#and how they will be forced to outlive almost all of them

[brw]

Hank Pym taught me that there are choices beyond programming! Janet Van Dyne, that there was beauty in the smallest of people. Pietro Maximoff, that if one's father is evil, it does not mean the child must be! Clint Barton, that there is no such thing as a powerless man! And Wanda, my dear Wanda... taught me that even an android can love!

Universe X #X by Alex Ross, written by Jim Krueger and drawn by Dougie Braithwaite

[shuaraes]

i should’ve never let you go | x.mh

- To him, love can only mean you

oneshot | 2.5k | exes! au | angst | comfort

after laying out his raw heart for you on voicemail, one part of xu minghao never expects to hear from you again. this is until you text him back asking him to meet you for the first time in over a year. with your text, minghao knows he can’t let you slip away the way he did before.

sequel to we shouldn’t have ended like this

~ pairing . xu minghao x gn!reader

~ content . exes to lovers au!, non idol au!, minghao’s a lover boy, quite cheesy at the end, can be read as a standalone fic but some minor references won’t be picked up on

~ tw/cw . suggestive, mentions of alcohol, minghao’s a bit of a dick to everyone but his s/o

~ song rec . blue jeans - lana del rey

~ author’s note . here it is, the much requested pt.2 !! thank you all for loving pt.1 so much ~~

(taglist at the end)

THE PARK BENCH IS ICE AGAINST MINGHAO’S BLUE JEANS.

His hands are tightly clasped around a medium-sized bouquet, a pink bow ribbon tying everything together. Minghao doesn’t know the first thing about flowers, just knows that carnations are your favourites. Even though there’s a slight chill in the air, Minghao is dressed nicely; short-sleeved polo rolled up to show his arms. He thought he might as well make a decent effort: after all, he’s seeing you for the first time in a year.

Soulmates used to be a concept foreign to Minghao, so foreign when his friend Jun often blabbed on about finding his ‘one true love’ - he could only scoff. Then he thought about what love meant to him. Watching all his friends fall in and out of it faster than he could blink, love didn’t mean much. Yes, he had been ‘in love’ but it had never consumed him, never broken him apart to the point he questioned his purpose of living.

Until you whispered those three words into his ear (it was early morning and you were tangled in his sheets, the linen covering your bare upper body, your eyes were barely opened but your smile was so bright, your fingertips and kisses painted his neck like a canvas. He had never seen such an angelic sight) and it all finally clicked. If this was what love felt like, then he had loved you since he first saw you.

Being in love meant loving you. To him, now love can only mean you.

Honestly, Minghao wasn’t expecting a response from you. It was three am when he sent the voicemail and after so long with no contact, you had probably moved on and found someone else. Living your life without thinking about him, is a privilege Minghao could only wish for. You were in his dreams, in his walls, staring at him in his bathroom mirror.

Although he did miss you terribly, a part of him sent a message because he wanted closure. He wanted to know you didn’t want him anymore. Maybe with your deafening silence, he could move on - live a life with you (an empty promise to himself, like a single coin in a fountain). But you didn’t.

A week after that night, Minghao received a text from your number.

It was early afternoon and Minghao was only half occupied with the tasks of the day, his head everywhere but the present. After sending that voicemail, he couldn’t seem to focus. A string of ‘what ifs’ kept constantly replaying in his head like a strip of film. At a point, he even contemplated throwing away your slippers. But as he saw them by the heater neatly lined next up to his - something deep from within him forced his whole body to stop. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t. Throwing away your slippers would mean giving up on you. Quitting had not got Minghao very far in life.

A notification popped up when he was scrolling mindlessly that day - he was about to swipe up. But when he saw your contact name (it’s ‘sweetheart’, he hasn’t changed it since the day he told you he loved you, the contact name even outliving your relationship), his phone almost dropped out of his hand and onto his face.

Sweetheart: How much did you drink?

Minghao’s breath hitched in his throat. The last thing he wanted was for you to feel like you were a drunken mistake. That he wouldn’t have said what he said without the removed inhibitions from several bottles of wine. He meant every single word he said

Minghao: I’ve never been more sober in my life.

His fingers paused at his keyboard, wanting to say so much more. He wanted to tell you once again how he couldn’t live without you, how you were even more important to him than the oxygen that fills his lungs. But he settled with simple formalities instead.

Minghao: How are you?

Sweetheart: Stop pretending that you care.

Minghao could feel his entire heart shatter in his chest, had you not listened to the voicemail or even worse did you not believe him? Did you not believe his love for you? Again, you were slipping away from him right in front of his eyes, he couldn’t let you go.

Minghao: Everything I said in that voicemail was true. I care about you more than I care for myself.

Sweetheart: Meet me in the park at 2pm and prove it then.

That’s how Minghao finds himself in his local park. Coincidentally, where you both had your first date (now several years ago, he placed a pink carnation behind your ear and when he looked into your eyes, he knew you were going to be different from the others). His heart is threatening to fall out of his chest with the way it’s beating so fast. What is he supposed to say to you? What apology on earth can he give you to make up for his past actions?

The past is in the past but Minghao needs you in his future.

As if you were the grand prize in this game we call life, Minghao is a debtor using up his final pennies. He can’t afford to lose you. The universe doesn’t grant second chances easily and Minghao wasn’t a fool to let you go again.

Your relationship was the furthest thing from perfect, but your flaws matched each other in a way Minghao could never fully grasp. End pieces in a jigsaw, rose quartz and serenity in an evening sky, the rays of the sun and the glow of the moon. You were far from perfect but you were more than close enough for Minghao. He was obsessed with you and still is.

He hears the light patter of feet against the cobbled pavement. The sound gets louder and louder until it stops. Minghao looks up from his fiddling fingers, expecting it to be some dog walker whose pet doesn’t understand the concept of personal space. But then he feels a familiar tap on his shoulder, there’s only one person in this world whose touch is as light as a feather.

When he sees you, his whole world ceases to exist. It is only you that remains. For a year he wanted, craved for this moment. You were his messiah, all he wanted to do was worship you until his throat was hoarse and lips parched. He was thirsty, oh so thirsty. Only you could save him, only you could fix him. He quickly stands up to look at you. He thinks if you touch him his legs would give in and he would fall to the floor. Your presence is overwhelming, you’re taking over his sensing and clouding his thoughts.

All of his words are caught in the base of his throat, there is so much he wants to tell you - but as he tries to speak only silence escapes from his parted pink lips.

You look slightly different, something Minghao couldn’t quite put his finger on. In front of him, you are a paradigm of blues, yellows and reds: the centrepiece in an art gallery, Micheal Angelo’s greatest creation.

“These are for me?” You ask cautiously, breaking the seemingly infinite silence.

You were so surprised to hear from him after you had assumed he had fallen out of love with you months ago. You want to make sure, that you haven’t gone mad, that the love of your life is really standing in front of you.

“Of course they are,” He hands you the flowers and watches your face light up when you realise that he remembered.

“You remembered…” You say smiling, looking down and twirling the pink stain ribbon between your fingers. ‘Of course’ Minghao thinks - of course, he’d never forget. He wants to reply but he’s too captivated with your beauty to think straight.

Still lost in thought, you continue, “Where did all the time go… Back then we were so young, so naive, so… So…” You struggle to find the right words to say.

“So stupid.” Minghao’s words are breathless as you meet his ever-so-loving gaze. For the whole of your relationship, Minghao had never been the one to open up to faults - you as well. The feeling of being so naked and vulnerable is foreign to him. But he relishes in the freedom of the truth, his pride no longer holding him down in chains.

He thinks he loves you more than anyone in human history has loved before.

“I meant everything, I said in that voicemail. You were right ‘We shouldn’t have ended like this’, yet I let it happen. I made you doubt my love but to protect my pride, I just stood there, saying nothing. I thought you grew fed up with our relationship, that I wasn't what you wanted. But then I realised you were pushing me away to protect yourself, just like I did.” Minghao pauses getting slightly emotional.

“Nothing I say or do will ever be enough, I can’t turn back time I know that.

But I never stopped loving you.”

And before he can comprehend, you’re in his arms, head against his chest - your home (his heart). You drop the flowers in your right hand and Minghao circles himself around you, engulfing you in his embrace. You don’t say anything, yet a thousand words fall from your parted lips as you stare into his pools of brown (the same pools you could spread hours, days drowning in, as if fresh air didn’t exist). You smell exactly like he remembered, a mix of woods and flora. You feel like a cup of warm tea after a tiresome day, the silver lining he always looks towards. Minghao thinks there’s nothing in the world as beautiful as you.

