazing would it be if they caught a monster fish.

“You don’t really think we’re gonna catch that thing, do you?” he had asked, and got a groan echoed by three voices.

“Stop being so pessimistic, Jesús.”

And just like that, well, four hours later, the first fishing rod to start pulling, was Chucho’s.

Everyone lost their minds in that moment, one of them even let his own rod fall to the water and didn’t even bother to look twice at how it sank, Chucho was struggling, so two of his friends dropped their rods on the boat and started helping him with the fight while the fourth kneeled on the boat to pull the anchor and rushed to the steering wheel to keep the heavy fucker from pulling the boat, the two guys that were helping Chucho were screaming at each other, one grabbing him by the waist to keep him on the boat and the other taking the rod to keep it steady as Chucho concentrated on releasing the line and reeling back.

Everyone was screaming around him but Chucho was silent, frowning and focused on not letting the heavy fish go away, he had begged his family for a chance to go on the trip and he wasn’t wasting it.

After forty-four minutes of fighting, tensioning, reeling back and constant screaming that had Chucho’s ears ringing, the fish gave up and between the three guys pulled it into the boat, one of them took his shirt off to wrap around its mouth just to prevent any chomps and they all let out a spent sigh at the same time.

“Let’s get out of here.” one of them said.

So, a day earlier than expected, Chucho arrived home and yelled out for Javi, who rushed out of the house to see his dad and his friends take out of the van a large four feet, green and scaly dead fish that looked scary enough to make a ten-year-old stop on his feet and frown at four grown men.

“Pop, what is that?” Javi asked loud enough to make the other men laugh.

“A fish!”

“What in God’s name you brought, Jesús!?” his wife yelled behind Javier.

“¡Un pez para la casa!” (a fish for the house)

“No vas a poner eso en mi casa, no señor.” (you're not putting that in the house)

“C’mon Maggie,” one of Chucho’s friend stepped in “we spent forty-five minutes catching this thing.”

“I don’t care, it’s not getting inside the house.”

“It’s part of the family now.” Chucho teased his wife, who frowned and glared at him.

“It looks scary” Javier let out, sauntering towards the dead animal “looks like a dinosaur.”

“Looks like the man that knocked up your sister.” spat Margarita, Javier widened his brown eyes to his mom and Chucho let out a loud cackle.

“Carlos!”

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