#and like 5000 different dead ends to run into

[mrtheinsatiable]

Starting to realize I've been unnecessarily resistant to a lot of ideas because I was just looking at them from an angle I didn't like

The idea of a "purpose driven life" is one of those things. The whole "I was Created for a Purpose" thing didn't vibe with me and also kind of pissed me off and that was pretty much the only context I had for the idea for a long time. And even the more secular version where I create my own purpose didn't work either because I've never felt like I had any particular calling or thing I Have to Do. It also feels dehumanizing to think of it that way, to a certain extent, to have a specific purpose or use like a tool or an object.

But actually a purpose driven life doesn't have to mean Having a Purpose it can just be "doing things on purpose." Life becomes a lot easier and also more fulfilling when you act with intent instead of just letting yourself loose in the day. It's hard to get your shit together when you're winging every second. A sense of purpose doesn't actually need to be deeper than that, I think, to positively influence your life

[dextixer]

RWBY: Arrowfell review - An autopsy of an overpriced dissapointment.

RWBY as an IP has not had a good run with their video games since the show inception. While some games definitely gained popularity amongst the FNDM like Amity Arena. None of them have stayed for long, either being discontinued in the case of the online games or simply, not being played in the case of the single player ones. RWBY: Arrowfell is no exception, despite the game being produced by another studio. With this review i would like to talk about it more in-depth after playing it and talk about why it failed.

Did it fail?

First things first. I have to answer the simple question of "Did RWBY: Arrowfell actually fail?". Yeah. It did. While no EXACT data can be gathered due to it not being publically shared, one only needs to look at places like achievement tracking websites of Xbox, Playstation and Steam one can find that only around 500 people in each of these got an achievement for opening up a chest, something that you can do in the first 5 minutes of the game. Even if we agree to be generous and say that 5k people bought the game (Which is more than double the people that got the erliest achievement in game).

That ammounts to 5000 x 30 - 150 000 - Euro earnings.

The game was first teased in 2021-07-09. But considering that the footage of it was already presented it most likely was already being developed for around maybe half a year to 3 months. So let us be generous and say that it was started to get produced in 2021-04-09. It was released in 2022-11-15. Around 19 months of production.

Some of you might ask, why is that important? Well, because with estimating the time of production we can try to estimate how much money was spent making the game, at least at the lower end. By using employee wages. I live in Lithuania, mandated minimum here is 800 Euros per month.

For 1 employee to be paid wages for the entire production period costs around - 15k Euros.

WayForward has a studio of over 50 people. Even if all of them were not working on the game the entirety of the time. If even 10 people did. Which is a low estimate. That alone would suck up all of the earnings the game made.

All of this is guesswork of course. And NO company will share information on whether or not their game did badly (They will only share good news). But even with doubling the numbers that we can see, well. It aint looking good. Of course, its always possible that Way Forward locked a single person in a shed till they made the entire game.

So yeah. As far as i can see. It failed. And at best MAYBE made small profit if RT game them additional funding or money and ArcSystems did not pay for the entire thing themselves.

Price sets expectations

So, now that we are done examining the cadaver, let us speak on what killed it. And what killed it... Is first of all. The price. The quality of a game matters, but at the end of the day, expectations for that quality are set by the price.

Arrowfell costs 30 Euros. For a sidescroller that is an above average price. Most modern sidescrollers the type of Arrowfell cost between 20-25 Euros. Blasphemous - 25 Euros. Hollowknight 15 Euros. Shovel Knight - 15 Euros. Dead Cells - 25 Euros.

The reason i listed these games is for comparison. A 5-10 Euro increase in price might not seem like much, until one considers the differences between these games. The games i listed are considered to be the BEST of the best of modern sidescrollers. They were part of the sidescroller rennesaince that the video games industry experienced not a long time ago, and each of them boasted MANY welcome features. Be it amazing storytelling and boss battles or massive replayability.

Arrowfell cost more than them. And yet... It broke no new ground. In fact, it broke no ground at all. It released as quiet as a whisper with only really RWBY fans knowing and talking about it. As far as the sidescrolling genre goes, Arrowfell gave nothing to it.

It would be one thing if Arrowfell was comparable to the games i listed before. But it simply isnt. Which of course, leads me to the next point.

Simplistic Gameplay

Arrowfells gameplay is not worth 30 Euros. The games i listed before have very responsive combat systems, different weapons, characters, various upgrades that change the way that the game is played etc. The combat in them feels crisp, and the boss battles can even come close to those of Dark Souls in terms of both difficulty and spectacle.

Arrowfells combat is simply... Its Boring. There are basically no differences between the playable characters besides their special abilities. They all feel like the same character. That is bad enough, but there is also another problem. The game has no dodge/block button. Something that MOST combat games have figured out long ago. The only character that has a dodge is Ruby, and thus, for the most part, she is the only truly playable character in the game.

An enemy only has to TOUCH your hitbox. Not with an attack. Just with their HITBOX and you will take damage. You doing damage also does NOT stagger them, so you are forced to either hit and run or hope to god that you will kill the enemy before it attacks.

Some people have complained that playing this game is difficult. I thought it was simply them being bad at the game. But that is not the case. After playing the game myself, the reason why this game is so difficult is because its combat is simply shit. It has no mechanics that would be expected of a sidescrolling game. Enemies getting staggered on hit is something that was figured out in the EIGHTIES. Most of the game also has barely any verticality to speak of except in SOME cases like boss battles. So dont expect to easily jump over most enemies either.

You also have a ranged attack. A ranged attack that drains your health and does half the damage that your melle attacks do... Think about it, in a game about RWBY, the place of the "Its also a gun meme" you are disincentivized to use your GUN attack because it activelly drains your health.

But WAIT, THERE IS MORE! Dont worry trooper, you have 3 health bars to help you deal with the shitty combat system. EXCEPT that once you lose ONE bar it does not fully regenerate and instead leaves you on LESS than half HP.

But heeeey, RWBY has an upgrade system! You can upgrade your characters! That must be exciting! It must be new powers!? Maybe new weapons!? No. Its all percentage increases. You can increase damage/health/gun/health recovery. Thats it..... Yeah... Thats it... Cookie clicker has more exciting upgrades.

Simplicity in video games CAN be a benefit. Shovel knight is a relatively simple game for example. Yes, it has its own quirks, but it gives you TOOLS to deal with your opponents.

RWBY Arrowfell is simplistic to the point of making combat not only boring, but also frustratingly bad. I have unironically seen flash games with better combat systems.

Its boring, its unimaginative. It lacks the BASICS of proper combat systems (dodge/block), and the 4 characters you can choose from might as well be one, because their ONLY difference is their specials.

Flash Graphics

The gameplay is bad. Okay, so, is the game at least pretty? No. No it is not. While the backgrounds can look pretty nice, the design of the in-game characters and platforms feels like babys first game on mario maker. Its very cartoony but not in a stylized way. Its very... Functional. You can understand what the character is, what the background is. But none of it looks good because, once again, there is no stylization to the game. Its all simply functional. And quite frankly, when this kind of game has to compete with games like Blasphemous and Hollow Knight? That just wont cut it. But words in this case simply cannot cut it. So instead, i will let pictures speak for themselves.

Can you see the difference? Where Hollowknight and Blasphemous both are stylized and look AMAZING in their own ways. Arrowfell looks like a pre-fabricated 3d mess. Its looks like plastic. Can you see just how DIFFERENT the goliath looks textured in comparison to everything else?

The RT animated cutscenes, in my opinion, while good, do not save this mess of an artstyle considering this is what you will see most of the game.

Sound Design

I like RWBY music. I truly do, at least the Early RWBY until it all became practically the same. The sound design in the game is fine. It doesnt grate on the ears. Different situations have appropriate soundtracks. Its nothing special in my opinion, its more RWBY. But thats quite frankly fine with me.

Story

I have already written a few threads about the story of Arowfell. To summarize, the story is very simplistic. It follows team RWBY first mission after they got their huntsmen licenses in V7. They go around Atlas investigating Grimm attacks and weird Grimm attracting equipment which came from a defunct Atlas military base, Arrowfell. Most of the new characters presented in the game are inconsequential and barely appear in the game. Like team BRIR. The story is functional, but no more than that.

As far as my other threads on the topic.

A) This is a thread i made about weird characterizations of team RWBY - LINK

B) This is a thread i made about the writing of Hanlon Fifestone - LINK

Conclussion

RWBY Arowfell is an overpriced sidescroller game that offers nothing new to the genre at large and is of IMMENSELLY lower quality, artistically and gameplay wise than any of its cheaper contemporaries. Even for RWBY fans, i would never recommend this game. Watch the story on Youtube, and spend your money on any of the other titles i have listed in this thread, some of them are even on sale.

[dyed-red]

What are your thoughts on how much time Sam’s soul spent in The Cage? If we go by established time lines in the show, 18 months = approx 180 years. But Lucifer is an arch angel and we know angels can manipulate time so I think it could have been longer, or least made to feel longer. I also believe that Sam would have been fluent in Enochian after spending that much time with Lucifer and Micheal. Thank you for answering if you have time! And I hope you enjoy and holiday time you have :)

welp - you did it.

you asked a question i’ve been thinking about for over a decade and unleashed the full fury of my brainworms in action. this is the type of meta i expect like 4 people total to be interested in, but i’m going to spend days working on because I Have Thoughts.

the short answer: somewhere between 180 - 5000 years, with my personal headcanon landing just over 700 years, or 1400 for maximum whump.

The behemoth long answer is under a cut because long and math and meta. Skip to the end if you just want the math. The tl;dr is that SPN canon implies that hell has layers and that time distorts more the deeper that you go, and we can build an equation for that distortion and get to basically whatever number suits our purposes depending on what assumptions we make going in.

Time Distortion in Hell

The length of time Sam’s soul felt/experienced the cage is a function of two factors: how long he spent there in earth terms, and the degree of temporal distortion hell creates.

The first piece is easy if we assume Sam’s soul spent 18 months in the cage* (footnotes at the end).

The second piece... Dean spent 4 months dead (time in earth terms) which was 40 years on the rack in terms of his experience/perception. If we take this assumption that 1 month = 1 decade, we get to use some very simple math to say that Sam spent 180 years in the cage.

But.

I’ve always personally interpreted Hell’s time distortion to run a bit different than a static 1 month = 1 decade. This headcanon derives from some hints in canon (or at least, this headcanon is not actively contradicted by moments in canon) and from other pieces of media.

I believe that the deeper you go into hell, the greater the temporal distortion is.

This is basically like the move Inception, I’m not even gonna try to pretend otherwise. There, the deeper you go into the dream within a dream, the more time dilation there is. It makes sense to me that SPN’s Hell canon works the same for several reasons.

For starters, when Sam's wall is breaking in s6, he has flashbacks where 2-3 minutes is equated with what feels like a week in the cage (episode 6x14). We can take this at perfect face value (meaning that Sam’s soul experienced about 5000 years in the Cage). Or we can interpret this to be a function of the episode he is experiencing, where temporal dilation is exaggerated because of the nature of his flashback, or we can say he is speaking in hyperbole.

I think it makes sense for the truth to be somewhere in the middle - Sam is speaking off the cuff, not entirely literal or exact about how long those 2-3 minutes felt like, but nonetheless honestly that they felt like days, felt much longer than our formula of 1 month = 1 decade allows. And I take that as a realistic reflection of his time spent in the pit.

Another, and far more overt piece of evidence comes in Season 11 when Sam visits ‘the Cage’. In 11x09 (O Brother Where Art Thou), we see Rowena, Crowley and Sam in Hell whereas Dean is on Earth, and there appears to be little to no temporal distortion occurring between the events below and the events above. This remains true in the following episode (11x10, the Devil in the Details) when Crowley phones Dean and when Dean comes down to join them in Hell (and Cas as well shortly after).

So - what gives? Is there temporal distortion occurring in Hell or not? Did they retcon that, forget about it, what?

Well, Crowley explicitly refers to this area of Hell as ‘Limbo’, which brings us to an understanding of Hell’s temporal distortion through the lens of the circles presented in Dante’s Inferno.

Circles of Hell

It’s fair and frustrating to say that canon doesn’t give us much in the way of understanding the structure and hierarchies of Hell. That gives us a lot of leeway, but I like to anchor my headcanons to canon if and when I can.

Thankfully, there is at least some reason to believe that Hell in this universe is structured at least somewhat similarly to Hell in other popular works of fiction that derive their conceptions of it from Dante’s Inferno (which itself is the popular mainstream view of hell that even a lot of Christian/Catholics have adopted, often without realizing at this point).

Dante’s Inferno provides a view of hell that has 9 circles, or layers, each one deeper into Hell than the last. SPN implies the same.

We get this from the use of Limbo, as stated above, since this is the term in the Inferno for the first circle. Crowley refers to Limbo as the “furthest reaches” of Hell, whereas in Dante’s Inferno, it’s the top layer. SPN plays fast and loose with what it takes vs. leaves from real-world mythos, but I take this to mean that “far” or “furthest” not in the sense of depth, but as a place which may be vast and largely empty, and which few demons can enter (since, as per the Inferno, it’s not a place where guilty souls actually end up, so possibly has quite restricted access to demons).

We also get evidence of these circles from Word of God through Sera Gamble, who has apparently said that the Cage is “At the bottom of the lowest depths of the ninth circle of the worst bit of Hell.” That’s pure Dante’s Inferno, ba-bey. (/mcelroy voice)

More evidence comes from Season 8 when Sam rescues Bobby’s soul from Hell, since he goes through Purgatory as a sort of back door to Hell, being told that Purgatory is “Hell adjacent”, which is true as well in the Inferno.

Another within-canon indirect hint of this is the association between Lucifer and ice. Dante’s Inferno keeps that the ninth circle of Hell, reserved for treachery, is a large frozen lake. And in the Inferno and in SPN canon, this is where the Devil is kept, in the Center of Hell, in the deepest frozen depths of the pit, the frozen lake in the ninth circle.

Also remembering that in early seasons, Lucifer and his Cage were buried so deep in Hell that most demons weren’t sure if he even existed. His existence was a matter of faith, no different than humans believing in God, according to 3x04 (Sin City).

Based on all this, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to surmise that Hell is vast, but potentially its vastness manifesting in the way in which it is layered, and that there are regions, planes, or depths that most demons do not or cannot tread to.

But okay, even if you’re on board so far, why do I believe that time works differently at different layers? And what circles have we seen in canon?

Situating Each Circle

My fundamental argument here is that temporal distortion in Hell is more extreme at the deeper depths, in a mathematically determinable way.

If we accept that Hell has nine circles (or planes or layers), then we can assume that we’ve seen three - probably five - of them. There is Limbo, as per season 11 and stated above, in which there seems to be little to no time dilation. This makes some sense if we accept that it’s the surface-most plane*, the first circle.

We have also established what’s in the ninth circle, titled Treachery, which is the Center of Hell and The Cage. Given its depth and the lines from season 3 Sin City, we can assume that, much like Limbo, this is an off-limits zone for most demons. If we accept my argument that times moves differently at the different layers, this is where time distortion - really, time dilation - should be the most extreme. It is the furthest removed from the material plane and the deepest well (do not call it a gravity well do not call it a gravity well do not call it a - )*, dilating time and everything around it at its depths.

In between, we have seen The Rack (where Dean was tortured), we have the Throne (where Rowena sat and kept court, since many of Crowley’s ruling scenes are implied to be on the surface rather than in Hell proper, although any of Crowley’s ruling scenes would be on this same level, I imagine), we have The Dungeon (from which Sam rescued Bobby’s soul as part of the Trials), and we have the glimpse we caught of how Crowley restructured the place into endless lines as a method of torment. There’s also the space where Lilith’s horn is kept, as per the Belphegor and Cas scenes in the early episodes of Season 15. I take that to be the same level as the Throne level, since it seems to be where ruling demons would both preside and reside.

Based on the seeming lack of time distortion we tend to see (in late seasons...) when we get scenes relating the Throne level, my headcanon is that this is the second circle of Hell (Lust). In the Inferno, incoming souls are judged here and then sent to which circle their sins have them belong, so I think it’s at least somewhat fitting for this to be where the Throne is. Keeping it closer to the surface world / material plane also has some advantages if doing so minimizes time distortion, since keeping closer time with Earth allows easier monitoring of Earth and tracking of things like deals etc. It also means that higher ranking aka more powerful demons who preside here are closer to Gates of Hell and therefore have less far to travel when slipping out and onto Earth.

In contrast, I think that The Rack is pretty damn deep. There is a lot of time distortion going on to get to 1 month = 1 decade (especially if we allow that a very small amount of dilation is happening at the topmost circles, even including Limbo). This makes sense to me in that The Rack is a place of exceeding misery and horror, literally the center of Hell’s most violent and excruciating tortures.

For that reason, I place The Rack as circle seven, aptly titled Violence. This is not to be confused with the sin of Wrath, which is actually the fifth circle. Rather, the seventh circle (to quote wikipedia at least), “houses the violent”. What better way to re-interpret that in the world of SPN than that circle hosting the torturers and their tortured? Within the seventh circle are those who committed violence against neighbors, against self, and against God. What better place for someone who sold his own soul (violence against self and against God), who killed?

Of course I don’t think it’s so straightforward that violent souls get sent to The Rack. I think any damned soul can be called there for a torture session. But Dean spent his entire time in Hell on The Rack, and that can’t be standard. Bobby spent plenty of his time in hell in a cell, as per 8x19 (Taxi Driver), and demons come here to torture him.

I don’t think it’s a huge leap for me to infer that Dean was special and spent his entire time on The Rack because they were so determined to use him to break the First Seal, and that most damned souls only do short stints on there, either due to limited real estate or so that souls don’t become numb to the violence (since let’s face it, most demonic torturers probably can’t keep them in anticipation of further horror as well as Alistair can, after a few days or months being cut into.) They’re probably returned to their cells to marinate in the memory and anticipation with only minor tortures until they’re brought down again. This is what we see with Bobby and probably with the endless lineups in Crowley’s redesigned Hell.

So - without too much to go on, I’m going to tentatively place the Dungeon with Bobby and other damned souls as being in the sixth circle, Heresy. It’s a circle described as hosting souls in flaming tombs, which I think fits this notion of a dungeon with cells holding on to souls, and keeps those souls close at hand and ready for another go in the seventh circle where The Rack is held. 

And this allows me to place the endless line as actually being either in the fourth circle, Greed, or the fifth circle, Wrath. The fourth involves a nation of lost souls who, in this pit of hell, lose their individuality and become sort of empty, which fits what we see in that brief clip of the Hell line. The fifth includes a “savage self-frustration” that seems fitting of the concept of that awful endless line, with sullen and angry souls fighting each other in muck and slime.

Regardless of fourth or fifth (I have no strong sense of which fits better), I see that line as being meaningful outside (above) the sixth circle, in a torment that is less acute, as souls that are less unique and differentiated, less violent, less worthy of turning into black-eyed demons.

Because in the Inferno, there’s this critical division between the fifth vs. sixth circles as the transition between the two being the transition into “Lower Hell” and the sixth being behind guarded walls, with another steep drop from the sixth to the seventh, and so on. This makes sense to me as Lower Hell being a place where they keep the Dungeon and guard the doomed souls, whereas that place outside those walls hosting the damned but less special, less differentiated, the more generically doomed... yeah, it just makes sense to me (your mileage, as always, may vary).

