#even if the lightning aspect of his powers makes him uncomfortable

[barrencelenny]

only half way through an eight hour flight and I’m bored. do you think barry has a slight phobia of lighting.

[bubblegumbeech]

The Losing Move

Day two Ectoberhaunt:  Scream vs Laugh

AO3

It started with a scream. That’s how Clockwork knew it was finally time. 

He hesitated, of course. There was so much to lose, so much still uncertain, paths branching in different directions, moments shrouded imperfectly from his view, strings of fate tangled and misused. But he was the Master of Time. He could hesitate and no one would ever know. 

Not even them. 

Clockwork made a portal, leaving his Clocktower and walking towards a tall grey rock almost as old as time itself, weathered by age and nothing like the statue it had once been standing proud in a garden of overgrown thorns and long dead leaves. Nocturn appeared next to him, a swirl of inky black void scattered with stars and nebulae. 

“Did you hesitate?” he asked. 

It was a valid question. An important one too, if they were to succeed. Clockwork’s hesitation could lead to an uncertain future, to a failure in their plot. And then they would be lost, set back hundreds of thousands of years again. 

“No.”

Nocturn accepted his answer. Perhaps he knew that Clockwork was lying, perhaps he did not. Either way, they both turned to the stone. 

It wasn’t long before the others appeared. 

Misery Vex was the first, then Sojourn, on and on until they all stood, surrounding the stone. 

Misery turned to Clockwork. “Did it take?” she asked, and he flew forward, taking off one of his gloves to run his hand along the smoothed side of the rock. It hummed, an energy unlike any else, unique to here yet everywhere and nowhere at all. Very chaotic indeed. 

“It has.”

She hummed an affirmative, linking her hand in his before reaching out to take Sojourn’s. Clockwork reached for Nocturn and as they all linked together they formed a shield, thick and impenetrable between their varied talents, around the stone. 

“How long will this take,” Vortex said, ever the impatient one. He was jittery, yellow cords of lightning constantly jumping all over him in a nervous jumble, branching in and out of each other like writhing snakes. 

Clockwork sighed. “Not long.”

“You musn’t get too close,” Misery warned.

“I know.”

“You musn’t go too far,” Nocturn reminded him. 

He knew that too. 

“You’ve failed before,” Misery said, her voice steady and calm. She was not wrong, nor accusatory. He had faltered, it had led to a less than ideal outcome. He would not admit this. 

Clockwork didn’t allow any emotion on his face. “The threat is contained. My faults did not lead to the failure of our mission.”

She scoffed. “No, only to ‘inconvenience’. Right?”

As far as she knew. As far as any of them did. They relied on him, to determine if their future would be a success. He was the only one who could see which path to take, what choices would lead to their victory. He was the only one who knew just how thin the chance was, how precarious the choice. It would not benefit them to know. He did not need their doubt.

“Who was it?” Sojourn asked, referring to the scream that had summoned them here. The scream that had echoed hauntingly throughout the entirety of the Infinite Realms. 

Clockwork hadn’t looked. He looked now. 

“A boy, fourteen years old, between child and adult, between living and dead, between here and there.” 

Nocturn smiled, “How fitting.”

The stone shattered. Power and chaos, magic and will swirled around in a tornado, beating against the solid weight of their shield and making what was once so obviously strong seem weak and pitiful in comparison. 

Vortex’s eyes glowed in excitement. It was a sign, they all knew, that things were getting close. 

Eventually the storm faded and all that was left was a weathered pile of ash and rubble where there had once been a stone, where there had once been a statue, where there had once been nothing at all. 

It would come to nothing once more. 

Soon.

  The Infinite Realms had been lifeless for so long. Nothing more than ambient ectoplasm and void. A place. Nothing more and nothing less than it had to be. Many of the denizens had never seen them alive, existing as they once had. The panic was only natural. The frenzy, exciting and new. The heart of it all beating again. 

There was one ghost in particular, of course, who had only known the realms as they existed now. Sure there might also be others, newly made and newly dead, but this one was the important one. He’d been the one to give his life for the life around them now. 

Or at least, he’d given half of it. 

The Observants, of course, were furious. 

They had attempted to hunt down the Ancients, knowing it was they who had done this, who had planned this and then hidden it from the view of those who watch. Vortex had been taken first, as expected, and Undergrowth had fled to the mortal realm. The others also split, the time for them to come together was over; the time to prepare for the end was nearing. 

Clockwork, of course, their ever loyal subservient pet that could not leave his tower without their knowledge, that could not use his power without their permission, he’d never been looked at twice.

“You told us the threat was neutralized.” Nocturn said, sliding up next to one of Clockwork’s monitors. He watched a scene, where Daniel and Pariah fought. It was not a real fight, of course. Pariah had long shed the haze of bloodlust that had driven him mad, and was now attempting to be endearing, to rebuild a trust Clockwork had never actually had in him. 

Clockwork took a sip of his tea. It was made from some of Pariah’s newly grown coraleander leaves and made a thick, murky green tea that Clockwork quite enjoyed the taste and texture of. Unfortunately that was exactly why Pariah had grown them, and while Clockwork had snuck them away like a petty thief, he doubted that the missing leaves had gone even a moment unnoticed. 

It was infuriating and Clockwork sipped at it slowly, savoring it’s warmth.

“He is no longer the King. In fact, there is no King at all, just as I said it would be.”

Nocturn turned to meet his eyes, tilting his head just slightly in suspicion. “Yes, you did. Though I suppose the others thought you meant he would not escape his sleep. Or at least, that he would not escape his sleep until after .”

Clockwork looked away, towards the monitor. Pariah had soundly defeated Daniel and was laughing. Likely at the way the poor boy looked, his hair a mess and covered in the very coraleander leaves Clockwork was drinking. He’d need to wash them off before he transformed back into a human. While they wouldn’t be immediately deadly to a Half-Ghost, they would form a large, hard to explain, rash. 

“That wasn’t what I said though, was it?” Clockwork met Nocturn’s eyes once more. 

The other ghost just snorted and shook his head. “No, no I guess it wasn’t. Clockwork, the tightrope you’re walking, that future you see that you haven’t told us about? I really hope you get it. I do. Because the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows and I can’t imagine what would happen if you missed.”

Clockwork’s tea had gone cold. He continued to sip it. He ignored Nocturn’s words and he watched the screen as Pariah helped Daniel stand, only for Daniel to tackle him when he wasn’t expecting it. 

“I’ll take that under consideration.” 

It was becoming habit, he found, to lie to Nocturn. 

  Daniel was at the Clocktower, eating a plate of cookies and complaining about some of the varied ghosts he had to deal with and fight on a regular basis in his mortal realm. It was a side effect, of course, of Phantom’s new role as the Heart of The Infinite Realms. The smaller, weaker ghosts, especially younger and newly dead ones, had attempted to flee the Realms when they noticed the sudden changes. 

When the Observants had become so busy trying to find the cause of the change, so busy trying to hunt down what was left of Chaos’ children, that they could no longer micro-manage the state of the Realms. Could no longer constantly overstep their authority and keep their tasteless ‘Order’. 

The Realms had become more and more lively and Clockwork had found himself in a perpetual good mood. He took a cookie for himself. Nocturn caught him baking the other day; his expression had been dry as he congratulated Clockwork on his adoption. It was  a pointed accusation. 

He had shoved it to the back of his mind and decided to make some forgoent tea to go with the cookies. He hadn’t offered any to Nocturn. 

Daniel paused in his musings for a moment before speaking again, his voice careful. “I’ve been visiting Pariah.”

Clockwork hummed, not looking away from his screens. “I am aware.”

“Of course you are.” Daniel rolled his eyes. Then he sighed like he didn't know how to bring up what he was going to say next. “Did you… Did you know he was going to get free if you sent me after that key?” 

Ah, so he’d figured it out then. “It was a possibility. Each and every choice you make creates an entirely new future with entirely new consequences.” 

“He doesn’t seem all that bad…” Daniel argued, as if Clockwork was going to disagree with him. Clockwork raised an eyebrow, the one with the scar Pariah had given him, and looked over to him. “I mean, he just. When he first woke up he was really mad right? But like, I’d also be really mad if I finally woke up from a forced coma only to have Vlad there.”

Anyone would really. 

“And even though he sucked Amity Park into the Ghost Zone, no one actually ended up getting hurt. At least, no more than usual in a ghost attack. And I’ve been talking with the other ghosts that have been ‘Challenging’ him and they all say he's a pretty cool teacher… Like, he knows how to fight and he’s good at showing them how they can use their unique powers-”

Clockwork didn’t interrupt Daniel as he rambled. It was rare, at least since he’d been deposed, to hear lists of Pariah’s more positive aspects. It wasn’t uncomfortable so much as mildly frustrating. Was this part of Pariah’s ploy? Get Daniel to fall all over himself to recite poetics about Pariah to Clockwork. He should have learned by now that whatever affection he might hold for him, it would not be enough. Not to stop his plans, and certainly not to stop the others.

“So uh, you know, he seems… chiller. Without the crown and ring and stuff.”

“Yes, it was the Ring of Rage Daniel, what did you think it was used for?” 

There was a small imperceptible shift in Daniel’s expression, as if he’d realized something and made the choice to file the knowledge away for later. He must have learned that from Pariah as well. “So, if there’s things that can change even powerful ghosts like Pariah, are there things that could change, say… one of the Ancients?”

Was Daniel befriending another Ancient? Clockwork smiled, that was good then. He could hold that against them, the weight of his failure to keep an emotional distance wouldn’t be as stark, if another Ancient or two fell just as easily to Daniel’s pleasant company. He could use that, he simply had to find out which of them it was. Perhaps Sojourn? He was always soft for children, but Clockwork hadn’t been aware of him returning to the Barrens lately, and Daniel rarely went any further than the Time Locked Lands or the Far Frozen. 

“It is good to befriend others Daniel,” he says halfheartedly, searching through his mirrors to locate Sojourn, “but remember not to trust too easily. You never know the goals of those around you, if they might be using you towards their own ends.”

“Of course,” Daniel replied, his voice hard. 

Clockwork looked over to him, he was staring at the dregs of his tea, expression dark. 

“Would you like more tea?” Clockwork offered, wondering what had plummeted the boy’s attitude so suddenly. 

Daniel looked up, a small smile on his lips, “Yes Please.”

Clockwork left to make more, his mind still trying to find which Ancient Daniel had befriended. 

  “The Observants are completely ignorant of your machinations,” Pariah said as Clockwork entered his study. “Of course, they don’t know you as well as they think.”

Clockwork should stop visiting him. Should never have started, a fact that Nocturn was only too happy to remind him of. Sometimes Clockwork wondered if Nocturn got his taste of Chaos from Clockwork's mistakes, he seemed so dedicated to reveling in them. 

“I didn’t come here to talk about the Observants. I have my fill without the need to remark upon them when absent from their presence.” Clockwork was scowling. He could hide his irritation, but despite his lies and trickery he was hardly an accomplished actor. 

Pariah chuckled, flipping another page in the thick book he’d been reading. The title was faded, but Clockwork recognized it easily enough. It was a detailed history of the Infinite Realms after King Dark had been sealed away. It was a long history, though not as long as the history that came before his reign entirely. 

It was also the exact kind of thing Pariah would read cover to cover, like the obsessive monster he was. 

“I suppose you came to warn me away from your ward then?” Pariah asked, his voice casual. Clockwork scoffed, allowing a roll of his eyes before floating over to Pariah’s shelves and grabbing one of the books that looked recently used. It was about old soul binding rituals, much like what had happened to Fright Knight. It was amusing, the thought that Pariah’s oldest friend might still be whining about his little curse. 

“Hardly,” Clockwork said, idly flipping through the pages, “if I could control Daniel I never would have let him near you to begin with.”

Pariah smiled, placing his own book down. “Yes, I imagine you wouldn’t have. It would be a mistake to let me get close to him and realize he is the reason the Infinite Realms have started to sing.”

He’d figured it out then. Of course that wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. Unlike the Observants, Pariah was wickedly intelligent and fully capable of coming to the appropriate conclusions. “Sing? An interesting way to describe it.”

Arms encircled his waist and Clockwork was pulled back into a warm chest. Pariah’s chin rested on Clockwork’s shoulder as he spoke softly into his ear. “Is it enough? The realms feel alive, weaker ghosts are fleeing or banding together once more. It resembles the time we once had, between Chaos and Order. Will you stop here?”

“There’s nothing more I can do,” he lied. 

Pariah hummed an agreement and reached out to flip a few pages through the book Clockwork had been holding. There was a beautifully illustrated drawing of a necklace, bewitched and layered in curses. Pariah must have memorized the pages, of course. “Would you wear jewelry if I made it for you? I would see you decked in gold and finery if I could.”