“I should’ve never let you go…” The words tumbling out of his lips are a waterfall of emotion. Waves of relief rush over him as he feels himself around you. This is where he is supposed to be. Suddenly, everything in his life is going to be okay.

“I should have never tried to push you away in the first place ” Your hands reach up to stroke the back of his hair and he melts into your touch like butter.

This is where he belongs.

Minghao places a small kiss on the mole you have on your collarbone and it’s almost like the past year didn’t happen (you’re on a date in the city, you’re wearing his favourite dress which shows your shoulders and no matter how hard he tries, Minghao can’t keep his hands off you, pecking and nibbling at the soft skin, even if he didn’t say it much, he was enamoured with you). Minghao doesn’t notice the lingering eyes of passers-by, he even fails to realise the passage of time.

Sadly the world can’t stop for him, no matter how much it feels like it does.

With a loud honk from a car speeding down the other side of the road resonating through his eardrums, Minghao is brought back to reality. Suddenly the light weight in the back of his jeans pocket feels all too heavy and he starts to panic, pushing you away gently. You pout, feeling like you have the wrong idea and Minghao’s expression is immediately sympathetic.

“No baby, don’t worry you did nothing wrong.” He coos in a tone that had almost become foreign to him.

Never, has he used this tone with any of his hookups, even when they begged to be called sweet names, he couldn’t (looking back on this Minghao feels guilty, but those people weren’t you, they couldn’t ever be you). He’s surprised at how easily those words drift off his tongue after so long. He guesses everything just comes easier with you.

“Remember how I said, we’ll listen to your favourite jazz album while drunk on wine.” He scratches his neck bashfully as you look up to him with wide eyes.

“I may or may not have booked us two tickets to their live show in the area, I just wanted to do something again to show that I care. I know it wouldn’t make up for-"

You silence him with a kiss, and Minghao forgets where he is, what he had just said, the colour of the sky and the feeling of the ground below his feet. hell if you didn't whisper ‘It’s okay Minghao' against his lips, he would have forgotten his own name.

For Minghao, it’s you. It has always been you and it will continue to be you. Maybe until the day he dies, he thinks. But knowing himself, he would probably find a way to love you in the afterlife as well.

You drag Minghao by his arm into his dimly lit flat, lips still perfectly intertwined together like a lock and key. If your kisses are knife wounds, Minghao wouldn’t mind bleeding to death. He can taste the tart fermented grapes on your tongue. The feeling of his bare skin against yours is more intoxicating than the bottle of wine you shared. You mewl pitifully into his mouth, clutching his clothes like a beggar desperate for cash. The sight of you begging for him was probably on par with the sex itself.

The night wasn’t supposed to end like this. Minghao had planned it out perfectly: you were supposed to visit a jazz show featuring your favourite ensemble, then you’d have dinner at a place he’d been meaning to take you for months, then maybe after a glass of red (or two) a taxi would drop you off at your complex where he would kiss you on the check and tell you to sleep well.

You both barely made it to step two.

Minghao pulls you flush against his chest breaking the kiss for air - you don’t seem to care as you turn your attention to his neck. In the morning, Minghao expects to see dots of red-purple bruises lined across the pale skin of his neck like patches of watercolour. The night wasn’t supposed to end like this, but Minghao doesn’t have the strength in him to tell you to stop.

“I wanted to be a gentleman.” He manages to whisper out, his eyes squeezing shut as you move your hands and kisses downwards, “I don’t want you just for your body, you know.”

“I know. I just missed you so much it was driving me crazy.” You say and drag him by the collar. You’re not looking where you’re going, but Minghao trusts you know his place better than you know your own.

Before he can respond, he feels you jerk slightly, almost tripping over your feet. He looks down to watch what caused it and he feels his face light up like a pink neon sign downtown.

“You still have my slippers here.” You say, not like you’re inquiring, but more like a statement. The smile on your face is miles wide when you look up at him. Minghao knows exactly what you’re thinking and because of it, he’s the happiest man who has ever lived.

“I didn’t have the heart to get rid of them, I never wanted to let you go in the first place."

taglist - @minhui896 @luvhuihui @porridgesblog @bangantokchy @haocovr @icyminghao

[yourheart-inmyhands]

YOU HAVE A CAT?! ME TOO?!

She hates me tho :(

---------

Zhongli, Neuvillette and Dottore

With a fox!darling that is always with animals and isn't social at all due to heavy torture in her past and they discover it? 💀

Man I'm in need of some gore rn 💀💀

- Weird anon ✨

i'm so sorry but i just couldn't write neuvillette for this prompt, he's too precious DX

Warning: this post contains yandere-themes, including being held against will, delusional behaviors, torture, breaking of bones, and other potential topics. Please Read At Your Own Risk!

Yandere!Zhongli sympathizes with you, and since it’s clear that the animals bring you comfort, he allows you to keep a couple when he moves you in with him. He even goes the extra mile and builds a special enclosure so they’ll be just as content as you are, even if you aren’t receptive to his love yet. 

When he finds out about your past, which is inevitable with how overbearing he can be and how good he is at finding out things from the locals, it almost hurts his heart a little. But the more sickening side of him is thrilled because now he knows exactly how to get to you, exactly how to make you his perfect little spouse.

Whether it’s be reintroducing trauma through breaking bones, locking you in a cold, damp room with no lights for hours on end, or even things that border on torture, he’ll use it against you so long as it won’t entirely ruin you. While he wants you compliant to his whims and wishes, he doesn’t want you to be a shell, it would’ve been a waste of his time to break you to that point;

Zhongli would never stop as low as hurting your animal friends, but if need be he could certainly find ways to turn them against you. It’s almost amusing to him, the way you care so much for creatures who you’ll outlive. How you care so much for creatures who don’t even really know you, funny.

The sickening crunch of bone echoes through the room as Zhongli stands over you, the heel of his shoe digging into the freshly crushed bones in your leg. The makeshift gag, a towel from the kitchen, dug into the sides of your mouth as it muffled your screams and cries. The Geo Archon almost feels bad for using his strength in such a brutal manner, but it would all be worth it, at least that was how he justified it to himself. It wasn’t about the now, but rather what now would soon be bringing him. By breaking you down bit by bit, sending you spiraling back into some of the worst moments of your life, he could slowly rebuild your shattered pieces how he saw fit. What use was a puzzle if the pieces weren’t in the correct order, right?

Yandere!Dottore is sick, sick, twisted, and absolutely disgusting. If he wasn’t the cause of your original trauma, you could surely bet he’d be the driving force behind re-traumatizing you. 

Whether he chooses to reenact every step, or to simply do something far worse than what had previously done it all dependent on how he feels that day. Some days will be so similar to your past that you’ll truly feel like you were back there, all those years ago. Other days are so awful it almost makes what happened in your past seem insignificant as if that were a stone among boulders resting on the ocean floor. 

Dottore does think it’s funny though, using it as both amusement and research opportunities. It wasn’t often that animals such as yourself came across his table, so of course he’d taken the prime subject as soon as he’d laid eyes on you.

In his lab, you aren’t seen as anything but a thing that exists only for Dottore’s own gain. If you’re lucky one of his more sympathetic clones might take pity on you and actually give you a day to rest when he’s out of the Palace, but they’re expected to keep up the same treatment he inflicts in his absence.

It was almost sickening to the segments as the watched the fox-human endure soul shaking torture day in and day out. Everything from injections to straight up live surgery to see how much pain the body could take whilst awake had occurred on the cold, steel table. They were often left to clean up the mess, expected to stitch you up, administer antidotes to anything too harmful that had been administered today, and even sometimes bathe you due to the mess that had occurred. You’d been fed little since you arrived, given water only when necessary for your survival, and hadn’t seen sunlight in days- or months maybe? With the sickening way time seemed to pass, you couldn’t tell how long you’d been here. Your only reprieve would be when the doctor left for something more pressing, leaving you in the care of his segments that only sometimes took pity on you. Some seemed to hold a little more humanity than others.

[paimonial-rage]

of hopes and prayers - zhongli

ship: zhongli x reader

synopsis: in which alcohol brings about a moment of vulnerability

notes: a short deleted scene of bookkeeping!verse that takes place immediately after but it’s better than drinking alone with references to blasphemous assumptions

"You know,” you began as you walked to your homes, “I'm not sure if you heard that day, but one time I told Meng and the Ferrylady that Rex Lapis would never sit alone listening to tales of his life. After thinking about it more, I think I was a bit shortsighted to say that."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"They say that Liyue is 3,700 years old, but Rex Lapis is even older than that. He's one of the oldest gods in all of Teyvat. How many people do you think he's outlived? How many friends had he said goodbye to throughout his life? It wasn't as if he could leave either. He was the Geo archon. It was his duty to watch over Liyue, its people, the adepti... Being forced to see people come and go... I can't help but imagine how lonely of an existence that must have been. Dealing with that, maybe it would be easier to just reminisce alone. That way it would hurt less when they leave... at least, that's what I imagine.”