This distinction is important also because of that drop down. If distance and depth are important to temporal distortion, then it matters if the first few circles of Hell involve less of a steep drop one to the next. Here we should note that the seventh circle involves three rings, and the eighth circle (Fraud, aka Malebolge, another very strong contender for the location of The Rack since it’s essentially an amphitheater for torture, so I’ll do the math both ways below)*, well the eighth is basically a funnel with 10 separate rings or steps downward.

Why does this matter? So glad you asked!

Increasing Temporal Distortion at Each Level

If you’re following the hints I’m dropping, what I’m implying about getting deeper into Hell and the further drops down at the later levels is that the time distortion in Hell does not increase linearly. It increases exponentially.

Limbo has temporal distortion that is so minor as to be barely perceptible, if perceptible at all. The Rack gives us an explicit (if fuzzy) estimate of 1 month = 1 decade in terms of perception. The Cage is implied to be much, much more than that, at the extreme end up to 2-3 minutes = 1 week in terms of perception.

If the time distortion was linear, meaning that from circle 1 to circle 2, and circle 2 to 3, and 3 to 4 and so on, we should expect that the amount of time distortion from Limbo (circle 1) to the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to be a much, much wider gap than the amount of time distortion from the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to the Cage (circle 9). Like... it should be 7-8x as much distortion.

And I mean, you could take a linear headcanon approach to it. If we accept that SPN Hell has circles or layers as is Word of God and overtly implied by the narrative time and again, you could say that there’s x amount of distortion at circle 1, and 2x at circle 2, and 3x at circle 3, etc, and this would works okay when we got the math right, but like... it’s not my preference given the way canon works.

What I mean (especially for those who hate math so might not be automatically sussing what I’m saying), is that, for example, if 10 seconds in Limbo = 1 second on Earth (sure why not) then if the time distortion increases the same way (”linearly”) at each new circle of hell, then on the Rack we get 70 seconds = 1 Earth second (or 80 seconds = 1 Earth second, if the Rack is in the eighth circle).

That specific math doesn’t check out (it equates to 23.3 years on the Rack instead of 40, or 26.7 if the Rack is the eighth circle instead of the seventh), but to figure this out we should of course work backwards starting from the 4 months = 40 years. Which tells us that each second on Earth feels like 120seconds (2 minutes) on The Rack. If that’s happening at the seventh circle, then a linear difference between each circle of hell means that the time distortion in Limbo is roughly 17 seconds for every Earth second. This math works out a little prettier if the Rack is the eighth circle because that’s an even 15 seconds for every Earth second.

To me, that’s stretching how much time distortion is implied to occur at Limbo and vastly exaggerating what we see with Sam rescuing Bobby from Hell. If Bobby is actually kept in the 6th circle, that’s 102 (7th circle) or 190 (8th circle) seconds in Hell for every second on Earth. It just didn’t seem that Sam was spending a minute and a half in Hell for every second that Dean was spending on the surface in Taxi Driver, but then again, I haven’t rewatched that episode so I’d have to double check to know for sure.

Between those implications about time distortion in Limbo and Bobby’s rescue and even the Throne room when they visit Rowena to the way Dante’s Inferno (which SPN canon clearly drew from) funnels more extremely downward the deeper you go in the circles, to what Sam’s episode of Hell memories could imply about his experience of time dilation in the Cage (assuming we accept his statement about his episode “feeling like a week” even if we don’t take that number at exactly face value)... an exponential increase just makes more sense, mathematically?

And again, for anyone who doesn’t like math or doesn’t know what that means and why I keep using this word “exponentially,” what it means is that the difference between the first circle and the second circle is not as big as the difference between the second circle and the third circle. At each depth, the intensity of the time dilation increases. So that you might not even notice the difference in time dilation between circle 1 and 2, but the difference between circle 5 and 6 is massively noticeable, and the difference between circle 8 and circle 9 is like several times even that big. Like Inception!

So let’s run some final calculations and get you your answer(s), Anon!

Some Final Math and Estimates*

Assumption 1: Equivalent Dilation

If we assume that there is no difference in time dilation from one region of Hell to another, then the ratio that Dean gives us in Season 4 is accurate for all of Hell, and 1 month (30 days) in the pit feels like 10 years. That’s 120 seconds below to every second above.

This would mean that in 18 months in the Cage, Sam experiences 180 years worth of torture.

Assumption 2: Linear Dilation Circle 7

Assuming The Rack is in the seventh circle, then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds on the Rack equates to 154 seconds in the Cage at the ninth level. That would mean that in 18 months topside, Sam’s soul spent 231.5 years in the Cage.

Assumption 3: Linear Dilation Circle 8

Assuming the Rack is in the eighth circle (which, tbh, I kind of thing makes more sense even though I argued differently above, but shhh let’s pretend otherwise), then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds there equates to only 202.5 years for Sam’s soul in the Cage. Slightly less awful! 

Assumption 4: Exponential Dilation Circle 7

The simple way I’m doing this is that instead of taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it x2 at the second circle, x3 at the third, and so on, I’m taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it to the power of 2 at the second circle, to the power of 3 at the third, and so on. I still have to start with The Rack being 120seconds on Earth time and work backwards to get that initial Limbo starting point before I apply the exponent, but otherwise that’s all I’m doing. There are definitely more sophisticated ways we could approach it since that’s a pretty simple linear increase in the exponent, and we could instead make the exponent itself an equation we’d derive through more complex means but... I’m really not about to do that.

So.

If we start from The Rack = 120seconds (2mins), using the exponent assumptions above, then Limbo time dilation is roughly 2 seconds (actually 1.98167 or so) in Limbo for every Earth second (works beautifully for what we see in canon, basically imperceptible), and time dilation in the ninth circle is 471 seconds (7.85 mins) per Earth second. Yes, that big of a difference, because that’s how exponents work.

This would mean that Sam’s soul spent approximately 707 years in the Cage.

What a great number! What a reasonable number, and a pretty damn canon-compliant number to headcanon. I like this number.

Assumption 5: Exponential Dilation Circle 8

As above in terms of the exponent assumptions, if the Rack is actually in the 8th circle of Hell, that much closer to the Cage, then here the math works out so that 120 seconds on the 8th circle being... roughly 2 seconds in Limbo. Because that’s how exponential functions work. It’s actually 1.81928 in Limbo vs. the previous 1.98167, but that rounds to the same thing (2 seconds) in terms of human experience, even if it makes a big difference when we take it out to the difference it makes in months, years, etc.

(But like, this is why I think it’s exponential, because this works so much better for what canon implies about the time dilation there*.) 

Anyway, here, this would mean that Sam’s soul spent roughly 327.5 years in the Cage instead of the 707 from above. That’s a big difference.

Assumption 6: Off the Rails

We can also take Sam’s statement about 2-3 minutes on Earth (having a Hell flashback) feeling like a week in the pit. If we estimate conservatively and go with every 3 Earth minutes = 1 week in Hell, depending on how we approach it (depending on if you go with minutes in a week vs. a month and which way you get to a year), you get somewhere around 5000 years (in my present calculation it’s 4984, but I also calculated it another way to get to just over 5000).

Assumption 7: 9th Circle vs. The Cage

Dante’s Inferno distinguishes between the 9th Circle on its own vs. the Center of Hell as the place where Lucifer resides, right at the deepest depths. The Cage itself is remote in Hell, distant from all other demons, enough so as to be a matter of faith to many of them. If we allow the possibility that this all means that the Cage is deeper than the ninth circle itself*, we can add another linear layer or else another exponent (take our equation to the 10 instead of to the 9).

This works out to be:

Rack 7th Circle, Linear: 257 years

Rack 8th Circle, Linear: 225 years

Rack 7th Circle, Exponential: 1400 years

Rack 8th Circle, Exponential: 596 years

Meaning this is a good place to note that... depending on the final number you want to get to, you can use whichever assumptions you want to get there and justify it by math. Remember kids, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

TL;DR!!!!!

How much time did Sam’s soul spend in the Cage? My headcanon is that he spent probably either 600 or 700 years there, on the assumption that it was 18 months between Swan Song and Appointment in Samarra, and assuming time dilation gets more extreme the deeper that you go in Hell.

For people who want to make more conservative estimates but still embed some complexity to Hell’s time dilation and/or who be more canon-compliant to other glimpses we’ve seen of Hell’s time distortion (Limbo, etc), I think anywhere from about 200 years to 330 years is perfectly reasonable.

For people who want to go with maximum whump, the sky (5000) is the limit, but you can mathematically point to up to 1400 being pretty reasonable.

*Footnotes

1. Because canon plays fast and loose with how many months exactly have gone by, and some people headcanon that only about 4 months have passed in Season 6 before Appointment in Samarra when Death pulls his soul out. I personally read it as more like 6 months having gone by and think this is the more standard headcanon, so your 180 years is the most common interpretation, and definitely the most easy to defend. I also made calculations for Sam having spent 16 months in the Cage instead of 18 months there though, if anyone is interested.

2. There is also the Vestibule in the Inferno as the opening to Hell, before the first circle, and this requires passage from Charon to cross over and into Hell proper. This is where the quote “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” is from at the Gate of Hell, which of course is evoked in season 5 as the episode in which Jo and Ellen die.

I like to think of the Vestibule in the world of SPN as being any and all of the many Hellgates implied by canon, including the one that opens in AHBL2. No time dilation occurs within the Vestibule(s), as a person has to enter into Hell’s circles to properly separate themselves from the material plane.

3. Not getting into it here but if I ever get around to writing an original piece of fiction about angels and demons etc like I kind of want to, some of my worldbuilding will explicitly connect/relate angels to celestial bodies, like literally to stars, with the depth of hell essentially being a black hole, hence why the closer one gets to it, the greater the time dilation there is. Gravity and heat increase near the center of hell in this unbearable way, and then at the very center, like within the black hole itself, it becomes unbearably incredibly cold, like that frozen lake in which Lucifer is half-submerged in Dante’s Inferno. Lucifer existing impossibly both within and outside the event horizon. But I digress.

4. When you think about how many angels are implied to have died in order to rescue Dean’s soul, compared to how simply Sam snuck into Hell to rescue Bobby, I think the circles of Hell interpretation becomes quite important. If Dean was in the seventh or eighth circle, like especially that eighth circle, that’s so much deeper in than the Dungeon. The angels also couldn’t infiltrate subtly, methinks, and had to storm the walled and heavily guarded gates at the sixth circle, through that dungeon, then fight their way down the three rings of the seventh circle and possibly down into the amphitheater of the eighth. We know that their powers alone can’t kill a demon as powerful as Alistair even on Earth, so on their home turf in Hell, it makes sense that demons would have put up a really solid fight against the angels. This helps resolve some of my own frustration at what seems to be discrepancies in the abilities of angels and how dangerous they are to demons in canon.

5. Please be aware that all maths above involve some rounding, since I didn’t think anyone wanted the detailed decimals. I also calculated months as being 30 days and for simplicity, calculated years as being 12 months. I could rework the math into weeks with 52 weeks being a year instead, which gives slightly different numbers, but it’s work so I’m just going to go with these approximations. Also noting that I used calculated everything using excel to save myself a headache. I’m sorry if there are any errors, especially when it comes to the exponents, my brain got very tired. Please let me know if you find any.

6. When it comes to the exponential ones, if The Rack is in the 7th circle of hell, then if the Dungeon where Bobby was kept was in the 6th circle, then each Earth second is 60 seconds (1 minute) in the Dungeon. That’s more time dilation than I think canon implies, because 60 minutes (1hr) in the Dungeon is only a minute on Earth? In contrast if The Rack is in the 8th circle, then 1 Earth second is 36 seconds in the Dungeon. I honestly think both of these are more extreme than canon implies, but again, it’s been a million years since I watched that episode because it’s written by Bucklemming and I cannot stand their writing. But as a count in favor of the exponential argument instead of linear, if time dilation increases the same amount at each circle then 1 Earth second translates to 103 seconds in the Dungeon (Rack in 7th) or 90 seconds (Rack in 8th), both of which are a lot more dilation than our exponential account.

7. For simplicity, I’ve also ignored the different rings which occur at the 7th and 8th circles. Those would, of course, change the math here as well, and we could add another linear or exponential step for each of those rings. That would lead to some crazy numbers because we’re talking about 13 additional steps. Linearly we’d add a few thousand years, but exponentially we’re starting to talk about a geological timescale. I don’t think it’s productive to make that extreme of an assumption about those rings, but I think we could comfortably stretch the distance between the 7th circle and the pit in which Lucifer’s cage sits at the deepest depths of hell if we wanted to, if you wanted to reasonably get closer to that 5000 years estimate.

8. Since your ask mentioned it, Anon, I realize I don’t touch on Enochian in this post but I have two tag-rambles about my thoughts on enochian and I thought I had a proper post on it somewhere but can’t find it. I could/should probably make a post with a tumblr ficlet about that, since I started drafting a canon-divergent post-Hell fic with Sam and Enochian and there’s like... no chance I’ll ever finish it. But anyway.

Thanks for reading this far, to anyone who did.

[kanthonyficrecs]

Masterlist: Modern AU (A-B)

updated 4/30/24

2D or Not 2D by enid_salt Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Edwina just really needs to get to her phone, not meet some kind of model-esque neighbor of her sister's. Especially one who: a. isn't fully dressed and b. doesn't have the best track record of interactions with said sister. And yet, the real question is: Does Kate live in 2D or not?

5000 Miles by Stars_of_Kyber Rating: G Status: Complete Summary: Anthony was having a terrible birthday without his fiancée until a surprise made him change his mind.

A Blank Canvas by charlotteesmithhh Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Anthony’s a painter, specialising in oil paints, who also happens to do the odd body painting job here and there, and Kate is a photographer in dire need of his services for a project she's working on....

A Bolt From The Blue by WaterlilyRose Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Anthony and Kate share a night of passion that must never be spoke of again. That's the end of the story. Right?

A Clean Start by somethingclearandtrue Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Kate and Anthony have been working late on the Danklin account, a vexing mix of PR crisis and legal woes—there’s no traditional road map for how to handle this one; they’re going to have to make it up as they go along.

A Crumpled Up Piece of Paper by Moomin_94 Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma were perfectly happy after their quickie wedding in Fiji Until (She thinks) he told her to leave

A Dead Man's Tale by Stars_of_Kyber Rating: T Status: WIP Summary: Although she didn't particularly believe in the supernatural, Kate Sharma had always loved ghost stories. What she never expected was that a long getaway to an old manor-turned-hotel with her fiancé around Halloween would end up opening a window to the past and turning her into a spectator to a forbidden love story from centuries past.

(a day) in the life by ninepiecesofcrait, xtenn Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: A Modern AU Kanthony text fic for Anthony Week

A Devil's Love by FormerlyIR (Irony_Rocks) Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: When Kate's sister goes missing, she gets herself a waitress job at the Pebble Lounge to track her down, working under London’s seedy underbelly to find the only person she has left in this world to love. And Anthony Bridgerton? No matter how alluring and distracting he may be, he’s just a means to an end, his life defined by his family business built on corruption. Kate won’t dance to that tune. She’s just trying to find her sister.

a la mode by juniper5x5 Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: Anthony makes pies and wakes the dead.vHis life changes when his childhood sweetheart comes back into his life. (a very unserious Pushing Daisies AU)

A place to rest by lookingforthestars Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Kate Sharma always thought of Journey's End, her family's bed and breakfast, as a safe haven for people looking to escape. People just like Anthony Bridgerton and whatever he's running from.

A Secret Affair by LoveIsStrong Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Kate thinks she can get away with her affair...Will she?

A Slamming Screen Door by Moomin_94 Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Katie Sheffield has a crush, I wonder who it's on.

a supercut of us by joekavaliers Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: The one in which Kate believes in ghosts, Anthony doesn't believe in ghosts, and they accidentally become internet famous.

A Waltz for a Night by TinaCentury Rating: T Status: WIP Summary: Both about to begin exchange years in different cities across the Atlantic, Kate and Anthony meet on a train in Europe and spend an evening in Amsterdam. Their time together leaves indelible marks on them both. A Before Sunrise AU.

A world without color is a world without you by lookingforthestars Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Kate's getting kicked out of her flat. Anthony has a spare room. (Moving in is easy. Moving out proves to be harder.)

Ain't It Hard Keeping It So Hardcore ? by Allatonceyouaretheone Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Kate Sharma works hard. Too hard. But it's all she has.

all that i am (all that i ever was) by Moomin_94 Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Anthony Bridgerton loves his job as a Midwife, he loves babies, and he knows first hand the difference good medical attention during childbirth can make. He just wishes he could get the OBGYN, Dr Kate Sharma to see that he's more than he seems

All’s Well That Ends Well (To End Up With You) by aRegularJo Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: Anthony Bridgerton does *not* want to marry Kate Sharma. And Kate Sharma definitely doesn’t have time to date Anthony Bridgerton. But a friends-with-benefits contract? That’s rational; in fact, it’s really just good sense. Things escalate quickly.

An Inevitable Collision by HarmonizingSunsets Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: It's a matter of statistics. There's a great number of pleasant Bridgerton's, so there's bound to be one distasteful outlier. And that outlier is Anthony Bridgerton.

And I know for you, it's always me by almondblossoms7 Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Eloise wants to set her brother Anthony up, with her roommate's annoying older sister. They would be perfect for each other. Too bad for her he's already dating someone, allegedly. Kate would like to keep her private life private, thank you very much. And Hyacinth would just like Anthony to marry her art teacher

And Now I Got Too Much At Stake by anidlequeen Rating: M Status: WIP Summary: Kate is up for a promotion. Too bad she's sleeping with her boss.

And Then Later Came by Mx Kate B Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: A modern AU series about married Kate and Anthony. In this universe, they have two kiddos, Edmund and Madhav, and another on the way.

And they say romance is dead by Mariposaxx Rating: M Status: WIP Summary: Faced with loosing the company his father spent years building, Anthony is faced with the choice of cleaning up his public image or loosing everything. What happens when he hatches a plan to find a wife in order to help him clean up his image? And the only women he can think that is right for the job is Kate Sharma?

Anything You Can Do by Mx Kate B Rating: M Status: WIP Summary: A collection of fluffy HEA drabbles to satisfy your sweet tooth.

As It Was by Searching4paradiso Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: “Anthony, I want a separation.”

ask, and you shall receive by RosesAtDusk Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: Just a good bit of old fashioned smut as Anthony tries to convince Kate to tell him what she wants. And he’s only too willing to give it to her.

baby come light me up by pathstotread Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: Kate invites her work nemesis to her sister's birthday, and this isn't going to backfire on her at all.

Back and Forth (from New York) by peepsinthechilipot Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: When her flight is canceled, Kate is unexpectedly upgraded to first class, where she meets a handsome stranger who knows how to make a very bad first impression. Baby, let the games begin.

Batting Practice by peterpparkrr Rating: M Status: WIP Summary: It’s the wedding of the year. Benedict Bridgerton, the second son of the famous Bridgerton family is marrying his beautiful fiancée, the up-until-recently-unknown Sophie Beckett. Kate Sharma wants nothing more than to be her best friend Sophie’s maid of honor. Until she meets Ben’s brother and best man, Anthony.

Behind Bars by folklaureate Rating: G Status: Complete Summary: Anthony and Kate get arrested. There's only one holding cell.

Benefits by Moomin_94 Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma are just friends. Just friends who send one another racy pictures at the weekends. Like friends do.