Clockwork slammed the book closed, just missing Pariah’s fingers. He didn’t think about the earrings Pariah had once gifted him, or how he wore them even now, dangling hidden beneath his hood. “You should know better than to ask that.” 

He felt a smile against his neck. “Then I won’t ask.”

  He held the Thermos in his hand. 

The other Daniel was a menace, truly. But he would not be so desperate to ruin Daniel’s life anymore. It had been long enough for him to realize that his existence was no longer predicated on Daniel’s decisions, or on the loss of his family. 

It would change him, of course. The knowledge that he exists in the same time as his once family will either soften his grief, or sharpen its edges. There were so many paths he could take, and Clockwork could not see them all, did not bother to look much further than the distance he needed him for. 

There was something more important than his grief that he and Clockwork had in common. Something Daniel and Pariah likely had in common with them as well: the detestation of the Observants. 

Clockwork opened the thermos, releasing Daniel’s worst nightmare and not thinking about how the young half-ghost had given it to him so easily, had trusted him so quickly when all Clockwork had done was protect his human family one time. 

The other, once possible, Daniel appeared in an explosion of light and matter and immediately attacked, using his claws to scratch at Clockwork’s face. He was prepared for that though, years trapped in a thermos had eroded much of Dan’s more refined aspects. It would work in Clockworks favor of course, he had made sure of that.

For now, Clockwork froze time and moved behind him. That way his wild attack would meet nothing but ambient ectoplasm and Clockwork could speak his piece. Provided his piece took less than a second to speak.

He allowed time to flow and watched as the other Daniel floundered, confused, only to instantly realize just what Clockwork had done and turn around, ready to attack once more. Clockwork smiled as their eyes met and asked, “Would you like to End the Observants and their Order?”

the other Daniel attacked him, but Clockwork could see the consideration in his eyes. The thought had been implanted, now all he had to do was sit back and watch. the other Daniel had always been rather good at ruining things after all. 

“CLOCKWORK!” Daniel yelled, flying frantically into the Clocktower. “Clockwork Dan escaped somehow! He attacked Amity Park!” 

His desperate flight slowed when he saw Clockwork floating casually at his screens as he always had. He was watching a specific screen now, and pulled the image onto the largest one to share with Daniel. “Yes, I know.”

Daniel looked between him and the screen, his expression growing more and more confused. “But, he was here though. Locked up. How did he escape?”

Clockwork didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m sorry Daniel,” he lied. “Your trust in me was misplaced. He escaped while I was distracted with another matter and I was unable to stop him. It’s my fault.”

Daniel’s eyes widened, searching for something in Clockwork’s expression, and then in Clockwork’s screens. The only thing he saw though, was the other Daniel causing havoc and destruction. After visiting Amity Park and re-traumatising Daniel’s sister, the other Daniel had been driven away by Daniel, whose power had become far superior in the time since they had last met. It was only natural of course, Daniel’s existence was unique and far beyond that of Dan’s mangled pieced together form of conflicting obsessions and damaged cores. 

It was possible, Clockwork knew, for the other Daniel to stabilize properly. Perhaps he could become a proper ghost, perhaps he could stop attempting to restrict what humanity he had left. Either way, it did not matter in the end. If anything, his existence was a fun riddle that would play itself out long after Clockwork’s plans came to fruition. 

Clockwork looked over at Daniel, his expression hidden behind the shadows of his hood. The boy was staring emptily at the corner of the Clocktower that led to the inner dungeons where the other Daniel had been hidden away.  After a moment he turned away, hiding his own expression, and began to walk. As if his legs had become too heavy to fly. 

“It’s fine. I’ll get him back. It won’t happen again.” There was a promise in his voice and it softened to be almost inaudible entirely. “I won’t let it.”

After he left, Clockwork turned back to the screen with the other Daniel on it. He was finished terrorizing the ghost from before, and was now floating listlessly in the void of the Infinite Realms. Likely, he was warring with his obsessions- or his emotions- it was hard to tell which. Eventually though, he shook his head, looked up as if to catch Clockwork’s eye, and flew off.

In the direction of the Observants. 

  It’s eyeball was glaring at him, the normally dull yellow of it’s sclera bright with fury. “You were given responsibility over him! You were entrusted to keep him from destroying the Realms!”

Clockwork’s own eye twitched as he fought back an eyeroll. Those who Watch were as predictable as ever, not showing up at the moment of Dan’s release but instead at the moment he began to take his rage out on the Observants. Their responsibilities had always been superfluous though, a vague excuse to do as they pleased in the name of Order. 

“I failed. He escaped. Woe is me.” He floated over to one of his more intricate gadgets and began to tinker with it, pretending to be busy. “Surely an Order such as yours, full of powerful ghosts that command the Realms, did not come to me in fear though? He attacked you directly, does that not make your vow of inaction void?”

“ You-! ”

“Of course, it would be different if you simply couldn’t defeat him. But… he’s only a decade dead. That would be an embarrassment.”

The other Observant that had come to scold (and demand his servitude) floated in front of its companion so as to cut off a likely incensed reaction. “He’s an abomination, and an amalgamation. Surely you can understand why we wanted him dealt with before it came to this.”

Clockwork inclined his head, playing at civility. “Perhaps then, you should seek to work alongside Phantom. I have it on relatively good authority he’s also trying to deal with your resident menace.”

Both of the Observants took his suggestion as an insult, one even growing red with it. “That Abomination? He should be destroyed along with it!”

“Pity,” Clockwork said, turning back to the screens and watching as the other Daniel tore the core out of another Observant’s chest and crushed it in his palm. He wasn’t even absorbing them for their power. It was a waste, but Clockwork was certain it was a waste born of trauma. Dan’s creation had, after all, been due to a botched absorption with a powerful ghost core. “You can leave now.”

“You must deal with this.”

“I will deal with it when the time is right,” he said in lieu of an answer. 

The Observants, disgruntled and unwilling to leave, as if hiding in Clockwork’s lair would somehow protect them, made comment after comment demanding his action and threatening punishment should he fail. He replied with sarcasm and an aloof attitude that soon had them leaving out the door if only to try and do what they could to tighten his bonds. 

He sighed, there was time still. He should make cookies, that always seemed to calm him, help him to exist in the present and not become impatient for what is yet to be. He headed to the kitchen, only to see an unexpected visitor at his table. 

“Nocturn, you’re early.”

The other Ancient nodded. “Yes, your plan seems to have worked flawlessly. The Authority of the Observants has been shaken. Much of the power they had gained through fear and reputation has dwindled, but…”

Clockwork raised an eyebrow as he opened his cabinets. There was egyptian sand flour left over, it would be dryer than using something more modern, but the age would add a good aftertaste. He just needed to add extra Honey-Wasp bits from the outskirts of The Undergrowth and that should balance it. Maybe some purified ectoplasm. Pariah gifted him a jar after he had somehow managed to create a device to filter it from the Infinite Realms. 

He had also made an absolutely unsubtle offer to join him in his new ‘sauna’ that Clockwork had pointedly refused. 

“But?” he prompted, there was little information he could glean from silence. 

Nocturn watched him prepare the batter. He sighed and stood, grabbing a knife and helping to mince the Honey-Wasps before speaking again. “But they still have their numbers, and much of their actual power. And Clockwork, Pariah has made his move.”

“I know,” Clockwork admitted, “but is that not in our favor as well?”

“Not if he takes more power from them, Pariah on his own is not a fight we can accept lightly. Anything more being beholden to him is hardly something I wish to see.” 

Clockwork cracked a Kraken’s egg into the mixture and moved the bowl closer to Nocturn so he could scoop the Honey-Wasp bits into it as well, without losing any of the juice. Mixing it would be troublesome, some of the more experimental batters attempted to gain sentience and would try to escape the bowl. “It will work in our favor either way. the other Daniel caused havoc, their power was broken across the realms. Pariah is merely salting the ground we have burned.” 

He used a dull knife to cut into the batter and stirred, stopping any attempts at formation. Nocturn grabbed the bowl from him, forcing eye contact. “What if he seeks something else?”

“Haven’t I already escaped the chains he bound me in before?” Clockwork laughed. “Do I not have allies that would find short work of cutting chains that I did not allow to bind me?”

The bowl was set back down and Clockwork and Nocturn both made short work of dividing the dough and setting it into the oven. “We could not break the bindings of the Observants,” Nocturn said as Clockwork closed the oven door. 

“That is different, that was part of our plans. They needed to never suspect me, if we were to get this far.” Clockwork waved him off. “Would you like a cookie?”

“We have to wait for them to cook, Clockwork.” Nocturn said, exasperated.

Clockwork simply rolled his eyes and increased the time surrounding the oven. “I don’t wait.”

Daniel hadn’t visited again since Clockwork allowed the other Daniel  to escape. It was possible, he admitted in the back of his mind, that Daniel blamed him for what happened. As well he should. Yet, the thought left a sour taste in his mouth. 

He was watching the screens again. Aiming them in every direction he could to see everything as it played out. Most were occupied by the remnants of the Order he had set about decimating. A few were dedicated to their interconnected Lair, the place where they held their play courts and kept their prisoners. It was where they kept Vortex before he was freed. One screen though, was aimed at Pariah’s Keep. 

It had been a simple thing that Clockwork had neither encouraged nor discouraged, Daniel’s visits with Pariah. But now that Clockwork’s own visits had come to an end, it had become something distinctly bitter, a feeling that was building in his chest, where his core hummed, that Clockwork was ignoring with all the practice of a man dead set on his goals. 

Daniel would visit again, of course. Clockwork could even tell the exact date and time, or at least the most likely ones. He didn’t look at the futures where Daniel never came back, there was no point in uselessly fretting about it. He’d be fine, there were more important things to deal with now. 

He could feel the pressure of his binds loosening as more and more of the Observants were hunted down. Not all of them were ended by Dan, of course. They had made many enemies. Both Vortex and Undergrowth had gone out of their way to visit quite a number themselves, along with a few of the other Ancients. Clockwork was certainly tempted to do so, alas, the restrictions upon him prevented it still. And the only way for those restrictions to end was for those wielding the reins to End. And well, then there wouldn’t be anyone left to take his ire out upon would there? 

Instead he allowed his own part in their demise to be enough for his bruised ego and the millennia of torment he’d undergone beneath them. Then he ate a cookie and kept watch of his screens. 

Pariah was teaching Daniel how to use a sword. Pandora had attempted to teach him swordsmanship but Daniel had been disinclined to it. He wasn’t particularly elegant to be fair, and the finesse and practiced movement of Pandora’s sword was more akin to an art than anything else. Her limbs risked entanglement if she wasn’t careful and had developed a style suited to such. 

Daniel was much more inclined to blunt, ferocious movements. He often thought with his fist before anything else, even as a ghost with a multitude of powers to command. He used speed and strength to win and outmaneuver his opponents and despite his lack of polish, he often won due to those two traits alone. Pariah was a talented teacher, in that he was clearly taking what Daniel had already in ample supply, and taught him how to wield it appropriately to its maximum use. 

He was still only beginning of course, but Daniel was a fast learner and had grown significantly in a short period of time. 

Clockwork had toyed with the idea of taking Daniel on as an official apprentice once or twice before. Teaching him how to exist beyond the means which he had become accustomed to as a human. While he would not have Clockwork’s inclination for time specifically, Daniel’s connection to the Realms would allow him a level of control over his surroundings and the beings that exist in them that simply does not exist in anyone outside of the Ancients. And even then, Clockwork’s Time was different enough from the others’ domains to be unique in and of itself in a similar vein to Daniel’s powers. Even if they’d only just barely begun to show. 

But it was a risk to do so before everything else came to fruition. If Daniel realized his plans, it would be troublesome. He likely would not agree to the lengths Clockwork is willing to reach, and more than that, there is no guarantee that his existence as half human would not have him attempting to side with Order over Chaos. No, it was better to wait and see how it all played out first. There wasn’t much left to do before the end. 

Yes it would lead to anger. Perhaps even to hatred. It would be fitting for Clockwork. He had never known a love that had yet to turn. That had truly been any kind of unconditional. 

But he would be free. 

Finally, finally free. 

Free from this horrid linear existence, free from his servitude, free from his bonds. The root of him, the core, had been born from Chaos, from the mess of all things and no things, and like any child wishing to cradle in the arms of its mother, Clockwork longed once more for it. 

He had been patient, as had the others. There was little left to do. 

  When Daniel finally visited again Clockwork had made cookies. 

They resembled human chocolate chips, if one squinted, and Clockwork had made sure to take them out of the oven just as Daniel arrived so they would be warm.

