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catherinekal · 2 months

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Giant Fucking List of Obscure Video Games I Recommend!

It's finally done!! Took me long enough, but here it is. Over 50 games I recommend. Just in time for the Steam Sale. Holy shit I spent way to much time on this.

Some of these are well known to anyone into the indie/AA gaming scene or just on the internet often, but I still felt the need to mention in case people haven't heard of them. All of these are obscure compared to any AAA game and I'm confident no one would have heard or played all of these.

They all have something I found interesting in someway. I was going to include a trailer for each game, but apparently Tumblr doesn't like that. So I have put a link to a Youtube playlist for all of them in the same order as this list. Some of these games are also on various consoles to, but I can confirm they're all on Steam beyond one.

I only picked games I've played personally. I know of many other good obscure games, but haven't tried or bought them yet so they don't get on the list. Also many games on this list remain unfished to me, but that's more due to time and other life shit then them getting bad.

There's a lot of fucking games In this list so hopefully you find something you've never tried before and give it a shot. All these games are on Steam with one exception, but that's a free game. I also organized them by genres that make perfect sense to me.

Trailers Link:

The Best Game Ever:

Outer Wilds

Fuck it let's just start with the only mandatory game on this list you need to play. You know how nearly every space game is a overpromised underdelivered fucking mess? Like all of them.

Outer Wilds is the actual good one. Don't want to say much more then that. This is very much an experience that you need to know as little as possible to get the best experience. Not even linking the trailer in the playlist.

Absolutely play this game if you had to pick only 1 thing on this list.

EarthBoundLikes:

OMORI

OMORI is a game about a group of kids who go on magical adventures and save the day. That's it. Nothing else sinister going on here.

It's a well known indie game and for good reason. It's fucking good. One of my favorite games of all time.

Art style is peak. A mix of pixel and pencil drawn art that works so damn well for me. The battle system is turn based and revolves around changing emotions and teamwork. It mixes a happy child like vibe with a darkness underneath it, which is right up my alley. A tale of trauma and grief. I'm still fucked up thinking about some story bits in there.

All the characters are wonderful and the story is helped a lot by keeping it focused on a small group of friends.

Play it.

LISA: The Painful and LISA: The Joyful

LISA: The Painful/Joyful are a pair of games that fuck. They fuck hard.

They're morbid, tackle many taboos, and have a dark but also stupid sense of humor. The visuals are nothing groundbreaking, but this isn't a game that needs perfect pristine pixel art. The combat system is a lot of fun, but takes very clear inspiration from Earthbound. The story is just perfect though.

You play Brad whos on a journey to rescue his adoptive daughter who was kidnapped in a post apocalyptic world of only men. You meet the strangest allies and the game has a lot of odd characters in it. Want a lawyer fish in your party? This game has it.

It does not shy away from throwing punches and is not for anyone who can't handle a story that tackles themes of abuse, depression, suicide, and more. The game also has a sequel I don't want to say to much about, but it's absolutely worth it as well.

If you want a fun and fucked up 2D RPG adventure and somehow haven't played this then please do so.

Mandatory Metroidvania Soulslike Indie Game Darlings:

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

Ender Lilies is the first of many metroidvania's on this list. The indie scene is filled with them and for good reason. The formula works so damn well.

What I love about Ender Lilies is the concept of the player character. You play a white priestess who is also a child and helpless on her own. However, you can summon the spirits of allies and slain enemies to fight for you and those spirits are all your attacks. Gameplay is the same as any other Metroidvania, but knowing I'm this helpless child in this world infected by blight really sells me on the setting.

There's nothing revolutionary to this entry in the pantheon of Metroidvanias, but the visuals and setting are why I recommend it. This game is a slow descent into hell. Also you do get a big heavy hammer attack and any game with a big hammer weapon attack is a good game. Big bonks.

Craving a Metroidvania with a macabre setting? This will do it.

GRIME

GRIME is something else. I don't hear anyone talk about this game and it's a damn shame. I don't even know how to even describe GRIMEs setting. You play as essentially a sentient black hole on a rock body. You go through, with lore slowly revealed as is the Metroidvania stable, and absorb your enemies.

This games aesthetic is best described as fleshy stone. It's very unique visually and what made me want to try it out. As for gameplay you'll need to learn parrying as this games combat system heavily relies on it.

This game surprised me and has a entire level I never expected with one very unique boss to top that off. Also be warned. This game is very much a platformer as well. Similar to how the Ori games are, not just pure combat challenges. If you like your metroidvanias with little to no platforming then you won't enjoy parts of this game, but nothing as difficult as things in Hollow Knight.

If you enjoy metroidvanias then this is a must play. More people need to talk about it.

Salt and Sanctuary

This is where it all started. Certainly not the first Metroidvania by any means, but the first 2D Soulslike Metroidvania or at the least first advertised as such. The devs intended to make Dark Souls in 2D and they did it. Before Hollow Knight, the games listed above, or so many others that took inspirations from Souls in the 2D world, was this game. I know this game was popular with the souls community as it came out, but I don't really hear about it anymore. Hollow Knight just dominated all discussion.

The controls and combat are very much Dark Souls but in 2D. The lore is cryptic and hidden away. There's a fuckton of weapons and spells and multiple playthroughs worth of stuff. The game is hard though Hollow Knight would easily one up it in terms of difficulty.

This game also has covenants that are actually good and the mechanics around them are vastly improved over any souls game that has covenants. I won't go into detail, but I wish the souls games copied this games mechanics for that.

The setting is high fantasy with the lovely dark bloody horror underneath it all. The art style can turn people away, it's not as pretty as other 2D souslikes, but I enjoy it personally. It fits.

The game has a lot to explore and you can get lost in its world pretty easily. I remember walking into a boss room from the exit somehow and got behind the boss and it was all intended if you navigated around him.

If you can appreciate or just get past the visuals and want to see where the 2D soulslike genre began then you should play it.

Metroidvania's Before the Dark Age of Soulslikes

Dust: An Elysian Tail

Long ago there was a time where Metroidvanais didn't have soulslike mechanics defaulted in and set in these bleak post apocalyptic worlds. I have 3 of them to recommend. Starting With Dust: An Elysian Tail

This is a fun little game. A game that I'm not sure many people know about or would think to play today. Metroidvanias pre Hollow Knight tend to get forgotten when I see people about them now. It has a mix of platforming and hectic combat. I remember the game having a cool spin sword attack with a even cooler aerial attack. I liked it a lot when I played it many many years ago.

The art style is colorful and everyone is an anthropomorphic animal. More games need anthropomorphic animals beyond catgirl or rabbitgirl, seriously I grew up on shit like sly Cooper and Ratchet and Clank.

You play as Dust and are accompanied by Fidget. you got a magic sword and you kill a bunch of shit while saving the day. Just a fun little Metroidvania that doesn't overstay and go on forever.

It may be dated in some ways, but if you're a fan of these types of games and want to play a older one then here you go.

Guacamelee!

The combat in this game feel great. Another little forgotten gem of a Metroidvania. It has such a unique style to it and has a fun cartoony vibe. It's pretty fucking great.

You play as a farmer who dons a luchador mask to save his friend he loves and the world being taken over. The combat is a mix of punches, kicks, and throws which is unique from the usual swords and magic these types of games tend to default to. As the game goes along enemies will have shields that need certain moves to break and you'll be switching from the land of the dead and living in combat and platforming.

Both this and Dust before it don't reinvent the genre or anything, but have their own unique charms that I recommend them both if you're a fan of Metroidvanias.

Cave Story+

This is a old classic. The original Cave Story came out in 2004, and was released with a enhanced version in 2011. This is a must play Metroidvania and an old gem. It's the oldest game on this list technically.

This game has little to no melee combat, but instead goes all in on using guns. More Metroid then Vania in that sense. What's unique to the combat is enemies will drop experience that will level up your guns automatically. Each gun can be upgraded to 3 levels, but when you take damage you lose experiences and levels. This adds a extra layer or rewards and punishment to getting hit that I like. Your weapons are perfectly usable at level 1 so it's not like you're fucked, but it gives a greater incentive to avoid damage.

It has fun characters and and fun gameplay. It's a genuine indie gem that I think everyone should play.

Pixel Action Adventure Games With A Dash of RPG Elements to Taste:

ANNO: Mutationem

This game is a pixel art cyberpunk adventure. I adore the art style. It's a 2.5D action platformer set in a futuristic setting. You're on a quest to save your brother with the help of your hacker friend/girlfriend. A quest which leads to a far more complicated story.

The story in this game goes off the rails in ways I love, but I know it threw people off. People have compared the latter half to Evangelion and It can be confusing to follow at times. I still highly recommend it, even if you get lost near the end. A simpler story in terms of Lore would have worked better, but I say fuck it. Go all in.

To me the appeal of this game is the setting. A fascinating cyberpunk sci-fi setting shown through wonderful pixel art. Just walking around the various cities was a joy on its own. There's a lot of attention to detail and I think it's worth playing for that alone. Combat is your standard side-scrolling Metroidvaniaish kind of stuff with various weapons and upgrades and all that. I found it a little challenging at times, but this isn't a game meant for extreme difficulty from what I remember.

If you want to play as hot badass woman in a cyberpunk setting given life through detailed pixel art, then this is the game for you.

CrossCode

This is the most dense indie game on this whole list. CrossCode has so much to do. The game is expansive and slowly drip feeds you with more. You have 5 skill trees, 4 of which are tied to an element, multiple upgrade paths in them. You have a mix of melee combat with twin stick shooter mechanics thrown in. The game has multiple dungeons with puzzles that are both difficult to figure out and then execute the solution for. These aren't like a 2D Zelda dungeon where things never get to complicated, I really took a lot of time with every dungeon.

The setting takes place on another moon physically, but its actually all virtual and a MMO people are playing from all over the galaxy. Though the game itself isn't a MMO really. You play as a set character in a set linear story that's unrelated to that actual in lore story of the MMO.

The characters are fun and the setting is a joy to explore. There's a lot of side content and I don't remember any of it being a drag. This games also challenging and I know It took me a bit to progress at various points. The pixel art is very detailed, especially with the outdoor environments.

This game will keep you engaged for a while and there's challenging DLC and even fun incentives to play new game plus. This is just all around a solid game experience.

Hyper Light Drifter

I played this game a long time ago so details are hazy, but I know I really enjoyed it. It's top down and filled with action. You got a sword. You got a gun. You go kill things and I do remember many challenging combat encounters.

I have forgotten all story elements, but even now I still remember some imagery that reminded me of Evangelion, which is always a plus. Though story was never the main draw to games for me so the setting and combat were all I needed to keep engaged.

Not the most descriptive review of the game, but I know this is one of the furthest game on this list from when I played it and I only went through it once. It's a cool game though and if the trailer enticed you then you owe it to yourself to get it.

Phoenotopia: Awakening

I adore this little hidden gem of a game. If CrossCode is the most dense indie game on this list then this is a very close second. Possibly even more dense, I truly can't decide for sure. It's cute, funny, charming, and full of legitimate challenges.

You play as Gail who lives in a small town village. Some shit happens that I won't give away, but you end needing to travel the land and go on a fun adventure. The story is full of comedic and lively characters. It never takes itself to seriously or gets really dark which Is a nice change of pace.

This game really is an adventure. You will travel a lot and get very familiar with any hub area. There's secrets and puzzles packed all over and gives you good reason to revisit. A nice drip feed of progress is felt as you unlock more stuff.

In terms of combat it's bar far the most simplistic on this list and could even frustrate others, but like everything else in this game it has charm and I adore it. The simple mechanics don't mean no challenge though. I was stuck often, but felt so satisfying when I won.

Some of the late game areas can be bullshit and will frustrate you, but stick with it. This is a genuine top tier hidden indie gem that got no attention. Honestly just under Outer Wilds this would be the other must buy. Absolutely play this.

Vampire Survivorlikes:

20 Minutes Till Dawn

Everyone knows about Vampire Survivor and everyone knows many games came out that tried to capture that style of gameplay. This one is the only one of those I've played and it's wonderful.

You unlock multiple characters and multiple guns with various upgrade trees. Kill the horde, survive, upgrade, survive even longer. Each level only takes 20 minutes, hence the title. I appreciate that as the game would never end with how strong you end up being by the end after you learn the mechanics.

This isn't anything groundbreaking, but if you need to kill half a hour then it's a fun thing to play.

Hawklikes:

Umurangi Generation

Let's fucking go!! This game rules!

As someone who is going to pursue photography more seriously as a hobby this game is perfect. Unlike something like Pokemon Snap or games with photo modes, this game really captures the feeling of holding a physical camera and the moment to moment decisions you make with each shot.

You unlock different lenses and control each shot as you would a real camera. After each photo you can edit it on the spot purely for your own creative reasons. The visuals are low poly and very colorful.

The game has a tony hawk style of progression. A hawklike if you will. You get dropped in a level and are given a list of photos to try and take. You can of course take photos of anything. You have a limited amount of film and can find more throughout the level.

Also there's a story. There's a dark undercurrent to the whole thing and the game is very overtly political in all the right ways. Don't like politics in your games? Fuck you! This game dives right in while still maintaining the core gameplay loop. Need more games like this please.

Please buy this game and it's DLC.

Action Games:

Furi

Top tier action game. It's a boss rush game, that's it. 10 bosses with some vague story that briefly connects them. It's not bloated with bullshit and knows exactly what to focus on.

The combat is a mix of intense melee combat with parries and dodges and the like, with twin stick shooting. No upgrades. No farming. No choosing between this weapon or that. No additional moves or mechanics. You fight a tutorial boss which teaches you everything and then you go. You have the full toolkit from the start and that lets you master it slowly over the game.

It's so fucking satisfying finally winning and knowing you improved and earned that win. I like the story as well. It's not that complex, but the ending bits worked for me.

If you want a genuine good action game that has no bullshit attached then get this.

Amid Evil

There's not much to say about this one other then it's really fucking fun. It's a first person action game where you use magic and weapons to go through combat filled levels. You have health and mana that all weapons use outside of your axe. The levels are filled with secrets, you move fast, and it's just a fun action game.

Sometimes a game isn't more then that and it beats games that are stuffed with unnecessary mechanical bloat. If you want a fun first person action game that's not just a full shooter then this is the game for you.

Adventure Games:

The Cat Lady and Lorelai

I love these games. No one ever talks about them or knows about them and they will certainly linger in your mind. The devs have made 2 other games that I have yet to get to so for now I am recommending only these.

Play The Cat Lady first. It's the first one and tells the story of a very depressed middle aged woman who gets a second chance at life, at a cost.

Lorelai is about a young woman in a very abusive household trying to survive while seeing what lengths she will go to save those she loves.

Both these games revolve around deals with a devil and feature a lot of horrific violence. Fun!

The stories in both evoke a creepy disturbing feeling and you're always on edge. I won't say these are straight horror games, but they sure use horror imagery. The art style really helps sells it. The animations or character models may not be the most beautiful thing around, but it has that indie charm I love. The voice acting isn't perfect either, but these aren't negatives for me. These are passion projects and imperfections are what make any piece of art shine brighter. Real people put their soul into these games and it shows.

The gameplay is standard adventure game fair, but all keyboard controlled. So no endless mouse clicking everything on the screen. which works wonderfully. Though being pure adventure games you're here more for the story then the moment to moment gameplay.

Please play these.

Detention

Detention is probably well known due to the controversy with Red Candle Games other game, Devotion being wiped online for shitty reasons. It's available now on their own websites store, though I still have never played it. I should one day as Detention was pretty fucking good.

The gameplay is the usual 2D adventure game fair. A lot of clicking and puzzle solving with some horror thrown in. The story and setting are where it's at though.

The game is unique in that it's made from Taiwanese devs and the games setting is rooted in their cultures history. I don't want to give away any real details beyond that, but it certainly left an impact and seeing a game not set in Europe, America, Japan, or any fantasy equivalent to those was refreshing. The games also not super long and could easily be beaten in a day.

Go buy it. Play it on a long free night. Support these devs.

Rime

I love the aesthetic of this game. Cel shading indie colorful goodness. I got this for the visuals alone and was very happy the game that came with it was good to. Visuals are a major factor in me getting interested in a game and the reveal trailer was enough for me to play it.

It's very light and cryptic on story for most of it as to be expected from this kind of game. You're a kid, you wake up on a beach and go forth exploring. You solve puzzles and hide from danger and go through each of the unique levels trying to piece together whats going on.

Like the game before, this isn't a super long one. Shouldn't take more then a day or a few to get through it all. Though I do recommend you take your time and explore like I did. Let yourself be immersed in the setting.

This is another example of just a pure perfect indie game. Doesn't overstay it's welcome, tells a simple but cryptic story, and has lovely visuals.

Atominous

This is the one of the few games on this whole list that I would say is truly obscure. In fact I have no doubt this is the most obscure. If you're big into indie games then nothing on this list will honestly surprise you, but I'm confident this is the exception.

In this free game you place as a a little guy who's job is like pest control. Instead of bugs your job is to collect and protect the world from rare atoms called Atominous. Basically little atoms that can alter reality. You go into a big house and your job is to find them through the power of puzzle solving and clicking every little thing you see.

This game is all about clicking everything. Nearly every object has unique text that pops up, if not multiple. You find keys to open more of the house and slowly suck up the atominous atoms and clean up the place.

That's it. It's a fun quirky little free game that shouldn't take more then a couple hours. No excuse not to try it, it's free. It's also the only game not on steam, but instead here

Adventure Games Where You Hit Things:

TUNIC

TUNIC is a lovely indie game. You play as a little cute fox and go on a adventure to save your poor trapped mom. such a cute game :3

I adore the visuals, I love low poly stuff and the game is full of charm. Looking at this game makes me happy. The game is like a mix of a top down Zelda and Fez and it being reminiscent of FEZ was what really took me by surprise. I won't go further in how it's like FEZ, but it really elevated the game for me.

It's a fun top down game with simple fun combat. You kill enemies, find key items, unlock more of the world, and get fed cryptic lore. The perfect formula for a fun little indie game. The game is decently challenging to with it's boss fights, and overall a nice fun little experience with some neat surprises.

TUNIC is wonderful, go play it.

Kena: Bridge of Sprits

This is the most PS2 game I've played since the PS2. I mean that as a compliment. This game felt like going back in time to a simpler time.

Visually the game is not at all like the PS2. The visuals are beautiful and has been compared to Pixar. It's bright, colorful, and well polished. To me this is peak aesthetics. This game is worth playing just to see all the work that went into the game's visuals alone.

It reminded me of a PS2 game because it's a self contained fun third person action adventure. Just a fun game with no bullshit holding it down or any other purpose then being a fun adventure. The world is a joy to explore with a nice steady progression. I especially love how the Hub is mostly corrupted and you slowly restore it over the course of the game. Shit like that always feels so good.

There's a lot of unexpected challenge to. Some of the later fights and especially bosses took me a bit to beat. Just like a PS2 game you'll get random difficulty spikes that are so fucking satisfying to beat.

I highly recommend this game.

Adventure Games Where You're in the Desert:

Sable

Sable is a coming of age story presented in a very fun interactive package. This is a game about heading out into the world and exploring on your own whim to figure out what your character becomes as an adult.

You play as Sable, a young adult girl who has to leave her tribe and head into the wider world to discover herself. The goal is to find mask which representative a life path and pick one by the end. The actual game is about heading into a desert open world, solving puzzles, helping NPC's, and discovering what bits of hidden lore hide throughout. You do this all on a hoverbike you can customize as you unlock more parts.

As always the art style is important to me and this game has something really unique. The characters animation is low framerate and it can be off putting to some, but of course I loved it as I love any odd creative choice. I love the lighting and colors to. It's hard to describe just why I was so mesmerised by the art style, but I can safely say it's one of my all time favorites.

The only negative goes to technical issues. The game ran like shit on my PC and my PC isn't bad. Even people with far better PC's then me ran into frame rate issues and others didn't have any. Sometimes games aren't optimized well, but this game was so magical to me that I loved it, despite the tech issues.

It's a very chill game. You want to explore a cool world at a slow pace and get lost in it? Sable's the game for you.

It Comes In Waves

This is a short game where you have to start over if you die. A penalty I feared, but truthfully this isn't that difficult of an experience. You start on one end of a desert and have to carry something to the other end as it grows inside a tank on your back.

As you wait for whatever your transporting to grow you will explore minimalist environments with some unique imagery that speaks of a wider history you just have to wonder about. The whole time you have to watch out for raiders and watch your water level. It always depletes and you will need to explore and refill it as you journey on. I also love how you have a map, but the map is like an actual map. It doesn't show you on it, but just the overall area.