Blacklight Bruises by BurnerrAccount Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: Kate finds herself on another date. She doesn't end up where she thought she would.

Blushing all the way home by Moomin_94 Rating: G Status: Complete Summary: Kate is the biggest artist in the world and Anthony is a Rugby player with a little crush

Bom Bidi Bom by sheswalkinginbeauty Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: Their arrangement was simple. Well, as simple as arrangements could be.

Book Lovers by anonpls Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Kate Sharma is one of the top literary agents in London. Her whole life is books. Anthony Bridgeton is one of the most talented editors in the city. He's also Kate's nemesis.

Both Sides Now by collectionoftulips Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: Anthony, Crown Prince of the small country Aubrey, feels the inevitability of his responsibilities draw ever nearer. He gets his parents to agree to let him secretly attend Danbury University, a small university in Scotland, under an assumed name. There he meets Kate Sharma, a mature student who suffers absolutely no fools or any of his bullshit.

Bottom by Anonymous Rating: E Status: Complete Summary: By day, Anthony Bridgerton is in control. By night, Anthony is ready to let go. He doesn't want to think. He doesn't want to plan. He wants to let go and let someone else take the wheel. (Or the dog leash.)

Break Down Break Up by Mx Kate B (katelai) Rating: T Status: Complete Summary: It is perhaps the worst day Anthony has experienced since his father’s passing. Crisis after crisis, Anthony starts to feel like all he can offer is disappointment. He thinks the day can’t possibly get any worse, and then Kate Sharma, his nemesis since primary school, steps onto the scene.

break point by penny_loaf Rating: G, T, M, E Status: Complete Summary: Professional tennis players Kate and Anthony over the years. It's complicated.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Mx Kate B Rating: E Summary: After ending a toxic relationship with Anthony, Kate runs into Simon at a bar, and decides to go home with him. For a time, he gives her what she wants and helps her numb the pain, but even after everything blows up in her face, she can’t seem to shake Anthony from her heart.

Bridgerton and Sons by Moomin_94 Rating: G, T, M Status: Complete Summary: Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sheffield are coworkers who despise one another.

Bridgerton, Actually by folklauerate Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: Join your favorite family of eight siblings as they navigate love, loss, joy, grief, and the holiday spirit in a Love, Actually x Bridgerton AU!

Burning at Both Ends by pacific1989 Rating: M Status: WIP Summary: A slightly drunken chance encounter in a crowded NY nightclub between Kate & Anthony becomes much more than either of them bargained for.

but it's comin' down, no sound, it's all around by darkesky Rating: NR Status: Complete Summary: Welcome to the modern day carriage crash.

Buttons and Zips by Moomin_94 Rating: M Status: Complete Summary: The very last thing Anthony expected when he came home on a Friday evening was to find a woman at his front door with her dress undone

[nei-ning]

Few dream posts from the last 2 nights.

I was in my old home. We had big wooden fence to protect one area outside. I left a dog there on leash, believing he was safe from the huge "demon" wolf. However, there was a huge hole and the wolf got in, attacking the dog. I rushed to rescue the dog, but he was already dead. I carried few big meat pieces of his body while running away from the wolf, thinking why the HELL I am carrying those meat pieces!? At the same time I hear this wolf run behind me. It growls, pants and giggles in very eerie way. I keep hearing it say either 500 or 5000 and I instantly know he's speaking about it how many people it has killed. When I started to feel he is right behind me, ready to bite me on my leg, I woke myself up - to realize I'm having sleep paralysis...

2. I only remember how I either went to meet or tried to meet my childhood time's ex-best friend. Apparently I didn't meet her but I still felt like she could hear my thoughts. I told her this might be my only / last chance to talk to her. I thanked her for being my best friend for many years back then when we were kids. I never did that in real life since our friendship ended by me. She started to drink, smoke, date older guys, possibly even use drugs, hang out with not so good people etc. I didn't want to have anything to do with that.

Next I stand on the yard way leading to a small wooden home. It was surrounded by forest, having one tree on the yard road. On the branches hanged different kind of clear crystals which were filled with other, colorful, crystal. On the crystals was carved different positive messages to me. However, few crystals hand anonymous hate messages and I went to reply to them but then I started to think how pointless it was / would be since I didn't know who had left me those messages and I didn't even know would the person come back and see them! So I didn't reply.

I have faint memory of one tall and black mass / figure who I met face to face, and I've very spiritual feeling from it, but I just can't remember it.

[ramrodd]

Did Jesus Speak Greek?

COMMENTARY:

The issue is, did Jesus speak Latin, The Romans' ran the empire in Latin, The centurions ran their centuries in Latin, The original euangelion from Pilate to Tiberius cited by Tertullian conveying the tidings of joy regarding the Talking Cross. Everything that happens in Mark 15:1 -  16:8  happens in Latin, The autograph of the Gospel of Mark was in Latin up the Roman chain of command,, I can imagine the intelligence agency of the Praetorian Guard set up like the British MI6, as defines John LeCarre's George Smiley, Theophilus is the desk officer for Palestine and that part of Pax Romana, The difference between Pax Romana and the British Empire is Lloyds of London, Lloyds of London is a mechanism of Free Enterprise/anti-Piracy global trade. Warfare is trade between kings, What the Talking Cross represents to me in the context of the Liberation Gospel I took to Vietnam and brought back to the World, but nobody is interested, The Liberation Gospel of Cornelius existed for Cornelius before he encountered Jesus, Cornelius was a God Fearer and had a professional relationship withe Yaweh Queen of Battle I'm a  combat vet, I've fought along side Yaweh, Queen of Battle a couple of times and then I played  rugby until 1995 to recapture the intensity without the blood, Jesus is astonished to discover a Pagan who had the same relationship to Yaweh, Queen of Battle Jesus had. Cornelius is justified by faith on exactly the same terms as Abram in Genesis 15:6, This is the point of the Taling Cross: Elohim the verb designated the Italian Regiment of the Praetorian Guard as the New Wine Skin for the New Wine of  Jesus, This is where N/T/Wright's interpretation of Pauline Theology is exactly correct going back to before the Burning Bush. All the Roman soldiers in the Praetorium with Jesus got the scuttle butt about the Talking Cross from the 16 soldiers and centurion at the tomb who had the vision of the Talking Cross around the time whatever created the Shroud of Turin happened and felt like an earht quake because of the  physics of removing a mass in 35 billionth of  second leaves a vacuum that is intantly filled, exaclty like a  clap of thunder, Underground. It may have caused the swoon the guard mount went to for the vision they shared of the Talking Cross. This has to do with the world governance made possible by Pauline Theology, in the way N.T.. Wright understands it. In terms of moral philosophy such as displayed int Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations,, the narrative of the Bible is the epistemological bridge than has been created between the social organization required to build the Pyramids to the metaphysics of Apollo 11, Jesus was trying to bring His Disciples up to speed with the same process theology Cornelius exercised in his role in Latin, The Talking Cross is an endorsement of the Roman Republic as a subordinate element to the larger commonwealth of the Empire. The centurions are the difference between the Real Warfare of everybody else in the Mediterranian and the Roman legions, which are instruments of the state in the True warfare of Clausewitz. The military tradition represented by Cornelius runs straight as a laser to the Command Sergeant Major of the Army, Humanity is suppose to colonize Marx, going bac to the Persians and the Magi of the Bible. The Bible doesn't need to be defended> It needs to be experienced through the Liberation  Gospel, where Salvation is bought an paid for and everyday advancing the Great Commission is another day in Paradise. Eschatology falls into the category of let the dead bury the dead, the same psychological dead end as the Egyptian focus on the after=life.   The issue is, could Jesus speak in Latin? Or were the Roman soldiers fully immersed in Aramaic? Was the linguistic register of the Roman soldier superior to Jesus? The connection of Jesus to Josephus is the feeding of the 5000.   Jesus transforms a lynch mob into a Galilee Militia the size and organization of a Roman legion, This militia participated in the destruction of the 12th Legion in 66 that set off the Jewish Wars and is the military organization Josephus sacrifices for his own ambitions. Or as a servant of the Holy Spirit.

[popopretty]

Storm Bringer Spoilers (6)

One of my favorite scenes where Port Mafia went all out on Verlaine in CODE;4. I like this part because it introduced a lot of Port Mafia’s skill users that have never appeared in both the manga and the other novels. It was so fun to read. 

Dazai made some interesting statements and theories here too. I like the dialogue at the end, where he kinda slipped and let out some of his real emotions. 

PS: I can’t believe I actually typed out 5000 words! I was drafting this on my phone so I didn’t notice the actual amount of words. I know it’s not gonna be perfect and I am gonna make mistakes and I will want to punch myself so much but gosh, I am so proud of myself now!

...

The train driver put one hand on the handle, his eyes staring at the darkness in front of him.

Twenty-seven years of service. He is a veteran. He has held this handle through rains and winds, through the Great War where the bombs poured down like rain, messing up the landform.

Even for him, today’s job is unusual.

The train company he works for was bought out overnight. Together with the trains and the service schedules. Then he was ordered to operate a temporary ride. Yet there is only one passenger on this train. Even when he protested to his boss, what he got was only “stop questioning and just drive.” And then one more thing, “If you run away, it will be even worse.”

The driver took another look at the scenery in front of him. The trees have sunk into the darkness. All he could see were the silver railroad tracks and the yellow headlight. Those are the only guidelines to tell where the train is heading.

What his boss said might actually be true. Putting other cities aside, this is the unorthodox Yokohama. Anything can happen. Even if there is only one passenger, he has no intention to talk to them. If he does so, he might end up having to catch his cut off head with his chest.  _

At that moment, from the eternal darkness of the night that looks no different from the bottom of the ocean, he felt something moving.

His well-trained eyes managed to capture it from the distance. Is that an animal? No. Is it just the trees rustling? No.

That’s a person.

A person is standing on the track.

He pulled the break even before his brain went ”Oh no”.

The compressed air was released, and the train’s speed reducer made a violent metallic noise. But it was too late. The train bumped straight into that human figure.

However, that figure took the train’s hit. A tremendous force was applied on the train. The first car jumped forward. It was like they were being pulled, the rear cars also jumped off, derailed, rolling over into the woods. Like a rampaging huge iron snake, the train hollowed out a big area around it, knocked down a bunch of trees, before finally stopping.

The person who witnessed the whole event, Verlaine, smiled with satisfaction. He took the train head-on but suffered no scratches. He started walking. Towards the car with Mori Ougai. Jumping over the cars half-buried underground, getting through the cars whose electric system were starting to catch fire, he reached his target.

Mori Ougai was lying face-down. The train was fully flipped sideway, the walls become the floors and the ceilings became the walls. He was facing away from Verlaine, not moving an inch. From beneath his body, a pool of blood is slowly spreading.

He did investigate the target’s skill in advanced. It’s not the kind of secret that a formal spy like him cannot find out. Mori Ougai does not possess a skill that can withstand such an impact.

“Too easy.”

Verlaine muttered and approached his target. He is not as stupid to walk away without confirming if his target is really dead or not. He is going to check and if by some rare chances the target is still alive, he will finish them off for real.

Verlaine flipped Mori Ougai’s body over. Then his eyes opened wide.

That was not Mori Ougai.

That was a man he had never seen. He was wearing a wig and clothes to disguise as Mori Ougai. But Verlaine’s assassination preparation was thorough. He had set up a hidden surveillance device in the last station. And the images taken from there were definitely Mori Ougai’s.

When he grabbed the man trying to confirm his identity, suddenly a hand was put on his chest.

“Too easy.”

A powerful repulsive force coming from a skill blew Verlaine away. He flew through the glass windows and landed on the humus soil outside. He rolled further while scattering the soil, and hit his back against a tree before finally stopping.

”... Not bad.”

Verlaine push his hand on the tree to stand up.

He brushed off the dirt from his clothes and started thinking. The face he saw at that moment moment, the repulsive force coming from his palm. That was probably one of Port Mafia’s constituent members, the one who with the repulsion skill, Hirotsu Ryurou.

A double!

They knew about the hidden device and let Mori Ougai’s image captured on purpose, then quickly switched the double in. In other words, Verlaine’s assassination plan was seen through. Ever since he came to this country, he only knew one person who has the ability to outsmart him with such finesse. 

“Hello, Verlaine-san.” A small was sitting on the edge of a car, on top of the overturned train.

“Dazai-kun”, Verlaine said as he picked up the hat that had fallen to his feet. “I have heard the saying that age doesn’t matter when it comes to talent, but you are really frightening.”

“You are just bad.” Dazai said with a dry voice as though he was lecturing Verlaine. “This time you acted on your personal feelings too much. When you are like that, I can read all your moves. Why are you so obsessed with Chuuya?”

“Is it that strange for someone to be concerned about his brother?”, Verlaine said as he dusted the mud off his clothes.

“It is, a lot.” Dazai affirmed. “First of all, what made you believe so firmly that Chuuya was your brother?”

“What?” Verlaine narrowed his eyes.

“You saw that too, right? Chuuya’s original experimental body. Turned into bones and died.” Dazai spoke while swinging his legs that were dangling out of the train top. “That looks almost the same as Chuuya in terms of appearance. In terms of abilities, too. And a lot of other things in common. What if that thing was actually a skill-containing artificial life form, and the Chuuya who is living outside, whose only redeeming trait is being energetic, was the original one? Can someone like you who is not an expert, someone who has only browsed through limited materials from the past, see through that?”

“That is impossible.” Verlaine shook his head. “I’m not as stupid as to mistake the target in my infiltration mission. What I stole away from the lab nine years ago was undoubtedly the same as me, an artificial life-form.”

“If I look it up I will understand right away.” Dazai said casually. “Fortunately this time, the guys from the labs has demonstrated the method to rewrite the code formula inside Chuuya. If I capture some of those researchers using Mafia’s power, they will be more than happy to tell me how to read those codes. And then I will know which one Chuuya is actually. We have all the time in the world.”

“You seem pretty confident that Chuuya is human, don’t you?”

“I am”, Dazai laughed with a sigh. “There is no way a man-made string of code could create such a personality that I detest that much.”

Verlaine signed then started walking towards Dazai. His footsteps were heavy, as if he had to clean up a lot of tedious work.

“I can gently whole-heartedly explain to you the reason that was a misunderstanding... but now I have another job for you.“ he said, walking up the gentle slope that he fell from. “That is to spit out where Mori himself, not his double, is. It’s a painstaking job. Literally”

“So you have no intention to back off?”

“Of course not.”

Dazai didn’t look at anything, he gazed aimlessly into the air, “Is that so?”. Then he spoke with a disappointed face, “Then it is your loss.” A sniper bullet went straight for Verlaine’s head. Verlaine bent his upper body, and felt down the slope of humus. He rolled three times then looked up, looking at Dazai with stern eyes.

“Sniper?”

Before he could finish his sentence, yet another bullet struck Verlaine’s forehead. He almost fell to his side, pushing his hands against the ground to support.

“Your ability only works on things that you can touch.” Dazai said, swinging his legs as he looked down on his opponent. “That’s why the bullets that hit you will hit you. They just stop immediately. However, if we aim a larger sniper bullet, which has several times the velocity of a normal bullet, then it will still give you a blow the moment you use your gravity to stop it. Also...”

Dazai casually raised his hand.

From the top of the hill, through the gaps of the trees, from inside the humus, on top of big trees, more than fifty sniper bullets were fired at Verlaine at the same time. All the bullets pierced him, Verlaine growled.

Verlaine tried to hide under the shades of the trees while protecting himself by gravity. But even in the places he ran to, he got attacked from behind. Even if he tried to lower his posture to hide, the attack would come from above the trees. He had nowhere to run.

“To be able to set up this many snipers... in such a short time...”

A bullet pierced through Verlaine’s clothes and slid through his skin. It’s not a wound that could make him bleed, but there are so many of them. Ten shots in one second, then twenty, and more kept coming. It’s like the air that surrounds his whole body has become his enemies and attacked him.

Verlaine had no choice but to protect his head with his two arms and rolled himself up.

“You picked the wrong opponent, Verlaine-san.” Dazai chuckled. “I am an expert when it comes to dealing with gravity. Because no matter if I wake or sleep, the only thing I think about is how to annoy Chuuya.”

“Don’t underestimate me!”

While enduring the rain of bullets that were striking him, Verlaine grabbed a tree close by and pulled it out of the ground.

“You think you can kill me with this kind of rock throwing play? Verlaine swung the tree, trying to throw it. He planned to use the tree as a spear to crush the snipers who were hiding faraway in the dark.

However, that hand of his stopped halfway.

It was because the tree had been cut into pieces.

“Hoho, if I look closely, you look terribly like my subordinate.”

There was a flowing female voice as graceful as the sound of harp.

The burning bright red hair, eyes of the same color. Her crimson red

ombré looked like the color of ripen maple leaves. The most eye-catching thing was what floated beside her, a masked demon in a kimono. The demon was tall with long hair. She carried a sword of almost the same height as a child, as if it had no weights at all. The golden kimono melt into the air from her knees downwards, showing that it was not a real body.

“However, it was Mr. Brother who selfishly tried to poach our boy from us. I guess I can let that go after cutting off one of your limbs or two. So you’d better get lost quickly.”

Ozaki Kouyou. The Port Mafia’s young sword-woman. A powerful skill user who took Chuuya as her subordinate, accompanied by the golden demon, an embodiment of her skill, a beautiful beast.

Kouyou rolled a bright peony-colored umbrella on her shoulder. And then she twisted its handle and pulled it out. A silver blade appeared. A hidden sword.

“Mafia’s skill user?” Verlaine smiled like a beast. “But what can a mere ability user with two swords can do against gravity?”

Verlaine lowered his posture, ready to jump at Kouyou.

“Who said that I was alone?”

Verlaine’s body sank in.

Startled, Verlaine looked at his feet. The ground undulated like a snake, swallowing his two legs and even crawling up. 

Verlaine was caught by surprise. He got rid of the gravity of his own body and jumped up. He landed on a trunk of a tree nearby. But even the trunk that definitely looked tough started to liquify the moment his shoes touched. It reached for Verlaine, trying to eat him up.

“This is...” Verlaine leaped again. However, the spot he planned to land on already turned into a mud with a will of its own, opening its mouth to wait for him.

“Hahaha. Keep running, young man. Youngsters like you exist to entertain this old man. Please die quickly and offer your head to me.”

Coming from the darkness of the woods was a big, strong man who looked just like a big tree. A military uniform that has faded in places. His bristle looked like a sewing needle. He wore a judo belt around his waist, and wooden clogs on his feet The arms folding in front of his chest were as thick as a tree that has lived for hundred years.

Port Mafia’s elite, a veteran who survived the Great War. His nickname in the organization is “Colonel.”

He swung his arms like an ancient tree and squeezed his fist tightly in front of his eyes. At the same time, the ground started to muffle. The liquified soil, trees, even the overturned train, all rushed to attack Verlaine in the air. An skill user who can manipulate objects and turn them into liquids?

Verlaine kicked the first wave of liquified soil that came towards him and retreated backward. But the soil was also coming from that direction. Even if he tried to change his orbit to run, liquified soil was still coming from beneath his feet and above his head. If they touched him they would still be blown away by the gravity, but the liquid will start to cover up from the top again, giving no time for Verlaine to prepare a counter attack.

On top of that, as if to stitch up the gaps, there were sniper shots coming from all directions.