He chuckled.

“Did you perhaps come to that conclusion after our conversation this evening?”

You shook your head, “No, but I can’t say you didn’t play a part in it. Thinking about it makes me think… makes me hope…”

You bit your lip, lapsing into silence. There was a reason you brought this up. You had more to say, but… You cursed as you felt tears begin to gather at the corners of your eyes. You blamed it on the alcohol. Really, you shouldn’t be getting so emotional over such a childish thought, but with the moon shining beautifully in the sky and crickets chirping around you, honesty found itself coaxed to your lips.

“It makes me hope that he wasn’t alone. That he had someone at his side that he could talk to, not out of duty or respect, but as a friend. That someone was there for him on beautiful nights like this.”

You hated the way your voice wavered, unintentionally letting frustration weave its way between your words. It was stupid thought, a foolish thought of a naive mortal. It probably was an insult to project such immature emotions onto beings like the gods. And yet the more you thought about it, the more sorrow weighed at your heart. You felt a tear slip down your cheek.

“I would think so,” he replied.

It was such a simple statement from your companion, and yet as his shared sentiments sunk in, more tears began to flow. It was embarrassing, it was frustrating, you wanted to die. His words really shouldn’t have meant as much as they did. He was supposedly a mere mortal like you, but… The relief that filled your chest was almost impossible to bear. All you could do was cry.

A chuckle came as a finger brushed your tears away. You could barely hold his gaze for a second before you looked away in embarrassment. You felt your face begin to flush and your heart begin to beat. Did he really have to look at you like that? With amusement? With an undeniable warmth that turned his amber eyes positively molten?

“I’m sure he was very thankful for them too.”

[yallemagne]

Jonathan’s situation is just so isolating. 

I’ve seen a few posts talking about how sweet it is that he would include the other members of the team in his will if Mina didn’t outlive him, but really, it’s just so sad. Mina and Jonathan have no living relatives. Besides Mina, Jonathan has no one. Even the other men in the group are just tangential in his life. He doesn’t form connections with each of them as Mina does. They’re practically just coworkers. We only see a handful of interactions between him and the others, and he only bonds with them over two things: Mina and killing the Count. 

They have read his journal, but they don’t know him. If he were to die, and Mina not outlive him, no one would grieve Jonathan. They would grieve Madam Mina’s husband. They’d grieve the amazingly brave man they found depicted in his journal, not the man who woke in the night and had to be calmed down from nightmares, not the man who feels responsible for every death and loss that has occurred over the course of the novel. They would mourn a hero, not a man.

Everyone would grieve Mina. She is their star of hope, as Van Helsing has said, a beacon, a sign of Heaven on Earth. She is kind and intelligent and she has touched all their lives, and her loss would be felt beyond just their little circle; it would be a tragedy. 

And now Mina has asked Jonathan to be the one to take her life, and he cannot say yes. He can’t muster the words, and in many people’s eyes, he is being selfish and he needs to man-up and just do what needs to be done. But Mina isn’t just his wife, she’s his only true friend. They’ve known each other since they were children and planned to spend their entire lives together. Now, Mina is almost telling him that her death is an inevitability, and he needs to be the one to carry it out for her sake. She doesn’t force the words from his mouth, but she has him read a burial service, and it was so heart-wrenching that Seward couldn’t even finish his account of it. 

I have so many feelings about all this. For those who are upset with Jonathan for his hesitation, just imagine Jonathan without Mina because the man himself cannot. The only thing that got him out of that castle was the hope of seeing Mina again, and the only one who could remind him he was no longer trapped was her. Mina is stronger than Jonathan; she can survive without him, but he cannot survive without her. 

[dostoyevsky-official]

The question now arises of whether Russia itself, as an integral state, can outlive its military defeat. The answer to that question is almost certainly yes: Russia can survive, it almost certainly will survive, and we might, in fact, want it to. To do that, though, it will need to change. It has become increasingly common to talk about the breakup of the Russian Federation as something both inevitable and desirable. To some degree, at least, this instinct is understandable. It reflects the memory of the fate that befell the Soviet Union when confronted with the limits of its own political and economic model, the recognition that as long as Russia remains an empire, it will be a threat to its neighbors, and, perhaps, a desire to see Russia diminished. Such discussions, however, rarely reflect an accurate understanding of how and why the Soviet Union disintegrated, of the nature of the strains that contemporary Russia faces, and of what the aftermath of a Russian break-up would actually look like. [...]That does not mean, of course, that Russia cannot splinter. [...] Wherever it occurs, the results are likely to be violent, and the violence will probably not be limited to the fringes of Russia: Moscow is likely to respond with military force to retain control, while the widespread internal migration Russia has seen since the relaxation of Soviet-era residency rules may lead to paroxysms of ethnic cleansing across the country. Any regions that do free themselves from the Kremlin’s rule, meanwhile, are likely to be considerably less able to sustain themselves than the ex-Soviet republics were in 1991, and even they struggled mightily. [...] Those concerned about the threat that will be posed by Russian imperialism after the end of this war — or, more hopefully, after the end of Vladimir Putin — might be better served by seeing de-colonization in cultural and political rather than territorial terms. It is well past time for Russia to remember that it is, at least constitutionally, a federation. A truly de-colonized Russia, then, would be one in which the Kremlin doesn’t dominate its regions in all their diversity, but rather is empowered by them – endowed with bottom-up democratic authority to govern on behalf of all of Russia’s citizens. That would be a Russia that would no longer be able to project Orthodox values as a casus belli, or to decide that Dagestanis and Buryats are expendable in the service of a greater Slavic Russia. That would be a Russia that threatens neither Ukrainians nor, indeed, Russians themselves. That would be a Russia at peace.

Sam Greene, Kremlin Must Loosen its Grip for Russia to Survive

[soylent-crocodile]

Storm Soldier (Monster)

(Art by Anonynmous)

(I considered playing coy with my inspiration here, but let's be clear with it- this a fantasy 40k Space Marine, played not as protagonists but as tragic yet terrifying monsters for the more humanist playgroups most of my RPG experience belongs to. Statting them up as monsters, in my mind, helps distance players from the power fantasy of it; if you ever wanted a ragtag pack of underdogs to bring those marty stu marines down a peg, well, here's a monster to kill! And you if you want a sad little war machine your players can adopt and deprogram, it's the same deal.

By the way, I have them statted up as scattered force that can be dropped into any setting, but I'd love to use them as the terrifying enforcers of one of the more powerful political players in a world, like they are in 40k.)

CR8 LE Large Monstrous Humanoid

Also called storm marines, storm dragoons, and thunder warriors, storm soldiers are the result of painful fleshwarping techniques being used on young human soldiers, turning them into massive and obedient soldiers. Unlike with the creations of the drow, it is generally humans of a storm soldier's own culture who turn them into such monsters- leaders who value them more as weapons than as people. The process is traumatic and violent, and involves not only reshaping the flesh, but conditioning the mind to be loyal soldiers before all else. This leaves the storm soldier with a distant sense of her past life and a lot of buried trauma. They are functionally immortal, and often outlive the regime which created them. Storm soldiers are difficult to create, and those who do tend to spread their soldiers thin, with one or two storm soldiers assigned to a squad of mundane soldiers as linebreakers, guardians, and support.

This is not always the case, however. Centuries ago, a powerful shaman amassed a legion of these soldiers in a harebrained attempt to take over the world and unite it under his idea of order. His forces, however, became fractured- although sources differ on how, with some claiming the influence of a specific breed of fiend, and others believing it was a mundane power struggle. The result of this fracture was the death of the shaman, along with most of his generals, and the small remains of his forces scattered to the corners of the world. To this day they live in deadly xenophobic warbands; in particular, they have a hatred for elves, orks, and skeletons, although most still clash with each other in echoes of the original split. 

Storm giants notably have a strong emotional reaction to storm soldiers; evil groups of giants typically do what they can to scourge them of the earth, but good-aligned storm giants tend to feel extreme pity and often attempt rehabilitation of storm soldiers. Younger storm soldiers (that is, less than a couple hundred years old) are often a success in this endeavor, but those as ancient as the shaman’s army are almost universally too far gone.

Some rulers believe that storm soldiers can only be created out of men, although this is generally considered to be a laughable falsehood.