This game will take you a hour at best and is unlike anything else on this list. There's something about just slowly walking across the desert, not knowing what's ahead, and hoping you can make it to the next water tank. Just a little experimental game about a harsh journey.

Platformers With 2 Entire Dimensions:

MO: Astray

Ever wanted to play as a little blob? No? Well you should because this game was a hidden gem. I was thrown off by this game at first and then pleasantly surprised by the whole experience.

This game feels like it should be a metroidvania. It's 2D and you're on a broken down ship or facility or something. Nope. This game is fully linear and at first I didn't think I'd like that and was disappointed, but it works so damn well.

You play a slime essentially and you have the magical power to read the last thoughts and minds of corpses by settling on their rotten fleshy head. With this power and other little story tidbits you learn what's going on, your purpose, and so on.

There's no combat in this game really. You move by shooting yourself in any direction you can see and you can stick to surfaces. There's danger. There's enemies. There's boss fights. All without the usual fair of attack/dodge roll, that's standard for 2D metroidvanias now. This game is something different and that alone makes it worth it.

Also a note on the boss fights. All of them felt very unique from each other I prefer having a few well crafted unique bosses then having a bunch of the same type of fight over and over again.

Another genuine hidden gem you should try.

Platformers With 3 Entire Dimensions:

Frogun

Frogun is adorable. It's like a N64 game and I love it.

You have a frog grappling hook and go through little short levels that ramp up in difficulty. There's optional challenges in each one. The art style is absolutely going for that early 3D low poly vibe that is starting to become more popular.

This is a perfect example of just a fun video game for the sake of being a fun video game. No serious story or message or intense complicated gameplay mechanics. Just a cute 3D platformer reminiscent of a older time.

Also I played this back when I used to stream and a Frogun speedrunner showed up in chat and helped me pull off a couple speedrunning tricks so that was fun.

If you want something simple and fun then here it is.

Cyber Hook

The ultimate speedrunning game. You have a gun, a grappling hook, and the ability to slow down time. This is a pure platformer. You enter levels with the goal of getting through as fast as you can.

I never got great at it, but the few times I really got going fast and flew through a level felt awesome. It's so satisfying finally doing things right after many failures and you will fail a lot.

There's really not much more to it. Neat visuals with satisfying and simple mechanics. If that sounds fun to you then check it out.

Marble It Up! Ultra

Platformers really are just the perfect mechanic to make fun mindless games with. Marble It Up! Ultra is another simple 3D platformer that's just purely focused on being fun.

As always it's not that complicated either. You're a marble and you try to reach the end of each stage with a time limit. There's items to stop time, make you jump higher, and go faster. Just all about building up speed and there's tons of ways to skip past parts of levels. Like the two games before, this one is perfect for speedrunning.

It's fun, go buy it.

RPG's:

Roadwarden

I was going to make a big post about why I preferred this to BG3, but scrapped it. BG3 is fun, but the story just bores me from the get go. Where BG3 failed for me Roadwarden succeeded. All story and all fantastic.

This is a text based RPG. Very simplistic visuals which show just enough to let your imagination handle most of the work.

You play a roadwarden who has the lovely job to travel the dangerous roads and help the townsfolk all while working on your greater goals. You pick between 3 starting classes and those do change how you approach things quite a bit. You have a time limit and that will force you to prioritize things over others. You can't do everything in a single playthrough. Your decisions matter and you aren't going to figure everything out.

You have to manage your health, money, hunger, and cleanliness. You will never have enough money for everything and that helps create more interesting choices. You have to manage what you do in a day. You meet a lot of people and forge allies or enemies and it's all told with stellar writing.

If you want a well written fantasy interactive story then you must play this game.

RPG's With Intense High-Octane Turn Based Combat:

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

A long time ago in times forgotten there existed these ancient relics called Flash games. Maybe one day I'll talk about old flash games I was into, but for now I'm only talking about the latest instalment in one of them. Epic Battle Fantasy is a series of games made by Matt Roszak. They started as little flash games, but have since turned into bigger games that are on Steam. 5 is the latest one and also the best so I'm recommending this one.

I've gone through this game multiple times. This game fucking rules. The game is easy to control, satisfying, and has my favorite turn based combat system period. No seriously, this is my favorite turn based combat system. I could go on what I like about it so much, but I'll spare you all most of the details. I'll say it gets rid of mana entirely and put all your abilities on cooldowns which changes based on what you're using. This just fixes balancing and helps you from spamming heals and all that. I love this system. It's easy to control, intuitive to understand, full of options, and can have a chaotic randomness I enjoy.

In this game you explore the overworld, solve puzzles, and fight enemies. The story is not at all serious or anything like that. It may not be a Flash game anymore, but it still has the older internet spirit of not taking things to seriously and being a little juvenile. There's also a lot of post game challenges that still are impossible for me to really do well or at all.

You can change the difficulty anytime and another thing I love is the entire game can be controlled with just a mouse. You can use a keyboard to, but a mouse covers everything which I think is neat.

This is such a wonderful combat system and the game I've beaten most on this list. If you want legitimately challenging turn based RPG combat and don't care about story or characters to get that then this game is a must play.

Shadows Over Loathing

Want a lovecraftian mystery RPG injected with a dose of comedy where everybody is a stick figure? Yes? How very specific, but luckily there's a game just for you.

Shadows Over Loathing is a turn based RPG where you search for your missing uncle in a area full of strange locations and characters. I never did play their other game West of Loathing, and I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It was a lot of fun, creative, difficult at times, and had a world I really wanted to explore.

It has a lighthearted comedic tone throughout and the silly art and stick figure characters help with that. The actual turn based combat is fun to. Nothing to complicated but could be challenging to which is needed to help this style of combat really shine.

There's really not much more to it. If this sounds like something you'd enjoy then please check it out.

RPG's Fused With A Light Novel:

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA

AA games still exist! I finally get to talk about Ys. I've played 3 Ys games and I'm going to talk about my favorite one because of the fun gameplay. This is a very unknown franchise that has existed since the 80's and even now the 10th instalment is set to release later this year.

As for why I'm recommending Ys 8, it's because it has some of the most fun gameplay. The combat is fast paced, encourages good timing, and full of that anime over the top stylish action. You control up to 3 characters and can easily switch between them. Each character plays differently and has their own special moves and everything just feels so satisfying.

You play as generic light novel anime man, Adol. Tagging along is generic tsundere light novel anime girl and other light novel anime characters. Like edgy boy with a gun, loli raised in the wild, and blue haired girl. You crash land on a island and have to survive and find survivors. Much like LOST the story goes off the rails and of course in classic JRPG fashion you need to stop the end of the world somehow. Unlike LOST characters are generic and the usual anime fair.

Despite the lackluster story this game still fucking rules because it's so goddamn fun to play. It also solved crafting forever by making it so you can convert common items into rarer ones making anything you find useful potentially. Seriously it's such a nice feature and all crafting systems without it are lesser.

If you want some fun action combat and don't mind anime bullshit then really, check out the entire franchise. Any of them will do, but this is the one I'd recommend the most.

RPG's Fused With A Light Novel and A WW2 Textbook:

Valkyria Chronicles 1 and 4

Picture this. WW2, but with anime and magical girls. Japan just never stops with these incredible ideas.

I adore these 2 games. I haven't played 2 or 3 as those are PSP games and I don't hear great things. However I can confirm 1 and 4 are fucking fantastic.

These games are tactical RPG's where you command troops one by one in missions. Most are usually about capturing a enemy base, but there's a lot of variety beyond that in both of them. You lay out your troops at the start plus your commander who's in the tank. You get a set level of CP per turn and each CP is used to control a unit. The actual game is probably piss easy for experienced tactical game players, but I'm not that at all. I found it legitimately difficult, both games.

What sets it apart is the game turns into a sort of third person shooter when controlling the units. You can freely move up to your AP and get one action to do. If it was just top down the whole time I'd find that not that interesting, but actually moving around and taking cover unit by unit is very engaging. There's 5 classes in the first game and a 6th added in the fourth game. Each class can be upgraded as well along with weapons, equipment, and the tanks.

The stories in both are nothing special truthfully. It's anime WW2 with silly dumb anime characters. I don't mind that and had a lot of fun, but if you can't stand something like Persona then these games will infuriate you. To me stupid anime characters in games can be a lot of fun, like Raz in 4, the dumbest but somehow most entertaining character for me. Expect some silly anime cliches and tone changes and the usual fair for these kinds of games. Even if the story is a big nothing for you, I still think both games are worth it for the gameplay.

Another aspect that I really love is all your units have personality traits that can trigger as you control them. What caught me off guard was that they're both positive and negative ones. There's ones like a woman having man hater and fancies woman as traits, aka the lesbian. There's straight up a guy with misogynist as a trait. Some are lonely, frail, daredevils, have crushes or people they hate, even one with the masochist trait. All these good and bad traits translate into potential buffs or debuffs that can happen in the game.

Sadly these side characters don't get much story in the first game. Just a unique design with some personality traits and maybe a couple in battle lines of dialogue. However, the 4th one introduced squad stories. Essentially little side stories that revolve around the non important squad mates. They were always fun to do and the missions for them are more unique because they are designed around only using those 3 characters.

I recommend both of them, but if you had to play one I'm not sure. 1 has the better story, the overall lore itself establishes in 1, and the gameplay is still fun. 4 has the better gameplay, more unique missions, and the squad stories which were a highlight for me.

Just pick which one sounds more like your thing if you only want to spend the time with one of them. Both are fun.

RPG's About the Harsh Reality of Capitalism:

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

I adore this games concept. It takes the common NPC seen in these little RPG adventures, the shopkeeper, and puts you in their shoes. You're father has a big debt to pay off and you now have to sell items out of your house to help pay it off before the deadline.

You lay the items out and then have to haggle your way to a profit. Finding the line of when to haggle and how much is the key to success and I failed miserably. I never did beat this game, but I haven't beaten many games on this list and that won't stop me from telling you to play them. I think the concept alone is enough of a reason to check it out.

The game does have combat as well. You can hire an adventurer to go with you into a dungeon and fight enemies for treasure. I like how you hire someone from the Adventurers Guild, just another cool concept as a typical game would have you play as the character being hired instead all the time. I also like how dungeons are high risk high reward. If they die then you lose most of what you gather and essentially just wasted the day.

It's just a cool concept and a nice change of pace from how a game set in these typical fantasy settings would go. You aren't some savior of the world, but just a shopkeeper trying to pay off debt.

Spooky Games:

Yuppie Psycho

Do you want a game about a corporate building being haunted by dark forces and being a badass fighting your way through it all? That's Control. You just want Control.

Unlike Control which bored me to death after a while. Yuppie Psycho is about a haunted corporate building, but you play a new lowly worker who's been tasked with something far above his pay grade. Brian Pasternack is a new hire who's in way over his head. What should have been a normal corporate jobs turns into a witch hunt, literally.

You aren't a badass and will have to sneak your way to victory, uncovering the buildings hidden secrets along the way. For me that's part of why this works over Control as a effective story. You're kind of a fucking nobody who has to be extra careful and is reluctant to even do this. Far more relatable honestly.

The joy of this game comes from exploring this building and uncovering the secrets and horrors. Each floor is unique and this game gets creative with the corporate horror vibe. I love some of the designs of things and how it blends comedy and horror together. It also has branching paths and even limited save slots which seemed frustrating at first, but wasn't really a big deal. Not saving every chance you can really adds to the tension when sneaking around.

It's not a true horror intense experience, but as someone who is a baby with horror I found a lot of genuine tense moments. It's a real indie gem.

The Complex: Found Footage

Kane Pixels backrooms videos are honestly pretty fucking great. I'm not usually a fan of horror at all, but there's something about these videos that just work for me. Then pgWave decided to make a video game creating the experience of exploring these kinds of spaces.

This is a creepy game where you slowly move through liminal spaces and just sort of get lost in it. There's no jumpscares or anything intense happening, but as a baby with horror this game was tense to go through for me. Honestly I appreciate it's not a more traditional horror game with a monster or something. Just dropped in a space that's inherently unsettling and leaving it up to you to explore.

If you have a free night and want to get lost exploring spaces only games could deliver then play it. It's literally free.

Games Where You Gotta Go Fast:

Distance

This game fucks. I actually remember when playing the first version of this game back when it was a student project. Students at DigiPen made a game called Nitronic Rush and it was (maybe still is?) available to download for free from the schools website. That game fucks and they announced a proper full game called Distance and it was one of the rare instances I actually bought a early access game.

Distance is a car game about going fast as fuck. The levels don't put you against anyone and instead just getting to the end is the challenge in itself. You have a boost that can overheat, a jump, and even wings when needed. The levels will require you to weave in and out of oncoming danger. They have jumps where you'll need to turn the car 90 or 180 degrees to land on a new track. All while giving you a wonderful sense of speed and accomplishment when you pull things off right.

It's not a easy game either and levels will get challenging. There's a ton of levels and challenges and if you get sucked into the gameplay then there's a lot to keep you there. This game seeks to deliver the thrill of going fast in a dangerous track where everything is out to kill you, and making it to the end. There's really not much more to say. It has a specific vision and fully realizes it.

Games Where You Trust the Heart of the Cards:

Foretales:

This game is very unique and nothing quite like what I've played before. The entire game is card based. Each of the characters have their own decks that are all mixed together in your hand. You have 4 resources you can collect, gold, food, fame, and infamy. You can get item cards as well. The board has various location cards you need to move through to move the story along. What's unique about this is the cards can be used in battle or on locations.

It's hard to really go into details how this all works, but you don't have a separate hand or anything for when combat begins.

Some cards have uses in locations and battles and others don't, but there all mixed together which adds to you planning ahead and making the best choice. You can use a eavesdrop card near a guard post to get a juicy secret which can be used for blackmail later. You can forage for food and obviously a forest will give you more then a mine shaft. There's a lot of really cool little interactions and creativity put into this systems that's just to complicated to type out and explain.

One thing I can get into is the best feature of combat. The fact that you can get through it without fighting or with less fighting then needed. Those 4 resources can be used in locations for story or optional reasons, but they can also be used in combat pacify enemies. Bandits can be bribed with gold or food for example. Fame and infamy can be used as well in certain circumstances. They are a constantly growing resource that always have uses. I'm sure it's possible to do a full pacifist run, though I imagine it would be difficult.

The game also has multiple paths for the story to go and lots of optional stuff. Multiple characters to use down the line but only 3 party members so there's more choice as well. Also everyone's an anthropomorphic animal because why not.

I just like how it's a card based game that's not just a battle between opponents or a roguelike or how cards are typically used in video games. If nothing else this game should be played for it's game design alone. If you want a really unique interactive story experience entirely dictated by cards then this is about the only game I know of like it.

One Step From Eden

I'm very bad at this game. So bad I still have never beaten it once. It's really fun all the same though.

It's a deckbuilding roguelike set on a grid. As the formula goes you fight your way through, choosing your path, collecting cards, and seeing if you can win. In my case that's a no.

The game is set on a grid where you have to manage what spells you currently have, dodging enemies, and somehow making sense of the chaos. You can unlock other characters that have their own unique mechanics to help freshen things up. Also the game just throws you in the deep end and lets you learn through playing. No tutorial or anything, just have at it.

If you're itching for a roguelike that's very fucking challenging then enjoy.

Inscryption

This is another game I expect many others to know about, but if not then honestly just play it.

It's a rougelike card game set in a wonderfully crafted creepy setting. You're alone in some mysterious persons shack forced to play a really well designed card game. Of course if it was just that I'd not be recommending it.

The mechanics are well thought out and slowly learning the mechanics feels nice. You will fail, a lot, as is the case for roguelikes, but keep at it. The game is filled with secrets and puzzles and mysteries that you'll just have to figure out for yourself.

Much like with Outer Wilds way back at the top, I don't want to say much more. If you have somehow not played this or don't know anything about it then you should.

Tainted Grail: Conquest

This is still the only proper deck-building roguelike in the same vein as Slay the Spire. While I haven't played much of that and honestly couldn't get into it, this game I did.

It was described to me as Slay the Spire meets Dark Souls by some poor soul who's brain is forever lost in soulslike hell. In reality it's just a cool deck building game where you fight creepy monsters and slowly build up the village to make each run easier. There's characters to find and NPC quest you can make little progressions on each run. It's just enough story and context to give this game a sense or purpose and progression outside collecting cards.

What added more replayability to me beyond the quest was having 9 classes to work with. In truth it's really 3 broad classes with 3 variations on those broader class types. You have the fighter, archer, and summoner as the broad classes. They use similar cards, but their strategies vary with each subclass. A summoner is more about making their summons powerful, bloodmages use their own life to summon minions that get stronger and die on their own, and necromancers sacrifice their minions to turn into a Lich. The fighter and archer subclasses are as varied and it's a good way to use similar cards across different playstyles.

I had a lot of fun with this one. It's a fun deck building game.

Thinking Games:

Manifold Garden:

I love the space this game takes place in. This is the shit only games can truly deliver on. The world is basically always looping. Each level repeats in all directions when your in open space. If you fall anywhere, you'll be ok. You can just fall endlessly even, it's very mesmerising and freeing once you get used to the fact that you can just jump off anywhere, and even needed to solve the level sometimes.

The other fun mechanic the puzzles primarily revolve around is the ability to walk on any surface and change gravity as you do it. Essentially you turn the wall into the new floor and is the main mechanic for puzzles in enclosed spaces. This game uses blocks of various colors and the simple task of putting them in the right slot is made complicated by having to altar gravity and matching them up. There's other mechanics introduced of course, but you'll need to discover those yourself.

The game can be beaten in a day give or take your skill at puzzles. I appreciate that it doesn't overstay it's welcome and uses it's mechanics in interesting ways. Also this reminds me I still need to play Antichamber someday.

If you like exploring spaces only games can deliver on or puzzles then this is the game for you.

FEZ

FEZ! This is such a fun interesting little game. It's probably well known given who the creator is, but if you haven't checked this out before, then you should.

The trailer makes it appear to be more a platformer then a puzzle game and that's half right. Similar to another game on this list, FEZ goes much deeper then a mere platformer. It has some esoteric puzzles. As I understand (could be wrong) one puzzle still hasn't been solved legitimately, but had to be brute forced and even now the community has no concrete answers on how you were supposed to get the solution.

The good news is the harder puzzles aren't technically required to just finish the game. You could still enjoy this as a fun platformer. The way the world works is you see the game world on a 2D plane. Like any other 2D platformer. However, the world itself is in 3D and you can switch the perspective to change where platforms and other things are. It's really fun moving about this world and in a sense each level is it's own puzzle to figure out how to get through it with these mechanics.

I highly recommend this game.

Thinking Games for DJ's

FRACT OSC

This is another game I would be shocked if anyone knew about. No one talks about this game ever and I don't even remember how I found out about it wayyyy back in college. This is also the oldest game on here I've played. I haven't touched this is years, but know I enjoyed it a lot.

What i remember is it's filled with music based puzzles. I also remember being very fucking confused and having to look shit up, but the real joy is just the vibe. Everything makes sound and the whole game revolves around music. I slowly explored as much as I could and just took it all in. It's a fun space to be in and I'm a sucker for being dropped in a unusual place only games can delivery on.

If you don't know shit about music production like me you might have a hard time or maybe I was just a fucking idiot and needed help. Either way I still recommend this to everyone.

Vibing with the Beat Games:

Sayonara Wild Hearts

This is basically a interactive album. It's a rhythm game that's not to difficult, which is good as this is more about the flow and vibe. There's not much more to say about it. It will take an hour and every bit is lovely. It's a visual and auditory feast that has some clever ideas packed in. I think everyone should experience it.

Soundodger+

This game won't be on the Steam store for much longer sadly. Warner Bros being shitty and taking cool shit down. I haven't played any other of the Adult Swim games that are being taken down, but I encourage you to find the list and get anything interesting while you still can.

The game itself is a fun little bullet hell rhythm game. The song plays and you are a circle in the middle of larger circle. Obstacles are thrown out into the middle timed to the music and you simply have to dodged them. I don't remember it being to hard, but I know there are community levels and I just have to assume those are going to be tough.

It's a cool game to vibe to and it's going to be gone soon. Don't miss your chance to get it.

Artsy Games That I Don't Know Where Else To Put Them:

The Beginner's Guide

This a narrative experience about the relationship between the narrator and the game dev who's games are being played. That may not sound like the most interesting premise, but trust me it's very engaging. This game has a unsettling feeling underneath it all and it's really hard to go into more without just spoiling things.