“Tch...”

Verlaine densified a small amount of dust in the air, and stepped on that to leap his body up. He wanted to take some distance. Abilities that manipulate things like Colonel’s, in most of the cases won’t work for things that are out of their sights. That’s why he planned to hide deep in the wood then throw a huge rock enforced by gravity to finish them off.

An odd thing entered Verlaine’s field of vision at that moment.

A watch.

A watch was floating in the air.

From the outside, it looked just like a normal pocket watch. A dial with numbers, a long hand and a short hand, a crown, and the internal mechanism peeking out from the edge of the dial.

The strange thing about it was that it had a size of a man’s upper body. Also, it kept turning around as if it was staring at Verlaine.

Verlaine, who possesses a wide range of knowledge on skill users, sensed the danger from that watch almost immediately.

He tore off one button from the sleeve of his suit and amplified its gravity until it weighted dozens of kilograms. Then he threw it towards the watch.

That button comet holding enough power to knock down a building, however, couldn't interfere with the watch. It smoothly slipped through the watch, knocked off trees and disappeared into darkness.

“You can’t destroy that thing.”

A gloomy voice came from the ground.

Verlaine diverted his gaze and without his notice, a boy was already sitting on the ground. He was hugging his knees with his two arms, looking miserable. He looked up at Verlaine.

“It’s no use. That thing looks at everyone. Including me, and you. We have no choices but to die. One day it will find us. One day it will catch up with us. It’s　“time”. It’s the enemy of us all.”

He looked and sounded miserably. His clothes were so long it became awkward. The hems were all frayed. The boy who was so skinny you could see his bones through his clothes glared at Verlaine and waved his finger as if he was telling him “Come here, come here.”

The two hands of the watch clicked and pointed to the number 12 at the same time. Immediately afterwards, the watch in the air was sucked into Verlaine.

That was not a metaphor, it was literally sucked into him, into his chest.

Being wary of the disappeared watch, Verlaine stiffened his body. But nothing happened. There is nothing within his sig...

The liquified soil twisted around his legs.

Startled, Verlaine shook the liquid off by gravity. Then he looked around. He had got pretty far away for sure. It was so strange that the liquified soil could chase him this close. Right after that was a shock. A sniper bullet hit his head. Verlaine span halfway in the air. He landed on the ground, scraping the humus to stop.

It was weird. The speed of the sniper attack went up. The speed of the bullet by the moment it reached him was so fast that even if he used gravity to bounce it back, he was also blown away by a corresponding force.

“Did they replace their guns or bullets with more powerful ones? No, this is...”

The ground liquified again. Verlaine jumped out to dodge, before being eaten by the soil. But the speed of the liquid tentacles that extended and followed him also increased. Verlaine took a quick look around. From the treetops that were hit by the sniper attack just now, leaves were falling down. They were not fluttering, they were dropping as if they were stabbing the ground. This means, the attack speed didn’t get faster...

“Was my time... slowed down?”

“Everyone will die before me.” the gloomy boy stared at Verlaine with dubious eyes filled with hatred. “Brothers, parents, everyone will be killed by time. But I will get away with it. With this special power of mine”

A skill user who meddles with time. For the first time, Verlaine got a cold sweat on his forehead.

Time manipulation is not just a powerful skill, it is a extraordinary skill out of this world. As far as Verlaine knew, there were only a few cases reported in the world. The fist on the list of those time manipulation skill users who are separated from the world’s reasons, was a former skilled mechanic, H.G. Wells. After creating the skilled weapons called the “Shell”, she disappeared and became the world’s worst terrorist.

The time manipulation type of skills tinker the basic principles of this world, and rewrite them at will. Because if you look from the universe’s perspective, time and space are equivalent. The time manipulation skill users hold the same power that can alter the world, just like Verlaine’s gravity. Verlaine whose movements have become dulled because of the time delay　was flooded with Mafia’s attacks. All the bullets, the swords and liquified soil.

Even if he tried to retreat, because his time has been delayed, he could only move sluggishly as if he was under water.

Verlaine’s expressions became stiff.

Dazai gracefully looked at the wooded area echoing with gun shots and roaring sounds. He looked down at the battlefield that had turned into a hell, with such a carefree expression that cooled down in the night breeze._

“This is the rule of this world.” Dazai spoke like he was singing. “It applied in all times and ages, all creatures, the absolute truth. In this world, a group is stronger than an individual. A skill user is stronger than a group. And then...”

Feeling the pleasant cold breeze coming from the blasts of the battle on his cheeks, Dazai smiled.

“... a group of skill users are stronger than one skill user.”

Verlaine pushed his body’s gravity to the max. With a powerful driving force that surpassed the effect of the time manipulation skill, he quickly escaped from the battlefield. Verlaine’s bones cracked at the sudden speed acceleration that exceeded his limit.

Even when the danger struck in front of him, Verlaine’s judgement did not falter. It was not yet a hopeless situation. He would retreat as much as he could, taking as much distance he could from the waves of skill attacks. Then he would fix his posture, manipulate the gravity of the bullets that managed to reach him, repel them and knock down the skill users, one by one. That would be his win then.

Only three skill users. Not too much of a difference in strength.

Suddenly, blood came out from his skin.

Verlaine looked at his cuffs. The skin under his clothes was peeled off, exposing the flesh inside. But only a little blood came out. He felt almost no pains.

He landed down on the ground as a reflex. Upon touching the ground, the skin inside his shoes also came off. He could tell by the slippery feel from it. But again, there was no pain.

That was a new skill attack. But the true nature of it immediately became clear.

His breath was white.

His skin is frozen, there was frost on his eyelashes.

“Let us be held. By the frozen love. Let us be held. By the frozen flower that breaks in its full bloom.” the new skill user appeared, singing with a thin and screechy voice.

Long, white hair, white fur around her shoulders, white breath. And a crimson red rose on her chest. Every time the woman takes one breath, the trees around her froze, cracked up and snapped due to the water inside it freezing and expanding.

Verlaine understood it right away.

A skill user who can cool off the temperate. The reason why his skin was peeled off earlier was because the skin was exposed to the low temperature and got stuck to the inside of his clothes and shoes. His body really became that cold in just an instant. He was frozen from flesh to born, but not much time has even passed.

A super dangerous skill user. Freezing attack does not involve physical clashes. That’s why he can’t dodge them using gravity. It is his natural enemy

Another sniper bullet hit Verlaine’s shoulder. He groaned in pain.

The bullet was cold. It froze by the time it touched his skin, forming a frost pillar. The low temperature invaded into him through the wound, eating up his flesh.

The enemies attacks were too synchronized. Time delay, freezing, sniping. Apparently, it was a tactic that had been put together to block all of Verlaine’s strengths and exploit his weaknesses. There is still something strange about this. He has been retreating at a considerable speed since a while ago, yet the gunshots never stopped. His escape route was totally seen through. Normally if he ran at this speed in the woods in the middle of the night, he would immediately disappear from the telescopic sight. Losing the targets, sniping attack would definitely become impossible. So why?

“Hihihihi, what a sweet face. Hey, just between us, but if you cry and slobber and apologize here, maybe I will let you go this time?”

The voice was close. Really close.

Verlaine turned to that direction.  No one was there... No.

In the middle of no where, a hole the size of a coin was opened. It was like the space was burnt and hollowed out, and on the other side of the hole was another different space. From that side, a black eye was staring at this side through the hole.

“Yes, it’s me. You are being watched. From now on, you can be assured even if you lock your toilet door hihihihi”

The hole was so small to see the entire thing. But that eye alone is enough. The eye was filled with malice. It had been watching Verlaine, chasing him and reporting about his positions all the time.

Verlaine fired a rotary kick by reflex at the hole.

“Oops.”

Right before being hit, the hole closed up and disappeared.

“I’m here.”

The voice came from behind. When he turned around, the same hole had been opened in a different place, looking straight at Verlaine.

That was the type of skill that connects space and monitor the targets. The skill user was probably sitting in another safe place, and monitoring the whole battle using their space connection skill. He couldn’t attack the actual skill user. If he tried to touch it, it would close immediately so he wouldn’t be able to destroy it using gravity.

Just how many skill users they have thrown in this battle?

“Hihihi, I have a present for you. From Port Mafia with love.”

From the coin-sized hole, flower petals flew out. Countless petals surrounded Verlaine then started to shine white. Yet another new skill.

The moment Verlaine tried to take a quick avoidance action, all the flower petals exploded at once.

From the train where he sat, Dazai could see the light from that explosion very clearly. The white light split open the woods at night, the afterglow burnt into the night sky.

Dazai looked at that scene, he was grinning.

“How is it going, Dazai-dono?”

From inside the train, a middle-aged man appear. He was wearing the boss’ outfit. He was the one who played the boss’ double, Hirotsu.

“As you can see, it is going well. So well that it is boring.”

In the direction he was pointing, the explosion sound was echoing, trees were falling, sniper flashes and low frequency noises were ringing non-stop.

Hirotsu took off the wig, put on the monocle he always has on, and narrowed his eyes.

“As one would expect.”

“Of course, I had to earn a lot of time to prepare all this. “ said Dazai, who was crossing his legs elegantly like a royal. “Chuuya and I had a terrible hard time fighting Randou-san. So this time I came prepared. Just to kill Mr. Assasin King from Europe, I had to gather a total of 422 people from the combat troops and 28 skill users. That is the full strength that Mafia can put in now.” At the scene where they were looking, the cold air and gun flashes kept shining. Verlaine tried to escape by threading his way in between the trees but a yellow-white ray burnt off the whole night sky, blocking that escape route. That was yet another skill user.

The plan was extremely simple. Setting up a trap and waiting. Chuuya and Adam drafted the same tactic before to defeat the Assasin King. The plan that Dazai carried out was basically the same. Identify the next target, set up traps around that target, and ambush Verlaine from behind when he appears.

The only difference between this and Chuuya’s plan is the scale of those traps. What have been set up as traps this time, was the entire Mafia’s overwhelming combat unit. The result was a one-sided destruction.

“We can keep this battle going for the whole night.” Dazai said as if he was whispering to Verlaine from far away. “Verlaine-san, you are a flawless assassin. With that vivid skill of yours, you have never once been traced down and surrounded like that, haven’t you? That’s why you have no experiences when being cornered by such a skill users organization. Even Randou-san was afraid of that dangerous flawlessness of yours.”

Dazai took out the leather notebook.

Rimbaud’s memoir. The journal Rimbaud had kept about the birth as well as full accounts of skill user Verlaine.

“I mourn for you, Verlaine-san.” Dazai put his hand on the notebook and said as if he was praying. “I mourn not for your death, but for your birth. No one mourns for you for being born. The only one who does is you yourself. That is the reason you fights... I think you are amazing. You despise the fact that you were born, you despise your own power, you despise the world. And by doing that, you came to accept your meaningless life. How wonderful that is. I don’t have that kind of courage. That’s why I wanted to talk with you more. But this is already goodbye.”

Dazai stood up, turning his back on the battlefield in front of him. He walked away.

“Dazai-dono?”

“Report to me when it is done.”

Dazai’s voice powerlessly fell to his feet. He walked away.

The next moment. A black way swelled over the battlefield.

...

[anagentinwriting]

Lifeline - Part 1

Summary: (First Responders!AU) Moving to Los Angeles and living with your brother, Thor, was never part of your plan nor was being a 9-1-1 dispatcher, but plans change when you are faced with your own emergencies. In your case, it was leaving behind a relationship that wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. Will this be the fresh start you were hoping for or will your past find a way to catch up with you?

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Odinson!Sister Reader

Word Count: ~1800

Warnings: Car accident, angst

Lifeline Masterlist / Main Masterlist

A line ringing over your headset notifies you another emergency call is coming in. You cleared your head, preparing for anything, and clicked the spacebar, answering it, “911, what’s your emergency?” 

“Bro, that was insane,” the male voice said over the phone. “You’re gonna be famous on YouTube.” 

“Excuse me, sir? What seems to be the problem?” you asked, letting out a sigh. 

“My friend is having trouble breathing, and his throat feels like it’s on fire.”

“What’s the address?”

“576 Rose Lane in Westwood.” 

You typed the address into your computer, signaling the nearest available unit to the caller's location. “First responders are on their way. Can you tell me what he was doing before this happened?”

“We were doing the cinnamon challenge.” You rolled your eyes. “I thought it was harmless. Then, he was gagging, and then he coughed, and a puff of cinnamon came out of his nose. It was awesome; he looked like a dragon.” It's been a while since you got a call about an internet challenge gone wrong, but it's been forever since you got a cinnamon challenge one. You didn't even know that challenge was still around.  “Oh fuck!”

“Is everything okay? What happened?” 

“He collapsed. He’s not moving. Should I shake him awake?”

“He probably passed out, but paramedics are only a few minutes away. Is he still breathing?”

“I don’t think so,” he panicked.

“Remember to stay calm, I’ll help you through this the best I can, okay? Okay, now I am going to have to ask you to administer CPR. Do you know what to do?” 

“Sort of. I learned it in health class a few years ago.”

“Perfect. It's 30 chest compressions followed by two breaths going to the rhythm of the song Staying Alive. You can do this.”

“Ok---okay. Yeah. Right, right,” he mumbled. Hearing him set the phone down on the ground, he started counting and doing chest compressions.

The responding unit was about a block away, and once they arrived, you could hear the sirens coming through the phone call.

“Odinson, take over compressions,” a lady’s voice commanded. “Kid, come with me.”

“Is he going to be...” the line went dead as he hung up his phone.  

You leaned back in your chair, rubbing your eyes. This wasn’t anything new; when help arrives, people hang up, and you don’t get to know how it ends, but maybe it was for the best. You sit back up, seeing your reflection in one of the many screens in front of you. At least, you knew most of the firefighters from Station 107 at the scene, including your brother Thor, if you ever wanted to know how it ended.

It's tough, taking call after call, emergency after emergency with little to no recovery time in between. It’s a stressful job that is emotionally and physically taxing. It requires extreme focus, patience, and puts you under a certain kind of pressure. The pressure of wanting to help and do everything you possibly can when this person you never met puts their life in your hands. You never know what the outcome will be, but you try to help them get through what might be the scariest moment in their life. It’s those calls, the ones you were able to save, that keep you coming back to work.

You stepped away from your command center and headed towards the kitchenette, spotting Luis rummaging through the fridge. It wasn’t unusual, but it did always bring a smile to your face. It was hard to believe he was one of the dispatchers who showed you the ropes after relocating to Los Angeles three months ago. 

“Hey, Luis.” He turned around with a doughnut in his mouth, quickly removing it and shooting you a carefree smile.  

“Hey, Chica, get any weird calls yet? You know I love hearing about those weird ones, right.” 

“Nothing out of the ordinary, but a guy called earlier saying his whole body hurt everywhere he poked. I told him to drive to the emergency room and get his finger looked at because it’s probably broken. Oh, and there was another cinnamon challenge victim.”

“Another one, I thought that craze was over.” He shook his head. “But I did hear about this crazy call that came in last night, right. It wasn’t so much crazy, but one of those nuisance calls, you know what I’m saying, the kind where you’re like, ‘why are you calling, this isn’t an emergency type of situation?’ Anyways, Cameron Klein took the call; you know the dude with the great hair, the kind you just want to run your hands through. It has the perfect fluff to curl ratio. I mean, I touched it once, and it was like a cloud. I asked him what products he used in his hair, and he was like…” 

“Luis, how does this relate to the call?”

“Oh, right. Sorry, sorry, sorry, so there was this lady caller, right. She was telling Great Hair how she couldn't leave her car because there was a hostile raccoon outside her door. So then, Great Hair was like why don’t you go out a different door. And this caller says ‘yo I tried, but it’s like this trash panda can read my mind, right. He follows me when I move to the other side, and he’s like crazy, stupid fast like a rocket.’ And here comes the best part, Great Hair was like, ‘Hey girl, you better run fast then,’ and hung up,” he beamed with a slight chuckle.

“Oh my god, people really need to learn what an emergency is,” you chuckled, shaking your head. 

“You know that’s right, but duty calls.” He tilted his head towards the door, carrying two doughnuts and a huge mug full of coffee. 

“Later, Luis.”

Years ago, you never would have imagined you would be working as a dispatcher in Los Angeles. You preferred helping people hands-on, which is why you became an ER nurse. It was the feeling of never knowing what was going to come charging through those doors next that excited you. But being a dispatcher gave you a whole different kind of thrill because you could only use your voice to help.

The rest of your shift flew by until you were on hour eight of your ten-hour shift. A pileup involving a semi jackknifing on the highway forced a huge collision of cars. All the units in the area along with a few on the outskirts came in to assist. It was the same call coming in multiple times, and all you could say was help was already on the way.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Send help,” the woman cried, telling you her address.

“Ma’am, I am going to need you to tell me what is going on?”

“A power line…a power line fell into our pool, and my daughter is trapped on her unicorn floaty in the water. I don’t…I don’t know what to do.”

“Stay calm, ma’am. My name is YN, and I’m dispatching a unit to your home now.” You switched lines to the highway accident, getting on a line with Captain Danvers from Station 107, who was sending three individuals to the scene right away. You switched back to the caller. “Okay, I will need you to stay calm. What is your daughter’s name?”

“Morgan, she’s five years old.”

“Please, whatever you do, make sure Morgan stays on the floaty because it is protecting her from the water. There is a good chance the power line is sending more than 5000 volts through the water.”

“Okay, okay, I can do that, “ the mother breathed. “Honey, please stay on the tube.”

“I'm going to try to get in contact with the power company to turn it off.” You looked up the power company in the area, and someone slid next to you. You glance over, seeing Bruce get to work on calling the power company. You nodded at him, staying on the line with the mom. “Ma’am, has help arrived yet?”

“No, but I can hear the sirens.” You peeked at Bruce, but he shook his head, still trying to get a hold of the power company. “They are coming through the back gate now.”

“Ma’am, can you hand the phone to one of the firemen?” You bit your lip, studying the layout of their home on one of your monitors. There were flowers all over their backyard, and you got an idea. 

“Hello, this is Fireman Rogers.”

“Hi, Fireman Rogers. This is 9-1-1 dispatcher, YN, how is it looking there?”

“Well, on the drive-in, we saw that a truck hit the power line pole, which caused the pole to fall into the pool. The driver isn’t in any serious condition, but one of our EMT’s is looking him over,” he informed in a deep voice. “Then, we have a pool vibrating with energy, but I assume you already know that part.”

“Do you have a plan in place? We are still trying to get a hold of the power company.”

“There are a few more floaties by the pool. I could ride one over to Morgan and pull her to safety?”

“Really? Where did you get that from the macho man handbook?”

“I don’t think that book exists, YN,” he added, making you scoff.

“I may have an idea.” You narrowed your eyes, playing out the idea in your head. 

“What did you have in mind?”

“I can view the whole home on one of my monitors, and there are a ton of flowers. So, I can only assume a garden hose must be nearby.”

“Yup, I see it.”

“Okay, perfect. Grab the hose and cut off the metal ends; it's rubber, so it won't conduct electricity. Then, have you and another fireman take the hose and walk along the opposite sides of the pool. Have Morgan grab ahold of it and carefully pull her back to the edge."

“That’s genius, YN. Thanks for your help,” he acknowledged, making you crack a side smile. Few people said thank you in this job, but when they did, you appreciated it. “Here’s your phone back, ma’am.”