“There you are Daniel,” he greeted. The cookies were still moving and he had to give the tray he was holding a bit of a shake to get them to stop. He doubted Daniel would eat them if he thought they were alive. 

The boy didn’t look well. He had deep bags under his eyes, and a skittish, weary look about him. 

Clockwork clicked his tongue. “You need to sleep,” he said, not waiting for Daniel to speak. 

“What?” The boy lifted his head, confused. 

“I said, you should sleep.” Clockwork grabbed one of the amulets from the wall and placed it around Daniel’s neck. “I’ll stop time for a few hours, you can sleep here if you want.”

Daniel just blinked. “Oh.”

Nodding, Clockwork turned back to his screens so he could keep watch. Nocturn had warned that Pariah was making his move and Clockwork was determined to keep an eye on him now, when the timing was most crucial. 

He felt a tug on his sleeve. 

“Clockwork…”

He looked down to catch Daniel’s eyes. “Yes?”

“Nothing,” he sighed, “thanks.” He grabbed the amulet in one hand, a torn expression on his face. Then he floated off to the room Clockwork had given him to sleep.

Watching as his ward wandered off, Clockwork waited until he was out of sight to grab hold of time and let it rest for a moment. It was the least he could do. 

It wasn’t long after their fall that the final thread snapped and Clockwork opened his eyes in triumph. Everything was available to him now. There were no hidden futures, no shrouded pasts. His screens multiplied around him as even his Lair was freed from its limits. Like a beast stretching from a long hibernation, Clockwork lost himself to his Obsession, revelled in the freedom he had long gambled away. 

The Infinite Realms felt it as he left the Clocktower for no reason other than because he wanted to and he didn’t have to ask. He didn’t have to come up with some convoluted reason as to why this was perfectly acceptable before his own body allowed him to leave the doors of his own Lair. It felt wonderful, he almost took down his hood to see everything around him with the eyes of a free spirit. 

He didn’t though, it would be too much of a hassle to wrangle his hair back and he didn’t really want someone to see him so freely bared. It was enough in every way, that he was finally free. 

“I almost forgot how powerful you were, Clockwork.” He turned to see Misery Vex, lounging comfortably just outside his lair. “The Eyes Around Us are gone then?”

Clockwork nodded, looking to the future, looking to the past. She had been waiting here for him, but not for long. And she wouldn’t have waited much longer. “Are you ready for what happens next?” he asked. 

“Are you?”

He nodded again. There weren’t any more preparations to make, how could he be anything but ready?

They didn’t meet at the Clocktower this time. 

It was no longer necessary after all. This time they met in the night. The soft evening of eternal sleep and dreams, Nocturn’s lair. It was spacious if nothing else, and creative with its decoration. Should one of them wish to sit, they merely needed to chance sitting and see if the space around them would accommodate. It suited him immensely. 

“Have you found her yet?” Misery asked.

Sojourn nodded, a small enthusiastic smile hidden under his beard. “Yes, Clockwork and I were able to locate her shattered core amongst Pandora’s boxes.”

“ It will not be easy to receive her, and it will only be more difficult to revive her,” Nocturn warned, “especially if we wish to keep this to ourselves. Rather than risk the entirety of the realms turning on us as they did the Observants.”

Clockwork nodded, “we shouldn’t do much in more than pairs. Sojourn and Misery should seek Pandora. Nocturn and I can set the ritual once the pieces are complete.”

“And the rest of us?” Undergrowth scowled, he hated Nocturn’s lair. It was cold and empty, barren of any more physical matters and there was nowhere for him to take root. Clockwork suspected half of the reason it was that way was intended to irritate Undergrowth specifically. 

Sojourn clapped his hands together and smiled, his eagerness truly knew no bounds and his obvious delight was nearly infectious. “You’re our escape plan of course! We’ll need help once we locate the right box, Pandora’s obsession is hardly a good one to be on the wrong side of.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Vortex grinned.

Clockwork couldn’t help but agree, what are they waiting for indeed? 

  “What is Chaos, Clockwork?” Daniel asked. But Clockwork was distracted.

He hadn’t expected Daniel to show up today, he hadn’t paid attention to it. There was so much to do, so much to get ready for. The time was now after all. 

He took care to answer anyways, the changes that were to come would affect the boy. At least a little. He was strong enough that he would thrive in Chaos, and it would help to nurture his Obsession, if the weaker denizens of the Realms needed help. And they would

“Chaos was the first, how it all began. Everything started with Chaos or nothing could have been at all.” 

Daniel frowned, a small furrow in his brow. “That… didn’t really-“

Clockwork paused for a moment. “Is something wrong Daniel?”

He sighed. “So if you were made from Chaos, is she like, your mother?”

“No. Chaos is not sentient so much as conceptual.” Clockwork frowned, “though I suppose she predated concepts as well if she was the first. Chaos was neither one thing nor many things. It’s safe to say Chaos was everything and everything came from her. But that did not make her nurturing” 

Clockwork looked back at Daniel, letting time flow smoothly once more. It wouldn’t do to delay. 

There was a hint of something in Daniel’s eyes, a wariness that Clockwork had never seen before. It must have been due to their conversation, but Clockwork couldn’t place what about it would have Daniel on edge. Chaos would not be any more a threat to him than it would be the other Ancients. 

“Clockwork, if Chaos came back…” he paused, as if the words had been stuck in his throat, “what would happen to the humans? The mortals?” 

What a strange question. “Life would not exist as it does now, utter chaos would not permit it.”

It had been something of a sport, to watch Sojourn and Misery in their attempts to find and excavate the remnants of the Core of Chaos. Clockwork and Nocturn had watched it from the safety and comfort of Clockwork’s lair, on the largest of his screens. 

“They’re having fun aren’t they?” Nocturn mused, taking a sip of his tea. He’d made it himself in Clockwork’s kitchen, had been insistent about it when he’d seen Clockwork start to make his own.

“Pandora is a valiant warrior and a good fighter. Misery has been on the sidelines for some time since the end of Pariah’s court.” Clockwork’s tea was cold. He frowned and set it aside.

“Yes, it’s good to see her stretching her limbs. I hadn’t seen all of them since her last fight.”

Clockwork thought back, the fight Nocturn was referring to played on one of the smaller screens. It was a gladiator based competition, where Pariah had sent her as a member of his court to show his power. She had challenged the Lord of Little Crawlers to a duel and shredded him to pieces before even five minutes had passed. Then she had collected herself, reset her veil, and gone right back to Pariah’s Keep. 

Now she was using every extra limb she could against Pandora, swords clashing with long knitting needles and strings of silk. Watching the fight was mesmerizing to be sure, almost akin to a dance, if not for the frustrated vulgarities being thrown around and Sojourn’s overly eager cheering from the back.

“Do you think they’ll make it?”

“Sojourn will remember what they’re supposed to be doing when he almost drops one of the boxes held in his arms. Upon that realization he will sneak away while Pandora is distracted and meet with the others. From there they will come here with their spoils and it will be our turn to prove our worth.” Clockwork answered, easily detailing the future ahead of them. 

Nocturn nodded and took a sip of his tea.

  It didn’t happen exactly like Clockwork had predicted. But it was close enough. Sojourn had bypassed Vortex and Undergrowth completely and simply flown straight to Clockwork‘s lair on his own. Nocturn spared Clockwork a glance, but he remained unaffected. It was still on track to be an ideal future. 

Once Sojourn entered his lair Clockwork grabbed hold of time with his hand and twisted , forcing it to bend and still under his palm. The trip to the Cave was only a step after that and once there, he let loose and released time to settle amicably around them.

“Amazing,” Sonourn said, “I do think I’d like to travel this way more often. It’s quite convenient.”

Nocturn patted him on the shoulder and grabbed one of the delicately detailed boxes he’d been balancing precariously in his arms. “You’d need to be very careful if you did, there’s no telling what might get caught up in all that twisting and turning.”

“It won’t matter much longer after this,” Clockwork said, taking his own box. 

The entirety of Chaos was not here, her core long since mostly destroyed, but there was enough to recreate something should they use the ritual they had devised. 

It needed to be hidden, so they had found a cave. It was ancient, and once thought to be a reliable doorway into the spiritual and mortal realms, every wall was covered in ancient arts and writings. No rhyme or reason between them, a bit of a mess conceptually, but perfect for their purposes. Once Vortex had destroyed it in the mortal realm, it had been simple enough to recreate, especially using Undergrowth and Misery Vex’s powers. 

Most ghosts dared not travel here, where they placed it. It was a deeper part of the Infinite Realms, where the pressures of the ambient ectoplasm was strong enough to kill even some of the more stable spirits, certainly more than any Watcher could have ever handled. 

Clockwork gathered the ashes in the center of their chosen chamber. Three rights from the first left. Nocturn moved around the edges, the walls solid and firm under his hands as he tested them. And Sojourn, setting his own box aside, lit the flames. 

It began. 

They had known the work would be hard, tedious even. Most mortals, when they picture rituals like this, imagine chanting and holding hands, perhaps some use of indomitable will. But this was far more personal, more hands on.

Clockwork took the broken edge of a shattered piece of core, and began to mold it, shaping and soothing it into a puzzle-like shape. He had spent time looking into human carpentry practices, and had come across the traditional Chinese techniques of Lu Ban. 

It had taken more than a human lifetime to learn it properly and then suit it to his own needs, but he put it into practice now, shaping the shattered pieces anew and slotting them together so that they might fit and stay snug.

Sojourn had weaved together layer after layer of treated ectoplasm into a fine cloth and was now sewing it into a fitted dress, each stitch small and tidy, seamless against the weave. 

The one who stoked the flame, who kept its energy strong and the newly forming core well fed, was Nocturn. He kept a measured gaze upon it, not once turning away or getting distracted. 

This continued for an eternity, the creation, or recreation, of something both ancient and now new was exhaustive work. But eventually, Clockwork felt a hum. A small, weak thing that would have left him breathless had he needed to breathe. 

Chaos was born again, though faint, though weak. Not anything close to what she once was, but still, she was there, feeding on the flames of her own ashes, pieces of her own core held together and finally finding life. 

They needed to keep going. This was delicate work, if they got distracted, if there was even one misstep, it would be over. Chaos would be what she is now, what they made of her, and not what she needed to be. 

The fire went out.

“ Damn ,” Nocturn hissed, quickly turning to look around. He did not bother to relight the flame, it was too late. Clockwork felt hollow, had they truly failed? But how? 

He acted quickly, bundling the newly formed and still fragile core into Sojourn’s half sewn garment and thrusting it fully into the other Ancient’s hands. 

“You are the fastest of us, run, hide her away before we lose her entirely.” Sojourn nodded solemnly, flying quickly through the winding tunnels that led out of the cave. 

Nocturn scowled, “whoever is there should be glad I am merciful. Come out now and I shall forgo eternal torment for a quick End.”

There was only silence. 

Clockwork was growing irritated himself and looked to the future, only to see Nocturn tackled into a wall by a familiar black and white blur. 

“Daniel?!” He said, his thoughts screeching to a halt. But, there was no way. He couldn’t have followed them. He would have had to know about the cave and been lying in wait for the exact moment to-

There was a soft sound, like the clinking of a delicate chain, as Clockwork felt a weight upon his neck. All at once he felt the universe stand still, as if he had been trapped in the moment, the singular moment no longer able to spread himself beyond. It was cloying, claustrophobic. Something he never thought he’d experience again. 

And he knew who was behind it. 

“You’ve always been impatient my dear.” Pariah spoke softly, his lips far too close. 

Clockwork fled, slipping between moments to force space between them almost on instinct alone. Pariah simply let him go, a smug smile on his face. No, he wasn’t supposed to be here. How did he know about this place?

What had he placed on Clockwork’s neck?

He lifted a hand, not taking his eyes off of Pariah in case he decided to get any closer, and felt around his neck. It was a chain, delicate and just long enough to have slid over his head and dangle its pendant at a point on his chest, just above the glass. The shape of it was vaguely familiar, but Clockwork couldn’t place it.

“What have you done to me?” he asked, using anger to hide the tremble in his voice.

Pariah’s expression softened and he took a step forward. “Did I not say I would see you decked in gold?”

No…

The necklace…

It had been a cursed necklace, layered in charms meant for protection that slowly twisted into possession and control. It shouldn’t have been strong enough to cause any trouble at all to Clockwork, if something this simple had worked, Pariah would have used it long ago in the peak of his madness. 

Clockwork grabbed the chain, intending to rip it off, but Pariah spoke, startling him. “I wouldn’t, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

“Then why did you put it on me?” he tugged at the chain in emphasis, without his strength. Pariah never warned for no reason. 