The actual game is you going through a series of small little games made by a Dev named Coda as the narrator Davey speaks to you about various things relating to the game and Coda himself. It's explores a character who's frankly caught up in a unhealthy obsession with someone else and quite the journey.

It will only take a hour and half to get through and I think it's worth a playthrough if you like narratives only video games can deliver on.

The Static Speaks My Name

This is the shortest game on this list. It's also the most depressing. If you struggle with dark thoughts and depression and really need something happy to distract you, then do not play this little free game.

It's a sad and unsettling little experience that has a lot of room for interpretation. I'm a fan of little strange pieces of art like this and if this sounds interesting to you then it's free. Check it out.

Minimalist City Builder Games:

ISLANDERS

This such a cute game. It's a simple city builder where the goal is to keep building things correctly and move on to another island. You start on a randomly generated island and are given a set of buildings and a number to reach. Buildings will get bonuses based on whats near them and as you unlock more buildings the number to reach gets higher.

That's really it. It's easy to understand and a nice little relaxing game about building a cool island town. Pretty cheap and pretty fun.

Multi Genre:

The Hex

This is multi genre because it quite literally has many different gameplay modes packed in it. A bunch of old video game characters stay at a Tavern where a murder may take place. It's a murder mystery! Also so much more.

In truth it's a narrative video game about exploring these characters past lives and revealing a larger narrative underneath it all. This was made by Daniel Mullens who's latest game I recommended earlier. Much like Inscryption, this game slowly draws you into it's setting and drop feeds you it's secrets slowly.

The Hex was pleasantly surprising as I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. It's worth playing.

That's it. That's the list. Over 50 more games to add to your Steam library which means over 50 more games you'll get to, eventually.

#video games #Steam #indie games #Steam Sale #Gaming

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spacefinch · 6 months

Text

Rating TNG Characters based on how I’d handle being home alone with them

Picard: Good for a nice quiet afternoon. I imagine he’d just spend all day reading whatever book he’s currently working his way through. I would probably also be reading. And of course, it wouldn't be a proper visit without some "tea, Earl Grey, hot."

Riker: It is party time. This could mean a number of things: Watching a movie, going to a hamburger joint and then frozen yogurt “just because”, or just hanging out. When we’re not doing the aforementioned, we’re listening to jazz music.

Deanna: I try to tell her I’m not interested in a “girls’ day,” but she quickly wins me over. Not only does she make “girly” things like shopping and hair and nail painting fun, she also takes me to get ice cream (which we eat while watching a cheesy movie). By the time she has to leave, she’s ensured that my family won’t run out of dessert for the next two months.

Tasha: I would LOVE hanging out with her, no questions asked. At home, we’d probably play games or something, but it’s more likely we’d be on an outing. There’s not a lot of talking that goes on. I try not to ask about her past, since it’s clearly a sensitive subject for her. Instead, we talk about things like our favorite animals, or how the weekend went.

Data: Another crew member I would love to hang out with. Before going home, we make a quick (translation: 2 hour) stop at the library, during which Data signs up for a library card. Most of our conversations are just back-and-forth infodumping. Further benefits: help with homework (especially math and music), and getting to pet Spot. (He definitely brings Spot over.)

Geordi: 90% of our time together is spent geeking out over various stuff. The rest of the time is spent doing stuff like building model airplanes and listening to radio dramas. However, I do not get to bed until almost 2 AM because neither one of us has a healthy sleep schedule.

Worf: Another “not a whole lot of talking” situation. He tries his best to make some sort of traditional Klingon dish, but the kitchen is a disaster afterwards. I try a tiny bit of the food just to be polite, but it’s not my favorite and I decide to just have leftover pasta. The rest of the evening is spent trying to get the kitchen back in order before my parents come home.

Beverly: Definitely the mom friend. She doesn’t let me watch TV until I get my homework done, but she does help me with said homework. Afterwards, though, we watch a recording of a Broadway musical together. Or if it works out, she takes me to see a play in person.

Wesley: In this situation, it is I who is the responsible adult. Nothing productive happens, unless you count “spent the whole day playing video games, showing each other memes, and doing questionable science experiments” as productive. We try to cook dinner, but it doesn’t go very well and we just end up ordering pizza and eating it while watching a movie.

Q: No. Absolutely not. Besides, he would rather be harassing Captain Picard and company. He does try to intrude on my read-a-thon with Picard, though.

Guianan: She’s not the one hanging out at my house, I’m at her house. Or at her restaurant. She’s very nice to me and has plenty of advice regarding my concerns about navigating social life. I would be honored to hear what wisdom she has to offer me.

#star trek #star trek tng #headcanons #captain picard #will riker #deanna troi #data soong #tasha yar #geordi la forge #beverly crusher #wesley crusher #worf #q #guianan star trek

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lonicera-edulis · 2 months

Note

do u have any advice for someone downloading lotro for the first time??? u make it look so cool!!! 🌸

Well, I am not very sure I am playing right. I can't speak to people nor offline nor online somehow, so I am missing a lot.

• First, you will have to type password everytime you go to play.

• Then, choosing a server to play on. Each one has their own purpose, there are American and European, some are RP oriented, some are for raids, etc. Although I've heard people there are insufferable with particular rules. (I play on Landroval and I like it so far).

• There are lots of setup to prepare. For graphic options there are videos and articles.

In Options you will find UI settings, where you will be able to change size of various elements (map radar, quest tracker, etc.)

• For a good time I didn't know how to change size of a text in quest dialogue.

• You can look up how to set up chat as well, and text there can be colored for you to notice stuff easier.

• And once you set everything for your use, you can save it by typing /ui layout save [name] in chat. If you change something accidentely, you can make it look like before with /ui layout load [name] command.

• Then there are useful plugins to help with better game experience:

I have Deed Tracker, Emotes Helper (to have all emotes automatically in a separate window) and Lotropad (very useful for saving commands so you can just copy/paste them, other game details; and you can upload images (maps with specific locations for example, but I put funny backgrounds for my text xD)

I also have Opaque Quest Tracker and MoorMap.

And SongBook for those who want to be musicians. But I only play My Little Pony and TF2 Soldier Theme xD

• Another things I was unaware for a good time are cosmetic outfits (I don't remember why but I couldn't slot anything there so I assumed it's a pay-for-thing, there happened this funny screenshot though) and one bag instead of 3 separate ones (opening one bag is more comfortable for me, and to make one you just need to drag slots from other bags to the first one while in edit mode).

• There is also a Filter Panel, to filter out some loot, quests and sounds. For items you need to drag it into a panel (I put lootboxes there).

• There are things like LOTRO points you can get through doing deeds in game rather than transfering your money (I spent my first good bunch on making steeds faster for the whole account, but you can also save some for buying a game content expansion).

• Folks in chat also remind of codes sometimes that give you useful stuff (to redeem a code you will need to go to the LOTRO store).

• Yeah, since I am a f2p player, I have to write down destinations to navigate easier in Middle Earth. I am writting them down to not forget:

• Finally, there is also https://lotro-wiki.com/, quite useful. And if something is unclear for me, I go to search for answers in websearch or on YouTube.

• And, I see people do play the game differently, you can skip quests and do whatever, but I am personally here for going through LOTR story and watching the stories of LOTRO characters too (even if I am mostly interested in dwarves and hobbits, but oh well). There are also seasonal Festivals in game, they are fun! You will be able to get a good looking outfit and a beautiful steed.

I think I wrote down most of what brought confusion to me first time. For sure I forgot something important, but I hope you will be able to find answers. Good luck.

#gaming tag #apologies for the late reply #it was a bedtime for me

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astralexpressarchives · 7 months

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The Sedition Timeline Theory: Imprisoned Version

I have spent way too many hours thinking about this video game, especially the High Cloud Quintet and the Sedition. For that reason, I'd like to make a post outlining the sequence of events that I currently believe is quite likely based on my interpretation of the evidence available as of now, Oct 7 2023.

This post will be using spoilers from the leaked Jingliu Character Stories.

Before the Sedition

1800 Years ago, Jingliu's home ship Cangcheng was devoured by the Incarnosphere revived by Shuhu.

In the dark sky, the demonic planet named Rahu was wailing and singing, descending upon everyone with mountain ridges and continents ablaze. On the streets, people were screaming. They struggled and rolled on the ground in the apocalyptic despair, allowing golden vines to sprout and grow feverishly their every orifice. She watched everything, unable to move. Her organs felt like they were boiling. Something suddenly burst out of her Core Esse like a ripe wheat grain about to erupt out of its casing and swell till infinity. However, the mountains crashing into her face made her recall that she was nothing but an insect, about to die from a tiny press of an Emanator's fingertip. In that spit moment before death claimed her, she grabbed the only flax next to her. A sword, 3 feet and 7 inches in length, weighing about 7 pounds.

Note here that the sword is actually the training sword given to her by her master earlier in the passage.

A short time afterwards, Jingliu is arrogant and is bested by an opponent in a war and rescued by her master. She blames the sword and she and her master have this conversation:

I don't want to learn the sword anymore. It's... useless." "Useless? It's pretty useful in my hands. It is the wielder who was useless." "..." "If you don't learn the sword, what do you want to learn? The alchemical arrows on the pilots' starskiffs? The blazing fire flung by divine crossbows? Or... The artillery of the Zhuming Xianzhou? Such instruments would also be enough to destroy that demonic planet. You want to learn about them? Fine. Those things can kill the enemy without even from beyond visual sight.""...I just don't understand why you insist on teaching me the sword!?" "From the general to the smallest pawn, every Cloud Knight starts by learning the sword. "The various constructs provided by the Artisanship Commission can certainly kill the enemy for you, but those deeds are to the merit of the material rather than the person. If there comes a day that the quivers run empty, that the starskiffs crash, that the aurumatons freeze — Who will protect you and I, then? Who will protect the Xianzhou? "Hold this sword. Remember, only when Cloud Knights wielding swords stride upon the battlefield themselves is humanity fighting our own war. We will demonstrate our victory to those inhuman abominations with our blood and ability instead of letting ingenia do the work for us!"

Take special note of how her master brings up "Who will protect you and I" in her explanation. I believe this is drawing a direct parallel to DH:IL 3 and setting her master up to sacrifice herself when everything is going wrong.

Just prior to the formation of the High Cloud Quintet, Baiheng is acting as an ambassador to Zhuming to request reinforcements. Here, she meets Yingxing when he is a young teenager and experiences visions from the 'ball of light rays.' From Views of the Universe from a Starskiff: The Xianzhou Zhuming:

Every ray of light from the "sun" is beating, as if undergoing intense turbulence. Or rather, like a raging suppression since ancient times, gnarling and gnashing as it tries to fight through to my consciousness. In an instant, a flood of scenes well up and rampage through my mind, like a book flipping pages in the wind: — A "tree" with no boundaries suspended from the heavens, piercing the starry sky. — A vacuum, inside which ships spew forth brilliant beams like fireflies chasing fire, flocking to fluctuating flesh. There are even winged humanoids, wings outstretched... — I hear the howl of a Cloud Knight and a starskiff moments before crashing down, "Defend the Xianzhou!" "Victory to the Cloud Knights!"... — A colossal aurumaton, towering hundreds of feet high as it stalks and strides, stretching out cold metal arms to interact with a giant gelatinous beast of meat, teeth, and countless eyeballs. — In the sky stand radiant warriors, holding spears and longbows radiating fiery death. Their every gene has been sculpted and filtered to grant them a strength and beauty surpassing that of even modern Xianzhou people. — Even more terrifying is that their bodies are covered in an unnatural flame, as if embodying their innermost courage and rage. They charge one-by-one, over and over into the formless void, never to return... "...Take this oath, and keep it forever!" the rays of light roared, leaving the ears ringing. "Everyone! Steel yourselves — and don't look directly at the Flint Emperor!"

These visions are about Lan the Hunt's battle against Muldrasil and the Wingweavers. Note that this is the battle where he utilized the Heliobi "sun" powers from the Flint Emperor to destroy the Arbor. You can read about his story in Annotations from Ode to Reignbow Path.

Sometime around year 7279, about 800 years ago, Jingliu forms the High Cloud Quintet (Yes, she is already 1000 years old at this point.)

In the first battle that the HCQ fought (or earlier), Dan Feng sealed a maddened and frenzied dragon within the Arbor as per DH:IL Character Story One:

He dreamed he was standing before a sacrificial altar, dancing and chanting. However, the songs and gestures were mere facades. The light emanating from his eyes and the storm roiling in his blood were the true forces at play. Casually, he wove the misty and foggy tide in Scalegorge Waterscape, sealing the maddened and frenzied "dragon" into the propagating giant tree. As the echoing roar streamed up into the heavens and dissipated, Scalegorge Waterscape will continue its peace for centuries more, and his duty was over. The ceremony ended, and he turned to look behind him. In the blink of an eye, the stairs he had stepped down from had become full of standing dignitaries with draconic horns and dressed like royalty. As if they were mirages in a mirror, each of them turned and their sleeves swirled with the motion, ready to leave one after another in a meticulously calculated arrangement. Innumerable, they formed a staircase to the sky, stretching into the never-ending spatial void. The faces of all these people would greet him every morning in his dressing mirror — That was his face. No, it was the face of the primordial, the original, the very first high elder. He smiled bitterly and covered his face with his palm, as if ascertaining whether he could tear off this mask and return it to its true owner. He could not.

Note the presence of all of his "ancestors" as well as the mists and fog. The storm was 'roiling in his blood' and I think this is literal because his blood is most likely the ancient Vidyadhara water.

DH:IL 2 We see how Dan Feng is forced to be. His duty is to destroy and be detached from empathy. His dragon heart speaks of insignificance yet his human heart aches for all those who have died.

The devastated borisins began to flee. He knew it was time to carry out the duty entrusted to him. So he let go — letting his consciousness disappear in storms and hails, letting thunder roar for him, letting tsunamis rage for him. He floated on top of clouds, watching the enemies getting swallowed by the watery abyss, and watching the land behind him. Many humans, Vidyadhara, and Foxians were eternally left there, unable to lay their eyes upon their home ever again. The dragon heart told him that it was but a small speck of dust brushed away from the world. Wars come with a price, but life will always thrive once more — the Vidyadhara are not the only branch of Long's Scions. However, his human heart ached for those comrades who, like him, had warm flesh and blood, and for those mortals who might have lived longer but now could return home nevermore.

During one of these wars, Jingliu's master dies. In Jingliu Character Story Part 3:

She doesn't have a master anymore. The woman in the military uniform perished on the battlefield and can instruct her no longer. Nor does she need a master anymore. She knows everything there is to know about swords. They are a part of her body. They are the intake and release of her breath as she walks and sleep. People call her the Transcendent Flash, the pinnacle of swordmasters, a once-in-ten-century hero. However, she knows that her sword is still not enough to "cut down the star in the sky" — Even if she is holding the greatest sword in all the Xianzhou...

Here she is mourning her master's passing and realizing that even the greatest swords are not enough to protect what you care about. I strongly believe Jingliu's master died as the last line of defense in a self-sacrifice to let Jingliu and others survive. The death of her master is the first 'wake up call' for Jingliu that she isn't enough yet.

The Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae

I think it starts with a war vs Shuhu because of this Vidyadhara Egg:

You gently tap on the shell of the Vidyadhara egg. It shakes nervously, and the scales on the shell open and close slightly to warn and drive you away. It used to be one of the guards in charge of watching the Ambrosial Arbor in Scalegorge Waterscape. For centuries, the ancient tree had been quiet as though it was in a deep slumber. Taking measurements of the tree every day with its comrades bored it to death. Who would have thought that the Ambrosial Arbor would wake up on that fateful day? Gigantic waves have swept it and its comrades away. In an urgent voice, it asks you about its comrades, but you have no answer.

I think Shuhu may have found a way to awaken the Arbor. Yueyuan also makes mentions of Denizens of the Abundance causing havoc in the Scalegorge before the sedition:

Hmph, first there was the bloody conflict against the Denizens of Abundance. Then the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae almost shook the Ambrosial Arbor to its core...

They won the war.

From DH:IL 3:

He dreamed that he parted the ocean's waters and came to the palace ruin depths, burying the remnants of his old friend's hallowed blood, or creating a new life that had not been seen for millennia — or, perhaps, those two actions were one and the same, an unattainable desire that could not be carried out for long years in the past, a final straw that broke the gargantuan dragon's back. The craftsman was covered in blood and wounds as he guarded the dragon with a sword in his hand. He urged himself to commit to the decision. "Shuhu is dead... we won, but how many more victories can we manage to achieve? How many more prices like this must we pay?" "Look, the Ambrosial Arbor still stands. So long as it is alive, the monsters... they can come back again and again. The war of the Xianzhou natives, Foxians, and Vidyadhara against the abominations will never end." "Yes, none of us are special! Each of us has only one life, sacrificing for this, dying for that... it's all our own choices. Just like how she chose to save you and Jingliu... just like how she chose to let more people live on!" War, and the lives that expired in the war, were living beings just like him. He shut his eyes wearily, remembering their faces, and made up his mind. "If there's a chance... we will also choose to let her and more people live on. We, the Vidyadhara, have our own way of salvation. I can give it a try."

I believe here that the old friend's hallowed blood is the special water blood of the dead Vidyadhara, the Azure Dragon, Long, or some combination. Creating a new life that has not been seen for millennia refers to the creation of a new Dragon life from the remnants of the dead dragon life that was unable to properly rebirth. Note that Vidyadhara MUST return to the sacred sea in order to form their shells and go through the hatching rebirth.

Yingxing talking about the prices we must pay is a callback to DH:IL 2 where he ponders the price of war, all the lives that are lost. This is especially devastating for Vidyadhara who cannot reproduce. Yingxing identifies that the Arbor is the cause of all the problems. I believe here that Dan Feng is planning to destroy the Arbor.

As previously mentioned, I believe the unnamed woman who died for 'You and Jingliu' is Jingliu's master.

Like an out-of-body experience, like a dream within a dream, he returned to the moment before his sense of self disappeared. With a cold and emotionless mind, he observed himself turning into a dragon, entangled and fighting claw-and-fangs against that bulb of shapeshifting shadow of flesh and blood. In an illusion seen on the verge of death, the emissary of the god showed him an unsettling, beautiful scene — the stars pulsated and sang hymns like red blood cells, and the universe descended into an abyss of flesh and desires. The dragon heart beat to its limit, raising its fangs, breath, and fury — however, no matter how mighty it was, a "lifeform" cannot defy the true body of god of life's envoy.

Note the presence of Yingxing still in the picture as the dragon transformation takes place. This indicates that the transformation is a continuation of the previous scene and NOT a flashback to a prior scene. His sense of self is disappearing because he is merging with the azure dragon. I would also like to note that the CN word here for Life is closer to the 'path of life/fate' meaning than the state of being alive.

...Until a starskiff ran everything through like an arrow shaft. He saw that girl crawling out of the ruins with great difficulty, lifting a "sun" of absolute darkness in her hand. In that fleeting eternity, he saw her hand disappear, saw her face disappear, and saw HER disappear — That item had ground everything around it into the finest dust and dragged them into a vortex of raw power, including that girl. A tuft of hair and a few drops of blood fell to the floor as evidence of her existence. Those were the only traces she left.

This is where Baiheng blew herself up. Note the use of the "sun" callback to Lan's story. I believe she was paralleling his story and attacking the arbor. Her explosion is likely the reason that the Arbor was so stumpy before the stellaron was inserted into it, causing new growth, in the current era. (The above picture is definitely after Lan shot it because the Vidyadhara did not appear on the Xianzhou until around year 4800 vs Lan's Muldrasil war in about 3400).

You gently touch the surface of the eggshell, and a searing and intense impact bursts out and surges right into your head through your fingertips. A hoarse and deep voice lingers by your ears. You see a heart with odd burn marks on its dry and withered surface. The fire in the distance is burning ferociously in an attempt to devour everything. A figure pulls another figure into their arms despite the danger. In the chaos, you hear some indistinct cries that also sound like the whispering between lovers. You think about the burnt elixir crucible that once tore the darkness apart. But now, not a single trace of light is in sight. You look down at the egg and finally notice it is not stained by the ash from the crucible, but just some dew that is somehow scorching hot.

This Vidyadhara egg mentions the elixir crucible, which is in close proximity to the Arbor. The elixir crucible relies on the water to function, so Dan Feng's spells may have caused it to cease functioning correctly and it was caught on fire in the attack. It talks about the fires in the distance and the figure that pulls another figure into their arms despite the danger - I think this could be referring to Dan Feng finding an injured Yingxing who was injured in the aftermath. It also talks about a heart with odd burn marks on it dry and withered surface - Dragon Heart Theory real? It's more likely than you think.