Morgan’s mother's breath was shaky and staggered through the phone. She was scared and had every right to be. If you were in that situation, you would be, too. “Oh my god, it’s working. It’s working,” the mother shouted into your ear. “Are you okay, honey? Are you hurt?”

“I am okay, Mommy,” Morgan replied before the phone line went dead.

You smiled at yourself in one of the now blank screens. It was these moments why you loved what you were doing; a happy ending. Some calls never get a happy ending, but when they do, those are the ones you try to remember when a stressful call comes in.

________

AN: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. There is a long way to go and I promise things will definitely get more interesting. This was just a quick intro to some of the many characters that will make an appearance/cameo. Comments always welcome! Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll stick with me! 

[evenmoregreener]

Questionnaire of Laruku from B-PASS magazine (March. 1995)

Another translation of a translation from Russian. This "interview" was translated for Russian l'arc fan-club in 2018. I haven't found any other English translations on the net, so I decided that it will be interesting for you to read something like this. All credits are down below, big thank you to the original translator, what a great woman! 

The original Russian text has some typos plus English isn't my first language, that's why text might seem a bit of strange. About special signs: (translator's note) - notes of an original translator; "*" - my own notes; (?) - neither me nor the original translator understood the context. Please, enjoy!

1. Date of birth Hyde: 13th of Friday Tetsu: 3 of October Ken: 28th of November, Sagittarius Sakura: Secret 2. Blood type Н: Color of the blood - red Т: А or 0 К: АВ S: The hot blood of a man runs in my veins 3. Place of birth Н: Jelsarem's Rod Т: Kansai К: Alaska’s native S: Kingdom of Nerima (Nerima is a ward in Tokyo, where Sakura was born - translator's note) 4. Height, weight, shoe size, visual acuity Н: “?” Т: Small, light, 24,5 – 25 cm К: 178 cm, 56 kg, shoe – 25,5 cm S: 5 feet 8 inches, 120 feet, 10 inches, about 1,0 and 1,0 5. Body size Н: As in the previous Т: I don’t know К: I prefer В 85, W 58 H 88 S: “Nice body” 6. Which musical instruments and how many years do you play? Н: I've been playing guitar for 9 years Т: 11 years on bass К: From about high school S: Secret 7. Where did you work? Н: Mister Donats Т: At the record store К: Jewelry store, tutor S: Secret 8. Skills Н: Shaolin martial arts, second dan Т: Calligraphy К: Youth baseball S: Secret 9. Hobby and special abilities (besides music) Н: Bite Т: Radio controlled models К: Tetris S: To make people do something

10. Philosophy of life Н: Do not stick sticks into the rice Т: I sleep today for tomorrow, tomorrow I sleep for today. (a phrase from manga - translator's note) К: Hurry slowly S: Live today 11. Real name Н: Jiji Т: Teppi К: Jakenosuke S: Sakurajima Samuel Tarot

12. Favorite musicians Н: Depeche mode Т: Me К: The The (an English new wave band — translator's note) S: Ishihara Yūjirō (Japanese actor, singer, film producer - translator's note) 13. Favorite celebrity Н: Takeda Tetsuya (Japanese singer and actor - translator's note) Т: Me К: Isshiki Sae (Japanese actress — translator's note) S: Saburo Ishikura (Japanese actor - translator's note) 14. Respected people Н: Yoshitada Hirai * Т: Me К: Professor Ichinose S: Takakura Ken (Japanese actor - translator's note) 15. Favorite films and films that you’ve recently watched Н: The Omen. Recently watched Jurassic Park. Т: Favorite film – The Outsider, recently watched “Cría cuervos” (Spanish film of 1976 - translator's note) К: Perfect World, cried when watched, although usually I don't cry during films S: Jingi Naki Tatakai (Battles Without Honor and Humanity) 16. Favorite books (including manga) and books that you’ve recently read Н: Stephen King. Recently read compilation that’s called Night Souls (?). Pretty interesting. Т: «Harper’s Bazaar», Vogue Italia, recently read Matsumoto Hitoshi’s “Isho”. К: «Kirin», about motorcycles, novels for men. It’s a bit of awkward, but I buy Young Rose which I love to read for a long time. S: I can't list everything. 17. Alcohol and tobacco Н: Both, about 10 years already. Alcohol – a little, tobacco – one piece. ** Т: I don’t smoke. Alcohol – yes, except sake, I drink rarely though. К: I love Kassis, always have it at home, drink 2-3 times a week. I don’t smoke right now. S: Any alcohol, I can drink a lot. Per day I smoke more than two packs (Seven Star) 18. Do you love animals? Do you have any pets? Н: I do, but I have allergy. Т: I do. I had 5 dogs and one cat, now I don’t. К: I love obedient and loving. S: More than pets I love girls. 19. The concert that left the strongest impression Н: GASTUNK in EGG PLANT (legendary club in Osaka of 80’s - translator's note) Т: Shiki-Yakou (the name of tour Dead End of 1985) К: In Aichi Kinrou Kaikan (concert hall in Nagoya — translator's note) S: Radio concert Anikies (Dankon Anikies – fictional band that was made up by ken, sakura and kyo (Die in Cries), when ken and sakura were guests at kyo’s radio program «kyo MIDNIGHT　ROCK　CITY» on 9th of December, 1994 - translator's note) 20. Three most beloved albums Н: Some Great Reward of Depeche Mode, God’s Own Medicine of The Mission, La Vie En Rose of D'erlanger*** Т: Laruku’s new album, Tierra, Dune К: Black Sabath – Heaven & Hell; Cure - Disintegration; Kisugi Takao (Japanese singer and composer - translator's note) - Best collection S: Secret 21. Recently bought CDs and your impressions of them Н: No Т: Second Coming/The Stone Roses К: Suede (Britpop band - translator's note) S: Secret 22. Concert that you visited recently Н: Haven't been on the concerts for about a year, but sometimes before Shibuya live watched Modern Choki Chokies (a Japanese pop band from the early 1990s - translator's note) Т: Echobelly (a British rock band — translator's note) К: kyo-chan’s solo S: Secret 23. TV shows that you often watch and radio shows that you often listen to Н: Doramas and MIDNIGHT ROCK CITY Т: TV – BEAT UK, I don't listen to radio К: Yoru-ni dakarete (dorama of 1994 - translator's note), though it has already ended. I don’t listen to radio, since I don’t have one S: I’m interested neither in TV nor radio 24. Favorite dish, favorite color and flower Н: Japanese cuisine. Monochrome color. Flowers that grow well in an apartment, even if they are not watered Т: Sushi, tillandsia, cacti, I like all of the colors К: Favorite dish – ice cream, caviar, sushi. Favorite flower – orchid. Favorite color – silver S: Anton rib (dish that was mentioned in Kinnikuman - translator's note), sakura, black 25. Musical instruments that you can play and ones that you want to learn to play Н: Guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, would like to learn to play flute. Т: Several guitars and basses К: Guitar, bass, synthesizer. Would like to learn how to play saxophone S: Variety which you can find in stores 26. Thing that you want the most right now Н: Hot blood of some girl. Т: Sharp Zaurus P1-5000 К: Onsen, pool S: “?” 27. How do you spend your weekend? Н: Sleep Т: Vacantly К: Go back and forth S: Stay under the waterfall 28. What do you do when you are all alone at home? Н: Sleep and writing lyrics Т: Play the guitar, listen to music К: Watch TV… S: Drumming Japanese drums 29. A dream that you have seen lately. Н: Back at night souls of dead sheep were hurrying through the window, I was worried where they are going. I told Sakura: when the sheep will come back, let’s go after them, but they didn’t come back. Т: A dream where I somehow ended up eating sushi in America. К: Relocation S: In loincloth and a bandage on the head I wandered in a stormy sea. And that was awesome! 30. Most attractive feature Н: Compact, compact and compact Т: “?” К: Ankles. Strong side: strong legs. Weak side: often catch cold. S: 31. Role in the band. Н: Probably, bringing everybody together Т: President К: Am-group (?) S: Educator of the head of singing monkeys 32. Describe in one word what Laruku is Н: Cloudy sky after heavy rain Т: Rock band К: Rainbow S: Soul of a man 33. What do you expect from the other band members? Н: I’d like everybody to stay as healthy as they are now Т: Perfection ��: Rainbow! S: Soul of a man 34. Where do you want to go abroad? Н: Paris Т: To America К: Any countries where I could live. To drive back and forth S: Country on the shore of the Japanese Sea 35. Where have you been? Where have you recently traveled? Н: During the vacation in September traveled to Nagano to visit Osamu's house four years later, I would like to live calmly in the district of Karuizawa station. Т: To Okinawa. It was beautiful. К: Morocco. It was hot. S: In Morocco I saw the waves of the Atlantic Ocean 36. What do you recommend to see in your hometown? Н: On the roof of Nisshou haitsu Т: A lot of yankees. К: The view on the fast stream S: Secret 37. Enjoyable things that you like during tours (except for concerts) Н: Food Т: Except for concerts, nothing (laughs) К: You can overeat S: Meet different locals with the soul of a man 38. What do you definitely do before the concert, what do you pay special attention to? Н: I am in a deep thought Т: I listen to Metallica at full volume К: Going to a toilet S: Warm up and stretch of the muscles 39. What do you pay special attention to before the interview? Н: I find out the topic Т: So as not to be late К: I try to be serious S: Worried about whether I can express and tell about my masculine soul 40. What do you carry with you all the time? Н: Watch and two bracelets because I like them Т: Nothing К: Bracelet, necklace - I feel uncomfortable without them S: Pants 41. Memorable thing Н: The bracelet that I bought when I first came abroad. I really wanted it, but pretended that I am not interested, and bargained. But since there is no set price, I don’t know if it’s cheap or not. Т: No К: Various guitars, they are associated with different memories. S: Secret 42. Three biggest news in the last six months Н: 1. Motoka’s wedding. 2. The house in front of my window was demolished. 3. Because of the house, which has now been built, the lighting has become worse. Т: Promotion trip; creation of an official fan club; award from the director! К: Couldn't go to the sea. Swam in a pool in Morocco. Was in onsen. S: Secret 43. Plans for the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new Н: Composing music and lyrics Т: Car driving and karaoke К: Continue visiting onsen. S: Polish my masculine soul 44. Your personal plans for 1995 Н: Enjoy work Т: Become an artist № 1 К: Necessarily swim in the sea. Master the butterfly S: Gain a soul of a man 45. Music that you listened to this morning or last night Н: Laruku’s new song T: Morning call from the manager K: Maribeth S: Pink Floyd 46. Dish that turns out well when you are cooking Н: Chinese cuisine Т: I can't cook К: Ikuradon S: Sashimi 47. The image of the ideal woman Н: An optimistic and domestic woman Т: No К: Fujiko-chan S: That looks like Shiraishi Hitomi (Japanese actress - translator's note) 48. Favorite sport Н: No Т: No К: No S: Judo 49. If I were born again... Н: I would like to become an astronaut and fly into space Т: I would like to be genius К: I would like to be a dolphin S: I would like to be a woman, in order to live and not talk nevermore about the "soul of a man" 50. Goals in life Н: Enjoy the rest of the years Т: It’s a secret К: Live a long life S: Soul of a man 51. One word for readers of our magazine Н: If you're not careful, I'll bite you! Т: Nice to meet you К: Hello, this is Ken. I'll continue in answer 52 S: Life in a loincloth and headband 52. Free theme Н: Woof Т: Nowadays Laruku are fully different! К: In 1996 I want to perform a lot at concerts. That is why we definitely will meet, so look forward! S: And this year there will be Anikies!

* Marked in credits to HYDE’s “Roentgen” album as an art director and designer. ** Probably he meant one pack. *** Was covered by HYDE in D’ERLANGER TRIBUTE ALBUM ~Stairway to Heaven~.

Translation from Japanese: Liubov Chachanidze aka Diana_ Translation into English by me (The Green Explosion inc.)  

Original: https://diary.ru/~l20arc-en-ciel/p216393417_anketa-iz-zhurnala-b-pass-za-mart-1995-goda.htm

[noonwardmoss]

Pork soda is such a Vkaz and BBkaz song to me.

Long ass Lyric Analysis(-ish) below:

HUGE SPOILERS FOR MGSV:GZ , MGSV:TPP , MG1

The conflicting thoughts that he loves Venom, but he struggles to see anyone other than John despite knowing it’s not him.

“Somewhere in South End when you were fun. You took my hand and you made me run.” < This is where I picture Kaz’s memories of MSF and peacewalker era

“Up past the prison to the seafront. You climbed the cliff edge and took the plunge.” < Ground zeroes, where ‘taking the plunge’ is the downfall and explosion on the plane.

“Why can't we laugh now like we did then? How come I see you and ache instead?” < Haunted by the image of John in Venom, even though he knows John abandoned him and that Venom is someone else.

“How come you only look pleased in bed?” < was he just a tool for fun to John or did he actually love him

“Let's climb the cliff edge and jump again” < Kaz swears to end big boss

“Pineapples are in my head” < Pineapples are one of Costa Rica’s largest exports, reminiscing on Peacewalker while being with the Diamond Dogs

“Got nobody 'cause I'm brain dead” < Venom. Need I explain? Venom is not who he thought, but he still loves him, he’s still loyal to him. Part of that makes him feel like a dumb puppy.

“Somebody said that I'm a fuckin' slum. Don't know that I belong. Maybe you're fucking dumb. Maybe I'm just a bum. Maybe you're fucking scum. Don't you go psycho chum. I want you for the world. I want you all the time” < Kaz arguing with his perception of John, how he thinks the man thinks of him now– weak, worthless, trash to be discarded and hating that despite it all he still has some of that attraction to Big Boss left. And that’s all he has left of Big Boss besides Venom.

“5000 footsteps in your wet dress. Back to the house with your arms around my neck. We drank pork soda with tangled legs” < The drinking parties on DD that remind him of MSF, and the fact that these drinking parties ended with him wrapped around his bosses’ fingertips (both John and Venom)

“I won't forget how you looked at me then” < Even now, Kaz can’t shake the image of John from Venom, especially being hit with flashbacks during romantic moments between them. But, it was Venom’s display of the fallen DD soldiers that really made Kaz realize the different between them. Venom wasn’t a substitute, and he couldn’t be angry at him because he wasn’t the John that abandoned him.

“I know I'm no sweet prince of love.” < Kaz knows he has problems, knows that he pushed Venom away after finding out he wasn’t John.

“Those times that we got drunk. Maybe Jamaica rum. Maybe some Johnny Dub” More reminiscing on drinking parties, but this time near the end of DD’s run.

“Maybe you still think of us” < Wondering if John still loves him, if he ever really did.

“Phone buzz, and still I jump” < Venom’s calls have become near torture, as he almost convinced himself that it’s John everytime.

“Why don't I say it then? I want you all the time” < He can’t deny that he loves John, even if more of him loves Venom, part of him clings on.

The chorus (pineapples are in my head, got nobody cause I’m brain dead x2) repeats twice at the end, and I imagine this is Kaz through the years training David and waiting for the end of John, only to find out Venom was killed instead. The last repeat is the discovery that John is still alive and now Kaz is left with the original again.

[stuckybingo]

Stucky Bingo Round-Up #14 (December 5th - 11th)

Don’t forget to fill out the submission form to be a part of the round-ups and to get your bingo badges!

Twenty Seconds by ribbonsflying Square filled: G1 - Kink: Sexting Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Sexting (sending explicit pics), Lying Major tags: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Sexting, Coming Out, Surprises, AU- Pizza Parlor Summary: Bucky lies to his mom about having a boyfriend so when his mom surprises him by coming to New York, Bucky panic and asks Steve to pose as his boyfriend. The only thing is that Bucky barely knows Steve. Steve's just the guy at the pizza parlor that Bucky's teased a few times. He's just as likely to let Bucky crash and burn for a little bit of payback. Format: Long oneshot (over 5000 words)

it was always you by grandmacore Square filled: N4 - enemies to lovers Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply, some bare skin/implied nudity Major tags: enemies to lovers, getting together, alternate universe, spies Summary: Steve and Bucky are two rival spies that can't stand each other. Then one day they get stuck on the same shitshow of a mission. Perhaps there is more to the other than they noticed at first sight. Format: Moodboard

A Man After Midnight by dontcallmebree Square filled: G1 - Oral Sex Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Modern AU, Thieves & Conmen, Age Difference, Casual Sex, Casual Relationship Summary: Bucky would never admit it out loud, but he does buy into it all a little—the whole “best thief and forger since ’92” rep Steve’s got ever since Laufeyson got busted and pulled out of the game. (Bucky pays a late night visit to Steve Rogers’ New York residence.) Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

40s stucky date by cutecumber-flower Square filled: N3 - free square Ao3 rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: stucky Summary: 40s stucky on a date Format: Art

Between Metal and Blood by diamante-chan (diamantesart) Square filled: B2 - Germany Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, Dehumanization, implied torture, blood, injuries, body modifications, non consensual body modifications, hydra related stuff, experimentation, Robotic prosthetics, brainwashing Major tags: Hydra Steve, Captain Hydra, Winter Soldier Bucky, Canon Divergent, Robotic Body Parts Summary: In which HYDRA finds both Bucky and Steve after their falls and brings them to a base in Germany to experiment on them, to make them the perfect hands for HYDRA. They don't know that love, however lost and forgotten it might be, can be more destructive than anything else. Format: Art

what could i have said to raise you from the dead? by inevitablemeow Square filled: N2 - Scars Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, major character injury, graphic depictions of wound care, near-death Major tags: angst, wound care, hurt very little comfort, bucky barnes needs a hug, eventual happy ending Summary: He’s pushing against the remaining enemies as best he can, forcing them back so he can slip away, get to Steve. He’s almost there, bruised and beaten, when he hears it. A roar of pain. Bucky’s blood runs cold as he spins to the source of the noise, and horror drips through him slow. Steve is twenty yards away, now, and his eyes are wide as he looks down at his side. His hand is pressed to his suit, and red seeps through his fingers. “Steve!” Format: Part of a multichapter fic

shun heaven, pursue hell by call-me-kayyyyy Square filled: G2 - kink: food play Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply, vampire steve, silver fox steve, college student bucky, age difference Major tags: stripiing, panties, vampires, Summary: Silver Fox Vampire!Steve / College Student!Bucky Format: Art

Shun Heaven, Pursue Hell by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Square filled: Adopted square Oct - Snowed In Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, possible dub-con Major tags: Modern AU, Royalty AU, Vampire AU, Babysitter AU, POV Bucky Barnes Summary: Bucky Barnes just wants a little money before the end of the semester, so when his former psychology professor offers him a hefty sum to hang out with his kids, there’s not much of a reason to say no. It only gets complicated when Dr. Rogers suggests Bucky spend the night to avoid the roads during a heavy snowfall. Tired, tipsy, and completely enamored, Bucky’s night is full of kisses, cuddles, and a dream that changes everything. Format: Long oneshot (over 5000 words)

Beneath You by dreamsinthewitchouse Square filled: O1 - AU: Vampire Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Vampire Bites, Blood Drinking, Mentions of Death (Because of Vampires) Major tags: Alternate Universe - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fusion, Southern Gothic, Vampire Slayer Bucky Barnes, Vampire Steve Rogers Summary: It’s one of those moments when Bucky can’t help wondering how exactly did this become his life — last week he sat behind Jackson in linear algebra, tonight he’s waiting for him to literally crawl out of his grave so he can drive a stake through his heart. Never let anyone tell you the friends you make in college are for life. Well — maybe the afterlife. Format: Long oneshot (over 5000 words)

Winter Weddings and Blushing Brides by dontcallmebree Square filled: B5 - AU: Reality TV Ao3 rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Modern AU, Fluff, Meet-Cute Summary: The screech that assaults Steve’s ears, the moment his third appointment of the day turns around to look in the mirror might just be the worst thing he’s heard all week. He steels himself and plasters on a smile, even as his bride screams a piercing, “Fix it, fix it, fix it!” Oh, boy. (Bridal Consultant Steve Rogers finds himself assisting young bride Rebecca Barnes, who brings with her six sisters and an older brother.) Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

Dressing Up by Trinity Day Square filled: Adopted square - Dressing Up Ao3 rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: n/a Summary: Steve kept his outfit. Bucky gains a new one. Format: Drabble (exactly 100 words)

Uh, Please Come Back by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Square filled: Adopted square - AU: Pornstar Ao3 rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Modern AU, Porn AU, Actor AU, Actor Bucky Barnes, Actor Steve Rogers Summary: Bucky Barnes loves his job, and he loves the things (and people) he gets to do at his job. That’s true until one unfortunate day that involves a long lunch break, some handcuffs, and none of what he’s expecting. Format: Medium oneshot (1000 - 5000 words)

Quick and Dirty by DarthBloodOrange Square filled: Adopted square - KINK: Clothed Sex Ao3 rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Sexual Content Major tags: Shrunkyclunks, Assassin Bucky Barnes, Clothed Sex Summary: Steve shares an encounter with his favourite assassin. Format: Drabble (exactly 100 words)

[local-triggerhead]

[Theory/Analysis] The Motives of Each Eugenicist

Wow, look at me rising from the graves and dusting off this account after 800 years like it's nothing. Your Trigger hype beast is back baby, if any of you still remember me.