The bastard smiled, like Clockwork had asked a stupid question, one he should know the answer to. Clockwork scowled, and moved further away from him. His back hit a wall. The cave, while earlier it had been comforting, a sign that eternal chaos was close at hand, that all Clockwork had done was paying off in the end, it was now more reminiscent of a stone cage. 

A trap.

He’d walked straight into a trap, one Pariah had been laying since he awoke. And Clockwork had never paid it any heed, had not bothered with his machinations because he assumed Pariah would be too slow, had thought whatever he did would be too weak. He had underestimated him, and now Pariah Dark was walking towards him, a lion stalking its prey.

Clockwork froze time.

He was still moving. Clockwork had frozen time and Pariah was still moving . 

It shouldn’t have been possible, there was nothing restricting Clockwork’s power in that way. He felt the threads of all existence tangled around him, grabbed the ones moving forward and tugged, sharp, desperate, to keep them still. He felt them still. 

Pariah kept moving though. 

“How-?” Everything else had frozen, all around them was silence and the only things that moved were the two of them. It was a strange kind of dance, one stepping closer and the other floating away. 

“I made it myself, the charm. It ties you to me, obviously.” Pariah caught him, gently because he didn’t need to use force, didn’t need to use any of the almost limitless strength behind him. “It’s based off the contract you signed with the Observants, I hadn’t honestly expected it to be so blatantly one sided when I read it. Though I suppose it was on purpose, a miscalculation on your part, in the end.”

Clockwork pulled his hand away, but Pariah simply moved with the action and stepped closer, crowding against him. “It doesn’t work like that,” Clockwork said through clenched teeth. A one-sided contract that gave away so much of himself was necessary. It was also only possible because Clockwork had signed it. Pariah couldn’t mimic that without Clockwork’s consent, that wasn’t how it worked. That wasn’t how any of this was supposed to work. 

Pariah hummed in agreement. “It wouldn’t be, if that was all I did.” He brushed a lock of hair from Clockwork’s eyes. “The Order of the Observants was in chaos. They were desperate. They wanted someone powerful to protect them. They were willing to give anything for the possibility they might find safety.”

Then he pulled out a medallion of his own, a horribly familiar one.

Oh.

So that was all it took…

Pariah was right, it had been a miscalculation indeed. 

“Even if they gave me to you, the contract dissolved with the Order. I felt it break.” 

“It did,” Pariah took hold of one of Clockwork’s hands and held it to his lips in a kiss, “But I had you for long enough. Long enough to bind you to myself instead. All it took was some craftswork.”

He let go of Clockwork’s hand to touch the pendant hanging from his neck instead. It was a gentle, reverent touch, as if thanking the damned thing for its work in keeping Clockwork trapped for him. “Luckily I was up to date on all the most prominent binding curses. I have a friend who suffers from such an affliction after all.”

“Fuck you.” 

Pariah laughed, a genuine surprised chuckle that truly lit him up from the inside. His eyes were so warm, his hands burned like brands, and Clockwork wanted nothing more than to tear out his other eye with his teeth. “Come Clockwork, you’ve failed. Let’s go home.” 

  Pariah led him back to the Clocktower, his lair. His home and prison. Clockwork stormed past him once they were inside. “And what is your plan now? I can’t imagine I’d be much use in subjecuting the Realms, as you can see I’m quite traitorous by nature. All of my previous masters can attest.”

“Then it’s good I’m keeping you for your sense of humor,” Pariah said as he closed the door behind him. 

It was the first time Pariah Dark had ever been inside Clockwork’s lair. Pariah had always been a cautious ghost, it made sense that he wouldn’t allow himself the vulnerability of being inside another powerful ghost’s lair, a place where they quite literally held all of the power and had all of the control. 

The irony of course, was that the moment Pariah had stepped inside, it was Clockwork that felt vulnerable. Exposed like a raw nerve, every part of him standing on end, tightly coiled and ready to flee. 

“How is this exactly how I have always envisioned it?” Pariah says dryly, his eyes roaming freely, invasively over every nook and cranny. Every randomly placed cog and haphazard ticking machine. It was a chaotic mess, naturally, it was Clockwork. 

Clockwork picked up a twentieth century alarm clock and weighed it in his hands before chucking it as hard as he could towards Pariah. The bastard caught it, of course. And Clockwork scowled.

“Did you often picture yourself waltzing into my Lair?”

Pariah set the clock down carefully, as if it would break. As if it were truly a piece of Clockwork himself. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t have. You were certainly at home in mine.”

“Oh please, half the Realms has access to your Lair. We are not the same.” Clockwork scoffed, crossing his arms and floating awkwardly in the middle of the room. He didn’t want to be any closer to Pariah, but neither did he want to risk being backed into a wall again . It seemed a recurring treat for Pariah, to cage him in that way. 

There was a touch of mischief in Pariah’s smile when he replied. “Perhaps we can change that, would you like more visitors?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

Clockwork grabbed another trinket to throw, this one he had pried from the walls. Pariah handled that just as easily, an uncomfortable expression aimed at the destroyed part of Clockwork’s wall. He was truly the most obnoxious perfectionist. If Clockwork’s mangled mess of a lair was going to bother him he shouldn’t have bothered to come inside.

In fact, if he was going to be disappointed so easily he shouldn’t have chained him in the first place. It wasn’t as if the bindings guaranteed something like loyalty. They couldn’t even force him to act should he not wish to. Clockwork wasn’t going to change from how he had been for eons under the damn Eyes. 

“Why did you do this?” Clockwork asked, “And don’t dare say it’s only because you said you would. You may be meticulous but you are not beholden to simple words.”

Pariah had fixed his wall. And was now attempting to reinstate the very same decoration Clockwork had used as ammunition. It was strangely domestic to see and Clockwork felt rage simmer and build. Would he simply make himself at home then? Perhaps he would seek to combine their lairs in a twisted amalgamation so that he might seek order where it damn well did not belong.

“You were going to leave.” 

What a useless excuse. “Did you lose your ability to reason permanently to that crown?”

This time it was Pariah that rolled his eyes. “Obviously not, if I was able to out-fox Clockwork of all ghosts.”

“You had help.” Clockwork said through grit teeth. He wouldn’t ask who, he didn’t think he could handle having it confirmed.

Pariah’s eyes sparkled. “So you knew?”

“I figured it out.”

“Feeling very betrayed, Clockwork?” This time Pariah’s smile was sharp, a vicious little thing that certainly made him more recognizable as the fallen tyrant he actually was. 

Clockwork refused to rise to the bait. He did not regret, it was impossible to feel regret when every single decision he’d ever made had been so thoroughly calculated. “I wasn’t going to leave. Where would I even go, Pariah?”

“You were leaving me.” Pariah walked towards him, quicker than his usual slow prowl. Clockwork had chanced a step back himself but it only served to darken Pariah’s expression further so he stilled instead and allowed himself to be caught and held. Pariah’s hands were heavy, one landing on his hip and the other reaching for his wrist. “You were disappearing to the flows of Time, one minute here and the next somewhere no one could follow you. You speak of chaos and the freedom it would give you, but you lie to yourself when you say that is all that you desire. The freedom you had so desperately sought, how lonely would it have been.”

Pariah had not been able to talk after that, too busy weathering Clockwork’s sudden violent outrage. 

Nocturn was the first to visit him, to see Clockwork’s anger, his desperate lashing out. He had the same expression he’d always had when the topic of Pariah or Daniel had come up. The look of undisguised pity, as if he had known from the start that Clockwork would fail, that he would be chained in this way, the moment his freedom was closer than at any other time. 

“We do not hate you for your failure, Clockwork,” Nocturn said, and Clockwork bared his teeth. It had been sometime since he’d carved out an eye in petty vengeance but he was not above making it a hobby.

Nocturn simply kept his distance, just one step away with one of those damned medallions around his neck, stopping Clockwork from freezing him in place in his own lair. “You’ve always been easily twisted by affection, too willing to be tied down with familiarity.”

His words hurt, like an arrow piercing through Clockwork’s chest. He hadn’t thought it would be so literal, hadn’t taken Pariah’s threats seriously. Had believed, genuinely, that he would be able to escape whatever bonds Pariah had fashioned for him. Had not thought to protect himself thoroughly enough and now all was for naught. Nocturn said he harbored no ill will, but he should . 

And Clockwork was distraught that he did not. 

He deflated and Nocturn floated closer, just within range. But Clockwork’s arms hung heavy, and he was exhausted now, the weight of it all too much. “You should. Chaos is lost to us.” he spoke, his voice barely audible.

“Yes,” Nocturn acquiesced, “but Chaos was lost to us long ago. It was a child’s hope, that we could get it back.”

“You are content then? To rot in containment in an infinite realm of order and stability?”

A laugh escaped Nocturn, perplexing Clockwork and only flaring his temper worse. The other Ancient didn’t even try to hide as he fell into a laughing fit. “I would not be, no. But my oldest friend, I am not the one in containment. I have always known you look too much towards the forest and its tallest trees, very rarely have you ever noticed the grass or the leaves.”

“Speak sense,” Clockwork snapped. It was his job to speak in riddles, he had little patience to hear them now. 

Nocturn did not call him on his hypocrisy though, instead he shook his head and floated closer, relaxing next to Clockwork as if they were two friends taking tea. “It was not, as you believed, an all or nothing gamble.”

“Was it not?”

“No, the realms are back to Anarchy as they should be. The Observants were the last hold in their attempts to tame them, and they have been destroyed. There is no King, not even a sleeping one, and Chaos exists.”

Clockwork listened, the cold weight of failure that had settled in his chest chipped and cracked as Nocturn spoke on. “She does not exist as she had.”

“But perhaps this is a better way,” Nocturn pondered, “last time, Chaos reigned so supreme it seemed all were insistent to seek order. Then order reigned supreme and we sought Chaos. Perhaps now, with the Realms alive once more, and order and Chaos in balance, it will last instead.”

Nocturn placed a hand on the top of Clockwork’s head, petting his hair. “The other Ancients and I shall seek our fun, and find ways to exist in this new existence. It is only you, I am afraid, that will remain trapped.”

Clockwork slapped his hand away, “How comforting, Nocturn. Do you also go to the newly dead and tell them not to weep, at least they were the ones that died and not others?”

Nocturn’s hand returned to pull his hood down over his face and Clockwork had to slap it away again. “It is not in my perogative to comfort the newly dead. I thought only to inform my dearest friend that he had not earned my animosity. A fear he might have had, failing the plan we had painstakingly worked towards for eons.”

“I don’t want to be chained any longer.” Clockwork admitted. It had been so long since he’d had any semblance of freedom. Did he even know what it would feel like anymore?

“We know. Though some, like Misery Vex, believe it karmic, that your attachments, which had led so thoroughly to our defeat, came back in the forms of chains for you alone. But know that if one day it comes to pass that I can free you, unlikely as it may be, I shall make the attempt.” Nocturn stood, leaving Clockwork alone in his tower. 

“Clockwork?” It was Daniel’s voice. It was the first time his young ward had come to visit since the binding. It was not a comfort to hear his voice, to see that he was okay. It was not .

He didn’t acknowledge Daniel when he entered, wouldn’t have let him in the door if he still had complete control of his Lair… But he’d bargained that away long ago in a gamble that had failed him entirely. 

Instead he floated to his screens. Ever since the fall of the Observants, he could see properly at least. Pariah had no interest in obscuring his vision, had even less in controlling what it was he could see. Pariah’s only interest had been binding Clockwork to him so that he might not escape, so that he might not regress, so that he might not lose himself to the chaos of infinity and escape his limited existence.

Clockwork scowled, still ignoring Daniel’s presence, his attempts at conversation. Pariah’s interests should not have mattered. Because Pariah should not have won . Because Pariah had lost before and Clockwork had been so certain that he would again. Because- 

Because Clockwork had made a mistake when he sealed him away. Because Clockwork knew he could not bring himself to end him. Because Clockwork had seen an opportunity to see Pariah again and had known it would be a mistake but had wanted so desperately just to see him again. Wanted to see him free of the haze of anger the ring and crown had obscured him in, but a ghost’s natural state was obsessive. And Pariah had never hid his desire to keep Clockwork as he was, Clockwork had simply brushed it off as words of affection. He should have known better really, Pariah was hardly the type to speak lightly, and had never claimed what he did not mean with his entire core. 

The screen he was watching was boring, most things were now that he had no reason to keep track of the threads, no overarching plan to work towards. It was so simple. A young ghost was trick-or-treating with a watermelon instead of a pumpkin and was turning into a large candy-based monster whenever someone turned them away. 