From here, I think Dan Feng is likely arrested by the 10 Lords Commission and sent to nice jail:

Those who are familiar with my previous post will know more about why I believe this is the location of the sedition. Note the presence of Preceptor Taoran and Oppenheimer - these character identities are confirmed in the description of the myriad trailer.

With Dan Feng locked up underneath the Scalegorge, Preceptors, specifically Preceptor Suguang, begin their angry letters to Jing Yuan who is now the general.

With the great calamity quelled, the voracious enemy subdued, and the treacherous rebels expelled, the Luofu has once again returned to peace. What a joyous day this is. My people have suffered much in this crisis. The wounded include 12 Preceptors, 253 Pearlkeepers, and 116 alchemists and healers. There are 1285 who have completely perished in this disaster, and over 3000 are still missing. While we lament these losses, we dared not forget our duty. Since the time of the High Elder Yubie, the Vidyadhara of the Luofu have shouldered the duty of keeping watch over the Ambrosial Arbor. However, when the disaster struck and the seals were loosened, all the elites of my people could not return it to its previous form. Therefore, we beseech the Six Charioteers to ask the Ten-Lords Commission to return the sinner Dan Feng to us, let him restore the seals, and mete out his punishment at a later time.

The mentions of the loosened seal are also interesting because in current times, Yueyuan tells us this about the sedition:

Then the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae almost shook the Ambrosial Arbor to its core...

Note that other language translation have 'shook to the core' closer translated to 'uprooted.'

Somehow, I think the Preceptors arranged for the creation of a new High Elder to replace Dan Feng whose fate was unknown to them.

It begins with Dan Feng drinking in the power of the moon and breaking free of his chains. This moon likely contains Long or the Azure dragon in an moon egg (a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion which is a major inspiration for Hoyo). You can also see Long turn into a moon egg at the beginning of the myriad trailer, so the idea is definitely there.

This event is what brings about the Half-Draconic abomination.

Jingliu brings the cloud knights into the mountain realm:

I do explain why this hole in the clouds is the entrance of the mountain realm in my previous post but it's also reaffirmed in the picture on the sheath:

Also note how the hole in the sky is upside down relative to the moon and the birds flying - this is because the mountain realm is a reflected space as shown in this image inside the Exalting Sanctum's Realm-Keeping Commission building:

Next is the events from Jingliu Character Story Part 4.

Note Yingxing's black hair, implying he is definitely immortal or at least de-aged by this point.

She gasps, barely holding her wounded body together. Far away, deeper in the delve, there came the anguished roar of a dragon, as if a cry seeking deliverance. She watches as the arrogant craftsman falls into mud, and walks up to him like a wraith. "I should kill you first... but you will have your own torment to bear for all eternity..." She points the broken sword at the high elder. "Impossible. The Preceptors said... The blood of my race and the soul of my ancestor should have created another high elder. All this... It shouldn't be like this." "If your death can return everything to how it was, I would do it... But you need to tell me that dragon's weak point right now. "The top of its head..." The half-draconic abomination swims through the air in blasts of lightning. Its body, enough to swallow the very horizon, sunders yet another floating isle. Its wails are loud as the clamors of a thousand swords clashing. She feels her Core Esse boiling, like a ripe wheat grain about to erupt out of its casing and swell eternally. She sees herself trapped in childhood nightmares again. The ominous planet is swallowing her overhead, and she, but an insect, cannot even struggle. The woman tears off a spread of black silk from the edge of her skirt and covers her eyes. The thunder strikes. She leaps up with her sword towards the draconic abomination. In an illusion that feels half like a dream and half like reality, she feels her flesh has finally transcended its limits and has started to disintegrate. There are restraints binding her like strings, tightly wrapped around her limbs and organs, slicing apart her final shreds of self-consciousness bit by bit. Suddenly, she hears those words: "I will cut down even the stars in the sky." At that moment, she finally grasped the sword she had been seeking all this time. It is a sword that can transcend all restrictions. It is a sword she had been familiar with for years. It is not forged from any ordinary iron, but condensed from a shaft of sharp ice. It glows with a dim light, as if it is a strand of moonlight held in the wielder's hand. A sword, 3 feet and 7 inches in length, and weighs nothing.

From a Vidyadhara Egg:

You hear furious roars coming from the Vidyadhara egg and move your ears closer to hear better. A thunderous sound explodes from the mouth of an abomination, and fills up the Scalegorge Waterscape delve as if a thousand swords had clashed together. Every one of your bones rattle from the deafening sound. The abomination falls to the ground with a loud thud. You try your best to steady yourself before examining the abomination. Its semi-draconic head bears long whiskers and flowing beastly fur. You stare into its mercury-like eyes, sensing a hint of fear within them. You think of running away, but there is nowhere to go. The temperature in the air drops all of a sudden, as a shadow drifts past at a speed so fast that it only leaves behind a misty trail. A woman lands on top of the abominable dragon’s head. Her palms hold a ray of frosty light that she stabs downward. In a split second, you see the black veil covering her eyes falling off. Her lips move slightly, and you can faintly hear her utter the word "Sorry." That is not your imagination, as she is also apologizing to you. The next second, ice waves as sharp as knives start spreading like transient flowers in the air, freezing everything they come into contact with, including you.

At some point during the sedition, Dan Feng's own guard refused to betray Dan Feng and was killed:

You touch the shell of the Vidyadhara egg lightly and experience a heartbreaking sensation. Resistant to your touch, the Vidyadhara in the egg is reluctant to leave his memory behind and refuses to believe that his highly respected master has committed the grave sin of rebellion. Roaring, he holds his sword high and charges at the Cloud Knights again and again. He can see his peers whom he used to trust, and the Preceptors whom he used to respect clearly. Their despicable faces are etched in his mind forever. He does not wish to forget. "We… will never betray Master Dan Feng!" Together with the last remaining high elder guards, he braces himself to face the incoming arrows and darkness.

Dan Feng is arrested again and placed in a higher security prison with pins to suppress his power:

From DH:IL 4:

He dreamed of the Dracocatena Nails being staked into his body, and chains of corallium winding around him to hang him in midair in the Shackling Prison. He dreamed the elders coming and going to interrogate him about the truth of the Arcanum and the whereabouts of the dragon heart. He did not speak. He dreamed of the Judges coming before him to read their decision and wanting to sentence him to death. He did not speak.

After the Judges want to sentence him to death - like, proper death and not the rebirth kind of death - Venti intervenes. From An Appeal from the Vidyadhara:

According to the deal between the Alliance and Caelorum Venti of the Yaoqing, the sinner Dan Feng was to be spared from death and instead suffer the punishment of molting rebirth. After that, according to Vidyadhara customs, Dan Feng should have been regarded as a new being and his sins forgiven.

Jing Yuan brought him the news of his verdict (DH:IL 4):

He dreamed of the white-haired Cloud Knight Lieutenant coming to visit him and bringing him news of the Lieutenant's negotiations. The Vidyadhara did not permit him to die, nor did they permit him to leave. He did not speak.

In Oblation Obtained, Order Ordained, Jing Yuan explains this:

Do you know something? When Dan Feng committed his great crime, the Ten-Lords Commission advocated strongly for him to be destroyed. The Vidyadhara, on the other hand, were split evenly in their favor and disfavor of the motion. Haha, the dragon transmutation inheritance was not intact, after all. The senior Vidyadhara hated you, yet did not dare to kill you. The Vidyadhara were under great pressure. In order to placate the Ten-Lords and Sky-Faring Commissions, they performed an exuviation charm on Dan Feng against his will. Still, they ensured that the charm contained a flaw, thinking that this would fool the Ten-Lords Commission. Hmph, the senior Vidyadhara were sure of their scheme, but you cannot hide fire with paper.

After a few centuries living as Dan Heng in the Shackling Prison, Jing Yuan arranges for him to be freed:

Brighter than the Sun Lightcone:

From birth, all that ever lay before him was but a lightless dungeon. To this darkness, irrelevant sins bound him… irrelevant memories engulfed him. He writhed, gasping for breath with every fiber of his being, attempting to clasp a sliver of light in this fathomless ocean. Until the day the general stepped into the lightless depths of this prison, he beheld a radiance shining brighter than the sun – the gaze of a young man.

The Vidyadhara Preceptors, specifically Preceptor Shaoying, were angry about Jing Yuan arranging for Dan Heng to be exiled rather than kept eternally imprisoned. From An Appeal from the Vidyadhara:

I was alarmed to learn that you had signed an exile order to permanently cast out the sinner Dan Feng from the Luofu. Wherefore do you place the reputation of the Luofu's Vidyadhara with this order, general?

However, the Ten-Lords Commission detained him under the guise of educating the young man, while keeping him prisoner in truth. We have endured this for so long due to the truly astounding nature of his sin. Were he not to suffer for some days within the Shackling Prison, the multitudes of Luofu residents would not be appeased in their anger. However, general, you have arbitrarily terminated his sentence and decided to exile Dan Feng. Was this a consensus reached after a discussion with the Six Charioteers? And was this sent to the marshal to be confirmed? If your action stemmed from your past friendship with Dan Feng, then we regret to inform you that we cannot accept such a sentimental gesture. Us Preceptors will appeal to the Alliance and inform the other four High Elders, and we will seek to have you retract this order.

"The Vidyadhara handed us thousands of letters of appeal during the past few centuries... and this one has the harshest wording. They are running out of patience." — Qingzu "The exile was approved by the Ten-Lords Commission. Since Dan Feng had already been reborn and his sins are to be forgotten, why won't the Preceptors allow him to leave this troubled place...? Interesting."

A few more interesting notes

The preceptor assembly chronicle fragment gives some insight into the mentality of three of the preceptors. It more or less says that without Dan Feng (or a High Elder in general) around they seem to be in agreement about ruling as a council, which it can be assumed they were doing up until the creation of the Bloomborn Scion which I discuss in this post.

There is a Vidyadhara Elegy: Insight on "Six Charioteers Adjudicating the Imbibitor Lunae document that is questionable in it's reliability but gives decent insight into the attitudes of the Dan Feng loyalists at the time. They seem to believe that he was strongly rebelling against the Six Charioteers to a point of begging Lan to destroy the Xianzhou.

Another interesting note is that, so far at least, Jingliu's crime is unknown. She was not marastruck until the was already arrested a year after the sedition. As far as we know, she was still an honored person at the time of slaying the half-draconic abomination. It's not clear what she did but her crime was severe enough to get her name removed from the public record. And considering Dan Feng did NOT get his name removed as far as we know, her crime was most likely very severe especially considering how much she could probably get away with because she was the honored sword champion and hero of the Xianzhou.

We also don't know how Yingxing became 'exiled.' He was definitely tortured by Jingliu leading up to his exile, but Yingxing's name is still honored on the Xianzhou so his crimes were never severe enough to get his name removed from the record. It's unclear how the left the Xianzhou and how he lost his memories. Because he had black hair and was unkillable at the time of still defending Dan Feng in Jingliu 4, it can safely be assumed that the process of becoming immortal did not automatically make him lose his memories.

Dan Feng's crimes did NOT include the crime of involuntary immortalization implying that he did not make anyone immortal who was not already willing. This means he did not make Yingxing immortal against his will and he likely did not attempt to resurrect or convert a dead friend into an immortal race.

Anyways this post is very long and I've probably forgotten something but I'll also most likely make an updated version when we get more information. There are a few very possible variations of this timeline but this is the one that currently makes the most sense to me.

#honkai star rail #dan heng #high cloud quintet #the sedition of imbibitor lunae #jingliu #baiheng #jing yuan #hsr lore #dan feng #yingxing

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lazarus---rising · 17 days

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the spine spg autism/masking allegory mini essay but i just ramble incoherently the whole time . the second ^_^

the spine shows multiple multiple signs and symptoms of autism throughout various concerts, songs, and various other canon material.

One of these signs is his hyperfixation/special interest in cowboys and dinosaurs. His cowboy special interest is a decently big part of his character, he has a repeating bit in live concerts where he pretends he and the other automatons (to my knowledge it only happens in the MK III era? so rabbit and hatchworth) are in the wild west, in a rex marksley live performance hatchworth says the spine has been "so excited to come down here and sing his western songs, hes been talking about it for months" (the spine's also always the one to start rex marksley or suggest they play it), most of his solo songs are at least influenced by country/western music (i.e: hot on the trail, bad days on the horizon, me and my baby (saturday nights), automatonic electronic harmonics). And more but I'm kinda rambling now. He shares a dinosaur interest with zer0, there's a running gag where they get in fights over their dinosaur figures. He has a video on the band's youtube channel called Fun Facts with The Spine, which is. Fun Dinosaur Facts. with The Spine. He also roasts the viewer's gaming computer.

He has a ton of gags in live concerts where he shows various signs of autism but that'd just turn into rambling. This essay's going to focus on his masking themes.

For backstory, The Spine accepted an upgrade in the 50s. The upgrade was to change his design from more robot-like to look more like a human. Upgrade on the left, before (and after) on the right.

A few years later, he switched back to his before design, symbolizing his narrative of learning how to let himself stop pretending.

The next thing I'll talk about are the songs Cellophane, Wired Wrong, and Hot on the Trail.

The song Cellophane is a cover, the original song is by Sia. The chorus, "Can't you see I'm wrapped in cellophane / Watch the blood pump through my veins / Electricity floods my brain / Can't hide the pain, can't hide the pain / When you're wrapped in cellophane" is about him worrying about people seeing who he really is. When you've spent your whole life pretending it's hard to see what's you and what isn't. It being a cover adds to his narrative, it wouldn't be repression if it was his own words.

Wired Wrong is a song from the album MK III. The song starts with the lyrics, "My brain is wired all wrong / And they'll agree because it's easier to say I am gone / It's time to face the truth in a song / I've always told myself that it was never true / Was never true / Was never ever ever true / It can't be true / It can't be true / It must not be true" and reprises that with "Sometimes I think that I am the only one / Who's been built poor in the way that he runs / But how can that be? / Am I really that flawed? / I am not the only one" It's very easy to see how that would be a neurodivergence allegory. It's a bitter questioning-acceptance song. David Bennett said that he wrote the song about his experiences with mental issues.

Hot on the Trail is a song from the album 1896. I interpret the song as a rage-ish-acceptance song (about a semi-abusive relationship?). It's a faster and more emotional song than the rest of The Spine's songs. The lyrics "Well, you don't like that way that I am / It's not the way that you want and the way you understand / But I can't help being the way that I am / It's just the way that it is and what I know, so sorry about / All of these things that I be and I know / It's all me and not you, but this ain't how I wish it to be / For you and your way and I know it's all me / Just know that I know, I know it's all on me" "All the little pieces make up so much sense in the distance" "So sorry about all of these things that you didn't sign up for / And I don't wish the pain on you, it's so sore / But I've been honest to fault, but it doesn't help / I know that it hurts, and it hurts, and it keeps on hurting" "And I didn't know what, what to do / I told myself the truth, the truth / And I could understand and you could understand / But how could we stand when there was nowhere to stand?" " And you don't like what it is (you don't like what it is) / And you don't know what it is (you don't know what it is) / And I can't sum it up easily / But I know what it is that I plainly see / Yeah, who could have liked what it was? / It caused such a fuss" are very autism coded. "all the little pieces make up so much sense in the distance" "I told myself the truth, the truth" are very relatable to me and how I felt realizing I was autistic, "I told myself the truth, the truth" also connects to "its time to face the truth in a song // it cant be true / it cant be true / it must not be true" from Wired Wrong.

In conclusion of my shitty little essay, The Spine is an autism allegory. His narrative is objectively based on masking and pretending/trying to be something you're not and never will be.

#this may be bad but I had to get it out there...

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obscurecharactershowdown · 11 months

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Before I reveal the contestants, I want to shout out some characters that didn't end up getting in, for one reason or another, but stood out to me

Prince Peasley (Superstar Saga): I mentioned him as a character I really enjoyed learning about, but since he won the Luigi ship competition, I'm unsure of his obscurity status and he may overpower the other characters. I'm sorry your highness, please know I love you

Francis York Morgan (Deadly Premonition): I was stunned to see not one, but 2 people submit this character. I'm endlessly entertained by his weird ass game. He would've been a shoe in had he not been submitted twice. Sorry buddy. Also if he was I would've put in my own propaganda, consisting only of this image

and a video of the squirrels that make monkey noises

Crow T. Robot (Mystery Science Theater 3000): the only reason he's not in is because another MST3K I consider comparatively more obscure was submitted, but I am going to post part of the propaganda for him now because I really loved it and it would be a shame if I was the only one who got to read it:

i have to take a chance on crow, for he is my #1 blorbo and my favorite mst3k character since forever. i charted out a whole TIMELINE for him and there's like. 4-6 of him just existing in various locations. he's shaped like a friend. he can be folded into a torpedo. he has legs and i constantly forget this until he has them on-screen and i'm like OH SHIT this guy is mostly leg (he's around 5'4"). he managed to kill mike (the human guy he lives with in space) TWICE on accident and neither time stuck. all of his presentations are insane and completely factually inaccurate. he claimed women were myths like bigfoot in a short-film style black and white presentation. he's friendly/friends? with pearl, one of the main antagonists (and a woman, who he just claimed didn't exist). he can play the trombone. he just kinda bounces up and down sometimes and is so shaped. he spent 500 years alone because he got bored of being pure energy at the edge of the universe after five minutes. he wrote patrick swayze christmas, the only christmas song ever. he's constantly doing t-rex arms. he keeps falling from extreme heights. to a few ancient romans he's a spider-duck god. he's a bit of a pyromaniac. he went to thanksgiving in deep 13 and walked away unharmed (everyone else got poisoned). he causes an illusion in the theater where it looks like he's staring at you instead of the movie. he's an absolute menace. he contains so much gender yet none at all. he's different! he wants to decide who lives and who dies, and i think he should. he is simply so guy. ty for reading my crow rant sorry for the wall of text

Thank you for this. I love Crow and MST3K too, you are in good company

Mister Qi (Stardew Valley): In the propaganda section, the submitter wrote: "He sucks and I hate him. It'd be really funny if he lost." and it made me laugh

Chuck Cunningham (Happy Days): The submitter's dad told them to submit him and that was also funny to me

Vincenzo (kdrama of the same name): Submitter's dad has a crush on Vincenzo <3

Pioneer 9 (17776): This was the most submitted character, with a total of.....4 submissions! Wow!

Husky (+Anima): This is the second most submitted character, with 3 submissions! I'm sorry to you both but this means you are automatically excluded from being picked for the competition.

Less specifically, shout out to the many characters who were just barely well known enough to drop out of priority. And the major characters/protagonists of major series. A couple were clearly jokes, but several were not.

And all of the characters from albums, commercials, various Real Life Things, myths, some OCs, etc: I have a plan for you. It's not the main bracket, but you are not being left out here. More information on that when the time is right.

Thank you for all your submissions! The list of contestants and their matchups are coming soon!

#obscurecharactershowdown

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morbiderotica · 1 year

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hey! would love to hear your thoughts on how a reader/oc would get close to matt and mello if they grew up in the wammy's house.

─ ★ wammy headcanons ... gn!reader

MATT

♡ matt would be easy to befriend especially if you both like the same video games

♡ he's not very cautious when it comes to people in general so youre no exception

♡ even if he makes it look like he doesn't like making new friends, he does

"hey, you're matt right?" you sat on the floor next to the boy who was playing a video game. he barely acknowledged your question but nodded. you looked over his shoulder to see what had him so entranced. the screen showed various characters that you recognized easily. "is that pokemon?" you asked a little excitedly and matt reciprocated it. "yeah!" he was a little too enthusiastic to find someone else who liked the game he was playing but he didn't mind already accepting he had a new friend. whether you liked it or not

♡ he likes making friends and sharing interests with people

♡ besides you the only other person he was really friends with was mello

♡ regardless of the shared interest he just liked hanging out with you anyway

♡ he liked to listen to you ramble about whatever you were intrested in and in turn you would listen to him

♡ as you guys got older nothing really changed except for the fact the two of you would sneak out all the time

♡ it was late night car drives going on about your interests instead of sitting in a small room now

"no like they literally crash princess peach's party and then steal her bro." matt enthused about this new game that came out, new super mario bros or something, as he drove. his hand rested on the headrest of your seat. the road was empty given the time of night it was. you were tired but you could listen to him for hours and hours.