This post contains spoilers for both Gridman and Dynazenon.

Ahem. I want to make this post to gather my thoughts and better understand the antagonists of the show, as they aren't heavily featured and explored like Akane. It's just my own analysis based on what I can observe in the show, so some parts would be more vague and generate different interpretations. This analysis may seem obvious to some and not so much to others, but I hope it'll offer some clarity regardless. Tl;dr at the bottom.

The General Motive

It's pretty much given in the show. The Kaiju Eugenicists wanted to destroy humanity and create a world where themselves and kaiju can live and be accepted. They believe that the world is a better place as you're no longer being tied down by human bonds, granting you unrestricted freedom beyond even the laws of physics. This is their shared goal. However, each of them have separated purposes and things they want to achieve along with this.

Onija

Let's start with the 2 more obvious cases. Onija clearly stated what he wanted to do - kill all humans. How many times did he yell this out? It's kind of shoved-in-your-face. No other Eugenicists expressed this desire as strongly as he did. At the base level, he simply wanted to live. He was brutally killed once and was determined to not let it happen again no matter what. This is why "I thought I was dead" was a constant running joke. It's also why Onija had a deep personal grudge towards Gauma and humans, who were the cause of his death 5000 years ago.

Juuga

Juuga had a deep admiration for Gauma and looked up to him. Unlike Onija, he didn't wish to oppose Gauma, but to make an alliance instead. When the Eugenicists first appeared, Juuga said:

It's clear from this line that he wanted things to be the way it was 5000 years ago, where they were a group of friends working towards the same goal. He missed and yearned for that carefree time. The original Eugenicist group was the most important thing to him. You can see that he never fought with any other Eugenicists, but remained calm and passive towards them at all times. This attitude only extended towards the Eugenicists, as he had no qualms about killing anyone else for his goal, including the Dynazenon crew.

Even when Mujina stole Dyna Striker, the first thing that came to his mind was using it to negotiate with Gauma and get him back.

Mujina

These last 2 Eugenicists are slightly more complicated to pick apart, as they process things more internally.

At first, Mujina was very indecisive and didn't buy much into this kaiju thing. All she wanted was to finish it quickly so she could leave. She was lost in life and just followed the other Eugenicists around because she had no directions of her own. Then Mujina found Koyomi, someone who also didn't have anything going for himself and just plainly a loser in his life. He was someone she could feel related to. Mujina's attitude supposedly changed after she was tackled by Koyomi, but I believe this just pissed her off and only played a part in her personality shift. The other cause, I think, was Sizumu's encouragement, where she "realized that kaiju is all [she has] got" and that she had to take responsibility for her actions.

Koyomi came to play a major role in episode 11, when Mujina witnessed him starting to look for a job. The only person who she could feel related to was unaffected by the aftermath of the kaiju and moving forward with ease. Meanwhile, Mujina, who had just found her purpose in life, lost it once again and was now completely stuck, as the future where the Eugenicists could live and be accepted was destroyed. When facing such a crisis, one would seek to put the blame on something for all of their problems, and Koyomi just happened to be the perfect target.

Sizumu

Toughest one to crack here, but I'll shoot my best shot. In the beginning, he opposed the Dynazenon crew the least among the Eugenicists. He suggested against killing them, had the most interaction with Yomogi and Yume, and suggested Mujina to return Dyna Striker for seemingly no reasons at all. His main reason for not killing Team Dynazenon was to see more kaiju, and getting close to Yomogi and Yume was for his kaiju to absorb their emotions. However, I believe there was another underlying reason that tied his actions together. He was looking for an alliance.

Contrary to Juuga, the alliance he was looking for didn't only include Gauma, but Team Dynazenon as a whole. To understand why he searched for this, we must first look at what he was. He had an ability that allowed him to hear kaiju voices, which gave him a much deeper understanding of kaiju compared to the other Eugenicists. Due to this, while the others more or less thought of kaiju as a mean to create a world where they can live and be accepted, Sizumu would consider kaiju as his own kind, so much so that he had a severe disconnection with humans. He distanced himself away from even the Eugenicists, almost as if he only tagged along because they shared the same basic goal.

He didn't seek to understand humans, but instead for humans to understand kaiju. His goal was to create a world where not only the Eugenicists were accepted, but kaiju themselves were accepted. He believed that the world was better off like this, because, from his perspective, kaiju could liberate people from human bonds and offer them unlimited freedom. To me, this is rather hypocritical as he never understood why people tied themselves to these bonds in the first place, so he wasn't in a position to say what was better and what wasn't.

Sizumu was the only Eugenicist to mention this kaiju power and express his distaste towards human bonds. He explained this very early on to Yomogi and Yume, and why did he do this, you may ask? Why, to help them understand his views and create an opening for a potential alliance, of course. If his only purpose was to absorb their emotions, then that's quite a lot of unnecessary effort to make himself look friendly and approachable to an uncanny degree, especially when being "friendly and approachable" wasn't his forte. No, he was testing the water to see if he could get them on his side.

Then came an unexpected opportunity for him to determine once and for all if Team Dynazenon can understand and accept kaiju. He let a failed kaiju run free and distracted the Eugenicists away from it (with a tactic he learned from Chise) to see what the Dynazenon crew would do. Some people said that it's to test if any of them were kaiju user, and while that's possible, I think it's a little unlikely. Sizumu only observed them at 2 instances, first was when they started the search for the kaiju, the second was when their beam destroyed the kaiju. Unless the kaiju voices could tell him, there would be no way for Sizumu to know if any of them used Instance Domination, until the very end when Yomogi used it on him. The likelier hypothesis would be: he saw them searching for the kaiju > he saw the kaiju being killed > he surmised that kaiju couldn't exist peacefully with Team Dynazenon, and didn't seem to be particularly happy about it.

From then on, Sizumu decided that they couldn't be his allies thus no longer approached Yomogi or Yume. It seems that he arrived to this final conclusion:

And this is where the series itself left off. Kaiju simply can't co-exist with humans. They are irregulars to the human society. Furthermore, the freedom that they offer can't be allowed to exist as running away from society and real human connections is wrong, even if reality is ugly and difficult to face. This is what make the series similar to Gridman. However, unlike Akane, the antagonists of Dynazenon failed to realized this and didn't get their happy ending.

(A detail that I'd like to mention is that Sizumu was silent during the entire final battle in contrast to the other Eugenicists who were pumping themselves up. It was like he was saying, "Didn't want to do this but I guess you left me with no choice". Though silence can mean anything so it's not a concrete evidence.)

TL;DR and Final Words

This is so much longer than I thought and I really apologize for it. I just don't want to make anyone do logical leaps when reading this post.

Tl;dr:

- Onija wanted to live and had a grudge towards Gauma and humans for causing his death.

- Juuga wanted Gauma to join them again and for things to be back the way it was 5000 years ago. He cared for nothing outside of the Eugenicists group.

- Munija wanted a purpose, found one, then lost it again. She envied Koyomi for regaining his sense of purpose and moving forward with his life.

- Sizumu wanted humans to understand kaiju and a world where kaiju can set humans free from their bonds. Initially considered an alliance with Team Dynazenon, but concluded that them (and people in general) couldn't understand kaiju after all.

- Final message of the show: Go touch some grass and talk to humans you fucking weebs.

Misc

When using Instance Domination, the palms of the Eugenicists always face towards the kaiju. The only exception is the last battle where Sizumu's palm faced towards himself, indicating that the kaiju was inside him. I believe that it was located at the center of his chest, where he shot out that weird magical light beam. Just a small thing I find interesting.

If we want to take it a step further, I believe the seed inside him had already grown into a kaiju, but it was still relatively small until he used Instance Domination on it. Eerie, huh?

And this is more of the theory territory and leaving the analysis, but this could possibly be why he was able to hear kaiju voices. Chise was able to understand Goldburn and translated for him at the end, so maybe having a kaiju inside of you would allow you to understand other kaiju somehow? If this is the case, he would probably have had the kaiju inside of him since 5000 years ago.

There's also this big brain moment from a 4chan user. The resemblance between Yume and Juuga is kinda uncanny considering they're both obsessed with the past.

That's it boys. I'm gonna crawl back into my hole until next century, or until Trigger drops Edgerunners. 8/10 show, VERY underrated gem. Trigger won't stop saving anime.

This post but on Reddit:

[ma-sulevin]

first line meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag some of your favourite authors!

I was tagged by @roguelioness! I’ll also be going newest to oldest on AO3 because the last twenty things I’ve posted to Tumblr have all been smut lmao

1. (Not) Seeing Each Other (Harper/Mason, The Wayhaven Chronicles)

By far the best part of Unit Bravo’s warehouse base being so close to Wayhaven is its gym. 

2. Her Scarlet Touch (Avita/Cullen, Dragon Age)

Cullen can’t remember the last time he was this nervous. 

3. the coldest winter, the brightest spring (Emma/Joel, The Last of Us)

Emma’s first memory is of her mama explaining why a new scar had shown up on her knee overnight, how it meant her soulmate had gotten hurt but was okay, that it’s a sign from God that they’re going to find each other one day.

4. Heat (Alice/Joel, The Last of Us, gift fic)

Heatwaves are one thing when Alice gets to sit at home, but they’re another thing altogether when she has to run patrols.

5. Steady and Strong (Hazel/Shepard, Mass Effect/Stardew Valley crossover)

Something has turned sideways since she moved into Pelican Town and took over her grandfather's ramshackle old farm.

6. Real Nasty Shit (no pairing, Far Cry 5)

Sharky knows the cult’s been up to some real nasty shit lately, and he’s kinda been expecting it to happen, because as cool as it is that their leader gets to walk around without a shirt all the time, it’s still pretty fuckin’ weird to have a group of people move more than 2,000 miles cross-country to live on a compound together, and if Charlemagne Victor Boshaw could pick up on that right away, he doesn’t know what took everyone else so fuckin’ long.

7. Appetite (Avery/James, Mass Effect)

Avery’s halfway through her third reading of an article her doctor gave her about why the new synthetic DNA that had been found mixed with most humans after the end of the Reaper War had made the most popular contraceptive implants less effective when her omnitool chimes with James’ special chime.

8. This is the Why (Hazel/Kaidan, Mass Effect)

Hazel Shepard can’t focus on anything Hackett is saying to her, his voice a constant rumble in her ear. 

9. rise from the ashes and do it again (and do it again) (Mattie/Sharky, Far Cry 5)

Mattie’s shaking almost too hard to hold the rifle Burke thrust into her hands.

10. Autumn (Mattie/Sharky, Far Cry 5)

When he thinks about how touchy-feely she usually is, with the massages and the cuddles and the shoulders bumping by their campfires, Sharky knows he shouldn’t be as surprised as he feels when Mattie pushes right up against him in the bed in the cabin they’re staying in for the night, squirming until the blankets aren’t between them and she can tuck her body as tight against his as she can manage.

11. Jealousy Looks Good On You (Alice/Staci, Far Cry 5, gift fic)

There’s a girl flirting with Staci at the bar. 

12. A Vancouver Halloween (Allie/Kaidan, Mass Effect, gift fic)

Kaidan knows, logically, that he hasn’t been away from earth for all that long. 

13. The Breakout (Riley/Rush, Far Cry New Dawn)

The dead body at the base of the ladder is… concerning.

14. A Matter of Convenience (Mattie/Staci, Far Cry 5 -- don’t tell Sharky)

Some things are nice about living in a bunker with the surviving members of the sheriff’s department.

15. Duct Tape Fixes Everything (Mattie/Sharky, Far Cry 5)

“Who broke your heart, Sharky?”

16. One Moment (Avery/Reyes, Mass Effect)

Ellen comes to slowly, comforted by the familiar sounds of hospital monitors beeping regularly around her.

17. A Gift, At Last (Avery/Reyes, Mass Effect)

Avery is dangerously close to falling asleep when the back door opens.

18. A Night on the Town (Avery/Reyes, Mass Effect)

Tartarus is different now that the kett have been defeated. 

19. 5000 Credits (Hazel & James, Mass Effect)

James had to trade shifts with Zeke to be able to work today. 

20. All I Want (Avery/James, Mass Effect)

Things are kinda… awkward.

Summary: Well. I sure like to dump you right in the middle of things, huh? Also, Sharky POV pieces get the longest intros. He’s a chatty fucker.

[moonflowerlesbians]

I took a quick break from prompts to write 5000 words of pure angst. I hope you’ll forgive me. 

“we let precious time go by”

Read on AO3.

Summary: “The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye. 

A piece of her will die that day, she knows. 

Dani will die that day.”

Word Count: 5088

They live together thirteen years after Bly. Thirteen wonderful years in a little flat in a small town in Vermont that looks like the spirit of Christmas itself retched on every building in the wintertime. They sell poinsettias and wreaths of holly for the holidays and budding perennials in the warmer months. They find the cheapest grocer, the best plumber, the man who drives into town selling fresh eggs on Wednesdays.

They befriend an elderly woman with three toy poodles, who stops by The Leafling every Sunday morning before mass to purchase flowers for her late husband’s grave, and they try not to think of Hannah. The daycare center three doors down marches the children to the park twice a day, right past the shop, and they try not to think of Rebecca and the Wingraves. They learn the quickest route to their favorite take-away place by heart, and they try not to think of Owen.

It’s hard, though, when your world’s been shattered and everyone else is carrying on as if nothing’s happened. But, thirteen years go by, and they manage. They manage, even as Dani becomes a bit less like herself every day, and Jamie struggles to pretend everything is fine. She pretends not to notice when she finds a sock in the freezer or Dani’s toothbrush between the couch cushions. Pretends not to notice when the lines on Dani’s face grow deeper, etched into her fair skin like stone, and she pretends not to notice when Dani wakes in the dead of night to gaze out the window for hours on end, then returns to bed as if she never left.

She’d brought it up with Dani over dinner. She had grasped Dani’s hand ever so gently, running a soothing thumb over the knuckles. Dani looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Maybe she hadn’t. A tear tracked down her cheek and dropped onto her lap.

“Please, love, please let me help,” Jamie had begged, and she had never meant anything more in her life, save the night she had accepted Dani’s ring.

Dani had observed her sadly, centuries of knowledge weighing heavy behind her eyes. “You can’t.”

“Please, Dani.” She hadn’t meant to break down, she hadn’t. She had meant to be strong, a steadfast rock in a stormy sea.

“Jamie…” Dani’s voice had been soft, resigned. “It’s her.” She looked down at her clasped hands, as if unwilling to bear witness the damage sure to show on Jamie’s face.

This was meant to be dinner, a question about a frozen sock, an easy explanation. Just a little swamped with the shop’s finances. A natural remedy she had read about in a magazine. Not this. Anything but this.

Jamie had known the day might come, when the memories they’d repressed would reappear to haunt them like Peter fucking Quint. She had hoped with every fibre of herself that the ghastly woman from that terrible night at the lake would slumber for decades yet.

Christ, how long had the Lady been awake? How long had Dani kept this from her?

Dani had seemed to sense her question. She’d become too good at that as of late.

“Only a few months.”

A few months.

Jamie’s lips had tightened into a thin line, and she forced herself to swallow back a sob, eyes closed.  

“Dani, why-?”

Why didn’t you tell me?

Why now?

Why this?

Why them?

“You don’t deserve this,” Dani had said, and Jamie’s heart shattered. “It’s my burden, not yours--”

“No. No, no--”

“--I can’t ask you to take this on. I invited her in; I condemned myself, not you.”

“Stop, Dani, stop.”

“Jamie, please…” Dani had sounded so small, so broken. “You have to go.”

“No,” Jamie had refused outright. “Never.”

“Then me. I’ll leave.”

“No one is going bloody anywhere.” Jamie had been steely calm, even as her ribcage threatened to break with the effort. “You and I are staying right fucking here. You hear me, Dani? Right here.” She hadn’t been able to hide the crack on the final syllable. Her ring caught the warm glow of the kitchen light.

Jamie took a steadying breath. “When you came home with that wee plant, you know what I thought? I thought, ‘ah, shite, she’s gone and found another lost cause.’” Here, Jamie had given a small smile. “‘And I bloody love her for it.’”

Dani wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Haven’t got a clue how you always see the possibility in everything. No one’s too far gone to save with you around, Poppins. It’s exhausting, really,” Jamie had continued. “I took your ring, and I’ve never regretted it. Not once, yeah? Not once. I knew what I signed up for: lovin’ you, relentless optimism an’ all.” Her laugh had been watery. “So, we’re not goin’ anywhere. It’s us, yeah? Always has been, always will be.”

So Dani had stayed. And Jamie redoubled her efforts to support her.

She runs the errands on the evenings where the dark feels all too familiar and returns to Dani huddled beneath a fleece blanket. She wraps Dani in her arms and soothes the nightmares away with feather-light kisses. She’s there in every way she can be, never pressing, never rushing, and never letting Dani see just how utterly terrified she is.

To tell Dani would be to ruin the careful dynamic they’ve reached. Dani is scattered, rain moving with the wind; Jamie has to be grounded, a stake dug deep into the earth. But the slopes grow muddier the longer the rain pours, and dirt washes away, gone like a rushing stream. Jamie knows she can’t keep this up forever. She’s already lost so much, and her most important person is fading fast, swept up in the rising current.

She loves Dani to the stars and back. Which is why Jamie must bear this load alone. Dani is already carrying the sky on her shoulders, and Jamie cannot burden her with this.

Call her stupid, call her noble. She calls it mercy.