It was the middle of summer where the ghost was, and Clockwork allowed himself to appreciate the tiny bit of chaos that the ghost was bringing to the small mortal town. Nocturn had told him that not all had been lost, Clockwork may be trapped, but Chaos had been released. 

Just enough. 

He sighed. 

“Why are you here Daniel?” he finally asked.

Daniel straightened up, he’d been rambling, no doubt in an attempt to cajole Clockwork into joining conversation or listening subconsciously. He hadn't been.

He was also carrying a plate of cookies that Clockwork had not seen, because Clockwork had not looked. When would he learn his lesson about that? Why was he always looking too late?

“I wanted to check on you,” Daniel said, setting the plate of cookies down now that he was sure Clockwork had seen them. “Pariah said you were… having a hard time.”

Clockwork scowled, too many things tearing at his chest at once. Damn Pariah, damn him . 

“Having a hard time?” he said with a false calm. “The plans that I made eons ago, plans that had been in work before your mortal realm even knew what time was, were ruined by someone I trusted. Someone I did not think would step so easily between me and my goals. Exactly what kind of time should I be having, chained to my own lair without even the authority to deny entrance to whom I wish?”

There had been a small flinch, Clockwork noticed, when he had mentioned betrayal. But if Daniel felt any guilt he didn’t look it. He raised his head, eyes full of determination. The very same expression Clockwork had seen through his screens so many times, in the fights against the other Ancients. The plans they’d made to make him stronger, to keep him stable, so that when the Chaos had been released he and the Realms with him would survive. 

He had certainly survived. 

“Pariah said this was the only way to save you.” Because of course that was what Pariah had told him. Because Daniel was intelligent, but Daniel was also a child and all too willing to trust any competent adult. A flaw that Clockwork himself had been so quick to take advantage of. A flaw that cursed him now. 

“Do you really believe that Pariah Dark has my best interest at heart?” he would have sneered, if it had been anyone else. If it hadn’t been Daniel, who was practically his own child. Instead, he asked softly, his frustration drowned entirely by exhaustion.

Daniel still answered him though. “You were changing Clockwork,” What? “The same way you told me Pariah had once changed.”

He hadn’t, there was no way it had been so obvious. He hadn’t, it wasn’t as if he had lost himself to his obsession, nor had he gained power that grew out of his control, what was he talking about?

“You were distant, as if you were struggling to stay in any given moment. Sometimes you’d forget everything going on around you, and others you seemed to be somewhere or some-when else entirely. I mean,” Daniel took a breath, “you’ve always been a bit cryptic, but you were losing yourself entirely . Halfway through a conversation you would start talking completely randomly, in languages long dead or unrecognizable. Or you’d start talking about things that had never happened or had happened forever ago.”

He was almost shouting now, his eyes shining with more than just energy and Clockwork felt a sting in his core. He had known that Daniel would disapprove, that he would get angry. But it had not occurred to him that his anger would be pointed towards this rather than his blatant manipulation of Daniel and his friends.

“And your actions! They were reckless, Clockwork!! Releasing Dan? What the hell?! ”

It was Clockwork’s turn to flinch. “Your future self’s release had always been part of the plan. It was why I had you leave him with me to start with. I was not losing myself Daniel, I was revealing who I actually am.”

Daniel made a desperately frustrated noise. “Do you think saying something like that is going to convince me we were wrong, Clockwork? I- I trusted you! I care about you! You’re-”

“So you’d cage me and try to force compliance so that the more unsightly aspects of myself can be filed away? So you can teach me to be better, like some kind of petty human criminal, Daniel?” He let his anger take over instead. It was easier, so much easier. It was what he had always done with Pariah. 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “How dramatic,” he said dryly, “Didn’t you do the same thing to Pariah, wasn’t what you did like way worse? You’re throwing a fit just like he said you would.”

“If you trust Pariah Dark so much, why are you even here? Have him make cookies for you. I'm sure he’s fully capable.” Clockwork wasn’t throwing a fit, he was angry. 

Daniel sighed, grabbing one of the cookies he’d brought. They had long gone cold, but it hardly mattered to Clockwork, he wouldn’t be eating them. “Pariah has a lot of faults, and there’s a bunch of things I don’t really like about him. He’s manipulative, methodical. He never lets me half ass anything and he’s really picky. He doesn’t actually care if a person dies or a ghost gets Ended, and we fight about that kind of stuff a lot. But…” he met Clockwork’s eyes, his expression looked hurt, heartbroken. Clockwork didn’t want to see it. Had never wanted to see Daniel like this.

“He’s never outright lied to me. I’ve been checking, ever since… Well. I don’t just trust anyone at their word anymore. So yeah okay, I know he’s manipulating me just like he was manipulating you, but he never lied to either of us about his intentions. He didn’t do what you did.”

Clockwork couldn’t look at him any more. He’d made so many mistakes. If he was truly destined to fail… He should never have revealed his true nature or intentions to the boy. His disappointment burned almost as much as the chain Pariah had placed around Clockwork’s neck.

It didn’t matter though, that Clockwork could not stand to see him, because Daniel flew towards him and grabbed his face gently, hands on either side of his cheeks. 

“I don’t trust you anymore, Clockwork, but I still love you. So does Pariah. We can fix this, okay?” Daniel said and Clockwork’s eyes widened at the threat. 

He had truly lost, hadn’t he?

[slythergirlimagines]

Just Us With Some Hugging -Part One

Prompt: Prompt #1- Fake dating with Prince Zuko!

@darthsokaaa thank you for your request! I hope I did it justice! Who doesn’t love some Prince Zuko;) Masterlist

Just Us With Some Hugging- Part 1

You and Zuko had been close since birth. Your mothers had been best friends and the closest of confidantes, and because of this you had spent nearly every moment of your life with Zuko. As you grew up, Zuko became a trained fire bender and you became a trained warrior. Even during his exile, you were checking up on him through letters.

It had been nothing to pick his side over Ozai’s, and easier still to join forces with him against Azula to place the rightful Fire Lord on the throne. As soon as Zuko was crowned, he named you a member of his personal council. For three years, everything had remained somewhat peaceful, and Zuko and you had fallen right back into your friendship as if you’d never spent any time apart.

That’s why when Zuko had all but manhandled you into this conference room, you didn’t expect anything unusual. Maybe an important meeting, or just some time to catch up and talk. Never in your wildest dreams could you have predicted that he would ask you to pretend to be his girlfriend.

“What?” You say, blinking in shock.

“Y/N, it would just be for the duration of the Peace Celebration. Just a short little weekend, nothing much.” His face is a little flushed, his cheeks a light pink. Zuko has always struggled to ask for help, particularly anything dealing with emotions. Anxiously, he starts rubbing the back of his neck.

“I know it’s a lot, but think about it! We’d get to have a fun trip to Ba Sing Se. And it’ll be a fun party! We’ll get to see everyone again, they’re all coming this time.” He gestures with his hands. It’s almost endearing.

You’d be lying if you said the idea didn’t have any appeal. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen any of the Gaang. After the war, everyone had spread out and getting together had been nearly impossible. This would be the first Peace Celebration that everyone would be able to come to.

If you were extra honest with yourself, the idea was appealing for another reason entirely. Somewhere along the endless years of friendship, you had fallen in love with Zuko. Maybe it was seeing his growth as a person, or maybe it was his devotion to Fire Nation and righting Ozai’s mistakes. Maybe it was just that he was the single most attractive man you’d ever seen.

Regardless, you were in deep. And that was really the reason that you couldn’t say yes, as much as you might want to. You knew if you let yourself get that close to Zuko, it might ruin everything. Your friendship with Zuko was one of the most important aspects of your life, and you would never forgive yourself if you let your own feelings ruin what you all had.

“Zuko, I really don’t think...”

“You know, I’m kind of the Fire Lord, I could command you.” He says quietly. His voice is huskier than normal, and heat instantly floods your face.

Why was he doing this to you? It wasn’t fair that he was able to do...well to do that! He had no idea how much power he held over you, how you would do anything for him. And now that he had asked like that, there was no way you could say no.

Something in your expression must have given away your broken resolve, because Zuko’s face breaks into a huge grin.

“Thank you!” He exclaims, jumping up and happily running around the table to throw his arms around you. He’s warm, like all fire benders are, and hesitantly you hug him back and tuck your head under his chin. You’ve never been particularly affectionate friends, but the embrace doesn’t feel as unnatural as it probably should.

“I haven’t even said yes yet.” You grouch. You can feel the reverberations of Zuko’s low laugh in his chest. It’s too much, being in his arms like this.

“I know you.” Is all he says in reply. His words send warm tingles down your spine. With a final sigh, you pull away from Zuko, breaking the hug.

“Why do you need me to do this again?” You ask. Your eyes trace over his face, memorizing the contours and lingering on his scar. He used to act so ashamed of it, the scar he never asked for. Now he wears it like a badge of honor. You knew his troubles stemmed from his perceived lack of honor, but you can’t help but feel he was wearing his honor the entire time, right here on his face.

“I told you. Uncle drives me crazy with his matchmaking. He keeps telling me that ‘A single tea leaf makes the worst tea.’ Or something like that. I don’t even know what he means!” Zuko throws his hands up in defeat, breaking your trance. You snort, but don’t comment. Frustrated as he may be, Zuko loves Iroh.

Zuko had briefly mentioned the matchmaking to you before, but he had always played it off as a joke. You had no idea that Iroh was being so serious about it, or that it bothered Zuko so much.

“Why don’t you just tell him that you’re too young to settle down? You have a Nation to run, after all.” You interject.

Zuko looks at you and rolls his eyes.

“You know Uncle. He never listens when it comes to this stuff. I told you about the girl in Ba Sing Se he made me date!”

You force down the irrational swell of anger that builds in your chest. Zuko had mentioned the date in one of his letters, and it had bothered you for reasons you never wanted to think about.

“We need to talk logistics here.” You recross your arms. “What’s our story? How are we going to pull this off in front of our friends and your uncle?”

Zuko begins rubbing the back of his neck. The sleeves of his red robe fall down a few inches, and you quickly avert your eyes before you’re caught staring.

“I don’t think it will be too hard.” Zuko says. He’s too nonchalant about it all, which is mildly infuriating. He sees the irritated look on your face and hurries to explain. “I mean, we’ve been friends forever and we’re always around each other. It was bound to happen right?”

Your heart stutters and nearly stops. Did you hear him right?

Zuko clears his throat.

“I mean for story purposes that is.”

“Right.” You say. There’s a long awkward pause. You’ve never been comfortable with silence, so you hurry to break it.

“So one day we just decided ‘This is it.’ And I jumped your bones?”

The sarcasm lightens the mood, and Zuko laughs. His amber eyes twinkle in the light, like they’re shining.

“How come you jumped my bones?” He teases.

“We both know I’d have to make the first move, you’d never do it.” You challenge him.

A weird static energy settles in the room, reminding you of Azula’s lightning. Zuko has never looked at you so intensely. You swear the air is crackling.

“Right.” He says, and is it your imagination or are his eyes flickering to your lips?

The spell is broken by one of Zuko’s men opening the door.

“My Lord, I’m sorry to interrupt...” He trails off, looking between the two of you.

You and Zuko both notice the lack of space between you, and jump apart.

“Right, no it’s fine.” Zuko says, clearing his throat and gesturing for the man to come in.

You take the opportunity to leave while you still have some dignity left.

“Oh, and y/n?” Zuko says before you’re out the door.

“Yes, Zuko?” You ask. You hope the blush isn’t too noticeable on your face.

“I’m glad you said yes, because I already told Uncle last week.” His face splits into a cocky grin, and his scar crinkles.

Your infuriated scream echoes through the whole palace, mingling with his delighted laugh.

_____________________________

You’re already reconsidering this arrangement by the time you reach Ba Sing Se. Zuko looks astoundingly good when he’s more relaxed, and there’s no way you’ll be able to control yourself like this. Today he wears the clothing of a fire nation commoner. The deep red is striking against his skin and dark hair. It also highlights his scar and the amber of his eyes.

Ba Sing Se is gloriously overdecorated. There are flowers and banners covering every visible inch of the city, and they blend together in a colorful blur as the train moves through the city. Zuko smiles, face turned toward the glass, eyes taking in all the festivities. It’s been too long since you’ve seen him look so peaceful.

He turns from the window and catches your expression.

“What?” He asks, self-consciously.

Your voice is too soft when you answer him.

“Nothing. Ba Sing Se looks good on you.”

You have no idea where your boldness comes from, as Zuko shifts uncomfortably under the complement. Before you can tease him about it, he switches topics.