This hulking woman wields a massive shield and weighty warhammer. She towers over her companions, and her eyes are leaking a glowing fluid. Misc- CR8 LE Large Monstrous Humanoid HD10 Init:+0 Senses: Perception:+8 Stats- Str:20(+5) Dex:11(+0) Con:24(+7) Int:14(+2) Wis:10(+0) Cha:6(-2) BAB:+10/+5 Space:10ft Reach:10ft Defense- HP:125(10d5+70) AC:18 (-1 Size, +7 Armor, +2 Shield) Fort:+10 Ref:+7 Will:+7 CMD:36 Resist: Immunity: Fear, Fatigued, Exhausted, Electricity Offense- +1 Shocking Warhammer +15/+10(2d6+6+1d6/x3), or Slam +14(1d8+5 plus grab) CMB:+16 Speed:40ft Special Attacks: Clarion Shock +14(8d6 electricity, target is illuminated as with Faerie Fire) Feats- Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Weapon Focus (Warhammer), Vital Strike, Intimidating Prowess Skills- Climb +13, Escape Artist +5, Intimidate +16, Knowledge (Local) +7, Knowledge (Nobility) +7, Perception +8, Ride +13, Survival +13, Swim +13 Special Qualities- Illuminating Gaze Ecology- Environment- Cities Languages- Common Organization- Squad (1 Storm Soldier, 4 Human Warrior 6) or Thunderhead (4 Storm Soldier, 6 Human Warrior 6) Treasure- Standard (Large +1 Shocking Warhammer, Large Field Plate, Large Steel Shield) Special Abilities- Clarion Shock (Su)- As a standard action a storm soldier may pump a blast of glowing lightning into a target as a melee touch attack. Additionally, creatures hit by this attack are illuminated in golden light as with the spell faerie fire for 10 rounds. Illuminating Gaze (Su)- A storm soldier’s eyes glow in brilliant pale yellow, illuminating a 60ft cone in front of the storm soldier two light levels.

[marvelmusing]

An Era of Power

Part One

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your unique ability to manipulate time has always made life difficult, forcing you to live alone for centuries. When the General of the Second Army discovers your power, your life changes forever.

Word Count: 1.4K

A/N: this series was inspired by an idea from the amazing @blanchedelioncourt who kindly allowed me to adopt the idea and create this little fic.

My Masterlist • Series Masterlist

You can remember a time before the Fold. Life had always been hard for Grisha, full of danger and fear of being discovered. When the King had appointed a Grisha as his military advisor, you had a brief glimmer of hope. That this would be the turning point for your people.

It wasn’t long before this hope was shattered. After the war in the North was won, King Anastas turned on his advisor and all Grisha suspected of following him in a supposed coup. Neighbours turned on each other, outing Grisha fugitives to the King’s army.

At the height of this uncertainty, the Fold was created, dividing Ravka with a dark curtain of shadows, and unleashing the vicious creatures - soon named Volcra - that made crossing the darkness almost impossible.

You have been lucky enough to have never entered the Fold, not in the nearly five hundred years since it was created. Your power was easy enough to disguise - discrete enough for you to use it without people’s knowledge but still remain unaffected by the wasting sickness. Your power was unique, a result of one of Morozova’s experiments with merzost when you were young. You were able to manipulate matter, and revert things to their original, or a previous state. Some might refer to it as time manipulation, if you ever trusted someone enough to show them your power. As long as you understood how something had occurred, you could reverse it. Or you could encourage something to develop at a faster speed than it would naturally. This made you particularly gifted in the gardens of the Little Palace.

If a plant had died from a lack of sunlight or water, you could reverse the effects of these ailments and find a place better suited for these plants. If a plant had become diseased, you could revert it to its healthy state. As long as no one was watching you, of course. Living amongst Grisha made you feel at home, but they could never see you as anything more than the Otkazat’sya gardener.

Because of your work in the gardens, you often helped with cleaning the stables and attending to the horses. The General’s horse, Midnight, was one of your favourites. A magnificent, black horse that has been favoured by General Kirigan over the last few years. You have also become rather fond of Midnight.

So, when you hear that he’s been injured, and that the Healers have little hope for him, you go and visit him in the stables.

The place is empty at this time in the afternoon. The stablehands prefer to work in the mornings when it’s cooler. You hum quietly to yourself as you make your way along the hay covered, stone floor. You open up the pen that Midnight’s been enclosed in, and close the gate behind you.

He’s lying down on the floor, and you quickly sit beside him.

“Hello Midnight. Heard you had a fall.” His only response is a laboured huff. Your brows crinkle in concern, and an uncomfortable pain prickles in your chest at the thought of such a gentle, loyal creature being in such pain. You reach out, stroking a hand over his neck and he attempts to lift his head up to meet your eyes.

You stare down at him, feeling incredibly downhearted at the sight of him. You know that in the long run, you will outlive this horse by several hundred years. But you’ve always struggled with staying detached from animals and people.

You lift your head up, peering into the rest of the stable, ears straining as you listen for the sound of anyone else in the vicinity. When you don’t find any, some of the tension leaves your shoulders.

Linking your fingers together, you concentrate on the break in Midnight’s leg. You know how it happened - during a Drüskelle raid the General had required a swift escape which Midnight had delivered at the expense of his leg. Since you know what happened, it makes it easier for you to reverse the break, guiding the fractured pieces back to rejoin the bone and return it to its proper place.

Midnight grunts in pain, before moving away immediately. With his leg healed, he seizes the opportunity to stand. A flood of triumph surges through you, it has been quite some time since you had used your power in such a manner, and you are thoroughly impressed with your small victory. You smile widely at the sight of Midnight trotting around the small pen he had been confined to after his injury. Remembering his lack of appetite over the past few days, you tug a small sack of apples over and drop them to the floor for him to eat from.

You pat his side affectionately, and he nuzzles his head against your body as you retreat to the gate of his enclosure. Living in the Little Palace has made you less cautious. It’s only once you’ve slid the lock into the bolt that you realise there’s someone behind you.

General Kirigan. The Darkling. He steps forward, grasping hold of your arm tightly and pushing your back against the gate.

“What did you do?” He asks in a low voice, his grip on you tightening. Your eyes widen, stumbling slightly as he pulls you back towards him.

“General Kirigan?” He disregards your confused expression, his eyes widening as he looks down at where his fingers are curled around your bare wrist.

“The break was too fractured for a Healer to fix. How did you heal him?” Your face drops as you realise what you’ve done.

“I didn’t, he was like that when I arrived.” You attempt to convince him, but your voice shakes.

“Don’t lie to me.”

You really are a fool. Your mother was right - your kindness would be your undoing. After remaining undiscovered for hundreds of years, you heal the Darkling’s horse and reveal your power to the most powerful Grisha in Ravka.

“What are you?” He demands.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You insist, but you know there is no one more determined than the man in front of you. His eyes remain fixed on your face, a resolute expression colouring his features.

“When were you tested?” You decide to tell the truth, or at least some of it.

“I wasn’t.” He releases your wrist, but you’re still cornered, and attempting to outrun a shadow summoner would only reap disaster. He reaches down to slide his ring from his smallest finger, turning it around to slot on the tip of his thumb.

“Well, I’m sure you won’t be adverse to my testing you now.”

You know how the test works. A prick of pain to release whatever latent power hides under a Grisha’s skin. You’ve never been tested before, though centuries of mastering your power should give you some ability to overlook such a minor wound and remain in control.

But there’s something about the General’s touch. When his fingers curl around your wrist again, sliding your sleeve up to reveal your upper arm, you can’t fight the shiver that runs through you. You’ve met some Grisha philosophers over the years, often working as an assistant for scholars. One of the most important concepts among Grisha theory is that like calls to like. Despite your unusual power, you can’t help but feel a likeness with the General. That, despite your obvious differences, you have the distinct impression that the two of you are the same.

His eyes remain fixed on your face as he presses the claw point to your skin, drawing a faint line down your arm. You clench your jaw, trying to stop your power from escaping. He raises a brow at you, noticing the fight hidden in your eyes. His hold on you tightens briefly, in an almost reassuring squeeze. Then his thumb brushes tenderly over the reddened line left by his ring. You breathe in sharply at the light sting of pain, and your control slips.

The apples on the floor by your feet wobble, and the seeds inside the fruit burst into small sprouts. The apple closest to you grows into a young tree, perhaps a year old. You tug the General aside to prevent either of you from being struck by a rapidly growing branch.

You stare at the small tree, cursing yourself. Not once, in over five hundred years, has your control slipped. But the handsome General pays you two minutes of intense attention and you’re creating an orchard.