She knows she’s pulling the same shit Dani did not telling her that Her Royal Lakeness was stirring. She knows, and she resents herself for it. She also knows that Dani would look at her with such guilt for causing Jamie strife. Dani would try to mask her hurt to spare her wife, and Jamie’s gut wrenches at the thought. Her brow would crinkle, lips pursed, and Jamie would yearn to kiss the stress from her face.

Jamie is rewarded for her silence. Dani is getting better about vocalizing her nightmares, telling Jamie when the Lady makes an appearance as she slumbers. They embrace beneath the covers and speak between labored breaths, where Dani finally caves and Jamie does her best to hide the way she’s become afraid of the dark. She murmurs reassurances and tells herself they’re for Dani, pressing kisses into her forehead.

Dani sleeps tucked into Jamie’s side as though it’s enough to ward off the ghosts, a formidable wall against things that go bump in the night. She sleeps, and Jamie lies awake. Her defense is slipping. She can’t keep them both afloat.

She can try. She can hold out as long as Dani will have her. She will. She doesn’t know anything else. Jamie swears, she swears on her plants, she swears on her life, she swears to anyone who will listen that she will be there for Dani, even if she can’t be there for herself.

The weeks pass and more socks freeze, more toothbrushes go missing, and Dani drifts. Some days are better than others. Some days, Jamie’s Sisyphean task is easy, and Dani meets her at the top of the mountain with a flirty smile and sunshine on her greedy tongue, with hands that grab at Jamie’s belt and tug her shirt up and over her head. On those days, they feel like themselves.

But, on other days, days when the whole world is overcast and the tide is rising, they shutter the shop and lock the doors to their second-floor flat. They wear matching pajamas, while the television set plays classic cinema. Jamie makes tea; Dani still hasn’t mastered it in a decade, and Jamie doubts she ever will. Their legs tangle in a heap, ankles sliding along calves.

Jamie comes to rest her head on Dani’s sternum, allowing the beat of her heart to remind her that they’re here. Dani is here, breathing steadily and weaving their fingers together like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like they aren’t living borrowed years. Like Jamie’s mantra of one day at a time doesn’t feel like a splintered crutch beneath her arm, supporting the weight of an impossible situation.

Every day feels like the last, and Jamie hates it. She hates the feeling of inevitability that lurks just out of sight. The beast in the jungle, Dani had said. It prowls between streetlamps and seeks refuge in their walls, skittering away when Jamie shines a torch, only to return the instant she turns her back. The creature is waiting for something Jamie can never see, and it terrifies her. She cannot prevent what she cannot see. All she can do is wait, hopeless, at the mercy of a fucking ghost.

The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye.

A piece of her will die that day, she knows.

Dani will die that day.

And, god, she feels so bloody selfish for thinking of her own fucking self-preservation when the woman she loves might one day disappear from the world, but, Christ, how can she be expected to go on like this? Just waiting for the days to pass until she’s alone again. Again.

She’s lost more people than she can count. Some to time, some to death, some to drink, some to the shelter of a warm embrace Jamie could not provide. Each loss is different, yet each brings about a sting that is painfully familiar. An old bedfellow she’s forced to accommodate. It settles in her bones, nestling into the hollow spaces between her ribs, cold and unwelcome. Once it latches on, it never truly leaves.

The ache is ever-present, a plate of steel, layering and building into a grim suit of armor that clashes and clanks and frightens people away with its noise, and, after a while, she forgets. Forgets what it’s like to be free of those reminders that she wasn’t good enough for people to stay. Wasn’t good enough for her parents, nor her foster parents. Wasn’t good enough for classmates and teachers who deemed her a waste of effort. Wasn’t good enough for women who hid themselves from the world or from their own judgment. Hell, she wasn’t even good enough for the prison system, released early on account of behavior.

She forgets how to breathe without each inhale taking the strength of someone who’s had a scarlet letter branded across her chest her whole life. Forgets how it feels to extend a hand in invitation without her own fear dragging her down, the fear that results from rejected companionship and harsh words. She forgets what it’s like to touch and be touched and to lay yourself bare before another, trusting that you are safe and wanted.

Dani had taken her proffered hand and held it to tender lips. She had glacially pried away nearly three decades of fine steel with the care of a dutiful lover, uncovering the origin of each piece as she went. She had never once flinched away, only nodded with sweet understanding and kissed Jamie a little more fervently that night.

Then, one day, Jamie had found herself the lightest she’d ever been, open and vulnerable beneath Dani’s affectionate gaze. She had breathed, and it had felt like a sigh. The old ache was not gone; it could never truly be banished. But the act of sharing her very soul, and receiving Dani’s in return, had turned bruises into mere memories and fear into excitement.

Her armor had sat, gathering dust in a corner of their life, no longer needed. She had been content to let Dani, or, rather, the security of their relationship, be her protection.

Now, though, with the ground they walk upon growing perilous, Jamie is defenseless. Her own beast hungers, prepared to strike with familiar claws, and Jamie loathes that she is reaching for her old guard. Loathes that she even considers distancing herself. That Dani cannot escape the cruelty of a fate brought on by selflessness, and Jamie is pondering how life will go on without her.

It feels so bloody selfish that it makes Jamie sick to her stomach. It’s only human to fret about the future, but this feels like an especially abominable twist of the knife. And Dani can never know. No, never. Jamie will be strong for her. She needs to be unwavering in her dedication to their love.

She manages, though it feels like standing in the middle of the road, watching a lorry drive toward her at a hundred kilometers an hour and choosing not to move out of the way. Rather, she plants her feet firmly on the asphalt and stares down what will surely splinter every bone in her body if it doesn’t kill her.

For Dani, she tells herself.

Dani, who startles at unseen reflections in their dishes and damn near scares the living daylights out of Jamie. There’s a haunted look in her eye, and, suddenly, Jamie can hear their countdown clock ticking away the seconds without Dani having to say a word. Her chest is heaving as Jamie steps in front of her, inspecting her for signs of physical harm, and blocking the faucet from her line of sight. Dani can’t meet her eye, craning her neck to see the sink.

Her voice is hoarse, ragged. “I saw her.”

No. No, no, no, no. Dreams are one thing. Dreams, Jamie can handle. Bad dreams can be banished with soothing caresses and warm tea, but this? They are both very much awake.

Breathe.

“What did you see?” Jamie seeks confirmation to calm her racing pulse.

Dani’s lip trembles, and she clutches frantically at the countertop. “Her.” It’s little more than a whisper, but the meaning is unmistakable. Dani continues, with painstaking deliberacy. “I keep seeing her.”

Christ. Keep seeing her? The sheer terror in Dani’s tone implies this isn’t the first time the ghost has appeared to her. But it is the first Jamie is hearing of it. No, not this again. Not Dani keeping from her the details of the most horrific secret of their lives.

She can’t stop to process this now. Dani is shaking, and Dani is frightened, and Dani needs her here, in this moment, not dwelling on what this means for the course of their lives.

Jamie turns the tap off and pulls the drain. “We’re gonna be okay. You can’t think the worst.” The words sound hollow, even to her own ears, but she tries, god, does she try to mean them with everything she has.

“Jamie…” Dani’s tone is warning.

Don’t lie to me.

I have to, love, Jamie thinks, I have to, or we’ll both give up, and I’m not ready.

“We could have so many more years together.”

Could.

It’s not technically a lie. ‘Could’ leaves room for uncertainty, the unpredictability of an entity so far beyond the scope of their control that they’d be institutionalized for suggesting such a thing exists. ‘Could’ allows them to pretend they aren’t trapped on a preordained path, walking side by side into inevitable grief. ‘Could’ is hope.

“It’s okay,” Jamie hears herself repeating. Distract. “I’ll do the washing up from now on, yeah? You’re shit at it, anyway.”

It earns her a weak chuckle from Dani, and it’s enough. Jamie holds her close, speaking soft comforts, though her stomach roils and knots. Dani trembles in her arms, and Jamie curls a soothing hand to the back of her head.

It’s going to be okay.

It isn’t.

It isn’t, and, deep down, Jamie knows it isn’t, but she holds onto the falsehood like it’s the only thing keeping her from drowning. She has to believe that there’s hope, that there is a chance for a future for them, because if she doesn’t, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Her mind screams to prepare for the inevitable worst, but a part of her, that bright, sunshiney part, where she holds her fondest thoughts, tells her to pretend just a while longer.

She does. She does, because she loves Dani too much not to. They’ve been through far too much together for Jamie to withdraw now, when Dani needs her most.

She cannot control who lives and who dies. She said as much to Dani, years ago, in the forest behind the manor. Knowing that everything must come to an end dictates life’s joys. Temporality is the driving force of sanctity. The moments we hold most dear are the ones that have come to an end. They are forever preserved in amber memory, pressed between book pages, and flowing through veins. You are left warm, free to continue and free to leave more life behind in the hollows of lingering remorse.  

‘Live in the moment,’ say thousands of song lyrics. If only it were that simple. If only Jamie could simply ignore the consequences and allow herself to just exist with Dani in the life they’ve created. She can’t, though, and it is agonizing.

Instead, she dons the facade of a woman who believes that there is still good in the world, chances for miracles, despite countless experiences to the contrary. In private, she grieves a life she hasn’t yet lost.

Dani sees her shoulders shake only once, the day Jamie returns to a flooded flat and eerie silence and Dani with her face mere centimetres above the water in their overfilled bathtub. The tips of her hair are submerged, and her breath sends ripples across the surface. It’s unclear how long she’s been hunched over the side of the tub, but judging by the pool around her, quite a while. Jamie turns off the tap and draws Dani back onto her heels. Dani lets out a panicked gasp, and her eyes dart around the room before they finally flick to Jamie and back to the water.

“Do you see her?” Dani rasps, returning to her position bent over the rim.

Jamie peers into the tub, too, unsure of what she might find. She does not know whether to be elated or dismayed when only Dani’s heterochromatic reflection stares back at her.

“I only see you,” Jamie says, and it seems to pull Dani from wherever she’s been. The sleeves of her bathrobe are soaked, and she notices the puddle around her knees. She stammers an apology, but Jamie could not care less. Dani sags against Jamie’s firm grip on her upper arm.

Her voice comes subdued, as if each syllable takes monumental effort. “I’m so tired, Jamie.”

Jamie understands. She feels it, too, the toll this has taken on the both of them. The constant glances over her shoulder, always on alert for any sign of danger, living their lives like prey. She cannot hope to equate her exhaustion with Dani’s, but she understands all the same.

Dani continues, using such frightful terms as “fade away,” and it’s all Jamie can do to swallow the lump in her throat and the tightness in her chest. Dani sounds so timid, so lost, and she’s looking to Jamie for answers she hasn’t the faintest notion how to find and the soil is eroding and the current is quickening and it all becomes too much.

“You’re still here,” she says, like that will make everything alright. The wet tile seeps into her trousers, cold and clammy.

“It’s like I see you right in front of me,” Dani says softly, “and I feel you touching me. And, every day, we’re living our lives, and I’m aware of that, and it’s like I don’t feel it all the way.” She readjusts to study the water again. “I’m not even scared of her anymore. I just stare at her, and,” Dani takes a shuddering breath, “it’s getting harder and harder to see me.”

Jamie’s already strained resolve is rent in two. All of the air is sucked out of her lungs at once, and her heart constricts. She cannot help the well of tears that rises behind her eyes and threatens to spill over. She needs to be resilient, needs to set her emotions aside. For Dani.

But Dani is nodding. She’s nodding and crying and saying things like, “Maybe I should just accept that and go.” It’s excruciatingly similar to the conversation they’d had at the dinner table, all those many months ago.

And Jamie breaks. “No. No, no, no.” Her thumb rubs circles into Dani’s wrist. “Not yet.”

You can’t leave me. I’m not ready.

“Jamie…” Dani says in that same, horrid, broken tone, and suddenly, Jamie knows. Their hourglass contains mere grains. They are nearing the end, and it hurts, and the pain is so much worse than she could have ever anticipated.

Dani has all but given up, and Jamie is fucking furious.

Not with Dani. Never with Dani.

Rather, Jamie has a bone to pick with the universe and its sense of righteousness. There’s no such thing as fairness in the world, as has been proven to her time and time again. But this? This is shit, and it’s not fucking fair. Just this once, she’d like to strike a bargain. Allow her to be selfish, just this once. Allow her to remain at Dani’s side until they grow old and grey and their eyes fail and their joints creak. Allow her this one thing, and she will never ask for anything again.

The universe, in all its cruelty, remains silent, and Jamie resents it even more. She resents the set of circumstances that led them to this point, Dani tearful on the bathroom floor. She resents the world that made the woman she loves hurt in unfathomable ways. She resents that the most marvelous woman Jamie has ever met has been reduced to a shell of herself, harboring an invisible intruder.

She resents that all she has to offer is herself, when Dani deserves so much more. It’s all Jamie has, though, and maybe, this time, it will be enough.

“If you can’t feel anything,” she says, voice wavering, “then I’ll feel everything for the both of us.” Dani opens her mouth with quivering lips to speak and is cut off. “But no one is going anywhere. Okay? You’re still here.” A tear escapes, tracing a trail down her cheek.

“What if,” Dani whispers, more afraid than Jamie has ever seen her, “I’m here, sitting next to you. But I’m just really her?”

Jamie chokes down a sob. She exhales. “One day at a time.”

They clean up the water and blow out the candles and eat a quiet meal of pasta and sauce from a jar, holding hands all the while, as if any loss of contact would be to admit defeat. Dani is here, and Jamie is here, and they are together, and when they lay in the dark that night, they do not sleep.

Jamie hovers over Dani, pressing gentle kisses to every bit of skin she can reach. Dani’s eyelids, her knuckles, her wrists. The hollow on the underside of her knee, her clavicle, the sensitive patch just below her ear. Anything to reassure Dani that she can still feel, she is loved, and she is safe. The act is not erotic, nor is it meant to be.

She pours every ounce of passion into every caress, touching Dani as if it was the first time. She endeavors to convey her message, clear as crystal, that Dani is the single most important thing in her life. Their love is all that matters. For this one night, let them forget about ghosts and manors and lost friends and be wholly present in this moment of solemn intimacy.

Jamie commits every kiss to memory, savoring Dani’s smooth skin beneath her lips. The way she sighs and whimpers when Jamie finds a particularly tender spot, the way she relaxes into Jamie’s embrace when they finally settle, a leg thrown haphazardly between Jamie’s thighs, her face pressed just above Jamie’s breast, sending small puffs of air against Jamie’s sleepshirt.

Dani sleeps, and Jamie’s mind wanders to all the words she wishes she could say. She sighs them into the night air, a hand cupping the nape of Dani’s neck.

I love you, she thinks, and I’m going to lose you, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. She inhales the faintly floral scent of Dani’s shampoo. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair that you’re going to go, and I have to go on without you. Think of me, Dani. Think of me and stay because I can’t explain to your mother what’s happened to you. Stay, because I’m not ready for our life to end.

She’s crying, now, and her tears dampen the top of Dani’s head as she tries to remain still.

You’re in pain. I see it, love, and I never, never want you to hurt. You’ve been so damn brave. You’ve fought so hard. For yourself. For us. I will be forever grateful for the time you’ve given me. You are everything I never thought I could have, my love.

Dani stirs against her with a hushed, confused noise. “Jamie? Wha-?”

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Jamie murmurs, her eyes shut tight. Dani nuzzles into her chest, and only when her breathing evens out once more does Jamie release the tension from her limbs.

Rest, sweetheart, you’ve earned it.

Three days go by, and Jamie spends them at Dani’s side. They walk the streets of their little Vermont town, and they greet the old woman with her three toy poodles. They watch the line of children toddle by on their way to the park, shepherded by exasperated adults, and share a smile. They wrap themselves in blankets and bundle on the sofa, Jamie with a book and Dani with a crochet project that Jamie’s been teasing her about finishing. The tea is hot, and the company is good, and Jamie is happy. The rain comes down against their windows, but they are shielded from the deluge, though the soil outside turns to slick mud.

The sun rises on the fourth day, and Jamie blinks awake. The pillow is soft under her head, and she is loath to move. She reaches a tentative hand to Dani’s side of the bed to pull her closer, but she finds the sheets are cold. Jamie’s stomach leaps to her throat. She sits up, peering around their room, listening for any sign that Dani has simply risen early. The clock on the bedside table reads six-thirty-eight in the morning. Beside it, a single sheet of paper folded in half.

Perhaps Dani has run to the coffeehouse to bring back breakfast. Perhaps she has gone for a walk. Perhaps she has done anything except Jamie’s worst fear come to fruition, but what Jamie knows in her soul to be true. She takes a steadying breath as she examines the thing in her hands. With shaking fingers, she unfolds the note.

The script is slanted, a mixture of cursive and print, as if written in a hurry. The ink has smeared in places, where the page appears to have been wet. Dani’s normally neat lettering is scattered.

Jamie,

I can’t risk you.

Not for one more day.

I love you.

Dani

Her heart stops.

The silence is deafening. Her whole world narrows to the thin yellow paper in her hand. Her last piece of the woman she loves.

She knows what has happened. She knows where Dani would go, where Dani has gone, deep in her core. But she has to be certain.

It is her first plane ride without Dani. She spends the six-hour flight clutching the armrest, knuckles white, as she looks straight ahead. The flight attendant has the decency to only appear mildly perplexed by Jamie’s lack of luggage. When she lands, Jamie can only nod at the cabbie’s futile attempts at conversation.

She gazes up at the daunting manor house, its brick overgrown with English ivy. The grounds lay vacant. The path to the lake is unkept, yet she treads it anyway, past the church, past the cemetery, slowing as the water comes into sight.

How badly she wants to be wrong. How badly she wants to return home and find Dani worried out of her beautiful mind.

The water is unseasonably warm, but that does not stop the chill that permeates Jamie’s bones. She swims out as far as she can bear before holding her breath and plunging below the surface. It’s nigh torturous to keep her eyes open, but she needs to see. She needs to be sure.

Everything is blurry through the liquid lens, fuzzy around the edges. Something stands out from the landscape of green and blue. A spot of porcelain and red against a backdrop of emerald.

No.

Jamie shakes her head.

No, please, no.

But it is.

And she screams. She screams out thirteen years of rage and sadness and grief and frustration and love. The sound is muted, but she does not care. Dani is gone, and she is alone and it burns and stings like nothing Jamie has ever felt.

Everything Jamie could give, she gave. It wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will bring Dani back.

She rises to the surface with a cry, paddling to the muddy shoreline and crawling up the bank to collapse in the shallows. Her ring rests heavy on her left hand. A reminder of promises made. Eternity.

Together. They were supposed to stay together.

It’s us. Always has been, always will be. That’s what we said, Poppins.

She gasps, taking in great lungfuls of air that Dani will never breathe again. Her hair hangs limply, plastered to the sides of her face. She shivers, but she cannot move.

She sits in the shallows of the lake at Bly Manor, and she weeps.

Dani is dead.

And Jamie is alone.

[thebudgetgarden]

The Budget Garden 2: Tachikaze “Goodstuff” (V-Premium)

Hello Cardfighters, So, I haven’t even completed a total of 3 posts before I got my very first request ! A person from my Vanguard playgroup overheard me mention this blog in passing to one of my friends, and so asked me if he could see my approach to a very cheap and strong Tachikaze deck. This, for those who are not in the know, is already a challenge, as Tachikaze is based on certain interactions with it’s own units, and on much more rare occassions, very strong, individual cards. So, I thought I would discuss one of the very first decks I build by myself, Tachikaze Goodstuff, an Accel deck that aims to hit hard and hit fast. 