“Ok, so we’re really going to have to sell this thing, aren’t we?” He starts, making you roll your eyes.

It’s a typical Zuko move to save the panicking until right before. You had already done your fair share of freaking out, and had already done your meditation. You were a lot calmer about it all than you expected to be.

Of course, you knew that would probably change the moment you had to start pretending, but for now you were ok.

“Meditate Zuko. Deep breaths.” You tell him, giving him a gentle kick to the shin. He rolls his eyes, but takes the advice anyways.

“It’s going to be okay.” You tell him. “We just have to be us with some hugging. Or handholding. They know us and they know how we behave normally. We just have to act natural.”

Zuko nods, and a strand of black hair falls in front of his eyes. He flicks it away, and then settles deeper into his seat.

“Just us.” He says.

“With some hugging.” You amend.

He cracks an amber eye open and you shrug at his expression.

“It’ll be weird if we don’t touch each other at all.” You say.

“I didn’t know you had such a deep desire to touch me.” He says, with extra emphasis on the word “touch.”

Your body begins to tingle again. This has been happening more and more frequently with Zuko, where one of you says something with a double meaning. The electricity settles in again, but is broken by the abrupt stop of the train.

An enthusiastic stewardess comes to escort the two of you off the train. She’s pretty and she notices Zuko immediately.

“Welcome to Ba Sing Se!” She chirps happily, more at Zuko than you. You can’t help your irrantional flare of jealousy.

Zuko, noticing your aggravation, slings an arm over your shoulders and smirks.

“Yes, sweetheart. Welcome to Ba Sing Se.”

You give him a hard elbow to the ribs, and laugh at his grunt of pain.

Iroh is waiting with open arms when you get off of the train. He immediately takes Zuko off of your hands, and tries to smoosh Zuko as close to his body as he can. Zuko does a very un-Zuko thing and hugs back with as just as much force. It warms your heart to see them interact. Iroh breaks the embrace and hugs you next.

“It’s so good to see you both again!” He says. “And with such happy news.” Iroh wiggles his eyebrows and winks at the two of you.

“Uncle!” Zuko groans, throwing his hands up exasperatedly.

“Sorry, Sorry. Couldn’t help myself, y/n.” Iroh chuckles.

“It’s ok!” You try to say brightly, but it comes out breathy. If you don’t get it together, you’ll expose your own lie before anyone else can.

Zuko takes your hand in his, and shoulders both of your bags on his other arm. You do everything you can not to think about the fact that Zuko’s incredibly warm hand is wrapped around yours. You definitely don’t think about what this hand has done before, or what it could do if it wanted.

“Uncle, where are we staying?” Zuko asks.

For once you’re grateful to the heat of Ba Sing Se, for it camouflages the fact that you’ve started to sweat.

“We’ve set up a lovely house for you two and all of your friends! You’ll all be together.” Iroh says, bouncing around.

“Is anyone here yet?” You ask him. You can fight the excitement bubbling up inside you. You hadn’t seen your friends in a long time, and soon they’d all be here!

“Everyone but Aang and Miss Katara.” Iroh says. “They’ll be here later.”

You have an extra pep to your step as you wind through the streets of Ba Sing Se. Zuko laughs at your enthusiasm, and squeezes your hand. Iroh notices and practically starts glowing. A stab of something goes through you as you think about the lie you’re telling, but it all fades away as you let yourself enjoy the moment and the warmth of Zuko’s hand.

_________________________________________

In an effort to keep peace and spread good will, Ba Sing Se had been selected to host the annual Peace Celebration- a celebration honoring the peace ushered in by the Avatar, the end of the war, and the continuing efforts to preserve it. Ba Sing Se had been the natural choice to host the whole affair. Not only was it the biggest city, but it was the most neutral. And Ba Sing Se certainly knew how to throw a party.

You and the group were currently sandwiched tightly around a table. The whole Gaang was here. When you had arrived at the house, it had been a nonstop hug fest. Everyone had been so glad to see each other. Toph had taken you to your room across from hers, while Sokka had taken Zuko to his. You had fully expected the shakedown from Toph about your relationship, but she had said nothing. That scared you more than anything, because it could only mean she was waiting for the right time.

Zuko had told you about Toph’s ability to sense lies, and you had been privileged enough to see it first hand. If anyone was going to figure out your secret it was Toph.

You had wanted to get Zuko alone and tell him about your fears, but there hadn’t been time. Aang and Katara had arrived and then everyone had to get ready for the party. Now you were all here, and it was basically life as usual. Except for the fact that you were anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Katara and Aang were making eyes at each other, Sokka and Toph were competing to see who could hold their liquor better (Toph of course was winning), Zuko and Iroh were engaged in a discussion of the rebuilding of Ba Sing Se, and that left you and Suki to make awkward conversation.

You admired Suki a lot, but you hadn’t really gotten to know her well. Both of you had been sitting in silence. Suki takes a slow sip of her drink, and twirls the edges of her short brown hair.

“So you and Zuko?” She asks, nodding her head at the arm Zuko had wrapped around your shoulders.

You take a long sip of your drink, and then nod.

“Yeah.” You say quietly.

You had been waiting on pins and needles all night for this. Toph had yet to spring her trap, and Suki’s question seemed to catch the attention of the entire table.

“Yeah! Tell us how that happened!” Sokka says, half of his drink spilling over the rim of his mug. Like Zuko, Sokka has grown into a man since the war, well a childish man but a man none the less.

“Well...” You start.

“It just happened.” Zuko interjects, saving you. You start to take another sip to finish your drink. “And then y/n jumped my bones.” He laughs.

The surprise of his statement chokes you, and you start coughing. Zuko breaks into carefree laughter, and starts patting your back. The Gaang quickly joins in laughing, except for Toph, who cocks her head and stares with unseeing eyes at Zuko.

“I’m...going...to....murder....you.” You tell him, as you try to catch your breath. Zuko smiles warmly at you, and reaches up to smooth a piece of hair behind your ear. Your heart skips a beat, as he catches your eyes with his.

Toph and Sokka resume their contest, and you sigh with relief. Maybe she’ll be too drunk to tell or care if you’re lying. Zuko catches your eyes again, and it’s all you need to know that you guys are on the same page. Crisis momentarily averted.

“Come on, let’s dance.” Zuko says, pulling you away from the table.

“Zuko? Dance?” You hear someone mutter behind you.

“Zuko, if we act too different they’ll find out!” You hiss at him when you’re a distance away from the table. You try desperately to wiggle out of his grip.

He ignores you, and seamlessly incorporates you with the other dancers.

“I just want to dance with my girlfriend.” He bends his head down, whispering in your ear. “Is that too much to ask?”

He has a wicked grin on his face when he pulls away, and you would give anything to be able to bend him across the room.

“It is when you never do that! You never danced with Mai.” You point out, and then instantly regret it. Mai was a sore spot with Zuko. You watch as Zuko freezes, losing his buoyancy from earlier.

“I would’ve. She always said no.”

You shuffle closer in your embrace trying to offer him some comfort. You always put your foot in your mouth.

Zuko and Mai’s breakup had been awful. The relationship had been bad for a year, but when it finally came to a head, it had been explosive. Zuko had been positively horrid to deal with for weeks.

“Oh.” You say like a genius, but it isn’t really your fault that you can’t speak in coherent sentences with him holding you like this.

“Yeah.” Zuko says, and you know that if you don’t act now he’ll brood for the rest of the night.

“Well I’m a hell of a better dancer than Mai, so you’ve definitely upgraded.” You say flippantly.

Zuko smiles at you and pulls you closer.

“I certainly did.” He says.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, your close proximity, or the fact that Zuko has just told you that you are an upgrade from your biggest rival, but something in you snaps. Without warning, you find yourself leaning up and pressing a kiss to Zuko’s lips.

(A/N: I’m doing a part 2! This just seemed like a story that needed to be broken into two parts! Let me know if you enjoyed it and don’t forget to submit a request if you want me to write something! I do write for multiple fandoms! I’m currently working on my other requests so keep an eye out for those this week! You should be able to see all the fanfiction I’ve written by clicking on my tag slythergirlimagines)

[hypnomicimagines]

☂️Rainy Day Blues☂️[Nurude Sasara]☂️

Oh, how tragedy loved to strike Sasara when he least expected it.

He had been walking to your house with an extra pep in his step, the fresh bouquet he’d picked up along the way only lifting his mood. He was stuck in daydreams even before he reached you, thinking about how lovely you’d look that night and how he couldn’t wait to do the little things like hold your hand as you were on the way to your date destination. He thought that nothing could possibly dampen his happiness, that him finally confessing after years of being in relationship purgatory had made him see the brighter side of any situation, but it seemed he still had blinders on in some aspects. His parade was about to be rained on.

Literally.

Sasara didn’t know where the icy rain had come from but it hit him like a sack of bricks, goosebumps rising on his skin as his leisurely walk turned into a marathon run as he made his way to your apartment complex. He hadn’t checked the weather forecast, who did that anymore? Clearly Sasara’s hubris had upset the weather Gods as he caught sight of himself in a window, no longer looking like your handsome suitor but a sad clown that had just walked through a door with a bucket of water precariously balanced on top of it. The bouquet is just as pathetic as he is, and hey, aren’t flowers supposed to like water? Why were they drooping like that? You’d probably laugh in his face when you saw them.

You did.

He had to get you back somehow for laughing at his plight despite the fact your laughter had quickly washed away every negative emotion he’d previously been feeling. He had to get you back somehow and decided to show you his best ‘wet dog’ impersonation, shaking his hair out in your doorway and giving you a little preview of what it was like outside. The rain had only started to come down harder, thunder and lightning being added to the mix, meaning it was unlikely the date would continue as planned. Not to mention his hair which he had spent an entire three minutes and seven seconds on was now a poofed out mess due to how he chose to dry out his hair, not that you seemed to mind. You laughed again at his saggy bouquet, telling him you loved it no matter how pathetic it looked (he hoped that was the last time he ever heard that).

“We can just spend the night in. Why do you look so excited that I said that? Did you think I’d tell you to walk home?”

“I’d never accuse you of something so cold-hearted!”

“Good, I’m glad to see the rain hasn’t washed away your remaining brain cell. Come in and change your clothes, too, as much as I love seeing you be a complete eyesore, I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“Shouldn’t you stripping me of my clothes wait until after dinner? Not that I mind.”

“You know what… Maybe walking home in the rain is just what you need. Maybe you’ll get struck by lightning and have some sort of epiphany that’ll make you funny.”

“Now you really sound like Rosho,” Sasara sighed out, fighting the smile that wanted to break out on his face so he could keep up the ‘hurt’ façade he was putting on, “To think that the person I love most would say such things to me… I’ll go back outside to hide my tears!”

“Bye.”

You closed the door behind him as he stepped into your apartment, heading straight to your bedroom and thinking about how he had essentially done a speed run of the date. He hadn’t suspected he’d be here until a little bit later but he couldn’t say he was complaining as you joined him, digging through your drawers for some spare clothes that he had left behind the various other times he’d stayed over on a whim. He purposely left his clothes with you just so you’d always have something to remember him by, weaseling his way into your heart first and now your home, hoping that he might even get a whole draw just for his stuff one day. His apartment was certainly the winner with its scenic view but since you had yet to talk about the whole ‘moving in’ thing, he decided he’d get you used to the idea by leaving random things of his behind so you were used to it when it finally did happen.

“Here you go.” You set the clothes down on the counter, taking a second to admire how cute he looked with a wet mop of hair on his head, reaching over to run your fingers through it just for good measure, “I’d say take a shower but I don’t actually want you struck by lightning.”

“But you seem to like my hair so much… It could become a permanent fixture with the help of electricity.”

“I do like it,” You confirmed, smiling as you stroked his hair fondly, Sasara’s heart pounding loudly in his chest, “Almost as much as I like you. Get changed while I try to find some candles. I can’t imagine we’re going to have power too long so…”

You spoke the unfortunate lightning strike into existence that completely knocked out anything electrical in the apartment building and part of Sasara wonders if you had spoken the rain into existence, too. Had this been your plan all along? Had you wanted to just trap him in your room from the get-go, using him for your own needs and then discarding him afterward? Sasara considered suggesting that type of supervillain roleplay on a less romantic night but for now his head was still in the clouds, wanting to do simple things like hold your hand and cuddle against you, sucking the warmth out of you as he had no spare warmth to give at this point.

“Y-You’re cold!” Sasara had reached out to touch you when the lights had first gone out, wanting to assure you were still there and okay first, “Just be careful as you get changed! I’ll be right back!”