MELLO

♡ if you got within a 10 feet radius of mello he would leave so fast

♡ nothing against you in particular he just hates people

♡ but when his only friend (matt) befriended you he had no choice but to like you or rather tolerate you

"so.." you began talking to mello who was sitting in silence eating some sweets. "how are you..?" you tried so so so hard to be nice to him but he would rather burn himself alive than entertain you. "i'd be better if you weren't bothering me." for such a small kid he had a big attitude. "alright then." and so the next 10 minutes before matt came back were silent and awkward.

♡ you didn't give up on trying to be friends though cause you knew it would make matt happy

♡ he realized that too but he was too stubborn and selfish

♡ honestly he had a plan to make matt hate you he spent so long trying to come up with the perfect plan

♡ but before he could even excute the plan you helped him through a panic attack so now he couldn't get rid of you even if he wanted to

"mello?" your voice was soft compared to the ones in his head. you didn't really know what to do and you knew getting an adult probably wouldn't help and you had no idea where matt was. he tried to stand up or yell at you to get out or to just turn away and hide from you but he was frozen. "hey, hey." you sat next to him, his head was in his knees. "copy my breathing." you took one of his hands and placed it on your chest to help him follow your breathing pattern. breathe in. breathe out. breathe in. breathe out. "thank you.. i guess." he grumbled once he was alright.

♡ he thought you were alright after that by alright i mean he would probably tear anyone's head off who tried to mess with you

♡ matt was stoked that his two best friends were becoming friends and mello was just stoked you didn't tell matt the real reason why

#─ ♡ death note #matt headcanons #mello headcanons #mail jeevas headcanons #mihael kheel headcannons #mail jeevas x reader #mihael kheel x reader #death note #death note x reader

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anexperimentallife · 4 months

Text

Since the rights have reverted to me, this is the story I WAS getting paid to license as the basis of a video game until the deal got canceled unexpectedly after a year of development(for understandable reasons I won't go into here). There's a lot I'd change about it now (I'm a better writer now, for one thing, and my understanding of problematic tropes is better now--this was the first story I ever sold, and was originally published in the anthology The Crimson Pact, volume 2), and my Quiet World setting has morphed and expanded quite a bit since then, too. This will be getting a rewrite, with additional characters (some of whom you'll meet if you play the dialogue-only demo linked to below). But anyway...

HERE’S THE ORIGINAL STORY--ENJOY!

(also here's a link to a playable dialogue-only version of the first three chapters of the mobile game version--which is quite different)

Karma

by D. Robert Hamm (about 15,000 words)

We hit the interstate like an unguided missile. Needles of frozen rain and jagged blades of wind beat my face numb and turned what was left of my dress into a full-body ice-pack. Even with the heater on ‘incinerate,’ I couldn’t stop shivering, but the outside air was all that kept me from gagging on the smell of my own puke and the rusty stench of blood, so the window stayed down. Between the black pavement and blacker sky, the air was wet and gray. It sucked the vitality from my headlamp beams well before their natural time, but that was okay. I wasn’t paying much attention to the little they revealed anyway.

The man in the passenger’s seat either didn’t feel the cold or was too stoic to show discomfort. The dashboard glow turned his short white beard to green and deepened the age lines in his face. Gods, I’d loved that face growing up. It was my grandfather’s face. But right then, I could barely look at it, because this wasn’t my grandfather, just a sad, confused spirit wearing his body. And even though he was one of the good guys, that didn’t mean it was easy to take.

“You’re going to catch cold,” Not-Grandpa shouted over the storm.

“I’m… what?”

Since last night I’d been shot at, whipped, and electrocuted. I’d watched a good man beheaded and disemboweled before my eyes, and learned things about myself, my family, and especially my past, that had already driven other people into padded-room territory. I was marinated in a vile concoction of blood and various other body fluids, quite a bit of it my own, and had spent the last however-many hours fighting horrors that should never have existed. In the middle of all that—because I’m an overachiever—I took time out to kill a man I loved.

And this guy was worried that I’d catch a fucking cold?

Once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop. The kind of deep, full-body laughter that doubles you over and makes your stomach muscles ache for days afterward. The kind that shreds the lining of your throat and rises in pitch to rapid staccato squeaks, like sneakers on a hardwood floor. I held back the worst long enough to wrestle the car onto the shoulder, then let go. The laughter turned to howling, the howling into screams, the screams into sobs, and the sobs into a quiet whimper that finally, gods finally, tapered off, and I could breathe again, in great, ragged gulps. I wiped away a rope of snot hanging from my nose and sat hunched over with my eyes closed and my forehead against the steering wheel, shaking, while the rain pummeled my back with tiny, ice-cold fists.

In shock? Probably. Hysterical? Definitely. Look, I make sandwiches at my family’s restaurant for a living, okay? Sandwiches.

Not-Grandpa waited until I quieted down before speaking. “I’m sorry,” he said. It was the dozenth or so time he’d said it. The line of his mouth stayed hard, but his eyes and his voice were soft and broken. I believed him. Had to believe him.

“I know.” I didn’t mean for it to sound bitter. He’d saved my life after all, and he deserved better than that. I just didn’t know if I could forgive him for not being who I wanted him to be.

A little too “in media res” for you? Yeah, me too.

So here are the vitals: My name is Karma Miranda Rodriguez. I’m twenty-three years old, five foot six, with brown eyes, light brown skin, and dark brown hair that I keep boy-short. I claim to be a size five, and I dare you to say otherwise. I like strawberry daiquiris, support equal rights for supernaturals, am indifferent toward long walks on the beach, and . . .

And oh, yeah—apparently, I kill demons.

Eli’s Borderland Station, my family’s restaurant, has been the only twenty-four hour eatery on the Kansas City Plaza since back before the Jasonites outed the supernatural community (aka, “The Quiet World”) and we had to coin the term ‘daylighter’ to differentiate plain vanilla humans from those touched by the paranormal. During the riots that followed the Jasonites’ little party, and all through the Apocalypse Wars, my Grandpa Eli and Uncle Garston kept the restaurant open as a free kitchen-slash-aid-station for refugees and emergency workers, and turned the upstairs apartment—which is mine, now—into a de facto headquarters for various peacekeeping forces.

So alongside our Absolutely Killer Turkey Sandwich (made from, according to the menu, genuine killer turkeys), we serve up a mean side-order of history. Obviously, a lot of things have changed since the AWs; for instance, the Plaza, always an upscale shopping district, is now a level four Private Patrol Zone with the best law enforcement money can buy. As you’d expect, our main business is well-heeled shoppers whose sidearms are more fashion statement than personal defense, but we try to keep prices reasonable enough for the average college student, too.

No amount of money will buy you a table or a bar stool in our VIP lounge, though, even if every other seat in the house is taken. The lounge is permanently reserved for veterans, proxies, bounty hunters, elites, and so on. It’s where people with code names like Halloween Jack, Lucy D.T., HalluciNathan, and so on come to catch up with one another, trade information, or just relax. Grandpa and Uncle Garston are technically civilians now, but a lot of the VIPs still use their call signs from way back when, so if someone in armored leathers with notched weapons and a stare that looks like they’re counting the ways they could kill you with one finger says they’re going to see The General and Body Mass, they’re not talking about some secret mission, it just means they’re headed our way for the lunch special.

On Tuesday nights we lock up for a few hours of uninterrupted cleaning with my special patented Karma Rodriguez closing procedure. This involves, among other things, lots of dancing around with brooms and mops, and other Weapons of Mess-Destruction, and me in a casual dress singing along with loud music at the top of my lungs. It’s effective. The more I can make work feel like play, the faster and more efficiently I get things done, and as proof of that, what used to take three people on Tuesday nights now requires only two.

At thirty seconds to zero-dark-thirty on a drizzly February evening, when my grime-fighting partner Jayden and I were the only ones left in the restaurant, I locked the front door and hit the music. My mix for the night was weighted heavily in favor of pre-Apocalypse rock—music that was old before I was born. It was a minor tragedy when it cut off about ten minutes into the shift, right in the middle of David Bowie’s Rebel, Rebel. Jayden and I both trailed off a cappella.

“I didn’t hear you singing if you didn’t hear me,” Jayden said. “We stick together, and nobody can prove anything.” He fixed me with what would have been a deadpan stare if not for that quirk at one corner of his mouth that I thought of as his, ‘our little secret’ smile.

I put on my best film noir ‘tough dame’ voice. “It’s always secrets with you, isn’t it? Fine, I’ll play your game.” Staying in character, I headed upstairs with an over-the-top hip-swaying sashay, to reboot the router while Jayden kept cleaning.

I can’t be objective about Jayden, so I won’t try. He was one of a kind. Literally. Part Aosidhe, part Graealfinsidhe, and part daylighter, Jayden was a medical miracle, and he got the best from each branch of his ancestry. Six and a half feet of lean muscle, flawless skin, hair like pale gold silk, and . . . you get the idea. His ears were only slightly pointed, and with his hair down, he could pass for an exceptionally pretty daylighter, if not for his eyes. Whiteless, and bright turquoise in color. They suited him.

And yeah, I know. If only I wasn’t his boss. Jayden had something of a ‘mystery man’ air about him that only added to his status as local lust-object. Among other things, the way he dressed like a wastelander (only cleaner) but acted like a gentleman fueled speculation. He kept his past and his private life just that, though—past, and private. It was like the world was in love with Jayden, but Jayden wasn’t sure how he felt about the world and didn’t want to lead it on.

When I got back from confirming that the router was indeed fried, those exotic eyes of his were fixed on the big screen in the main dining area. I came up behind him and stopped, gaping. “What the . . . ?”

Just north of us, people were fighting in the streets and looting, while Hushville—Jayden’s neighborhood—burned.

“Short version?” Jayden said without turning around, “They busted the wrong guy for the Taylor murders, so they released him. He lasted a whole three hours.”

“They didn’t give him police protection?”

“He was under police protection when it happened. Now everybody has a conspiracy theory, and apparently with every conspiracy theory this week, you get a free Molotov cocktail kit. Speaking of which . . . ” He rewound a few seconds and paused on a burning apartment building that I recognized as his. “Great firebomb, huh?”

“Wow. I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged, his back still to me. “I carry everything really important with me.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Want me to leave you alone?”

He paused, as if considering. “No.”

“Okay. But know what? Fuck cleaning. Help me get the trash out, then haul your duffel bag upstairs. You’re staying at my place tonight.”

Jayden turned and looked at me as though I were speaking Swahili. “Your place?”

“You just lost your apartment to a xenophobic asshole with a fire fetish, and you need crash space. Friends do that kind of stuff for each other.”

That earned me a confused look. “No, I just . . . Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.” He seemed utterly bewildered. So much for his famed stoicism and unflappability. Ah, Jayden. Such a strange, strange boy. I ran up to get my coat and pull on a pair of jeans under my dress, and Jayden and I dragged the first can out into the alley.

I remember the air tasted of cold grease and wet pavement. I remember the electric buzz of the street lamp, and the way its dirty light turned the drizzle into sparse gray streaks like anime rain. I remember the exact cadence of the trash can’s scraping and banging as we dragged it toward the dumpster. How screwed up do things have to get before taking out the trash is a fond memory worth replaying in your head?

We didn’t hear the patrol team until they entered the mouth of the alley, running hard toward us, shouting at us to get inside. The woman’s name was Lawson. She’d lost her helmet, and a sheen of blood covered the left side of her face. Her partner, Hall, had a crack running down the side of his faceplate, and his body armor was shredded in places. They both carried their weapons at the ready, scanning the roofline as they ran.

Before they’d even finished their warning, a clot of shadow and sickening angles detached from the rest of the dark. The Shashashkuhun slaughter-spider—How did I know that?—dropped from the roof and—The Shashashkuhun and the bad people are making us walk a long way again. I don’t say how tired I am because I am almost eight years old, and that means I’m a big girl, and because it would make Mommy feel bad that she can’t carry me that far. Mommy and me are in our nightgowns because we were asleep when they—Where were these images coming from?—landed in the alley behind them. It was an impossible thing, eight or nine feet tall, all mottled ochre-and-black chitin, with eight spiked and bladed spiderlike legs from which it took its name, serrated mandibles beneath great protruding compound eyes, and short, thick, writhing tentacles suspended from the underside of a bulbous, misshapen central body.

I shouted my own warning, but Hall was already emptying his magazine at the thing as he backed toward us. Lawson either tripped or dove in our direction, twisting in mid-air to land on her back. She raised her shotgun, and—grabbed us, and it was really late because both moons were out, but they let us put on our boots before they made us start walking. Mommy tried to fight them and she shot one of them but they beat her up and cut her cheek really bad. But she is still the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. It was real people, not Shashashkuhun, but they don’t act like real people. Mommy says they have bad things inside them called Qlippoth. I think they are telling the Shashashkuhun what—made it roar as she hit the pavement.

The monster’s cry was like a foghorn made of cats and feedback, a spike that shoved through both eardrums. Lawson had hurt it, taken out one leg, in fact, but it wasn’t enough, and Hall’s automatic gunfire cut off with a sickening, meat cleaver sound as the spider sliced through his neck. Hall’s head flew from his shoulders and bounced against the alley wall while the spider eviscerated his body before it could hit the ground, as if he weren’t–to do. A man tried to run away today, but they caught him, and instead of shooting him a Shashashkuhun stuck one of its sharp arm/leg things in him and cut him open and played with his insides until he stopped screaming, and I cried, but I won’t cry anymore, because I’m a big girl, and—dead enough already. Even as far back as Jayden and I stood, hot, sticky wetness splattered our faces.

The monster tried to leap toward us, but its missing leg threw it off balance. Lawson’s shotgun was out of ammo, so she fumbled out her .45 and taunted the slaughter-spider while edging toward the side of the alley opposite the door. Sacrificing herself—big girls don’t cry. The demons usually kill everybody, but now they only kill people who try to run away or stop walking before they tell us to stop or people who fall down and can’t walk anymore, but sometimes when somebody falls down they let somebody else make a travois, which is a kind of sled thing that you drag—to give us a chance to get away. My gun was in my purse inside, but even if I’d had it on me, I couldn’t loosen my grip on the trash can, let alone force myself to move.

I caught Jayden’s eye. I’d never before realized–when I feel like crying I think about Daddy. Daddy is a general, which is a kind of soldier who tells other soldiers what to do. He is a long way away fighting other Shashashkuhun, but when he comes to save us, the Shashashkuhun and the bad people are going to be sorry. I am going to be a soldier like Daddy when I grow up and—how much he and I communicated without speaking, but with that look, I knew we’d done the same math. One of us might—just might—make it to the door. If we left the other one to die along with Lawson.

Fuck that.

Once I’d made the decision, the tension drained from my body—I am nine years old, and I have been in the prison camp for over a year. They tell me it is time for the laboratory again, but if I pick someone else to go, they will leave me alone today. If I choose my mother to go they will leave me alone for a month. They seem surprised when my answer is to hold out my wrists for the cuffs. I am the daughter of a general and a hero. I do not run, or let others take my pain. And no matter what they do to me, I won’t let them see how scared I am—the way the fear had, sublimating into the night and leaving me perfectly relaxed. Jayden gave me that ‘our little secret’ smile, and I knew he got it. He understood. Not just what I was about to do, but why.

When anything you do will end in death, make your final act one of defiance.

And so it was that we, about to die, in the most futile and ridiculous gesture in the history of futile and ridiculous gestures, screamed our defiance in the face of death, and charged the monster that would surely kill us.

With a fucking trash can.

We slammed into the slaughter-spider and fell hard, with the trash can bouncing between those giant legs and spilling its slippery contents out onto the already-slick blacktop. The slaughter-spider screamed at the impact, even louder than when Lawson had shot it, and nearly toppled. A serrated leg missed me by inches, and I rolled away, but I’d only be able to dodge for so long. My only regrets were that since I hadn’t properly prepared this body, I would die along with it—again, where the hell did that thought come from?—and that so many things would go unsaid between me and those I cared about. Including Jayden, if I was being honest.

Something hard in my coat pocket bit into my side as I rolled. I’d forgotten about the taser I almost always took with me when I left the restaurant. Even if it was still charged, it wasn’t salvation, but at this point salvation wasn’t an option. Victory was what mattered, and victory was nothing more nor less than continuing to fight until the inevitable happened. I pulled out the taser, flipped off the safety, and sent 50,000 volts into the center of that mass of tentacles, along with all the fury I could muster. The slaughter-spider jerked momentarily, and Lawson took advantage to pick up a piece of steel rebar from the junk pile in the alley and plunge it glove-deep into one of the slaughter-spider’s faceted eyes. Jayden followed with a sharp piece of broken two-by-four into the other.

And as though someone had flipped a switch marked ‘alive/dead,’ the slaughter-spider fell . . . in slow motion, like those television broadcasts of building demolitions. After one final spasm, it was still, and the alley was silent for several seconds except for the buzz of the streetlight. After barely long enough to begin to accept that we weren’t dead, answering cries to the spider’s death scream split the night.

We staggered inside the restaurant as the first new creature hit the pavement, and got the bars across the door just before another slammed against it. I slapped my palm against the ward sigil and spoke the syllables to activate it, then ran to the front and did the same there. After grabbing my gun and other weapons from upstairs and activating still more wards, I hit the ‘dim all’ switch and met up with the others in the kitchen. Lawson used a cabinet as cover, her shotgun aimed at the door, and Jayden . . .

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I’d been gone perhaps two minutes, but when I returned, Jayden stood transformed, a grim-faced cross between a modern wastelander and a wild warrior from legend, in a combination of armored biker leathers and Fay armor. The hilts of two matching blades extended over his shoulders, and his jacket sleeves were pushed up to reveal Sidhe archery gauntlets—the real kind, not the department store knockoffs. Other weapons clung to various parts of his body, strategically placed so as not to impede movement—blades, throwing disks, bolas, and quivers and bandoliers of bolts and arrows for the quick-load mini-crossbow in his hand and the compound bow housed in a slender case across his back. He shrugged bashfully—Jayden? Bashful?—when he caught me staring. So this was what he meant when he said he carried everything important with him.

The booming of another hit on the door jerked my attention away from Jayden. After a few more tries, though, the spiders seemed to realize that it was futile, and ceased their efforts.

Now that we had stopped racing time, time slowed to let us catch up. Whether from the endorphin rush or something else, I felt disconnected, an observer watching from inside myself. In the dimness, Lawson and Jayden were pale, oh so pale, and heartbreakingly beautiful against the gray and charcoal shadows. I stood with chest heaving alongside them, seeing and feeling and hearing everything as though for the first time, in love with it all. Because we, who moments before had been dead, were alive and more than alive, were filled with life until we could burst from the pressure as it strained against the insignificant scraps of skin and flesh that could barely contain it.

A single glossy drop of blood formed at the tip of Lawson’s finger, creating itself until it was real enough to float downward and finally join its comrades who had already emigrated to the floor to form a puddle, and Lawson was falling, falling, falling behind it as if to join the puddle herself.

I shook out of my trance barely in time to help Jayden take Lawson’s weight. She was conscious, but weak. “It’s okay,” I told her, “We’re going to get you taken care of. Did you call for backup?” Lawson shook her head weakly, closed her eyes, and made a sound between a chuckle and a sob. “Nobody left to call. Even if the radio worked, nobody left to . . . ” she trailed off and seemed to fold in on herself. I’d seen what that thing did to Hall. I didn’t need her to tell me what had happened to the rest of her squad.

We got Lawson into the VIP lounge and onto a folded-out hide-a-bed, and raided the crisis closet. There was more in there than I’d realized. We patched up Lawson as well as we could and got a saline drip going with something for pain and nausea. It was only after I’d given her naproxyn, though, that I thought to wonder if it thinned the blood the way aspirin did. What if she had internal injuries? Was there anything else I was supposed to be doing? At least I remembered to elevate her feet and make sure she had plenty of blankets. Beyond that, it was a matter of, ‘do no harm,’ with a supersized side order of, ‘hope I don’t fuck this up.’

Damn it, I wasn’t qualified for any of this. Grandpa was the one with the certifi—Duh! Grandpa could talk me through this, and we needed to get word out anyway. Our phones may as well have been paperweights, though. No signal, whether due to the riots or something else. If all else failed, Lawson said that after too long with no contact, it was corporate policy to send in what amounted to the wrath of the gods to investigate. The restaurant was pretty much a fortress—even the ‘glass’ was actually transluminum—so theoretically speaking, all we had to do was stay buttoned up for a few hours and wait for help to arrive. And not go nuts in the meantime.

I’d cut away most of Lawson’s uniform, but the rest needed to come off to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Her partner had died saving us, and I’d be damned if she followed suit because of me. I asked Jayden to leave the room, but Lawson put a hand on his arm, winked, and flashed a weak smile. “‘Sokay. I like your boyfriend,” she said.