A timid expression fills your face as you glance over at the General. His own eyes are wide, staring at the trees before looking back at you. There’s a spark of curiosity, and awe in his gaze and his mouth parts as he looks back at the trees. His voice has softened considerably, as he asks you again,

“What are you?”

[faebriel]

brrrr rainduo hunger games au

mad shoutouts to bee, beans, daisy and cherry for hopping on the rainduo hunger games bandwagon kdhkdjd

okay so nonnie i have a bit of hunger games knowledge (have watched the first two movies with some pals in the last month, various clips on youtube, etc) so i decided to take this one to my friends in clout farm to bounce some ideas around. niki and wil as tributes? niki as a tribute and wil as an estranged old friend who won the games five years ago and then was swallowed up by the capitol? two coworkers in the world's worst subminimum wage job? then bee comes in with the sledgehammer

for everyone else who also thought oh god i need to google that: avoxes are rebels, traitors or deserters who had their tongues cut out as punishment, and are forced into servitude by the capitol.

alright so. wilbur and niki are two kids in district 12 in the midst of a potential regime change - and they're kids, around ten and fourteen each. to-be-president schlatt is shoving around president dream and it almost seems like this might be a window for change, something wilbur is so passionate about

and then that wrong person overhears, and wilbur is gone.

niki assumes that wilbur is dead. (and tries not to think about how he got taken, because of nothing more than sheer bad luck, and she didn't.) it's awful, but seven years pass and she does her best to cope with it. and then her name is called at the reaping, when she is seventeen years old.

niki has absolutely zero intention of playing along with the games - she thinks they're horrible, just another way for the capitol to terrorise the people of the districts, even if she's learned by now the consequences of actually saying that out loud. she meets her mentor, jack - a year younger than she is, district 12's only remaining victor. he came out of the coal pits at thirteen, with just enough charisma and confidence to win over the sponsors and just enough grit to outlive every other tribute in his games, despite his age.

unfortunately for jack, niki is stubborn as hell when she makes her choices, and she's chosen not to play. fuck the capitol - fuck acting as their entertainment while they burn her entire fucking world down. fuck smiling how they want her to and acting sweet. why should she? she should she, when they've ripped her away from everything she had to lose? niki can hold her own, but not like this - and if she is going to go to her death, she refuses to act pretty about it.

and then she encounters wilbur.

it's one of the dinners for the tributes - one of the early ones, right after they're paired off with their stylists (niki doesn't entirely know what to make of hbomb, who asks her what colour hair dye she'd prefer in one breath and then lays out the most cynical, how-to-get-ahead guide to the games in the second, and then exalts the benefits of a kitty ear motif in the third) but before the interviews and grading. they're eating the fanciest food niki has seen in what is probably her entire life, although it tastes like nothing more than ash in her mouth, and pouring the tributes and their mentors glasses of expensive wine - never mind that almost all the tributes are underage, because when else will they get the chance to drink, hey? niki is still silently fuming, pushing her food around her plate and refusing the sixth damn offer to refill her wine glass and she finally looks up and behind the mask he's wearing, behind the unrecognisable silence, behind seven years of thinking one of her best friends had been horribly killed (and being entirely unable to process that fact) - she sees wilbur.

she immediately asks, wilbur? - not that he responds, and now hbomb and jack are giving her weird looks as hbomb informs her it's just an avox and jack goes oh, yeah, they don't have them in the districts, but -

none of their words matter, because half of niki is solidly trapped in this space between reality and dreams and her worst nightmare - she's only able to pull her shit together once jack has dragged them all back to the district 12 tribute spaces, and gives her the whole spiel about what an avox is, and by extension, what happened to wilbur.

niki is horrified. to think she mourned for all those years, and wilbur was alive - not just alive, but mutilated and tortured at the hands of the capitol. niki didn't think she could become more furious, more enraged with them. she was wrong.

the problem now, then - if niki wants to help wilbur, actually help him, she has to play. she has to win.

(and yes, she does set the forest on fire. she has to win, after all, doesn't she?)

this post is getting so so long so i am putting some more miscellaneous thoughts about The World and more details about niki's games under the cut ⚔️

okay so dream WAS president but was overthrown by schlatt in a "peaceful transfer of power". this was around when niki and wil were 10/14 each - and naturally uprising resulted in a peacekeeper crackdown in the districts, leading to wilbur's capture and arrest :(

2. haven't really nailed down other tributes in niki's reaping (i'm already handwaving the guy from district 12. he doesn't exist to me he is stock image steve) besides uhh ranboo who niki makes brief friends/allies with and then dies horribly. i was thinking aimsey and guqqie because from what i've seen of their content they love a tragedy? but yeah idk

3. sam is the gamemaker for this arena! he was a former victor and has decided to use this knowledge in the worst way possible.

quackity is Also a gamemaker (young upstart with no experience yet in the arena or out of it) and they have terrible workplace drama. is he hooking up with the president? i will not say yea or nay.

4. rest easy in the knowledge that, as a servant to the capitol, wilbur got to see on live television the moment niki was reaped :']

5. niki does, in fact, win the games - by the skin of her teeth. while she is so full of fury at the capitol, i feel like she'd Actually kill like, one career and then feel Extremely ill about it. unfortunately, she has too much on the line to lose. this isn't just about surviving, or going home - she needs to get herself and wilbur home in one piece. she Cannot Afford To Fail.

she ends up winning by setting the arena on fire with use of a match donated by jack and some sponsors he managed to twist the arm of, plus probably some clever digging around in the arena itself to find something flammable (maybe some kind of fuel to power the arena itself?) this fire ends up killing off the remaining few tributes at that point - at least one in front of niki herself - and damages the arena too. niki, already injured before the fire started and now barely clinging onto life past her burns, doesn't even hear the sound of the cannon shots as her victory is announced - she only realises that she's won once the hovercraft descends, perfect steel against a fiery, smoke-filled artificial sky.

she can't really stand the sight of flames after that. unfortunately, fire becomes her new branding.

6. district 13 Is a thing. Eventually. can't overlook niki's beloved anarchist friends :3c

and finally:

[mademoiselle-red]

So I had a thought today: Patroclus’ tragedy is that he isn’t Odysseus. Hear me out. This is gonna be a long and meandering story. So I was thinking about that battered old picture book adaptation of The Iliad I’d received as a child, and how at the time, I was very into “trickster” characters who achieve their goals through some kind of cleverness and get away with it. My favorite character through the first part of the book was Paris because he wins over Helen by getting Aphrodite to make her fall in love with him (yes, I know better now, but I was 9 years old at the time lol). But then I realized he was actually stupid, so I dropped him. No one really piqued my interest until Patroclus showed up and put on his friend’s armor and bluffed his way through the enemy lines. I was really rooting for him to win! It was brilliant. But then the gods intervened and gave the victory to Hector. Boo. I dropped him, Patroclus —he didn’t get away with his trick, and that made him immediately less interesting to 9 year old me. I did feel a vague sense of unfairness at the fact that he didn’t fail because his plan wasn’t clever enough, but because he didn’t have a god on his side. And, I didn’t care much for his friend Achilles since he was strong because he was strong, not because he was clever.

I was also at the time, very into track and field races, which were co-ed at my elementary school, and I always managed to do pretty well in the longer races against boys who normally ran faster than me because I knew how to manage my stamina and they didn’t. Anyhow, I ended up latching onto Agamemnon, because the ending of the picture-book focused on him, and he ended up killed by his wife, and thus not clever enough to get away with it, which made him a total loser in the eyes of my former self. But then, a few years later, I read The Odyssey in my 9th grade English class, and I finally found the character of my heart, Odysseus. He is the clever trickster who does “get away with it”, over and over again, and I loved it. Odysseus is not as strong as Achilles or politically powerful as Agamemnon, but he is clever, and he outlives them all. I could never get enough of this kind of story: the clever youngest brother wins the fortune, the clever hero defeats the stupid knights and marries the princess.

Real life didn’t quite work out that way. Like Patroclus’ bluff, my advantage in strategy and stamina was short-lasting. As we began to hit puberty, my body fat to muscle ratio caught up with me, the boys got even faster, and the school races were now segregated by sex. But by then, I was already losing interest in the sport.

And now as an adult, I’ve found new appreciation for the tragedy of Patroclus. It is the tragedy of the almost-good-enough, the almost-victory. He was more clever than Achilles, cleverer than Hector, and he could have won, had he been able to fight that battle on his own terms, bypass Hector and make it over the walls of Troy, had the gods not thrown him down from the walls and forced him to fight Hector face to face. But he isn’t Odysseus, and Hector isn’t the Cyclops. But he could have been Odysseus, who always won by not fighting fair, perhaps in another universe, where Lady Athena smiled upon him and chose him as her favorite.