Let’s begin with the grade 3 units, as understanding our win conditions is the key to success with learning and handling Tachikaze properly. 

We shall begin first with a list of our main grade 3 units, which in this case are varying rations of 4 different units, these being:

Light Battle Dragon, Gigannoblazer

Sundering Dragon, Terror Therizeeno

Fiery Light Dragon, Opticalcerato

Savage Mercenary 

[CONT](VC):During your turn, if three or more new equip gauges were put for your units this turn, all of your front row units get [Power]+5000. [ACT](VC)1/Turn:COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)], draw two cards, and call two cards from your hand to (RC). Put up to one card from the top of your deck face down as an equip gauge for each of those units. (Put without looking at the front of those cards）

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks a vanguard, COST [retire another rear-guard], draw a card, if a unit with equip gauge was retired for this cost, choose one of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire it.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, or when it attacks a vanguard, you may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards.

[CONT]:You cannot normal ride this card. [CONT](RC):If you have no units with equip gauge in the same column as this unit, this unit cannot attack. So, wow, right off the bat, there is a lot to unpack, so let us take it step by step, first by explaining the notion of what “goodstuff” means. “Goodstuff”, used in the context of card games, is a strategy or type of playstyle that doesn’t adhere to the usual norms of having a normal win condition and trying to fullfill that condition every game. It practically means that we are a Jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none.  Taking a look at our grade 3 line-up, this notion becomes all the more noticeable, as we dont really follow a coherent gameplan, rather we decide to play as many tools as possible in order to have the best chance of winning. Reading through these cards, we can already gleam at least three characteristics that set Tachikaze apart from all of the other clans in the game, with those key-words being: Equip gauge, which means placing the top card of your deck under one of your units as a “marker” or “indicator” that can be used in conjunction with various effects Retire, meaning getting rid of one of ours or one of our opponent’s rear-guard units. Excuse me for making such a long-winded introduction to what someone would innitially think is a fairly simple and easy to play deck, but understanding these concepts, as easy as they are for some, is an integral part of understanding the clan as a whole. That is very obvious with our main boss unit, Gigannoblazer. Gigannoblazer encapsulates the essence of Tachikaze perfectly. Not only does he possess a very strong advantage skill that helps facilitate very aggressive plays, but he also allows the Cardfighter that is using him to give a healthy 5k boost in the front row, allowing for magic numbers and choke-points to be hit in a much easier fashion. This is highlighted further by Terror Therizeeno, a strong back-up ride target, as well as a potent rear-guard unit. His skill might seem odd initially, but there is a lot of synergistic potential with his retiring skill, as he allows for dead columns that have already performed their attack to provide some value for you, both in forms of a draw and retiring a pesky unit your opponent may have.  Opticerato is also fairly basic and simple. He’s a good call target that also functions well with the rest of the deck while attacking. A very simple and strong card, running a few copies wouldn’t hurt any Tachikaze deck. Savage Mercenary is an odd one. With a whopping 27k power, higher than any grade 3 in the game, you would think that his restrictive skill would stop him from being a gread addition, however, that is simply not the case. With a stupidly easy condition to fulfill, Mercenary becomes a very strong unit that cannot be blocked easily. Having a few copies in your deck as a simple and strong finisher is a must, as this card can easily steal wins from our opponents. All of these cards, while very strong, are also incredibly cost effective. If you were to buy a play-set of each card, meaning 4 copies of each individual grade 3, it would hardly set you back about 6 euros, which is a laughably low cost for such high impact units. 

Moving on to the Grade 2 Units, we find ourselves in a very odd and unique predicament.

The grade 2 line-up for Tachikaze is, for a lack of a better term, completely pre-determined. This is not, however, a bad thing. It just means that the choices that we do have are both so powerful and inexpensive that they would usually find their home in the full competitive versions of these decks. The downside, though, is that the creative aspect gets a tiny bit stiffled, which is a small price to pay for such power-houses.

The grade 2 line-up is split amongst 4 very high impact units, those being:

Clearout Dragon, Sweeperacrocanto

Ravenous Dragon, Megarex

Turbo Smilodon

Regiment Dragon, Regiodon

[AUTO](RC)1/Turn:When it attacks a vanguard, put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for this unit. [CONT](RC):This unit gets [Power]+5000 for each of this unit's equip gauges, and if it has three or more equip gauges, it cannot be chosen by your opponent's card's abilities.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks a vanguard, COST [retire another rear-guard], and draw a card. If this unit is on (RC), COST [Counter Blast (1)], put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for this unit, and it gets [Power]+5000 until end of that battle for each gauge equipped to this unit.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, or when it attacks a vanguard, you may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks, you may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards. [AUTO]:When retired from (RC) by your card's ability, call up to one card from this unit's equip gauge to (RC). You may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for that unit. This ability may only be used by a card with the same card name once a turn. There is a lot to unpack here. Simply put, both Sweeper and Megarex are insane cards, maybe unfair in the general landscape of budget deck-building. Sweeper gives himself an equip gauge on attack, and he gets 5k power and a removal dodge ability… on BOTH players’ turns. Meaning that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, on the first turn that sweeper is played, he is going to be a 19k-24k attacker that keeps his high numbers and is resistant to pretty much all forms of removal, apart from some unique cases. There was a point that this card was so good people were considering it as a possible candidate for a BAN. Couple that with its laughably low price point, at 50 cents each, and it’s no wonder why people still use this card in every possible build of Tachikaze, no exceptions. Megarex is a completely different beast entirely. His power-up skill is a bit more restrictive, but it follows the exact same path as sweeper, simply less efficient, while also being more susceptible to removal. He more than makes up for it, however, with his retire and draw skill, which is completely free and works perfectly with the rest of the clan. Another thing to note is that he is insanely cheap, an entire playset of him going for about 1 euro and 20 cents. There is not a lot to be said about Turbo Smilodon, he’s a grade 2 version of Opticalcerato, a card we briefly discussed in the grade 3 section. Smilodon is, also, quite an expensive card. In the time of me writing this, we still dont know what the reprint price for him is from the new Revival Collection set, so for now he is sitting at a comfortable 1 euro and 50 cents per copy. If he’s not readily available, then running the grade 3 Optic is suggested as a replacement. Regiodon is also quite simple. A lot of skills in Tachikaze require the retiring of a rear-guard to be activated, and Regiodon is an excellent card, working as not only fodder for the rest of the team, but also as a multi-attack engine, if placed on an Accel marker. A lot of utility as well as a little bit of extra oomph for your combo turn.

The grade 2 line-up was a million times better than anticipated, but with that, it is now time to move along to the grade 1 line-up. The grade 1 line-up, to a certain extend, has also been solved, however a bit more of a creative spin can be put in it if any Cardfighter feels like experimenting.

There are several key budget units to consider right off the bat, those units being: 

Fierce Claw Dragon, Laceraterex

Full Speed Dragon, Bluesprint

Angry Roar Dragon, Roarbaryo 

Sonic Noa 

[AUTO](RC):When placed from hand, put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for this unit. [AUTO]:When it is retired from (RC), COST [Soul Blast (1)], and return up to one gauge equipped to this unit to your hand.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks, you may put one card from the top of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards. [AUTO]:When retired from (RC) by your card's ability, call up to one of this unit's equip gauges to (RC). You may put one card from the top of your deck face down as an equip gauge for that unit. This ability may only be used by a card with the same card name once a turn.

[AUTO](RC):When placed, COST [Soul Blast (1)], put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your other rear-guards, and that unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn for each of its equip gauges.

[AUTO](RC):When it boosts a rear-guard, put the top card of your deck face down as an

equip gauge

for the boosted unit.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack or the attack that it boosted hits a vanguard, COST [retire one other rear-guard], and draw a card.

The grade 1 line-up, just like the grade 2 line-up, is also quite excellent. We have more and more cards that fulfill our win-condition and allow us to have options no matter what the current board-state is. 

An overwhelming amount of utility and value comes from both Bluesprint and Laceraterex, 2 cards that don’t only gauge themselves but also allow us to get even more value from our retires, both from a card-advantage, in the case of Laceraterex, and a potent multi-attack engine, in the case of Bluesprint. 

Roarbaryo, however, is just pure damage output. With the cost of just one soul he can make a unit not only get an equip gauge for future usage, but also gives a boost that can range from just 5k, to 25k in the case of Sweeper. Overall a very simple and strong card. The 3 cards discussed above will not set you back more than 2 euros for a playset of all of them.

Sonic noa is a special case. He is a bit pricier and harder to come by compared to the previous cards that we discussed, but his effect more than makes up for it. Sonic Noa is our decks’ WHOLE game-plan, condenced into one card. Equip gauges, self-retire, card draw, he does it all and he does it very well. A playset of him will set you back about 2 euros but he’s getting reprinted in the next revival collection, so picking him up won’t be a difficult task in the coming weeks.

Example decklist 

This particular list is not only very cheap and strong, but it’s also an excellent investment for future Tachikaze builds, if you wish to stick with this particular clan.

GRADE 3

4x Gigannoblazer

2x Terror Therizeeno

2x Opticalcerato

1x Savage Mercenary

GRADE 2

4x Sweeper

3x Megarex

3x Turbo Smilodon

2x Regiodon

GRADE 1

4x Roarbaryo

4x Sonic Noa

2x Bluesprint

2x Laceraterex 

GRADE 0

x1 Starting Vanguard 

x4 Draw Perfect Guards

x4 Heals

x8 Front Triggers

(Please keep in mind that these lists are made with the Budget Constraints first, as well as what is the most optimal ratio of cards depeding on their availability in Greece. All of these prices and lists are subject to change, but keeping the price low is the number 1 priority.) 

Final Price: ~19 Euros

Closing thoughts and Special thanks

While this particular Budget profile wasn’t as long as the Previous one, I feel like I did a good enough job at showcasing one of the least appreciated clans out there, and I hope I assisted you in finding a new and interesting deck or playstyle. As a massive tachikaze fan (one of my top 5 favorite clans), this deck was a joy to playtest and write about.Special thanks to my friend Dimitri, who without him this Budget Profile wouldn’t have existed, as well as a special thanks to my close friends for reading through the previous post, even though they don’t know a single thing about Vanguard.That’s all for now, Cardfighters ! If you have read this far, thank you so much for your time and attention. Have a wonderful rest of your day ! Bloom aka thebudgetgarden (if you have any questions, feel free to contact my discord account: Bloom#8890) 

[renatogpadilla]

FFVI as a D&D Campaign:

OK, so I've been watching "Critical Role" (Campaign 1, Episode 31, no spoilers!) a LOT lately and it got me thinking how FFVI (arguably the BEST "Final Fantasy" game out there) is essentialy that. The biggest moments could be atributted to CRAZY rolls! I can see each of the characters being played by one of the people at the table! * Marisha as Terra Branford: Would be phenomenal. Her mentality is kinda in-line with Keyleth's. The "Kill Their Own Emotions" moment in the boat shakes the table as a whole. And when it's time to run an orphanage and protect her kids from Humbaba, the emotion in her voice destroys everyone in the Party. The "Mama?" moment becomes the most fan-arted moment for her character until the final fight. Her Trance ability is agreed to be the coolest looking skill at the table. To say nothing of the way she'd react to the whole Slave Crown bussiness!

Matt: "She killed 50 imperial soldiers in a few minutes." Marisha, and the whole table: *S H A K I N G*

* Taliesin as Locke Cole: "Treasure Hunter!" every single time somebody calls him a thief or a rogue. The "Rachel" story would be absolutely heartbreaking with Taliesin's expressions. The solo-sneak through the town while meeting Celes would be one of the highlights of the Campaign... That and his frienship with Terra would only be accentuated by Taliesin's and Marisha's irl friendship. Not to mention him puking on the ship would serve as some comedic timing straight out of "Critical Role"! Also, "That bow looks good on you" LAUNCHES the ship to heights undreamt of.

* Sam as Edgar Figaro: I mean, COME ON! IT WRITES ITSELF! Besides, it would be enjoyable to see him use his -Artificer- Machinist abilities as creatively as he does! Can you IMAGINE him rolling high enough one day and then he just creates the Noiseblaster? And with that he pulls out the microphone every time he uses it and proceeds to shout some thing Scanlan would be proud of... Not to mention his friendship with Sabin would be amazing if played by Sam! "The little shrimp has become a mighty Lobster!" You can HEAR Sam Riegel's voice come out of that! And the two headed coin? Now THAT's a Scanlan! This without mentioning the violations of the Geneva Convention that the Bioblaster would certainly entail...

* Laura as Celes Chere: I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Meeting Locke in the dungeon? The apparent betrayal? THE OPERA HOUSE?! "I'm a former General, not some... Opera floozy!" TELL ME you don't hear Laura Bailey saying that! And then she rolls a Natural 20 on performance and EVERYONE looses their shit! Her Runic ability is the target of MANY close saves. Also, the way Locke and Celes' interactions happen, she'd be perfect opposite Taliesin. The chat on the bridge in Albrook? HEARTSTOPPING. The attempted suicide? You KNOW Matt would call the sesion there!

* Travis as Sabin Figaro: This one was obvious. Monk/Barb that gets mistaken for a bear, and acts like an absolute teddy bear around Terra? Yes. Gods above, YES. "You think a tiny thing like the end of the world was going to be enough to keep me down?" You heard Grog too, right? The moments would be worth MILLIONS. The Opera house and Travis going "Why is everyone singing?" and then getting more and more into it! Him holding up the house for Celes! "MISTER THOU"... But best of all, and probably the single most famous Sabin moment EVER, The Phantom Train:

Matt: The train tracks suddenly lurch to the side. Even after this long and hard-fought battle it seems *chukles* it seems this train isn't letting you get away with your lives. That brings us to you, Travis! Travis, on his 5000 IQ shit: I grapple the train.

Entire Table: ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!?!

Matt: No way in hell are you gonna- You know what? Roll for it. *Picks up dice for the Train* Taliesin: He's dead. He's so fucking dea-

Travis: NATURAL 20.

Entire Table: *Silent disbelief, everyone looks at Matt*.

Matt: *Also in disbelief* ...Rolled a 1.

Entire Table: *Inintelligeble gasping and hyperventilating*

Travis: I'm going to use my last Blitz as Meteor Strike and suplex the Train!

Matt: *Looking at the sheet, knowing damn well what's about to happen* Go ahead and roll for damage...

Travis: *Rolls for damage*

Matt: *Braces for impact* How do you wanna do this?

Entire Table and the Internet: *EXPLODES*

The Fanart keeps coming, even YEARS after the Campaign is done...

* Liam as Setzer Gabbiani: Since he's LITERALY "Mister Steal Your Girl", I think Liam would be PERFECT. Just imagine him getting set up as this suave and smooth rougue who wanted to kidnap a beautiful singer and then gets Laura instead! (Which isn't entirely wrong...) IMAGINE his expresions and his dissapearing under the table laughing as the others barely climb aboard The Blackjack. THE ENTIRE PARTY giving him shit for a low roll on a Wisdom Check (the double-headed coin) and him segwaying that into joining the party, only to find out that he actually knew all along... Priceless. The total and undistilled heartbreak as his ship falls apart, him trying to reach out for Terra and everyone falling on different places. And then meeting Celes a year later and doing the whole Daryll story... Liam would be the one to steal the audience every time he takes the spotlight! Though he would be a little like Percy in the sense that he doesn't get much to do until his arc happens.

"Money, Money, Money!" every time he throws coins to attack, the loaded dice (in character, not at the table?) and the card throws would make him so stylish in a D&D setting I'll be surprised if somebody hasn't done it already.

* Ashley as Relm Arrowny: She takes forever to join because of her constantly being away for filming, but once she's here? HOO BOY, does the fun keep coming! Her paintings coming alive and helping them fight? Her giving Sam shit for Edgar's love life? "Fuddy-Duddy!" becoming A Thing? All of those moments would be hilarious... But probably her most notorious moment comes when they find her a year later, serving a posessed brush, telling her to paint, paint, paint under the Magic House... "Keep painting until I'm complete..." The party snaps her out of it before she finishes the greatest painting she's ever done, her Magnum Opus, and then the painting coming alive prematurely in order to force her to finish... To give her form. And then the Lakshmi boss fight happens... Matt: And with the last of her strength gone, the banshee-like apparition dissipates into mist, and before any of you can react, Relm's magic brush begins to glow, like it had when you first came in here. The glow slowly creeps off the hairs and darts! Off towards the mistified form of it's mistress, enveloping itself into a thicc layer on top of the mist, swirling around... and around and around.

Ashley: Oh god, now what?

Matt: The colors dissipate, and Lakshmi unleashes a terrible wail! *DM monster noises* As it is now joined with this colorful cloud... And it compresses, smaller and smaller... And more solid until it's not mist anymore.

Marisha: *Gets it* ¡WAIT A MINUTE!

Travis: *Exited* ¡OH SHIT, HOLD ON!

Matt: The fog dissipates... And the calm returns to Relm's senses. Ashley you are now holding an innert, ordinary paint brush. However! Floating in the air, you see a crystal with a small glowing core, the particular essence of Life embeded in the middle, Terra you *points at Marisha* feel this and recognize it instantly, as it falls to the ground, and bounces a couple times... A brand new shard of Magicite.

Party: *FERAL LOOTING*

"Lakshmi" becomes the most PAINFUL fanart to make, and it's ALWAYS the one that's valued the most among the fandom.

The rest of the Party (Strago, Umaro, Mog, Cyan, Gau and GoGo) can be the guests that come over every once in a while (I particualrly see Wil Wheaton as Strago Magus, Mary McGlynn as GoGo and Will Friedle as Clyde "Shadow" Arrowny) with Shadow coming and going with the excuse that "His contract is up" (and let's face it, after surviving/witnessing the Phantom Train? My contract would be up too...) and coming back whenever his schedule/the plot allows. Eventually, everyone comes together for one last session and the battle with God Kefka. Setting their affairs in order, the reveal of who Shadow really is during a lone chat with Strago shakes the Critters to their core. Everything makes sense! Why Interceptor went straight to Relm when they met... Why his nightmares kept showing a village of magic users, yet they never mention Shadow in Thamasa! The group is RATTLED and wether or not he survives at the end becomes a HEATED argument between everyone at the table. Only Strago knows the truth...

The sendoff on The Falcon with everyone saying goodbye and seeing what the World will bring next is regarded as one of the most emotional scenes in "Critical Role" history... But the most completely DESTRUCTIVE force in this entire cast is Matt Mercer as Kefka Palazzo:

The personality... the narrative... The absolute slime in his voice when he poisons Doma. When he kills Leo and brings forth the Light of Judgement. Matt definitely has his moments playing Ultros. He's fun! And Emperor Ghestal was more of a political "Darth Sidious" villain. But Kefka? OH, LORD. NOBODY was ready for Kefka. "Enjoy the barbicue!" gets memed to no end, while also sending a horrible shiver down people's spine whenever somebody brings it up. Truly, the villain to end all villains. I can see it happen so vividly... If anybody wants to talk about this more, PLEASE hit me up! This just feels too good! Until off course the party moves on to their next Campaign in the setting for "Final Fantasy 5" but that's a whole OTHER can of worms!