“Just a friend. It’d probably break my ego to date somebody that much prettier than me.”

“‘Just a friend,’ my ass.” She smiled and closed her eyes, slurring her words, and rolled her head around on her pillow. Her own smile didn’t so much fade as disappear. “Thanks, guys. You did good. I just wish . . . ” Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, and it didn’t take a psychic to know how that sentence was supposed to end.

After helping Lawson down some broth with a little liquid protein and Nutri-All added, we let her rest. When we were sure she was asleep, and that her breathing and pulse were regular, Jayden and I crept out of the room to treat our own injuries, mostly scrapes and bruises.

It seemed like there was something about what had happened in the alley even stranger than the attack. A flash of knowledge or memory. But whenever I tried to access it, it slipped away. Probably the kind of thing that takes over for some people in emergency situations, like the woman who supposedly lifted a car off of her toddler, or the accountant who found himself standing over the bodies of three would-be muggers, with no memory of what had happened. The other disturbing thing was that I was so . . . blank. I should have been shaking. I should have been horrified at Hall’s death, and at the deaths of the rest of their squad. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just kept feeling like it should have affected me more. We should have been . . . I don’t know, mourning them or something. Maybe I couldn’t let myself feel it yet.

I knelt behind Jayden on a tablecloth on the floor, dabbing antiseptic onto a scrape on his upper back. “So everybody dies,” I muttered, “and we end up with road rash. That’s fair.”

“That’s survivor’s guilt talking,” he said.

“Yeah, well.”

“Lawson’d be dead if not for you. We all would.”

“I had help.”

“Your idea, though.”

I’d been swabbing the same area for maybe a full minute, no longer aware of what I was doing, until Jayden spoke again. “You were wrong, you know.”

“About what?”

“About the ‘prettier than you’ thing. I don’t think anybody is. Nobody I’ve ever seen. And I see into the infra-red and ultra-violet, so I see more than you’d think.” I could almost hear that, ‘our little secret’ smile. “It’s not a peeping thing,” he added quickly, “It’s just my normal vision.”

Blatant change of subject, but not unwelcome. I’m pretty sure I blushed. “Yeah, well thanks. But hey, I like the way I look and all, and I’m not fishing for a compliment here, but—realistically speaking—if you’ve never seen better, you must’ve been living in a cave.”

“Actually,” he said, “a Graealfinsidhe separatist conclave, until five years ago. It was carved into the side of a mountain, so I guess it counts as a cave. Never talked to anyone about it until now. I stand by my statement, though. I decided that if we lived, I was going to tell you that. Tell you everything.”

I blinked. “I’m . . . honored. And I’m not complaining—I mean, look, you’re not the only one who decided out there to reveal some things; guess almost dying does that. It’s just, the guy I’ve been crushing on for two years now is suddenly . . . Why me?”

I caught myself stroking his hair, and was about to stop when he tilted his head into my hand and sighed. We sat there like that for a while before he answered. “I want you to know me.”

Coming from him that night, there in the dark on the hardwood floor with the smells of grime and antiseptic assailing our senses, with death waiting outside the door, those were the sweetest words ever spoken. Sweeter in their simple, naked honesty, than any candle-lit declaration of love, more beautiful in their artlessness than any sonnet delivered on bended knee. I couldn’t stop the wetness on my cheeks, and I didn’t want to.

“Yeah, well, there’s something I want you to know, too.” I pulled him back against me, brushing my lips along his cheek. He turned his body in my arms until we found each other’s mouths and lost ourselves, and entwined around each other on that blood-streaked tablecloth on what might be the last night of our lives was the only place I ever wanted to be.

We dozed, and when we woke it was to Uncle Garston standing over us like a bearded, glowering mountain of muscle in blood-stained flannel, with one bandage around his head and another showing through a rip in his shirt, wearing a flak vest that didn’t quite close around his girth. In addition to his omnipresent Desert Eagle in its holster, he clenched an assault rifle in a hand so huge and meaty that the rifle looked almost like a child’s toy.

“Where’s your half of Eli’s find-me charm?” he growled.

“What? What happened?”

His nostrils flared, and he snorted like a bull about to charge. “Did I fucking stutter? Where is the gods-damned—” He stopped, took a breath, and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Sorry. L-word, all right? I didn’t mean to . . . Just, where is it?”

I told him where it was, and he sprinted out of the room. Jayden and I dressed hurriedly, and Lawson called out from the VIP lounge asking what the shouting was about. “That’s what I’m going to find out,” I told her. I ran upstairs, with Jayden behind me, to find Garston in the kitchen scattering the contents of drawers onto the floor.

“Here,” I said, “Right where I said it was. Now stop being Uncle Growly long enough to tell me what’s going on.”

“They took him. Don’t know why, or why they didn’t kill us, but those bastards—”

“Who? The Shashashkuhun? The Qlippoth?”

“Of course, the Shashashkuhun. Who else . . . ” He looked at me with an undecipherable expression. “How did you know about the Shashashkuhun?”

Yeah, how did I know? “I—I don’t know. But when the slaughter-spider attacked last night—”

“They came here?” Garston roared loudly enough to be painful. “Why didn’t you say so? Did they hurt you? And you, boy,” he turned to Jayden, “where were you when this happened?”

Gods. Could I get one question at a time? “I’m fine,” I said, “and Jayden helped kill one of the damn things, so you can back up out of his grill right now. They killed an entire patrol squad except for Lawson, though. She’s downstairs. But this is . . . ” I shook my head. This wasn’t right. “People don’t suddenly know things like that, Garston. And then not even wonder how.” My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest. Anyone would be freaked out, but why now instead of last night? Where was this panic coming from? “But that’s exactly what I did. I haven’t thought about it since—and when I do, I get these pictures in my head. There were two moons, and we were walking to some prison camp or something, and I was a little girl, and they . . . ” I could hear my voice rising in pitch, but couldn’t stop the words from spilling out or the images from growing more and more solid. Garston and Jayden moved toward me, but I held up my hand. I could do this on my own. I slowed my breathing and counted my breaths, an exercise I had learned as a little girl. One . . . Two . . . Three . . . Little by little, the panic faded, and I opened my eyes.

“Better?” Garston asked.

“Oh, hell no,” I said. “Or yeah, better, but not good. What’s happening to me?”

“Something your grandpa and I were afraid was coming, and that fucker last night must’ve kick-started things. ’Swhy we made you learn all that meditation and shit. Important thing to know is you’re not crazy, okay? But right now, I have to go find Eli, and we’ll explain it all when we get back. Just try not to think about any of it until then.”

“No, you can explain on the way.”

Garston shook his head. “This ain’t a discussion, K-girl. I want you safe. Don’t worry about me. I’m just gonna find out where they’re headed and call in the big guns soon as I get someplace I can get a signal.”

“You’re right, it’s not a discussion. We’ll take my car; it’s faster, and I just charged it.”

Garston opened his mouth to argue, but Jayden jumped in. “Quick question,” he said, “Do you really think anything you say is going to stop her from following you?”

My uncle glowered, but Jayden spread his hands, “I didn’t make the rain, I’m just reporting the weather.”

Garston looked from one of us to the other and threw up his hands—narrowly missing my spice rack with his AR-15—and, grumbling, led the way back downstairs.

Jayden, with his preternatural senses, rode in the passenger seat with Garston’s AR-15, once again in full warrior regalia, while Garston rode in the back with the find-me. I drove. It was calming to have something active on which to focus.

“So,” I said once we were under way, “Tell me if I’ve got this right. Monsters kidnap Grandpa Eli and attack the restaurant, and you know all about them, right down to their inseam sizes, but you don’t think to say anything until they show up and actually start killing people? Oh, and I have random surprise knowledge and first-person scenes from a science fiction movie popping into my head, and you knew that was coming, too, but didn’t think to warn me about that, either. So if I sound just a little bit pissed off, it’s probably because I am. Care to explain?”

“It wasn’t . . . We never thought they’d come here, and just . . . you were so happy, not remembering. You could grow up and have a life this time. Meet a nice boy. Or girl. Hell, a dozen of each and a fucking toaster if that was what you wanted. But you’re the one that made yourself forget shit, and we figured you had a reason and we shouldn’t fuck with it. Maybe it was wrong, but if we’re guilty of anything, it’s trusting your own subconscious, so if you’re looking to be pissed off at somebody, you better put yourself right at the top of the list.”

Ouch. I pretended to focus on traffic for a little while.

“Sorry.”

“‘Sokay.”

“So, whatever ‘it’ was, it was that bad?”

Garston snorted. “Pardon the old war-dog cliché, but I still wake up screaming some nights, and that’s after decades with a PTSD specialist. See, we got what they call desensitized after a while, so they stepped things up a little at a time. When I remembered, though, it was fifteen years all at once, including the stuff at the end that would’a broke anybody unless they worked their way up to it. The good part is it doesn’t sound like it’s hitting you all at once, and like I said, there’s all that meditation and shit.”

“And I still have no idea what ‘it’ is. Looks like we’ve reached the point where not remembering is more dangerous than remembering, though. Agreed? Make me understand here.”“Eli’s better at this kind of thing than I am. It’ll sound crazy coming from me.”

“I challenge you to top the last couple of hours in the crazy department.”

“Okay. Here goes.” He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and went for it. “Your Grandpa Eli is a demon hunter who travels between universes by performing a ritual that lets him die and come back in other worlds, and he’s actually your father from your first life. You and I and a bunch of others got taken prisoner by the Shashashkuhun demons—who were working with the Qlippoth demons at the time—when you weren’t quite eight years old. Everybody thought we were dead, but we weren’t. We spent about the next fifteen years as live test subjects for demons, until we finally escaped.”

I pulled onto the interstate. The electric hum of the motor, the tires on the wet road, and the wind buffeting us from outside were the only sounds for a while. The drizzle had picked up into rain, and sandwiched between the black sky and blacker road, I struggled to see through the falling gray that sucked my headlight beams into limbo.

“So. You escaped. We escaped, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“By doing this death ritual thing.”

“Yeah. We got separated, and you took forever to get here, but one day you just sort of . . . coalesced is the word Eli uses. This perfect, beautiful little baby girl, looking exactly the way you used to. Eli picked you up and held you for the longest time, staring at your face and crying, and I said, ‘See? All the good things you’ve done, your karma finally caught up to you.’ And he said, ‘Yes, she finally has.’”

I drove. And I admit that I sniffled a little.

After a few minutes Garston said, “Well? You gonna say something?”

“This is probably the biggest understatement of the century, but it’s a lot to take in.”

“I warned you.”

“You did.”

Still trying to figure things out, we compared notes on the attacks. When Grandpa and Garston saw the riot footage and couldn’t reach me by phone, they headed to Garston’s truck to come check on me. That was when the demons hit them, about an hour and a half after the attack on the restaurant, roughly twelve-thirty or so, when we were still huddled in the restaurant thinking the monsters were right outside. Knowing all that didn’t help much in the ‘figuring things out’ department, though.

Jayden had been silent most of this time except for helping fill in details of our fight with the slaughter-spider. When I glanced over, he was frowning.

“So,” I said, “Regret getting involved with me yet, or do I need to work on that?”

“You’ll have to work on it. Had a thought, though. I’m still not getting a signal, and . . . ” He clicked on the radio. Nothing but static all the way up and down the dial. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

I caught up as close as we dared to the find-me charm, which bought us a few minutes to pull over and search for the jammer. Once we found it, in a waterproof casing fastened to the inside of a rear wheel-well, disabling it was simple. For something a little bigger than a pack of cigarettes, though, it had certainly caused enough trouble.

Jayden took the wheel when we got back on the road so we could run without headlights, thus saving juice and making ourselves stealthier at the same time. Garston made the call. Not just to anybody, but to Malachai Traeger, who doesn’t need a code name because, hey, he’s Malachai fucking Traeger. He might be a sweetheart when he’s not working, but according to local legend, he’s faced down gods. No, that’s not hyperbole. Handy having someone like that as a family friend, especially considering there was no way we could afford him otherwise.

Just knowing that Kai was on the job did wonders for morale, and we whooped triumphantly. Okay, I whooped. Jayden smiled, but for him, that counted. Uncle Garston’s whoop sounded more like, “Would you please shut your mouth while I’m on the phone?” but I claim creative license.

Why wouldn’t we be jubilant? We had a plan, and professionals to carry it out. We had a big head start, but Kai said he’d catch up as soon as he could, and make calls on the way to assemble a small recon team and get someone to the scene of each attack to do forensics. The recon team would figure out exactly what they were up against, and call in extra support as necessary. All we had to do was point the way.

The find-me led, and we followed, with occasional updates to give Kai our route. Once we got out of range of the last cell tower, we dropped emergency reflectors and other expendables at exits and intersections to blaze a trail, and considering we were well into unpatrolled territory at that point, I strapped on Lawson’s body armor just to be safe.

On a sketchily-paved county road at the corner of nowhere and nothing, something pinged the fender, and the front right tire blew with a ‘whump’ like a glove hitting a punching bag, Jayden fought for control and lost, and the world did cartwheels as the car flipped sideways into the ditch, coming to rest halfway down with wheels in the air. Jayden and I extricated ourselves from our seat belts and air bags while I called out to Garston to see if he was okay. He didn’t answer, and when I turned to check on him, he was gone, along with one of the rear doors.

With Jayden’s night vision, it didn’t take long to find Uncle Garston, laying spread-eagled in the bottom of the ditch with his head at an unnatural angle, and wheezing with every breath. I fought back the impulse to throw myself across him the way I had as a little girl, and knelt beside him instead. Jayden understood more quickly than I did what was happening, or maybe just accepted it more readily, and stood silently nearby.

“Least it doesn��t hurt.” Garston said. “Can’t feel shit, to be honest.”

“Kai should be here soon. We’ll get you to a hospital and you’ll be—”

“Come on, K-girl. This ain’t my first body. I know when one’s going.”

I felt like I was six years old again. “You can’t just give up. You’re my Uncle Growly, and you’re tougher than anything, remember?”

“Difference between giving up and knowing when to cut your losses. I need you to do something for me, now. It’s hard, and I don’t want to ask, but—”

“No. No, don’t make me do that again. I can’t.” Again?

“Yes, you can, K-girl. I don’t need the ritual, either, not if it’s quick and clean. If I’m stuck in this body for too much longer it’s over for real, though.”

“I call bullshit. You’re going to hang the fuck on, and that’s all there is to it.” I knew better. But until I admitted it, it wouldn’t be real.

“Karma, I’m asking you to do this because I can’t do it myself. You’ll get past it. Jayden’ll help you with that. I’d ask him, but I know you—even though he’d be saving me, you’d never be able to look at him again and I want better for you than that. So I’m begging you now. Please, do this one last thing for me.”

He coughed, drew in another wheezing breath and coughed again. I ran my fingers over that tangled, salt-and-pepper mess he called a beard and kissed him on the cheek, and after a little bit of struggle, I managed to free the Desert Eagle from its holster and hold it somewhat steadily in both hands.

“L-word, Uncle Growly,” I said.

“Love you, too, K-girl. I’ll be seeing you again.”

Garston closed his eyes. It took me a while, but I pulled the trigger. The big Desert Eagle knocked me on my ass and punched me in both eardrums. I turned my face skyward and howled while the rain sluiced thick, sticky warmth from my face.

And I remembered. Not everything, not even a lot, but enough to begin to understand just how fucked up everything was. To understand why they hadn’t wanted me to remember. Why I had made myself forget. Jayden stood back while I let it out. If he’d put his arms around me or offered any kind of support, I don’t think I could have handled it. He seemed to know that.

Although it’s the worst place to find it, there is strength in pain. Not if you stuff it down or deny it or revel in it, but if you accept the pain as yours. When I was done crying, I used that strength to pull myself from the mud, and hand in hand, Jayden and I helped each other up the slope to the car to assess the damage. Jayden made a frustrated sound beside me, and flipped open his cell phone to show me the bullet hole in the fender.

And that was when I put it together. “Jayden, this isn’t about Grandpa. It never was. This is about me.”

I laid it out for him.

Whoever planned this had learned my routine, knew it would be just me and one other person on Tuesday night, and knew we’d be in the alley with our hands full at some point. The idea was simple. Grab me and get the hell out of there. The spider was never supposed to kill me. But because of the riot, the Plaza had a bunch of extra security, and Jayden and I changed our schedule, so not only were the—call them minions—not all in place, they’d been spotted. Once they’d tipped their hand, they only had a few hours to act, so plan B was to grab Grandpa and use him as bait, leaving Garston alive to come tell me. If they just wanted me dead, why a jammer instead of a bomb, either on the car or in the alley? Or why not a sniper in the alley? And why would someone clever enough to think of making us carry our own jammer not think to look for a find-me charm? They had to have found it, but instead of getting rid of it, they incorporated it into their plan. Then, when we got to where they wanted us to be, they shot out the tire to keep us in place.

There were easier ways to do this. All of it. That someone had gone to all this trouble to show they could outsmart me and pull my strings meant this was something personal, and considering my age when the Shashashkuhun had taken us, it had to be something to do with the prison camp.

It took maybe thirty seconds to explain it all. “So, what do you think?”

“I think my girlfriend is either a brilliant detective or a criminal mastermind. What’s our next move?”

I had no idea.

Garston had brought an extra rifle and plenty of ammo. Jayden and I gathered everything and scrabbled to the edge of the ditch. The tree line was perhaps a hundred yards away on the other wide of the road, but in the darkness it may as well have been miles. I was thankful for Jayden’s eyes.

“I’ve got some movement, but nothing much,” Jayden said “They’re either waiting for their boss, or they just want to make us sweat.”

“Probably the latter,” I said. “We screwed up their plan. Whoever it is, now it’s even more important to show how clever they are. Both for their own ego and to save face. They’re going to want to talk. And gloat. I’ll try to stall them until Kai’s crew gets here. If I say anything horrible that doesn’t sound like the me you know, and I probably will—”

“No, I get it. ‘Words are weapons, sharper than knives.’”

Devil Inside. Now there was an appropriate reference. I nodded. “Just wanted to make sure.”

We watched the tree line in silence for a while. Rather, Jayden watched the tree line. I couldn’t see that far in the dark, so I watched Jayden and tried to stop shivering.

“So,” I said, “Bet you’re wishing you’d stayed at the restaurant about now.”

“No. Gotta admit, though, I normally don’t do the whole monster-fighting thing until the third date. But you’re special.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls who almost get you killed.”

Jayden seemed about to say something when a man’s megaphone-amplified voice shouted across the field. “Karma Rodriguez.”

“It speaks,” I shouted back. “And it knows my name. Should I be impressed?”

“You should remember mine. It’s Brallus. I’m sending over a field phone so you don’t have to shout.”

“Anything that steps out of that tree line dies, Brallus. Especially if it’s carrying something I think might go ‘boom.’” I was already getting hoarse, though. After a quick exchange we determined that both sides had access to walkie talkies, and that Brallus had no need for signal jammers this far from the closest cell tower.

“Alright, Brallus,” I said into the walkie-talkie, “Good people died tonight because of you. If that was supposed to get my attention, it worked.” I wanted to scream at him to give my grandfather back, but if there was any chance at all of that happening, I had to downplay how important he was to me.

“You expect me to believe you’re upset about those native guards?” he said, “What happened to the cold little demon-bitch who whored out her own mother for scraps and special treatment?”

What? Jayden caught my eye, and I shrugged, nonplussed. “You know that’s not how it was. And which of us is working with demons? I could swear that was a Shashashkuhun slaughter-spider I killed a few hours ago.”

“A temporary alliance. And better the Shashashkuhun than monsters like you. See, I know why the Qlippoth’s little experiment worked on you when it killed everybody else they tried it on. You were evil to begin with. That thing they put inside of you wasn’t an invader, it was a soulmate.”

Okay, best not to think about the Qlippoth putting anything inside me for now. Probably something I was better off not remembering. “Brallus, I was a child when they captured me.”

“Captured you? Took you home, you mean. Put you in with the real prisoners to spy on them, and anyone who caught on, you had your followers kill. Then when you and your little band escaped, you left the rest of us there.”

“Okay, do you see the flaw in your logic here? If I was somehow serving the Qlippoth, why would I want or need to escape?”

“How should I know how a demon thinks? After what you did to my brother, I stopped even trying to understand you.”

Riiiiiight. Not like I’d really expected logic to work, anyway. “Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No idea? His name was Kolb. You used your powers to seduce him, then had him ripped to pieces when he finally gave in. As if he had a choice. I can still hear him screaming.”

Speaking of screaming, I didn’t need the walkie to hear him at that point. If the idea was to stall, as opposed to goad, I’d better take things down a notch. I keyed the mic, but before I could speak, the world went away. This world, anyway.