Patroclus was among the best of the warriors, but not the best. He was clever, but not the cleverest. His tragedy is perhaps the tragedy of the average person, as strong and clever as an ordinary hardworking warrior would be, but not extraordinary, not blessed by the gods, forced to share the world with those few who are.

[israbelle]

A Conspiracy theory about the Epilogues

Alternatively titled; "Isn't it fun to take the stupid plot holes seriously sometimes, just to see what happens?"

So - The hemospectrum. I have often been taken out of the story by how little they mention it in the Epilogues and HS^2, just sort of... handwaving it away as a solved, purely cultural issue. Doylistically, they seem to be endorsing the popular "caste differences were just an enforced social norm by the Condesce and Lord English so trolls hate each other more" theory. It's been a glaring hole in the worldbuilding for a while now, and I never had a satisfying answer to it.

First off, psychics and psionics. I will talk about those more later, but... *gestures* Yeah. Second, and more relevant to the idea that the caste system is a, how do you say, natural state of troll society that has to be actively worked against to avoid falling down the pit of oppression; lifespans.

That sentence sucked because it's 4AM and it's quite difficult to think straight while listening to Mouth Moods. But anyway.

There is a popular headcanon that the Condesce, puppeteered by Lord English to create a tougher landscape, and using her Thief of Life powers, artificially shortened the lifespans of lowbloods (or maybe lengthened the lifespans of highbloods?) and had they not been under her control, they would all live to the same age and have no physical differences. This is explicitly non-canon:

Everybody say "Thank you, Kankri Vantas!" Aren't you so glad he's right about everything he says all the time and everyone always listens?!

There would be seadwellers - no, there would be ceruleans who remember the dawn of history. Can they live normal lives? Do you think that one violetblood grub Karkat holds in the credits remembers his touch? Did they hang the snapchat photo on their hive wall as one of their baby pictures? Do they brag about it?

This world would be quite different from the one shown to us today. Screw "trolls' birthrate is higher than humans" being the crux of the population issue, what about how half these trolls literally never die?! Highbloods would naturally have trouble relating to or empathizing with the lower castes they outlive dozens of times, a natural "immortal being loses touch with its humanity as it sees the cycle of life repeat evermore without ever truly experiencing it" trope, and the hemospectrum would reinvent itself and simply slot humans in at the bottom.

Which leads to the big question: why isn't this what happened? Why are humans the dominant force, while trolls seem to have been metaphorically (so far, thanks Jane) neutered? And why are they losing the war so hard when they have all those dang psychics?

You know, the psychic powers that let you shoot killer lasers and throw things around from afar and commune with beasts and fly-

...And fly?

As far as I'm aware - with the exception of Vrissy, who is a clone of an Alternian troll - there have never been any mentions of psychics on Earth C. Even when she talks about them, her information is wrong, almost as if it was only ever a historical afterthought in class instead of a reality of her life. Isn't that curious?

Apologies in advance for the hats. Tinfoil really is an awful material for garments, you know. But with all the evidence laid out as it is, there's really only one* reasonable† explanation: they did something to trolls. They flattened them all out into one homogenous mass, stripped them of nearly everything interesting and alien about them, neutered them into the Grey Humans we've all tried to fight against this whole time! And they did it with slime!!

*There are most likely many other possible explanations, and there is not a shot in Hell that this is what was intended in the text. †This is a completely unreasonable claim.

It could've been an accident, it could've been a well-intentioned impulse enacted by a bunch of teens who don't understand what eugenics are, but it happened in the ectobiology room, and I think the "how" of it is that they mixed together the troll and human slime. This flattened the curve of lifespans to be about human average, and either highly reduced the chance or outright deleted the ability for psychic powers to form. Reproduction stays the same, because that involves way too many complicated biological changes rather than just flipping a handful of proteins.

The great Alternian trolls of yore are but a distant memory, replaced by these tragic, broken copies, failed by their masters; chained to the ground with their wings torn off long before Candy Jane ever entered the scene.

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Book review: Augustus, a novel by John Williams.

This is not a history book. This is a story about small and ordinary people living through extraordinary times. It's a story about destiny, betrayal, love and grief; about how the same person can do both wonderful and horrible things. It is a book that raises questions - how far should you go in pursuit of what is right? What price are you willing to pay? How do you choose between your loved ones and your country? And it doesn't grant you a comfortable answer.

It's written in epistolary format: a collection of fictional letters, memoirs, meeting notes and public announcements from Augustus' contemporaries. The biggest voice in the novel is Julia, Augustus' daughter, whose journal is incredibly touching. Another standout narrator is Marcus Agrippa, who's a perfectly nice guy but intensely biased toward Augustus, and who will lie so smoothly to defend him you won't even notice it. Mark Antony shines in all his appearances, too.

Honestly, all of the narrators are either good or great. Williams' prose is exquisite and evocative. We don't hear from Augustus himself until the very end, a narrative choice that forces us to consider the feelings of the people around him, and how his actions (both great and horrible) affected them. We see those narrators fade out one by one, as Augustus outlives almost everyone, and the second half of the book is very melancholy as a result. By the time we see Augustus' own words, he's an old man questioning whether he made the right choices, whether it was all worth it in the end. His self-doubt mirrors the conflicted feelings and judgment you will probably be feeling as a reader by then.

I wouldn't call it a sad ending; there are sparks of hope and joy, and the world keeps moving, in some ways better than before. It's bittersweet. It humanizes a man who would be the "evil overlord" in many other stories - in fact, I think it humanizes everyone, including the antagonists, and that's part of what makes it so moving.

This is not a book for people who want clear good guys and bad guys, or a happy ever after. It's also not completely historically accurate: Williams took a few liberties for the sake of wrapping up character arcs, and he glosses over the proscriptions and the immense damage Augustus did to Roman democracy. The author emphasizes at the beginning that this is fiction, and the narrators are clearly not supposed to be objective, so I can forgive that. Just don't use this book as a reference for judging the real people.

Even so, if you want something poignant, thought-provoking, and heartfelt, this book is an excellent choice. It has my favorite portrayals of Julia, Maecenas, Salvidienus, and a lot of other historical figures from this era. Highly recommended.

[thekimspoblog]

Some clarification on the FotD series.

A fan complained that the plot of my "Fantasy of the Day" series for the BCS/McWexler fandom was really hard to follow. And that's... not their fault at all; the plot is hard to follow because there really isn't one singular plot.

The Premise: The first thing that you need to understand, is that the FotDs are just fluff-n-angst snippets I pull out of a proverbial hat. Usually, I come up with the idea for a scene which would look cool, and fill out the details of the backstory later. So if one of the stories in my posts comes across as vague or self-contradictory, that's why; I'm making it up as I go. And usually instead of better explaining a premise, I'll just move onto another one.

The Setting: Season 1 of my "Slippin' Kimmy" fanfic has a more set-in-stone story arc: In a single sentence, Kim joins a cult. Season 1 is set in rural Wyoming between the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2017, but most of the FotDs are set anytime between 2017 and Kim's eventual death. I have no strong opinions yet for what should happen in Season 2, and so the FotDs are all just spitball ideas for plots which might happen. It's a running gag how frequently Kim is forced to uproot her life and move to a new city, so an FotD might be set anywhere in the world.

The Main Character: Kim has been promoted to the occupation of "fixer" in the Breaking Bad universe. Her updated business card reads "Wexler-McGill: Image Consulting", but her services run the gauntlet of: off-the-record legal advice, schmoozing politicians and business people, orchestrating media circuses and publicity stunts, hiring hacktivists, delivering mysterious packages, laundering money, bookkeeping for philanthropic organizations, bodyguard work, P.I. work, sabotaging weapons manufacturing facilities, organizing protests, smuggling Mifepristone and Estradiol into red states, renovating and flipping failing shopping malls and entertainment venues, and much more miscellaneous espionage. Assassinations are a line which Kim will never cross willfully, but she is frequently caught in the crossfire when white-collar criminals try to take eachother out.