You’re only gone about ten minutes but it’s so painfully lonely in the bathroom without you, Sasara already thinking about the letter he’d write to you if you had gone off to war. He would be the lonely maiden waiting by the window, longing to see their love again, dramatically falling to the ground as he received the news that you had passed away. He was already thinking about how he’d meet your ghost in the afterlife to confirm he never fell in love again when you entered the bathroom, face highlighted by a small candle that he’s almost positive he had gifted you.

“Come on, come on! It’s a little better in the living room and the blankets are all out.” You moved the candle to one hand and reached down to grab his, fingers lacing together without words having to even be exchanged. “I don’t want you getting lost.”

“The only place I’ll get lost is in your eyes, beautiful.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re lucky you’re cute? Because you’re sooo lucky you’re cute!” He can tell from your tone that there’s a wide smile on your face, the one that made him feel like the most successful comedian in the world. Getting you to laugh was no easy task and you had never been one to show him even a dollop of mercy when it came to his material but it made it all the more worth it when he got to hear you laugh. Every time you laughed an angel grew its wings, that’s how the saying went, right? It doesn’t matter as his brain is entirely centered around you and only you, especially as the two of you seat yourselves on your ridiculously comfortable couch.

“I don’t know what we’ll eat… It’s gonna be cold and sad.”

“As long as we’re not cold and sad, it’s fine, right?”

“Fair enough.”

His arm wrapped around you as you threw your legs across his lap, the blanket quickly following suit as you curled up into his side. You wondered how many people would be surprised that Mr. Tragic Comedy was not only a total romantic but a stage five clinger, unlikely to give you a moment alone now that you had both finally settled in together. Sasara valued his privacy from time to time but when it came to you, it seemed his social battery could never run out; he wanted to be around you, to be with you, to be touching you and talking to you as much as he possibly could.

“What should we do?” Sasara quickly grew uncomfortable with the silence and you felt bad for your boyfriend, knowing his anxiety tended to spike in the silence. You wished you had something to act as white noise in the background but it seemed all you could do to distract him was talk, or listen to a slew of jokes that would have you standing in the rain rather than being in your own apartment if they were on par with the normal puns he liked to deliver.

“Tell me about your day before you got here. Did you talk to Rosho about your birthday plans?”

Sasara is grateful for the conversation starter as once he’s begun to talk, he’s adept at not shutting up again.  

It was going to be a long, rainy night, but at least you got to spend it together.

[phantompearlsalt]

Sour Cherry, Chapter 17

Preview AND the real deal in one day? I’m on a roll 😎 But in all seriousness: super happy I could share this (more or less) on time with everyone! I’ve started working on a side project I’ll share more about tomorrow so I’m still figuring out my writing schedule. Also promise I’ll respond to all asks this week as well! As always, feel free to check out this chapter on AO3 and know that I adore all kudos, comments, asks, etc. You all make this journey such a gift ❤️

These days, things somehow felt slow and exciting at the same time — it was odd. There was so much at stake and all of it lay within the borders of Republic City. In a few weeks time, Kuvira’s spirit cannon would reach completion and the army would be on its way to claim all that remained to consecrate the Empire.

Although you still find yourself caught up the more bureaucratic aspects of the work — paperwork, meetings, more paperwork — it feels like you can almost touch the weight of anticipation that hangs in the air. Nothing else slows down but everyone appears to hold a collective breath as Baatar works on the final touches of the machine.

Today in particular, you decide to take a trip to engineering. Kuvira is nowhere to be found so you assume she’s off in some pressing meeting with her sergeants. Perhaps strategizing for the City’s response and especially the Avatar’s. Given the scope of the army’s proposed attack, you can’t possibly imagine anyone, not even Korra, withstanding such magnitude of force.

You feel a slight twinge in your chest at the thought of what lies ahead. You think of Bolin, Varrick, and Zhu Li. You wonder whether Raiko will willingly submit to Kuvira and spare the damages that will transpire if he doesn’t.

But at this point, you know better than that. If the United Republic had wanted to end things peacefully, Kuvira would have already reached an accord with them. It was clear no one was willing to budge so you could only hope that the damages would be as minimal as possible.

You stroll into the warehouse, following the sharp sounds of electricity and metal clanking together. A number of privates salute you as you walk past and you offer them reassuring smiles. “At ease, privates,” you chuckle. Despite how much time has passed, you’ll never grow accustomed to the way people interact with you for being both Kuvira’s significant other and a critical role in her Inner Circle.

Baatar recognizes your voice and he looks down from the platform several feet above you. He calls your name excitedly and you can’t help but grin. Admittedly you’ve never been too fond of the man (even back in Zaofu) but you would be wrong to deny all of the incredible work he’s put into bringing the army this far along. Plus, he’s done his best to get on your good side once it became clear his chances with Kuvira were effectively eliminated.

“How’re things going up there?” you call out.

“They’re going,” Baatar responds, somewhat disillusioned. Your brow furrows together and you cross your arms.

“What’s the matter? You don’t sound too pleased,” you remark.

“I can’t seem to make the connection between the cannon and the suit’s body...each piece functions properly on its own but the wiring simply won’t synthesize everything together,” he explains.

“Hm...I’m not sure how much help I could be but could I come check it out at least? If anything it’ll be a good way for me to admire all your handiwork,” you say.

Baatar smiles halfheartedly and sighs. “I suppose. Perhaps there’s something you might notice that I haven’t been able to. Five straight hours can do that to someone,” he admits, leaning over to press the yellow button that unfolds a metal staircase.

Once it lands on the floor with a soft clink, you leap onto it and head up until you’re within an arm’s length from Baatar. Being much closer to him you can see the lines of exhaustion etched below his eyes. His hair is gelled down neatly, though some strands of it fall along his temples where it sticks to a thin film of perspiration.

“Baatar...have you seriously been working on this for five hours straight?” you ask.

He appears confused by the question and purses his lips. “Of course I have. What else would I be working on?” he replies.

“I understand but...you should take a break soon. At least a half hour or something,” you recommend. He vehemently shakes his head in protest.

“Absolutely not. Kuvira wouldn’t allow it and with good reason. Every moment wasted on anything other than this machine is more time lost to take Republic City for the Empire. I will not be the reason everything we’ve worked for is lost,” he states.

You stay quiet, watching him worriedly before you release a soft sigh. You always knew Baatar to be...a deeply passionate man since joining Kuvira. From what you had pieced together during your conversations with her, you learned that he grew up in his father’s shadow. He was always praised as the mirror image of the older Baatar, with an aptitude for design and engineering.

When he joined Kuvira, it was probably the first time in his life that something was entirely his own. Not an addition to his father’s work, not a continuation of everything so many people expected of him. What he created was novel, powerful, and completely his own.

Understandably, he had grown so invested in this final display of his autonomy and innovation that any potential threat to it was unfathomable.

“It’s alright, I understand,” you reassure him, stepping forward and tentatively resting your hand on his forearm. You feel him tense beneath you and you wish he hadn’t because now it feels even more awkward. You’ve never felt the urge to offer him any sort of comfort until now but then he relaxes and you can slide your hand away without feeling too uncomfortable.

“So!” you exclaim, hoping to break the odd tension. “You said you were having trouble connecting the cannon to the rest of the suit?”

“Indeed,” Baatar sighs. He peers into gaping machinery, sifting through thick cords of wiring and metal. “I’ve checked for any and all missing pieces and there isn’t a single thing out of place. I wonder if you’d be able to see anything I might be missing.”

You chew on your lower lip, growing nervous at the prospect of going anywhere near the obviously complicated technology. The chances of you damaging anything are close to none...though they aren’t quite zero.

Nevertheless, you lean forward just an inch to gaze upon the convoluted maze coiled within the massive platinum encasements. None of it makes sense to you and you feel foolish even bothering to check.

Even so, you angle your hand forward and throw Bataar a questioning look. He nods and you start carefully pushing aside the cords in hopes of seeing, well, something.

At the exact moment you feel an indentation in one of the metal fibers, you hear the echo of footsteps below and the sound of Kuvira’s voice. You mean to pull away in excitement but the hem of your sleeve gets caught.

Grumbling, you manage to pull it away but not before feeling a sensation pulse through your body that’s lightning hot and stinging all the same. The pain concentrates in your arm for a split second and your eyes are forced closed.

The only thing you’re aware of is the muffled sound of shouting around you beneath your own screaming before your head crashes against something cold and hard and your vision fades into complete darkness.

---

“This could have been so much worse, Baatar. Do you have any idea how much worse this could have been?”

The voice sounds distant, almost warped, as if it were coming from another room. Wait...are you in a room? It feels still and quiet so you assume you are.

Your eyes are sealed shut and it feels like your brain is trying to push out of your skull. When you try to twitch your fingers, a searing pain shoots up your left arm and a pained sound gets caught in your throat.

Okay. So no moving yet.

You inhale slowly and wince at the sharp ache in your ribs and your chest. Other than that, nothing hurts too bad if you stay relatively still so you focus on maintaining a careful breath.

As you start to grow accustomed to the aches and pains, you let your eyelids flutter open. Well, flutter almost seems too glamorous to describe the heavy feeling when you peel them apart. It feels like you’ve had them shut for weeks.

You try not to move your head around too much as you scan your surroundings, realizing you’re back in the tent you share with Kuvira. The lanterns have been blown out so you assume it’s nighttime until you hear the voices again.

“Kuvira, I apologize profusely for my lapse in judgement. I should have known better than to—”

“You’re right. You should have known better and you didn’t. Baatar, I expect nothing but the utmost professionalism from you and now is not the time to make such potentially fatal errors.”

Though you can’t see anything, you clearly envision what poor Baatar’s face must look like: crumpled in defeat and tight with regret. You want to get up and reassure him you’re okay, though you aren’t really sure what happened in the first place.

Instead, you clear your throat and before you can even open your mouth, Kuvira’s voice whispers something rushedly before she bends the door open and steps inside. You expect to see Baatar join her but she enters alone, sliding it shut and preventing anyone else from entering.

“You’re awake,” Kuvira sighs, rushing over to you and kneeling at your side. Her hands hover over your arm, unsure, and it catches you off guard. Kuvira’s self-assurance rarely falters — when it does, it’s a cause for concern.

“I am,” you affirm, attempting a soft grin before you try to push yourself up. As your left arm protests in agony, you realize it’s been bandaged with multiple layers of thick gauze. Kuvira notices your confused expression and her face grows grim.

“What happened?” you ask. Kuvira stares at your arm for a few moments in thick silence, almost as if her capacity to speak had been plucked from her throat the instant you broached the subject.

“There was a damaged piece of armored cable,” she eventually says. “Between the wiring and what little spirit energy was being transmitted from the suit’s core, it was exposed enough to deliver a shock that knocked you out for hours.”

Ah. So that explained the bandaged arm and why everything else seared in a dull, muted ache.

“Hours? That’s better than what I thought,” you joked. “I could’ve sworn I was out for weeks!” You attempt to laugh but Kuvira finally looks up at you and her expression is so grave it effectively shuts down whatever attempt you make to lighten the situation.

“You could have been,” she hisses. “Had you gotten any closer to that damaged material who knows what could have—I don’t know what I—”

“Kuvira,” you interrupt. Her eyes slide shut and she grips the bedsheet tight, closing her fist over the material with a force that would break anything else if it were more solid. You manage to lift yourself up with your good arm and once you’re upright, you press your palm against her cheek.

“I’m okay, really I am,” you reassure her. “It’s probably just some bruising here and there. Plus my arm will be good in no time, you’ll see.”

“I know that, it’s just…” Kuvira’s voice trails off for a few moments before she can continue. She swallows hard and exhales shakily. “I walked in exactly as it happened and...it looked like you were gone. I heard you scream and when you went quiet, your body hit the ground and I could’ve sworn you...you weren’t there anymore.”

“I’m here now, Kuvira,” you murmur, dragging your thumb over her cheekbone in that way she loves but has never actually verbalized. You maintain a slow pace until you feel Kuvira melt into your touch, her features softening.

“I’m right here with you, alright?” you tell her. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I’m going to be okay and I promise I’ll be more careful. Now why don’t we go on a walk and maybe grab some tea?”

“No,” Kuvira responds quickly. “You stay here and I’ll bring you whatever you need. Besides, it’s late and you should be resting anyway. We’ll spend the night in the tent and see how you’re feeling tomorrow. Just...wait here.”

She leans forward to press her lips against your temple, staying there for a moment, confirming to herself that you’re really alive, and then breaks away with a reluctant stride. You sigh but smile inwardly, leaning back and hoping you get better soon so Kuvira will feel more at ease.