The stone is rough against my back, and Kolb has his hand over my mouth. His brother Brallus is supposed to be keeping watch, but he keeps looking at me funny, and he says they shouldn’t do this, but he breathes harder when he looks at me. Kolb thinks I am afraid of them, but I am just waiting for them to make a mistake. When Kolb tries to rip my top off, I bite his hand as hard as I can and knee him between the legs the way Mommy taught me. I still have a piece of his hand in my mouth, and it is gross, but I can’t think about that now. I spit it out and dig my fingernails into his eyes and scream as loud as I can. And then Mommy is there . . . That twisted . . . And he called me a monster? When I could speak again I screamed back hoarsely. “I was nine years old, you sick fuck. I’m glad Kolb is dead. I hope it hurt like hell and took a long, long time, and I’m just sorry they could only do it once. Now give me back my grandfather, you piece of shit, or I swear I will tear you open with my bare hands and feed you your own intestines.”

I was shaking with rage, and when Jayden touched my arm I nearly decked him before I regained control. He raised an eyebrow and indicated the tree line by inclining his head toward it. By the time I followed his eyes, he was already sending arrow after arrow across the field. The Shashashkuhun were attacking. There were at least a dozen or so—I was a little too occupied to count—a mix of slaughter-spiders and more humanoid-looking creatures—slothor, something inside me said—laying down suppressing fire with automatic rifles, but considering what it had taken to kill just one already-wounded slaughter-spider, we were well and truly fucked. So much for Brallus wanting me alive. The only thing to do was go down fighting, but that would probably be quicker and cleaner than whatever Brallus had originally planned. I picked up the AR-15 and took aim, and Jayden lay down his bow and grabbed the other rifle.

“I’m sorry, Jayden,” I shouted. Like sorry would cover this. “They don’t care about you. If you run they might let you go.”

Jayden’s only response was to keep firing. I had to give him the out, even though I knew he wouldn’t take it. Part of me found comfort in knowing he’d be there until the end, and the rest of me hated myself for that.

“I love you,” I yelled above the sound of gunfire. I should have said it months ago, and I might not get a chance to say it later.

“You’d better,” he said as he swapped out magazines, “And I love you, too.” He tried to give me one of those ‘our little secret’ smiles, but failed, and we pretended not to see the fear on each other’s faces. We downed two demons, but although that made them a little more cautious, they were still too tough and healed too quickly. By the time they were thirty yards away, we had only taken one more out of the fight, and were nearly out of ammunition. It would be hand to hand with the remaining ones soon, and realistically speaking, that wouldn’t last very long. We were about to die. The only question was whether we could take any more of them with us.

And that was when our miracle arrived. At first I thought it was more Shashashkuhun, but no, the demons were taking flanking fire from the roadside perpendicular to ours, and a three-wheeler with a sidecar leapt over the adjoining road and sped toward us down the center of the ditch. Malachai Traeger, tall and lean in brown armored leathers and that Boba Fett-looking helmet of his, jumped off the trike before it even came to a full stop, letting it stall out, and a slender Aosidhe woman in ill-fitting rust-colored gear followed from the sidecar, carrying four assault rifles with jungle clips. If I knew Kai, and I did, they’d be loaded with something to give us an edge. She tossed one to Kai on the run, and scrambled up the slope to hand one each to Jayden and me before taking a prone position and firing. She and Kai squeezed off disciplined three-round bursts, and Jayden and I tried to follow suit, focusing on the same targets. The Shashashkuhun didn’t simply fall back or retreat, they scrambled for the tree line. About half of them made it, and the gunfire changed to occasional shots and bursts as targets became less visible.

The Aosidhe woman took off toward the other end of the ditch. Kai waved me a little further down the slope and plopped down next to me, flipping up his faceplate. “Would’ve been here sooner, but someone left a surprise for us. And by the way, that trash can did quite a bit of damage. Not fatal on its own, but more than it should have. Same with the taser.”

“So their weaknesses are aluminum and electricity?”

“Nope. I have a theory about that, but—”

The radio squawked. Brallus wanting to know if I was still there. “Yeah, I’m here, Brallus. You’re down a few troops, though. Seems like this might be a good time for you to surrender.”

“Not when I still have something you want.”

I made sure the mic was off, and explained to Kai what was going on, then asked, “Can your people get to my grandpa?”

“They’re working on it, but we don’t want to put him in any more danger. Stall.”

Along with everything else, Brallus was playing a power game. He couldn’t just tell me what he wanted—He had to make me ask. “Okay, what do you want?”

“You, demon-bitch.” He didn’t speak the words so much as spit them. “Wearing thrice-blessed iron manacles, in a circle of containment. Then I’ll let the old man go.”

What. The. Fuck.

“Traditional anti-demon thing,” Kai whispered. “This is good. Keep him talking.”

“I see a couple of problems with that,” I said. “The first of which is, gee, wouldn’t you know it, Brallus? I’m fresh out of thrice-blessed iron manacles.”

“Funny. I’ll send over the restraints.”

“And what’s to stop you from double-crossing us once you have me?”

“I don’t think you have much choice.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“He’s rather . . . indisposed.”

“Look, do you see the other hole in your logic here? If I’m this evil demon spawn you claim, why would his life mean enough to me to risk my own?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care about your reasons.” Of course. Hadn’t we established earlier that Brallus was immune to logic? “I’ll give you twenty minutes to decide how important he is to you.”

“If you kill him, you lose your leverage.”

“True, but I don’t have to kill him. How do you think he’d like living without his lips? Or maybe his eyelids?”

That was when I knew that no matter what, even if it cost me my own life, I was going to kill that son of a bitch, and anyone who got in my way.—The worst part isn’t what they do to us. It’s what they make us do to each other. I am strapped to the table trying not to cry while my mother stands over me with a hot iron. They give her a choice. She can take over torturing me, or they will burn out my eyes, one at a time. If she still refuses, they will cut out my tongue—but not all at once. They will draw it out. They make it very clear just how long and how horribly they can make me suffer while keeping me alive and awake.—

“You touch one hair on his head, and I’ll make the prison camp seem like Club fucking Med, motherfucker. I’ll . . . ” I don’t even remember the rest of what I screamed into the walkie-talkie at that point, only that my hands were shaking so badly that I dropped it. I was wiping the mud off when Brallus’ voice broke in again.

“I’ll turn this back on in twenty minutes. Have your answer ready.”

Oh, I had an answer for him, all right. I was going to put him in a hole where no one could hear him scream. I was going to cut off his balls and feed them to him. I was going to—

“You know you can’t hand yourself over, don’t you?” Jayden said.

My voice came out harder than I’d intended. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. You think I don’t understand the risk? Would you do it for someone you love?”

Jayden’s voice was quiet when he answered. “You already know the answer to that.”

Oh, smooth. I was bitching at a man who’d proven twice in the past few hours that he’d stand beside me even if it meant dying. I hung my head, blinking. What the fuck? One minute I was ready to kill, the next, I was fighting back tears.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” I said. “It’s just so messed up right now. We started the night being attacked by monsters. And do we run from them like, oh, I don’t know . . . sane people? No, we chase them into an unpatrolled zone like some kind of demon-food delivery service, because yeah, that was bound to turn out well. But what other choice did we have? They took Grandpa and we had to get him back. And Garston . . . I lost one of only two people I consider family tonight—no, correction, I blew his fucking brains out, and I don’t dare even slow down long enough to let myself feel it yet.” I heard my voice rising, felt my control slipping, and I didn’t care. “Apparently my entire family is from some alternate universe, and I’m remembering things from a past life where I was tortured by demons for fifteen years starting when I was eight years old—Let me tell you, it wasn’t a good time. I am this close to completely, absolutely, permanently, and irrevocably losing my fucking shit, and the only reason I haven’t already lost it is that all of this is so utterly bat-shit insane that I can’t even focus enough to go properly crazy. I—”

Jayden knelt and pulled me to him hard, covering my mouth with his in a kiss that, for just that moment, was more real than anything else in existence. Solid and tangible proof of a connection with another human being. One who would support me no matter what the odds. When we broke the kiss Jayden remained, holding me firmly but gently, grounding me.

“I’m sorry,” I managed to say, “I just . . . I’m doing the best I can, but I honestly don’t know how much I have left in me. I’m trying to be strong, but I’m so fucking tired of being strong right now.”

“And you are strong, Karma,” Jayden said. “Just stop taking it all on yourself. Nobody’s that strong.”

Kai shook his head and sighed. “The kid’s right,” he said. “Most people’d be ready for a rubber room after half of what you’ve been through in the past—what’s it been, five hours or so? I’ve been close to the edge myself a couple of times, and I deal with fucked-up shit for a living. No shame in needing somebody to pull you back.”

I swallowed and nodded, and Kai continued. “That said, as much as I don’t want to push you any further, we’ve got a deadline to meet. You gonna be okay?”

There was a question I’d heard before. “Ask me that in a couple of years. But let’s do this.”

“Okay. Give me your hands. I have to check something.” Kai knelt where Jayden had been and took both my hands in his. A familiar, subtle energy, both warm and cool at once, circulated through me. Something in Kai called out to that energy, but it was like the call was in a foreign tongue, a friendly language that I could almost, but not quite, understand. Kai became somehow more real, more solid. I had an impression of immensity, of a bright column of light almost too intense to look at, that feathered outward like three sets of giant wings, and of a voice like singing multi-tonal bells and pipes accompanied by a chorus of beautiful, almost human voices. Kai removed his hands from mine, and the vision faded.

“You’re a—” I started.

Kai cut me off. “Don’t go there, it’s not what you think. I’ll explain later, but for now let’s just say the Quiet World is a hell of a lot bigger than most people think. There are some people who don’t even know they’re Quiet Worlders. Like you.”

I swallowed.

“So what am I?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Not the same as me, but similar enough that I’m betting your power—at least one part of it—works about the same way mine does. At least there’s one thing we can both do.”

“Are you telling me I’m a—”

“I said don’t go there. Now about this power . . . ” After he told me I sat blinking, trying to take it in.

“You’re telling me that I turned a trash can into a holy weapon? And I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth.”

Kai winced. “I wouldn’t put it like that, but basically, yeah. You channel energy into objects, and if something’s got a supernatural weakness, well . . . You’ve seen the results. You’ve already done it unconsciously, and we have about ten minutes to figure out how, so let’s get with it.”

When Brallus came back on the air, I told him I was ready. He sent the more humanoid of the remaining Shashashkuhun across, pulling what looked like an old barn door on makeshift runners, marked with containment circles. Assuming they were specifically keyed to demons, they wouldn’t affect me, nor would the blessings on the restraints. Unfortunately, though, the chains would hold me just like they would anybody else. Brallus insisted I strip down to my bra and panties to make sure I wasn’t hiding a weapon, and while that made sense on one level, it was also creepy, considering. The kind of pseudo-succubus he’d convinced himself I was wouldn’t mind stripping, though, and the idea for now was to play into his expectations.

So I stepped up into the containment circle and made a show of it, shimmying and tossing my head as though dancing to some private, raunchy music—which is a lot harder than you’d think when you’re soaked, and shivering uncontrollably. When I got down to my underthings I ran my hands down my sides, did a little wriggle, and hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my panties. “Sure you don’t want me to keep going?” The demon eyed me and licked its black lips as it came closer. Gods, I was going to be sick if the thing actually touched me.

At a word from Brallus, it backed away hurriedly, and someone in the tree line fired a warning shot. “No tricks,” Brallus shouted. “You, with the long hair,” meaning Jayden, “Chain her up. And do it right, or the old man suffers.” So far, so good. Part of the plan depended on either Jayden or Kai getting up onto the platform with me.

The cuffs and collar were fastened to a ring in the middle of the platform by chains that wouldn’t allow me to raise myself up past a crouch, and secured by large, medieval-looking padlocks. As Jayden snapped the last lock in place, I lowered my head, ostensibly in defeat, but in reality to hide my smile at the feel of cold metal hidden beneath my foot and the chemical smell in my nostrils. The drizzle hadn’t let up, and would already be diluting the acid, but all the acid had to do was weaken the wood where the ring was bolted.

It took forever for the monster to slog across in the mud pulling me behind it. This would work, I kept telling myself. For the most part I believed it, too. Until Brallus stepped forward, placed his hand on the platform, and spoke an activating word. After that I was too busy screaming to think about much of anything.

When I came to, I was huddled on my side in the fetal position, shivering, in a pool of my own vomit and urine. At least I’d landed on the multi-tool when I fell, keeping it hidden. The air was damp and cold, but a tent kept the rain off of us. Brallus stood nearby with arms folded, glaring at me. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, fairly well-muscled, with close-cropped, thick, dark hair. The overall effect was like someone had brought a G.I. Joe to life. A .45 sat holstered on his right hip, and a coiled whip hung from one wrist by a leather strap.

“Killer turkey sandwich,” I croaked, “No mayo, black coffee, apple pie.”

“You have no idea how difficult it was to treat you like a human being, or to keep my food down while looking at you. And by the way, please try to move again. The outer circle is containment, the inner one is pain, as you’ve already discovered. So sorry your foot was touching it when I turned it on.”

“Kinky. If I were fifteen years younger I bet you’d be creaming yourself. Again.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but I was scared shitless, and trying to hide it from him any way I could.

It wasn’t a good tactic. I barely saw the whip coming in time to take the lash on my arms instead of across my face. It was a half-hearted strike and didn’t quite draw blood, but it stung like hell, and I cried out despite myself. The whip gave me an idea, though; I just wasn’t ready to try it yet.

Brallus was red in the face. “Soaked in holy water. It should have burned you, but I guess that’s just one more mystery we’ll have to solve. Some old friends want to see what makes you tick, and I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of it. If there’s anything left when they’re finished, you’re mine. Think about that, demon-bitch.”

I thought about it, alright, and I didn’t like the pictures in my head. “What about The General? Did you let him go?”

In answer, Brallus pointed behind me to where Grandpa was tied to a post by his wrists with his head down on his chest. He was breathing, but unconscious. “I’ll release him at a more appropriate time. For now, though,” He pulled a baby monitor—talk about creep factor—from his cargo pocket, switched it on, and set it on top of the nearby field table. “Feel free to scream at me as much as you like. I’ll be listening.”

He muttered what I supposed were instructions to the monster who’d dragged me here, then swaggered out of the tent. Smug bastard. The man demon growled when it looked my way, but immediately averted its many eyes, as though afraid to look directly at me. I guessed Brallus had him convinced that I was dangerous. I took advantage to inspect the pain ward more closely, careful not to move any part of my body over it. I was no expert, but if I was right about it, my idea should work. I wrapped myself around the ring, and worked it back and forth, covering the motion with fake, body-wracking sobs, augmented occasionally with very real dry heaves from the stink of my own fluids, until I’d gotten it as loose as I thought I could by hand.

I was determined to stay alert for a chance to work on it with the multi-tool, but I was at that point of exhaustion where inanimate objects move in the corners of your eyes and normal background noise becomes voices on a far-away radio. The pain and growling in my stomach reminded me that what little I’d eaten in the past few hours was either smeared all over my skin or lay in a noxious pool beneath me, and the last time I’d felt warm or dry seemed like a lifetime ago.

My body finally said, ‘enough,’ and as if my brain was trying to convince me to stop fighting sleep, I could almost hear a lullaby in a woman’s soft mezzo-soprano, familiar and comforting. I held the song against myself and let it pull me down into the welcome dark.

I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes, but when I opened my eyes, the demon guard’s misshapen head lolled to one side in sleep. It had to be a trick, I thought at first, but then again, we’d left Brallus short-handed, and who knew how much it took out of these things to heal as quickly as they did?

I turned at a low hiss from Grandpa. He winked at me and wiggled the end of the rope. He’d gotten loose, but held it in place to make it look as though his hands were still bound. Thanks to the baby monitor, we didn’t dare speak, but I managed to pantomime my idea, and urged him to escape. He frowned and shook his head no. I hadn’t really expected him to leave me there, any more than I’d have left him or . . . Gods, I didn’t want to tell him about Uncle Garston. I set to work with the multi-tool, digging around the ring to which my chains were attached. Once I got it out I replaced it, took a deep breath, and with an encouraging look from Grandpa, got ready to put on another act.

“Brallus,” I said toward the monitor. The demon guarding me jerked its head up, awake, but other than that, nothing. “Brallus! Please, I’m cold, and I’m hungry, and I know you don’t care about that, but I’ll tell you things you want to know. All I want is a blanket and some food. I’ll cooperate. I didn’t know how bad it would be without my power.”

Still nothing.

“This body’s getting weaker. It’ll get sick. What if it dies? What then? All this for nothing?”

Something rustled outside, and Brallus entered the tent glowering. He spoke a few words to the demon in an ugly language, and the beast left. I did my best to look small and pitiful and afraid. The afraid part wasn’t hard, and I figured that being scared at least meant I was still sane.

“I sent it for food, water, and blankets. I’ll have it bring them in once we’re done here.”

I bowed my head, doing my best ‘humbled prisoner’ act, and reminded myself that as long as those wards were active I’d be unconscious from pain before I could get my hands around Brallus’ throat. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

“Don’t thank me. I’d rather watch you suffer.”

I bit my lip. Have to play this just right. I couldn’t have him get pissed and walk away. I needed to get hold of that whip.

I kept my head bowed. “I know. But I’ll keep my end. I’ll tell you everything.”

“And how would I know it was the truth?”

“Because my best chance of survival, or at least a quick death, is to cooperate.”

The best lies contain at least partial truths, and I sprinkled in just enough to make things sound plausible, given that there was no way he’d accept the unvarnished version. Some things I had to blatantly fabricate, though. For instance, I claimed that the riot and Grandpa were both parts of long-term plans to gain power in this world, and that when I agreed to trade myself I did so thinking that Brallus couldn’t hold me (that part was true) and I’d have my pawn back for free. After a few minutes, it was time to bait my hook. With head hung low, I offered to tell the truth about what I had done to his brother, and said that I’d write a confession. He bit, and I started reeling him in.

Another thing about lies. People will buy into almost anything as long as it confirms what they want to believe, and unless I had seriously misunderstood Brallus’ expression when his brother was trying to molest me, Brallus’ tastes ran similar to Kolb’s.

So I spun a Lolita story that would have made Nabokov proud. Although I barely kept from gagging as I did it, I confirmed all the lies people like Brallus and Kolb tell themselves so they can sleep at night, and credited myself demonic powers to further absolve Kolb of responsibility. Brallus’ breathing quickened, and every so often he’d unconsciously moisten his lips with his tongue. Yeah, I know. Makes you want to throw up, doesn’t it?

“And you’d write this out as a confession?” he asked.

I hung my head. “With witnesses, if you want, to prove I wasn’t coerced.”

He steepled his hands and sat watching me. “You know this doesn’t change anything.”

“I know. Still, I was hoping maybe . . . ”

I let the pause hang there until he prompted me. “I knew you’d have an ulterior motive. You were hoping what? That I’d unchain you and let you go?”

I shook my head. “No, just that if I cooperated and told you everything you wanted to know, maybe you wouldn’t turn me over to them.” I wasn’t even sure who ‘they’ were, but I assumed the higher-ups in the Shashashkuhun hierarchy.

“That’s out of my hands.”

“No, you can convince them. And you can . . . use me any way you want.” Emphasis on the ‘use.’ And then, for the bit that would set me free. “And if this body doesn’t please you, I could help you find young girls, like I was back then. Boys, too, if you want them. I could make them either submit or fight back, whichever excites you more.”

His face went slack and pale. The last thing people in denial want is to have their proclivities thrown in their face. “You. Dare.” Brallus stood and unfurled the whip. I crouched and threw my hands in front of me as though cowering, but as the whip wrapped around my forearms and bit into them, I grabbed and pulled. Brallus teetered, off-balance, but didn’t fall. We played tug-of-war, and Brallus was winning until Grandpa threw himself at Brallus’ back and knocked him across his own wards.

The wards flashed with electricity, and Brallus screamed, convulsed, and passed out. I used his body as a bridge to get out of the containment circle, then Grandpa grabbed his sidearm and his keys. Grandpa offered me the .45, but I waved it away in favor of the keys, and told him to deactivate the find-me charm—which would signal Kai and his group to attack. I should have taken the gun and put a bullet into Brallus’ head, but I wanted him awake and alert when I killed him. As I finished with the locks, scrambling noises outside said that at least one demon was on the way back to the tent. I grasped the chains that had held me and swung them in a slow, but accelerating circle while I used what Kai and I had discovered about my power to infuse them with what energy I could.