The Romantic Lead: Jimmy's story is over, but he's not willing to ever leave her, so he has no choice but to come along for the ride. He's finally living the dream of going into business with his wife, and he joins her on roughly half her adventures, but at this point excitement is something he could take or leave. He takes pride in playing the role of the homemaker, and his love for his children often motivates him to be the voice of caution. He supports and agrees with Kim's so-called "Revolution" - the subversion of unjust laws, the redistribution of wealth, the sabotaging of hate-groups - but whenever the heat gets too hot, he will make the tough but pragmatic decision for one or both of them to go into hiding again. Kim is wearing some golden plot-armor in this story, but Jimmy's mortality looms over almost every FotD. Not only does Jimmy simply want to make the most of how ever much time he has left, but there is a palpable threat that sooner or later he will be stuffed into a freezer for the sake of creating drama for Kim. If they could have it their way, they'd explore the cosmos forever as a pair of ageless trickster gods, but the spouses both know that in all likelihood she will outlive him.

The Prodigy: In this spin-off, Jimmy and Kim have two children; Iris and Fille. The oldest child, Iris, is barely even my OC; they are the most obvious answer to the question "What would the McWexler baby be like?". All their best and worst qualities in one precocious brunette imp. Quick-witted and silver-tongued, a born performer with sticky fingers, both figuratively and literally. Iris comes out as non-binary in their preteens and is accepted pretty immediately, but for the record any FotD which refers to Iris as "she/her" is canonically an example of their parents misgendering them because they didn't know any better. While Kim is out doing her adult career of... being the protagonist in an AMC series, Jimmy and Iris spend most days doing their best impressions of Moses Pray and Addie Loggins. Admittedly, Jimmy could be doing more to teach Iris respect for the rules as well, but there's something more sinister going on with the dynamic between Kim and Iris. Kim wants Iris to be prepared for whatever life throws at them, and to a certain extent she wants to see Iris continue her work, and because of that Iris shoulders a heavy burden. Kim is for the most part vindicated; Iris grows up to be a survivor and a forager, even as a drought deals a killing blow to American democracy, and they do follow in their mother's footsteps as best they can, but it's still bitter-sweet.

The Black Sheep in a Family of Wolves: Like I said, the FotDs are just random snippets pulled anywhere from a broad-strokes timeline, and because of that the ages of the children vary wildly. However Fille (pronounced "Philly") is consistently written as being two years younger than Iris, and in many fantasies, the children are between six and four. Even at an early age, not much is known about Fille because she is an introverted child, but as she gets older, this evolves into being a clear foil to Iris. Where Iris will talk your ear off, Fille listens patiently and only speaks up when something is truly wrong. Where Iris will bend the truth just for fun, Fille's silence should never be interpreted as a love for secrets. Iris's moral code is flexible so long as altruism and self-interest overlap; Fille's morality is rigid to the point of being childish, but at least it keeps her out of trouble. Iris loves meat, whereas Fille... honestly, Kim respects Fille's conviction to vegetarianism... but it was a phase Kim went through once upon a time too, and she grew out of it.

The Villain: This is probably where most of the confusion is stemming from. In Season 1 of SK, Caleb Dawson and the Riverton Unitarian Interfaith Church are the antagonists, but by the end of the season, Dawson is dead, his henchwoman Mary is at large, and Kim has taken control of the Church's resources. I haven't quite decided what will become of the loose thread with Mary, but the Church's money and credibility will only last until shorty after Fille is born (2 years). Beyond that point, I don't have any specific Big Bads lined up. Kim will follow the trajectory of getting into bed with shady characters (this time to push an agenda), enjoying working with/for this client for a stint, then eventually having to defeat them in a battle of wits when the alliance goes sour but the villain won't let Kim back out of her contract because she knows too much. Let's face it; this was always Breaking Bad's formula. When it comes to the FotDs, sometimes I'll just steal villains-of-the-week wholecloth from other similar tv shows.

The Vibe: The villains all blur together after a while for Kim. As do the schemes she does, both for and against them. Just like the places she visits: one night she might be seeing opera in Tokyo, the next she and her family have had their assets frozen and are sleeping in their car. One night, they're caretakers of a too-trusting hippy's goat farm, the next she's alone sleeping on the cold cement of some kingpin's dungeon. The point of the FotDs is to juxtapose the opulent world of murder and intrigue with the peace and quiet of the domestic life Kim is trying to defend against all external threats. In her most caricatured form, Kim Wexler is a 90's pantsuit archetype who, by some cosmic mistake, lived to see the 2020's. She's a pragmatist; she knows what she values and she keeps her attention on those things. In "Better Call Saul", she never quite figured out a good work-life balance, but last time around, she had put her faith in institutions which didn't value her time or share her priorities; this time she's only trusting herself to manage the resources. The American Dream may be crumbling, but she is still determined to "have it all".

@somethin-stupid-67 @joshgoodman @slippinximi @richeeduvie

[etwlemons]

alright here we go finally elaborating on my the man whit no name theory which inspired my last drawing-

so where to start, The man whit no name is referred to by many names but none of those are really his, at least he thinks so, he uses a name one day in one town and the next day has already discarded in favor of another, he doesn't remember if he ever had a name that was truly his or a surname, he doesn't remember if he ever had a mother or father, siblings relatives of any sorts, he only knows he doesn't have them now.

neither does he remember how he ended up in the wild west on his horse hunting bounties making schemes, drifting from settlement to settlement across the country.

only thing he really knows it's that he has been this way for long, way longer then any human being possibly could, he also knows his face has always stayed the same no new wrinkles or gray hair, his hands still looking young as ever despite the years he feels on them, the years he knows they should be showing by now but they stubbornly don't.

but that's the least of the things that trouble The man whit no name, he could chalk it up to impressive genes if he didn't know for a fact and as surely as the sun is in the sky that he can't die.

he can be shot, stabbed, tortured, drowned and hanged he can suffer and writhe in pain but that doesn't kill him, it's like falling asleep almost one moment he has a bullet wound so large in the back of his head that someone could use it a salad bowl, brain and blood oozing out into the open air, and the next everything is going back in it's place his skull recomposing like a puzzled his scalp skin covering it back up shortly after, leaving only a patch of pink soft skin behind that'll disappear too by evening.

and he doesn't know why, doesn't remember why he is this way either, has it always been this way? was he cursed or blessed? he couldn't say and he doubts anyone else could either.

he spends evening by the camp fire thinking about it trying to force his brain to remember what happened before this life, what happened before the first ever memory he can recollect? nobody is born an adult man whit a rope around his neck hanging down from an apple tree somewhere in Illinois, people are born in all sorts of ways but not like this, there must be a why, an explanation to why for decades he's been the shadow of the west able to be shot but not die, able to suffer and bleed and scream in pain but still wake up from it unharmed every time.

he knows there will be no answer even tough a part of him desperately wishes there was a solution to this, the prospect of wandering earth for the rest of time outliving anybody he menages to be more for than just a nameless man is scary and clutches at his guts like poison does, is the same feeling of when somebody tries to poison his drink he can feel the bitterness sting and tear at his throat and guts until he's spitting out blood and his innards, but they always heal always go back in place, leaving him feeling empty and pained.

he thinks about it every evening jabbing at the dying out camp fire whit a stick when his mind comes to the same conclusion, there is no helping him before he retrieves to sleep, a dreamless sleep that he tries to go to for comfort, painfully aware that while stuck between life and death there's none.

[driftwithme]

It's totally unfair to regard Chuck purely as an asshole for the short time we knew him.

We (the audience) met him after five years of absolute hell, where pilots and jaegers where dropping dead left and right, where the war was not anymore exciting but terrifying again especially since humanity started losing after some years of knowing what it was like to be winning. We knew him after he was already told his new mission with his dad was to go to the freaking Breach and drop a bomb and see if it worked.

Something they had attempted and failed to do before. With unknown consequences.

In the story, his existance is there to create conflict for Mako and Raleigh, of course. He is the antagonistic force kinda driving them together, the same as Pentecost. I know it.

Still, Chuck is visibly so much more than his beef with Raleigh. It's the details, okay? How he stayed with Tendo and Herc when things went wrong with the drift tests and tried to help Tendo disconnected the whole thing so they wouldn't die. The deleted scene where he is doing j-tech work on Striker to pass the time before their drop. His whole relationship with Max and the fact he vocally refers on to having grown between Shatterdomes in the deleted scene... He criticized Raleigh but yet took his same decision when he saw Cherno and Crimson in trouble. And he must knew, he must knew for a fact he was doing what Raleigh did when Yancy died, but he did it anyway and he cheered for G. Danger when it arrived anyway and he was there, with all his problems and his traumas, he stayed until the end and never backed away from any of it, even when he was visibly terrified.

He follows Herc and tries to help him up so they can shoot those flares at Leatherback. During the interview after Mutavore, he does one last effort to hype the jaeger program by referencing a new generation of better pilots and he is not particularly proud of the plan to bomb the Breach, but it is his job what else is he supposed to do?

He cannot form the words to apologize for all he did, but he kneels in front of his dad and thinks of seeking absolution in the form of a suicidal mission and he looks Raleigh in the eyes and let's Raleigh see him stripped of all his arrogance, only Chuck feeling whatever he was feeling, remorseful or apologetic or who knows. He shuts his mouth and he let's Pentecost call him out before taking one last look at his dad and his dog, his only family in the world, knowing he might not come back.

Like yeah those last days were full of hope for Mako, who finally got her revenge and to become a jaeger pilot, for Raleigh, who found a reason to look up to the future and go back on the fight and away from the past he was trapped in, for humanity, for Pentecost who was to fulfill his life mission, for almost every character-- except Chuck, who was dammed from the start, and for Herc, who should had died with his son, not outlive him.

The best Chuck got was to die with honor, a hero, to protect G. Danger's back. He didn't even died with his dad. Yeah, Pentecost was an important man, but Chuck died almost alone in there. He made peace with his own death still breathing. He pushed the button himself. He wouldn't leave Pentecost or even allow Pentecost to save him because he was a bloody ranger dammit, he was not leaving his co-pilot behind. He and his dad had the best killing count and he was the youngest to graduate at the academy and he survived all those five years of hell for the right to keep his pride and push that button himself.

What else what he supposed to do?

[fox-sama97]

Chapter 4 is here! Sorry about the long wait, I got really distracted by pokemon. Don't really expect another update this month, going to be playing the new zelda game: Tears of the Kingdom.

Anyway, here's an except for the new chapter under the read more.

Life wasn't the same, would never be the same, after her baby died. Pamela's entire world had been destroyed. She loved her daughter. Everything she'd done was for her daughter, her Sammiekins. She hadn't always known how to love her daughter, they'd butt heads more often than not when Sam became a teenager and started figuring out who she was, becoming more independent. Growing up.

At first, she thought it was just teenage rebellion. It'd blow over, she'd drop her goth phase and go back to being the sweet little girl who loved going to balls with her mom and wearing pink, poofy, princess dresses. By the time she realized she was suffocating her in high society expectations, well, Sam got her stubbornness from her mother. Pamela always had to be right, and she knew, thought she knew, who her daughter was and what was best for her. Sam was, had been, the same way.

It took almost losing her for Pamela to swallow her pride and let her daughter decide for herself how she needed support. Sam had been about to run away, only restless sleep had let Pamela see her daughter about to slip out of the house, backpack bulging at the seams with everything she cared about. All at once, she'd been hit by the very real threat of losing her daughter. Maybe not permanently, she'd probably have gone to her friend's house and stayed there, hopefully just for a few days, but Pamela knew how stubborn her daughter could be. If she had walked out of that door, she wouldn't have come back, no matter how much Sam and Pamela both would have regretted it.

She hadn't yelled; her voice had barely been able to make it past her lips through the sudden fear and loss, and she thanked the Almighty that he quieted her voice and gave Sam pause. Her daughter gave her another chance to be the mother she should have been, to support and love Sam how she needed.

She and Jeremy had grown closer to their daughter in that month than they'd been in years. They'd helped in her greenhouse, cooked vegetarian meals together, and learned so much more about who their daughter was becoming. She was so proud of her daughter, of how independent she was, how intelligent and compassionate she was. That she always stood up for her beliefs. It helped to ease a fear she'd long had, long tried to prepare her daughter for.

The world was a terrible place; she only had to think of how her mother and Jeremy's parents had barely escaped the Camps, to know this. She'd been afraid since the moment she first held Sam that the world would try to rip her baby from her arms and destroy her. But her daughter was, had been, strong. So strong and fierce in her belief in justice that she had taken it upon herself to fight the restless dead when the Justice League had ignored them.

She'd almost lost her daughter, built their relationship back stronger than ever, and then a mere month later she was murdered trying to do the Justice League's job when they refused to.

They killed her baby.

The Justice League's negligence was tantamount to murdering Sam and everyone else in Amity Park who lost their lives.

They had as good as murdered her husband. Jeremy was barely there now; the death of their daughter had broken him, turned him into a shell of a person.

Ida, her mother, who'd always been so lively despite pushing eighty, now spent most of her time pouring over photo albums and praying. She'd survived so much and now she was forced to outlive her granddaughter too.

There was no justice in this world unless you made it.

She was going to make damn sure that the Justice League were brought to justice. And that started with Bruce Wayne. Batman.

She'd known the man, maybe not well, but they'd been acquainted. They'd been to bar mitzvahs and weddings together, he'd even gone with them to synagogue once or twice. She thought there'd always been an understanding between them, subtle shows of support anytime other members of high society had given pushback for the galas or fundraising done on their holidays, for their holidays and communities. They'd traded commiserating looks when other members of high society inevitably had something antisemitic to say.

While Bruce had never acted quite so naive or scattered with them or the other Jewish families, she never would have guessed he was the infamous Batman. In that, she couldn't help but compare him to her Sam. Both were passionate about justice, about making the world a better place. But, where Sam had stuck to a more local level, where she could make change and make sure it was done correctly, Bruce had let hubris overcome him. Let himself believe that only his oversight would make a better world when he couldn't even manage the problems of one city, let alone the world. He had created and funded a global police force and let it grow fat and content to sit upon its laurels. He gave them the tools and the ability to determine who was worthy of their protection while effectively neutering any other response.

When Amity Park had called, had begged them for help, the Justice League had turned them away. They hadn't even picked up their calls or launched an investigation. There was no alternative. The Justice League had become their judge, jury, and executioner.

And so Amity Park died. Most of the people may have survived, technically, but they were all a little closer to dead than any living person should be.

They still weren't sure how many other cities had met the same fate under the uncaring eye of the Justice League.

That infuriated Pamela. Despite how much access they had to the Justice League's systems, they still didn't know how many places like Amity Park, how many people like Sam, had been condemned to death because the Justice League didn't feel like helping them. Didn't deem them worthy of an investigation or even a token effort. There wasn't any documentation about it, just silent blank spaces in the records.

She could feel her heart racing, hot fury bubbling up from her stomach, and a tingling in her nails that she'd come to associate with her liminality, as she stared at the door to the holding area in the former Amity Police Station. They'd had to find somewhere to hold the Waynes and the few Ghost Investigation Ward goons that had come poking around.

She didn't have to speak to Bruce. It wasn't necessary. The Justice League would probably be launching an attack in the morning or sometime tomorrow. They didn't need any information from Bruce, they just needed him out of the way so the rest of the Justice League would panic and rush into things, just like Bruce and his kids had done.

But she wanted to, needed to. She needed to look the man in the eyes and make sure he knew what his actions had cost her, and had cost everyone in Amity Park.

She just needed to make sure that she only yelled at him and didn't claw his face off with her bare hands. She took several deep breaths, slowly exhaling them as she felt her heart calm, her stomach settle, and her nails settle back into human nails instead of ghostly claws.

Turning the knob, she entered the holding area, eyes darting past the soundproofed cells holding agents K, M, and P, until she saw the Wayne family. Timothy, Stephanie, and Richard were all still unconscious and handcuffed to their beds. Bruce had awoken about thirty minutes ago.

His eyes immediately looked to her, calculating and attempting intimidation. Unfortunately, intimidation was a little difficult when you're handcuffed to a bare bed in nothing but your boxers.

A small part of Pamela was embarrassed about the situation, but it was ruthlessly squashed under pragmatism. Leaving the Batman access to any of his gadgets was a recipe for disaster and they had no way of ensuring they gathered all of them. So stripping him, and the other bats, down to their undergarments and handcuffing them to the beds it was.

She kept her steps measured and her face blank as she approached his cell. The first rule of high society her mother ever taught her, and the first she'd taught her daughter: only show them what you want them to see. Stopping before his cell, she waited. His face was just as blank as her own, though his pupils were a little too dilated, and his neck muscles would spasm ever so slightly around the four taser marks spaced around his jaw. She'd have to talk to Paulina again about the appropriate length of time for the hand taser.

Bruce examined her, analytic eyes flicking over her quickly, cataloging everything about her before stopping on the hole in her black dress torn above her heart, briefly pulling his eyebrows down before it was masked again. A hot flash of anger sped through her body. She didn't need his pity.

She counted thirty seconds before Bruce tried to speak to her, mouth forming "Mrs. Manson," though the soundproofing prevented her from actually hearing it. Slowly she lifted her arm and pressed the intercom button on the cell.

"Bruce," she said, voice carefully blank, only allowing a hint of aristocratic disdain to filter through.