When tall, dark and revolting poked its ugly head into the tent, I swung my chains with everything I had, and sent it staggering back. The power in the chains flashed, then diminished, but did not completely fade, and the demon’s face blackened across its eyes where I’d hit it. I swung again and again while Grandpa flanked it with Brallus’ .45. On my third blow, the demon’s skull cracked open, spattering me with blood and brains.

Gunfire and other battle noises announced the arrival of our allies, and by the time I’d secured Brallus and stepped out of the tent, the fighting was over. Filthy as I was, I threw my arms around Grandpa’s neck, telling him how much I’d missed him, how worried I’d been, and babbling about Jayden.

Grandpa looked away, with sad eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not your grandfather.”

“I know. Uncle Garston told me. Dad.” I grinned.

“You don’t understand. I mean—”

I heard movement behind me, and turned to see Brallus low-crawling toward the tent flap to escape.

Reunions would have to wait. I ran toward Brallus swinging my chains, and opened a gash across his back with the bolt end of the connecting ring. He bellowed and fell forward, and I went to work on him. Not his head, though. That would be too quick. This man had killed my friends, kidnapped and tortured my father, forced me to kill the other man I thought of as a parent, and those were only the tip of the mountain of things he had to answer for. He rolled onto his back snarling and tried to catch the chain, and got a broken arm for his trouble. He succeeded in pulling me off balance, but I don’t think me landing with my knee in his solar plexus was the result he was going for. While he gasped for breath, stunned, I raised my arms into the air and smashed a double fistful of chain into his face.

Once he was unconscious I let up, simply because it wasn’t as satisfying to hit him when he couldn’t feel it. I wanted to kill him. I wanted it more than I could remember ever wanting anything. But I didn’t. No, not because of some cliché like, ‘he wasn’t worth it,’ or, ‘that would be stooping to his level.’ Oh, hell, no. I could have killed him and slept the sleep of the just, but it came down to a question of practicality. I had questions for the bastard, and if I killed him, I’d never get the answers. I left him to Kai’s tender mercies for the time being.

One of the proxies loaned us a vehicle to get back to civilization, and Jayden and I set out to find where Grandpa-slash-Dad had gotten to. The drizzle had become a downpour by the time we found him on the side of the road staring at the spot where Garston had died. Correction: where I had killed him. I stuffed that thought down as best I could. Kai’s cohorts had already removed the body, but someone must have told him. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that I didn’t have to break the news, or guilty that he’d had to hear it from someone else. I finally decided on feeling guilty about feeling relieved. Jayden kissed me—yes, vomit and all—and said he’d be close by, then wandered off to give my grandfather and me some time alone.

I stood behind Grandpa and put my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t know what to say, or even whether to call him Grandpa or Dad, so I didn’t say anything. After thirty seconds or so, he broke the silence, and I didn’t think I’d ever heard him sound so frail or tired.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry. I thought I could get Eli back, but then I was . . . He’s in here somewhere, but he’s buried deep.”

My stomach dropped, and my spine turned to ice. I backed away, drawing my nine millimeter, pointing it at the back of his head and thumbing the safety off. “Who are you? What are you? And what the fuck are you doing in my grandfather?”

“I—Nobody. Just another prisoner. Someone who tried to save everybody and failed. You did great, though. Saved everybody I couldn’t, including yourself. Including me. I’ll keep this body alive long enough to get it to a hospital, and then I’ll leave you all in peace.”

I lowered my weapon. “What do I call you?”

He turned toward me, and I averted my eyes to avoid seeing someone else behind that face. “I won’t be around long enough to need a name.”

There was nothing left but to go home. I took the wheel, with Not-Grandpa in the passenger seat and Jayden in the back. In the enclosed space, all the things I hadn’t been able to wash off hit me square in the face. That window had to come down, freezing rain or no. I eased us back to pavement, and then opened up full throttle, trying to outrun my own thoughts.

Nothing. It was all for nothing. I’d failed, utterly and completely, and as if to prove there was no justice in the universe, I was still alive—Then again, maybe there was justice after all. Maybe surviving was part of my punishment.

Which brings me to my laughing-slash-crying jag at the side of the road. The car was too confining, so I drove to the nearest rest stop, got out and walked to a covered picnic table. After a few minutes, Jayden joined me. As he’d already shown, he had a good feel for when to approach me and when to leave me alone.

“I was talking to, uh . . . ” He gestured toward the car.

“I’ve been thinking of him as ‘Not-Grandpa,’ for lack of anything better. And look, I already know I’m not giving him a fair shake. I can’t help it. And yes, I know we should try to help him find another—”

“About that. I know the whole deduction thing is your territory, but as the Watson to your Holmes, I figure I can come up with something once in a while, too.”

“Okay, spill, Watson.”

“Under one condition.”

At Jayden’s insistence, I gave myself a sponge-bath in the ladies’ room while he rinsed my clothes and laid out his thoughts and conclusions the way I’d done with him earlier. When he finished, I stood literally open-mouthed for probably a full minute, letting it sink in. If my power was, as Kai thought, something like his, there was one way to see if Jayden was right.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll wait here for a little while.” Seemed like that boy spent a lot of time waiting for me. Then again, we’d waited almost two years for each other, so we should’ve been used to it by then.

Back at the car I took Not-Grandpa’s hands, over his objections, and focused on finding that same energy I’d felt with Kai.

There were no heavenly choirs, no columns of light. Just a face. Layers of faces, actually. The first one was a facade, the peak of a bearded mountain named Garston. Behind that one was a woman’s face, with long, dark hair, and eyes like mine. A face from another life. My mother.

Although it was Grandpa’s body in front of me, it was still my mother’s face I saw superimposed upon it. She turned away from me, crying. I was almost too stunned to form words, and my mouth opened and closed several times before I could make anything come out. “Mom?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I—” she started, but a huge sob cut her off, and for a while, we just held each other and cried.

So much for this all being for nothing.

Maybe we all got what we deserved in the end, after all. We’ll be a family again for the first time in nearly two lifetimes, once we get Dad back from wherever inside himself he's hiding out and find Mom a new body (no idea how we're going to do that, but I have some ideas). Jayden got me, and at the risk of blowing my own horn, I’m not such a bad catch. The patrol officers—after everything I’d seen, I couldn’t believe that death was the end for them. Me, not only was I getting my family back, along with some sort of as-yet-unexplained superpowers, but also quite possibly the most fantastic guy in this or any other universe. I don’t know what I did to deserve any of it, but it must have been something pretty awesome. So even if it sounds corny—and I know it does…

I’m going to call it karma.

#my writing #urban fantasy #hopepunk #writing #karma #quiet world #my fiction #cosmic horror

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mod-kyoko · 9 months

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"Shatter Me" kirumi tojo angst fic

info: gn!reader, established relationship, tw: pstd, scars, mentions of execution, around 3,200 words

type: angst with hurt/comfort, oneshot, post-game AU

a/n: this is a completely indulgent kirumi angst I had cooking up, basically this is set after post-game where everything was a simulation and the damage done to the 'characters' is done to them irl title is a reference to this song which I personally think suits Kirumi well but who knows lmfao

⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡

it was all like a horrible nightmare, a nightmare you weren’t even sure you could ever wake from. all the death, the pain and the misery would never be something you could shake from. every single trial, each passing moment your life was on the line… yet each time someone dies, you just wished you took their place. you survived, at what cost? only to be told that your talent and memories were nothing more than a fabrication to appease an audience? you never really found out if those interview videos were real or not… you saw yourself, clear as day; “if I were in Danganronpa…I would love to be an Ultimate !3$5&*+...I would kill in a way no one has ever seen!”

did you really say that? was that even you, looking up at the camera with wide, child-like eyes declaring you’d… kill? In some ways, you wished you were the first to go out… so you didn’t have to witness the death of your own lover.

kirumi tojo… the “Ultimate Maid” or so they wanted them to all believe. you instantly connected with her; her calm, composed and almost motherly demeanour sucked you in like a moth to a flame. even from the beginning it seemed like she felt it too, she treated you differently than the others. she kept her ‘devoted’ maid self but she checked on you more often, she always asked if you needed anything unprompted, and poured you more tea when you were finished with a cup. you spent many moments alone with her, she enjoyed your company and laughed at your stupid jokes. the first time you kissed her; it was in the spur of the moment, you weren’t thinking. she was just so beautiful, up close to you and asking you in a soft whisper if you wanted sugar with your tea. yet when your lips connected to hers, she was shocked of course but she didn’t pull herself away from you.

what things you would do just to go back to those days, where the worries of murder and despair weren’t constantly plaguing your mind. nights upon nights you sat in your room, staring up at the ceiling asking yourself why kirumi went to the extremes that she did. It was sickeningly twisted what the motive that was created for her was, the prime minister of japan… it sounded silly now you thought of it outloud, if you knew about the truth behind it all you would definitely have thought that it was some poorly written story by a teenage girl. However, you couldn’t even fathom that thought as you were screaming and crying at kirumi that she was a traitor and betrayed your trust. you regretted those words deeply… as those were the last words you ever said to her before she was executed. you barely watched it and the little moments you did watch were enough to make you heave up. the last memory you thought of kirumi was her lifeless body on the floor, splattered and unrecognisable.

…

you looked up. your eyes just met with pure sterile white walls. after the events of the killing game, the simulation… waking up with wires around your body, you never loved the colour white so much. you were currently sat in the recovery centre, where the various victims and… culprits were recovering from their in-game injuries. it made your skin crawl to think that the simulated deaths acted as if they existed in real life too; it broke your heart to think how everyone else was handling it. However, your mind was entirely focused on one person and one person alone.

how long have you been standing here? staring at the door that led to kirumi’s recovery room? an hour? more than that? it’s not the idea that you didn’t want to see her, you were jumping off the walls in happiness to find out that your partner was alive but not unscathed. you were afraid - afraid of what was on the other side of that door, what condition kirumi would be in. would she be happy to see you?

you swallowed a thick lump in your throat, a shaky hand grasping the doorknob and you already felt the bead of sweat going down your forehead. you knew that you couldn’t just back away from this. bad outcome or not, you were going to see her, you just wanted to see her again.

with a gentle click the door opened and you peered in. there she was, dressed in a patient gown and sat in a wheelchair by the window, her eyes vacant yet staring at the courtyard of the facility. your heart skipped a beat as you held your breath, seeing her alive like this… you had to hold yourself to make sure that you weren’t dreaming and the nightmare would come back all over again.

“kirumi…” you called for her and your voice reverberated off the walls despite the fact you spoke in a whisper. her eyes widened, turning herself as fast as her condition would allow her to. you just wanted to run over to her, hug her tight and swing her around in utter joy. however, stepping closer you really started to see how serious her condition may be. minus the fact she was in a wheelchair it looked like her entire body was wrapped in bandages, at least, based on what you could see outside of the gown. her warm green eyes stared at you like if you were a ghost, hell… to her, you probably were as much as a ghost she is to you she didn’t say anything which worried you, you slowly sat down on a chair that was near the window as well. you looked out the window awkwardly, trying to think on what to even say. you looked back at her to find she was still looking at you.

“uhm… how are you feeling?” that was the only words you could even think of to say, there were a thousand questions running through your mind but you wouldn’t want to overwhelm her. she took a deep breath, it sounded uneven like if she had trouble getting air. finally, she spoke. “I feel pain all over. my head… it hurts.” hearing her voice was a relief even though it had a shake to it. “yeah… I can imagine it does hurt…” your mind flashes to her execution; from the small parts you saw through the cracks in your fingers, she fell head first. the thought made you cringed. “you… understand what’s going on, right?” you asked her. you were told that the others had been given information when they woke up… which was two days ago if you weren’t mistaken.

she gently nods her head in a twitchy sort of motion. come to think of it, her head seemed to wobble slightly even when sitting still. jesus. “all of… that… was fake? a simulation..? our… memories were toyed with…” you saw her bandage-wrapped hands clench which caused you to grit your teeth. you hated this so much.

“y…yeah… we were… fictional characters created for some.. dumb show or… whatever…” you didn’t tell her that there was the possibility that you all signed up for it. you weren’t sure what was true or not. “we are real now, of course… I’m… here.” you reached a hand to gently place it over hers, she flinched and you looked at her with apologetic eyes. “my purpose… was… just an illusion then…” she muttered with her brows wrinkling. “I… I thought I did what was right… for… my people. those people didn’t even exist…”

you grimaced. she meant her ‘fake’ past, right? the people of Japan was what made her murder another, her selfless devotion. “am I a monster?” those very words made your eyes widened and you shook your head vigorously. “no… no, of course not... if I was in your shoes I would’ve done the same thing.” you said rather seriously and she looked at you, searching for a lie of some kind. she sighed softly. “you do not seem the type to do such a thing at all… you don’t have to try and make me feel better about myself. I see the person I am now.” “but you’re not a monster, kirumi… and I’m not just saying it to make you feel better. you’re not the only one to have motives to kill… the ones after were… much worse than yours…”

you saw the way her eyes darted around in shock, realising that the killings had continued after her death. she looked away and covered her mouth with her hand. she looked like she was going to be sick. “however, I had… betrayed you..”

hearing your own words echo from her lips made a deep guilt sink into your stomach. to think that was the last thing you ever said to her before she met her demise… because you were so damn angry, angry at her and… angry at yourself, angry at the sick twisted minds that constructed the killing game.

“I’m sorry.” was all you could say. kirumi looked at you completely shocked. why were you apologising…? she was the one that had killed, betrayed you and threw away everything you created together. despite her feelings, she relaxed into her wheelchair and breathed out, like if she had been holding her breath for some time. “I… I am sorry too…”

god you wanted to cry right then and there as she said that. she was not innocent at all but something within you just wanted to hold her in your arms and never let go, you never want to lose her ever again. “are you… considering to go through the treatment…?” you asked, hoping to change the topic a bit even if it was still morbid. she nods her head gently. “yes… they said I should partake in small exercises like catching a ball… and… relearning how to walk.”

you bit your bottom lip at that news. it could be much worse… at least it sounded like she had a chance to get a normal life at some point. “but… until then I will need assistance in basic needs…” she said with disappointment in her voice. it made you ache… simulation or not you know she feels useless right now. “I’ll be there to help you.” you were quite blunt in your words - but you meant it. you would be there for kirumi every step of the way, everything she needed you will provide. she looked at you shocked as she thought you hated her for the acts she did… she nods her head, however. “...thank you, dear.”

…

it had been a full month ever since you reunited with kirumi again, you supported her and helped her through the process of readjusting to this life, like you were. you were there for her exercises and treatment, watching her try to walk again was a heartbreaking but determination increasing experience. she wouldn’t be able to take full steps without assistance for awhile, however for right now she could at least stand from her chair and move to another quickly. it was only just at the start of this month that kirumi was out of the recovery centre and now sharing a ground-floor apartment with you. it certainly made things feel more ‘normal’ and no doubt a lot more comfortable for kirumi as she didn’t need to stare at blinding white walls anymore. you admittedly did everything for your girlfriend as it just became second nature to you at this point; you could see how desperately she wanted to clean or even wipe down a surface to feel like she was doing something. she knows that she was never supposed to be the ‘Ultimate Maid’ yet the yearning to do something, anything was still there.

as for right now, you were cleaning the bathroom and kirumi sat at the dining table with a book. reading was now one of her popular pastimes, she greatly appreciated that you bought her so many books to read… books that she enjoyed quite a lot. hearing you scrub the tiles in the bathroom made for some interesting background noise, although she found your presence anywhere in the apartment to be relaxing. she would’ve indulged it some more if she didn’t just gain the most head-splitting headache possible that nearly made her drop her book as she gripped her head. no matter what, it didn’t seem like these headaches were ever going to go away. she sighed softly, putting her book on the table as she wheels over to the kitchen counter and opens the medicine cabinet which she could reach for obvious reasons. she grabbed her painkillers and quickly downed them with a swig of water. she closed the cabinet and was about to go back to her book until her eyes spied the set of kitchen knives.

her jaw clenched, looking down at the floor. she just wanted to be like… like herself again, like in the killing game. she was useful in it. everyone needed her, wanted her. she could service everyone and be the perfect girl she wanted to be. she leaned up slightly and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife, wheeling to the fridge and grabbing out a tomato. she just wanted to prove herself… that she could do something. she went back to the dining table, swallowing a lump in her throat as she stared at the red fruit, knife in hand as she positioned it just like how she remembers.

slowly, she attempted to cut slices of tomato as if she was preparing a salad of some kind. the cuts were irregular in size and certainly not perfect at all. kirumi clenched her jaw, trying to focus harder, she had to.try harder. no matter how hard she gripped the knife her hand would shake, becoming increasingly the more frustrating that she couldn’t cut a fucking perfect slice-

she flinched as the knife’s blade grazed her finger, nicking it and making it bleed. she dropped the knife quickly, looking down at her finger as the blood oozed out. she sucked in a loud gasp which you heard clearly. “kirumi? you okay?-” you walked into the dining room and your jaw went slack. “kirumi!” you rushed to her side, looking down at the little injury on her hand then at face. she looked absolutely shellshocked. “what were you doing…?” you asked, eyes darting around at the scene. “I… I just wanted to… show I’m useful…” her voice was no more than a whisper as she brought her finger to her mouth to suck on the cut with her brows furrowed. you frowned, putting your hand on her back and rubbing it slowly. “you don’t have to prove anything, rumi… you’re still recovering and adjusting… please don’t force yourself to do things like this, it needs to be taken slowly…” you massaged the back of her neck with your thumb, feeling her relaxed in your touch she wobbled her head in a nod. It seems she understood you. you hated treating her like she was a vulnerable child… but at this stage that was what she was at the moment.

“I’ve finished cleaning the bathroom… would you like a shower?” you gently asked her. she didn’t like taking showers or even baths, something about the water made her want to shake all over. she especially disliked getting water on her hands although she couldn’t really tell you why just yet.

she stiffens for a moment, thinking about it for far longer than she needed to. however, she nodded her head and moved herself into the bathroom as you watched with a worried face. you were seriously getting concerned for her… it was like every day was complete pain for her, although that wasn’t far from the truth at all… what you would do just to feel her pain instead.

following kirumi into the bathroom, you closed the door and flashed a friendly smile at your girlfriend. “arms up, please!” she lifted her arms at your request, they were twitching a little but it was fine. you carefully but briskly took off her top, following up with her skirt and then undergarments. “can you get into the seat yourself?” you asked her, gesturing to the little bench inside the shower. she pondered for a few moments but ultimately nodded her head and began to lift herself out of her chair. you looked at her in awe, seeing her gain her strength each day always warmed your heart. you clapped your hands and smiled. “amazing! you’re doing so well, dear... I think you’ll be able to take steps soon!” you giggled softly to keep the air light, rolling up your sleeves as you grab the showerhead and turning it on. “Hmm… you think so? thank you, dear…” kirumi smiled softly. even when she felt useless, or feeling low, you always knew how to make her feel supported. she promised to herself that she would be able to walk properly one day for you, so you could walk along the beach together or even be able to walk into your arms like you used to. you hummed gently as you brought the shower head directly over her, the warm water falling over her severely scarred body. her entire body flinched and she felt like she was getting attacked at the moment. when your fingers combed through her sandy-sage locks to run the water through properly she started to relax into your touch. she was so glad that you were here for her, that you were looking after her and giving everything she needed, even if it embarrassed her or made her feel… incomplete. despite everything she’s done, the pain and misery she felt in her heart knowing that what she worked for wasn’t real - she could forget all of that when you were here for her.

you put the shower to the side and squirted kirumi’s favourite shampoo onto your hands. it was lavender scented and it often helped her fall asleep with the smell of her own hair. you massaged it into her scalp and you could see the moment her entire body relaxed and that she was completely at your mercy. it made you smile so much to see her content and not worrying about everything… you pushed her bang out of the way of her eye and slicked her hair back. her eyes opened to look at yours and the slightest tint of red went over her face. you giggled softly at this, leaning down to press a soft kiss against her forehead. “beautiful…” you whispered to her which caused her to blush more. she? beautiful? how can you say that to her face, when you were right there being perfect? “I love you.” she said it so suddenly that it caught herself off guard however she didn’t back down and stared confidently at you. you smiled, heart melting at such a cute confession. tilting your head to the side, you uttered back. “I love you too…”

perhaps, things will be better.

⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡⟡♡

-Mod Kirumi

#mod kirumi #danganronpa #danganronpa imagines #danganronpa headcanons #oneshot #danganronpa angst #kirumi tojo #danganronpa kirumi #kirumi x reader #watch this get like 5 notes

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