---

True to form, you recover within the span of a few days from the worst of it all. You take it easy in the days immediately succeeding the accident, even finding some spare time to meet with Baatar and assure him there’s no bad blood. He can’t find it in himself to accept forgiveness, though frankly you don’t blame any of it on him. You make it a point to eat the occasional meal with him when time permits...something you never envisioned doing mere months ago.

Character development indeed.

Though your arm takes longer to heal, you get back to work within three days time, albeit with slightly less mobility. Nevertheless, you approach your assignments with the same level of attention and detail as you would any other time.

However, the one thing that remains the same is Kuvira’s unwillingness to stay away from you for longer than thirty minute intervals.

Ever since the accident, she stays by your side almost nonstop except when she’s called away for business that doesn’t involve you. A hand on your waist when you lift yourself off a chair, her arms circling you as you get out of bed, her fingers guiding you towards an exit when there are too many people nearby.

Today, you’re filing away the last of the latest shipment updates from Yi. You sigh and Kuvira looks up from across the room. “Are you alright? Are you in pain?” she asks worriedly.

You bite your lip with hopes that it’ll stop you from rolling your eyes as you shake your head. “I’m fine, Kuvira,” you respond. “Head’s just feeling loaded from all these files. I think I’m going to close out for the day.”

“Of course. Let me take you to our quarters,” Kuvira replies, shoving away whatever she was working on and making her way towards you. She offers you her hand which you take, not without some exasperation.

“I can get there on my own, you know,” you remind her, hoping you don’t come off as too abrasive. Luckily it seems to go over her head because Kuvira is too preoccupied with making sure your knee doesn’t smash against the desk or that the wall doesn’t touch any other part of your body.

“Of course I know that but I won’t let you,” Kuvira says simply. And with that, she guides you back to the tent with one arm wrapped around your waist, her hand digging softly into your side. The guards look on with a mix of sympathetic glances and the occasional teasing grin. You grimace in response and do your best to ignore them, affronted that they’ve become so bold.

You reach the tent and you aren’t sure what look Kuvira gives the guards because they quickly scramble away (or as good as one can scramble in a bulky mech suit) so she can bend the door open. She steps in first, letting you lean on her arm to lift you up the two steps.

“Here, let’s get you into bed,” she murmurs, leading you towards the mattress and releasing your hand as you sit down.

“Kuvira…” You start to say but something in her face makes you stop. You’re tempted to tell her to ease up, that you’re fine and she’s worrying over nothing but you remind yourself what you would’ve felt in her place. You’ve seen Kuvira come close to death too many times and the thought nearly destroyed you.

So you keep quiet because you know she’s not actually being domineering. You hold her hand between both of yours and bring it to your lips, sliding the glove off so you can press your mouth against her bare skin.

“Don’t leave, Kuvira,” you murmur. “Can you...can you stay with me?”

“Of course,” Kuvira whispers, her face losing some of its tension as she sits to your side. She watches you intently and you can’t tell what she’s looking for. Perhaps some indication of pain? Discomfort?

The tent is quiet for some time and when Kuvira breaks the silence her voice is unusually hesitant. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable lately,” she sighs. You look at her and her expression is unreadable.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“I’m afraid I’ve been rather...overbearing for the past few days. I know you’d never say it outright but I imagine it’s been difficult for you to deal with,” she explains. “I hope you understand why I’ve done it though.”

She adds that last sentence almost as if to reassure herself that her behavior is warranted which, frankly, it absolutely is and it pains you to think she doesn’t believe that.

You press closer to her until your thighs touch, lifting your hand to tilt her face towards yours and cupping your fingers around her jaw.

“Of course I understand, Kuvira. It’s absolutely fine. I can’t expect you to recover from something so frightening in such a short amount of time. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that you had to,” you apologize.

Kuvira exhales sharply and her lips curl into a faint smile. “Never. If anything you’ve been extremely patient for someone who’s had their partner doting on them for almost every waking hour,” she chuckles.

You grin and lean forward until the tip of your nose brushes against Kuvira’s. “Well I can’t say it hasn’t been kind of sweet having the Great Uniter at my beck and call,” you respond slyly.

“But don’t you always?” Kuvira asks, closing the gap between your faces just enough for her lips to nearly graze over your own.

“I suppose you’d think so,” you giggle. “Clearly you’ve been more...zealous as of late, haven’t you?”

Kuvira hums while she slides the other glove off her hand, lifting her fingers until they wrap around the back of your neck. The caress of warm skin produces a thrill that courses all the way down your spine. “May I kiss you?” she whispers and her breath tickles the skin below your ear.

“Please,” you respond, bridging the space that separates you and finally bringing her supple mouth against yours. The kiss is tentative and chaste, so similar to the ones you would share in the early days of your relationship. Kuvira’s hand stays still on your skin, mirroring the carefulness of her mouth, so evidently displaying her anxiety of moving too abruptly for fear of harming you in some way.

So you decide to encourage her further, parting your lips and letting the tip of your tongue playfully brush against hers. Kuvira gasps and jerks backward, her face already tinted a lovely shade of red. It’s an unusual look for her but one that you relish for its rarity.

“What’s the matter? Too much?” you ask. The inquiry comes out sounding much more playful than you’d intended.

“I, um. I guess I didn’t expect that. I thought you would want to take things slow for now,” she elaborates. Kuvira is normally so composed, hyper-aware of every sound and movement she makes especially when she’s being closely observed, which is why you’re pleasantly surprised to see the way her throat clenches as she swallows.

“I’ll take things slow if that’s what you want. Is that what you want, Kuvira?” you ask innocently, lifting your eyebrows and removing your hands from her body. “Do you just want me to kiss you nice and slow...not deeper and harder until you feel your heart pounding against your chest? Not until you start kissing my neck and moving your hand lower and lower...just enough to feel how wet—”

Much to your delight, you’re swiftly cut off when Kuvira seals her mouth over yours again, the force of it strong enough to push you back an inch. You make a pleased sound in your throat and finally throw your arms around her neck, readjusting until you can swing your legs over her thighs and rest upon her lap.

Kuvira’s hands drift mindlessly over your sides, not quite touching but not too far off either. You grow exasperated so you tug on them and wrap them around your hips, grinding downwards so she can feel the growing heat between your legs. How desperately you’ve wanted this for days now.

She moans softly against your mouth and her patience wears thin within moments. Between the havoc you wreak on her lips and the canting motion of your body against her thighs, she eventually cradles you against her arm before placing you onto the mattress on your back.

You gasp in pleasant surprise once she hovers over you. She carries her weight with even greater caution, overly cognizant of potentially pressing down too hard and hurting you.

“What happened to taking it slow?” you tease breathlessly, hovering your fingers over the metal plates on her shoulder. She notices right away and knocks them off with quick work of her hands. They’re tossed onto the ground with a resounding clash.

“I think you should be asking yourself that question,” she responds, leaning down until her lips dance across your neck. “What was that you were mentioning earlier?” she whispers against you, dragging her tongue along the skin that isn’t covered by your uniform.

Your body instantly arches upward, feeling Kuvira’s breasts press against your chest. Between the accident and how busy everything already was before that, it had been weeks since you’ve been with her like this.

Therefore it’s no surprise that your body responds accordingly.

“Now don’t tell me you’ve gone all soft on me,” Kuvira says, pushing away the collar of your uniform and carefully sinking her teeth into the flesh at the base of your neck. You’re at a total loss for words, the sounds and syllables dissipating with each brush of Kuvira’s mouth on your body.

“Because that would be such a shame. I do love it when you make me work for it,” she sighs. Her hands, firm yet careful nonetheless, drift downwards until one rests over your hip. Even through the layers of fabric, her touch produces a sensation like fire that spreads from the point of contact all the way to each bit of muscle and nerve.

“But you also love it when I’m completely at your mercy, don’t you?” you shoot back, rather proud that your voice isn’t as weak as you expected it to be. Kuvira cocks an eyebrow and removes her mouth from your neck. You mourn the loss momentarily but keep going.

“You can’t deny it, Kuvira,” you continue, your eyes widening with glee. “I’ve seen the look in your eyes when you have me all tied up, completely and utterly at your disposal for whatever you desire. Haven’t you missed that? The way I’m completely helpless when you bind me up and all I can do is wait to see what you’ll do next.”

“It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for some time,” Kuvira exhales, already short of breath.

“Oh I certainly have. And given how you can barely get through an entire sentence without gasping for air, I’d say you’re quite a fan of the prospect yourself,” you murmur.

“Are you sure? You’re not in any pain at all? I don’t want to hurt you,” Kuvira says quietly, the lustful look on her face morphing into one of concern.

You nod assuredly and shyly press your lips to hers again. “Yes, I’m absolutely sure. We’ve got our word, remember? I’ll let you know if I need you to stop.”

Kuvira nods against your touch and moves her hand to the back of your neck once more, this time undoing the buttons that hold the article together and lifting your arms to pull it away. The fabric bunches up around your bandaged forearm and though the gauze isn’t as thick anymore, it’s enough to make you both pause.

You bite back the laughter flooding your mouth and Kuvira looks vaguely irritated. Nevertheless, she approaches the minor hiccup with her usual, unhurried maneuvers until it slides away and you’re only covered by a soft undershirt.

The scars beneath the gauze start throbbing a bit but you manage to keep the worst at bay. It’s nothing too bad — nothing worth paying much attention to.

Kuvira spends the next few moments showering kisses, bites, and caresses over every inch of skin she can reach with her mouth. She takes you apart with slow and intentional movements until all you can do is lay frenzied with desire beneath her ministrations and attempt to hold back the pathetically desperate sounds that fall from your lips.

She begins to lift up the undershirt until it glides over and off your head and falls to the ground, along with the growing heap of Kuvira’s clothes mixed with your own. She keeps your arms high above your head, sliding her fingers over your skin and pauses. When she stops, you realize your eyes have been shut so you snap them open and look down at her impatiently.

“Don’t you worry...I’ve got exactly what you’ve been waiting for,” she murmurs. Kuvira lifts her hands and starts to coil her fingers. You hear the sharp sound of metal sliding against metal and then you see two silver strips emerging from her abandoned uniform. They float menacingly above your bodies, gradually curling into crescent shapes that hover over your wrists.

“I think it’s about time,” Kuvira whispers. Not a moment is wasted between the time she utters those words and the sensation of frigid metal clasping around your wrists, pulling your arms together and holding you down tight.

You’re met with an immediate burst of exhilaration and you ride it for about five seconds before it’s overridden with a growing feeling of discomfort that spreads under your bandages. You do your best to ignore it and instead focus on Kuvira moving downwards until she reaches the hem of your trousers.

“Now let’s see just how much you’ve wanted this,” she purrs against your hip, clipping her teeth over the edge of the fabric and using it to guide her hands as they slide it off. She’s soon met with the throbbing heat nestled between your thighs and you sigh in shameless pleasure.

As delicious as it feels, the pain in your arm only intensifies with each passing moment. You attempt to zero in on Kuvira’s mouth brushing against your bare hip, your thigh, the feeling of her lips hovering over the wet fabric of your underwear. It becomes overwhelming — the tension of wanting more but feeling your arm quiver with increasing pain.

“May I?” Kuvira asks, hooking her finger over the thin fabric and hinting at tearing it off. You murmur a quivering “yes” and hope she can’t sense the discomfort in your voice. She promptly removes them, dragging them down your legs and pressing her face against the crease where your hip meets your thigh.

It’s such an unbearable union of tender and carnal that it makes your body jerk hard against the restraints. The material digs into your injury just enough to make you cry out in distress.

“Silver, Kuvira! Silver,” you grunt through gritted teeth. Kuvira immediately breaks away and bends the metal strips off from your arms. They land on the floor with a harsh sound that makes you flinch.

“What do you need? What should I do?” she asks calmly. It would almost startle you how quickly she manages to shift tonalities but right now, it brings you a comfort you didn’t realize you needed.

“My arm...it-it stings,” you mumble, carrying it down until it rests on your abdomen. “I just need a second. Maybe that healing salve?”

“Of course. Stay still, alright? I’ve kept it in my desk,” Kuvira reassures, leaning down to press a kiss against your forehead and leaping off the bed. She throws a spare bed sheet over her body as she strides across the room, shuffling through a drawer until she finds the salve and a sealed green pouch.

She kneels on the bed and slides her arm around your bare back to help lift you up with little pressure. Once you’re upright, she gingerly takes your injured arm between her hands and begins to unfold the gauze.

The skin that emerges is marred with a thin layer of scarred flesh, much less angry than how it appeared just last week. Kuvira uncovers the glass jar and scoops a portion of the salve onto two fingers that she presses against the wound.

It feels awful at first, almost exacerbating the pain, but it gradually melts into a refreshing coolness that numbs the discomfort. You hiss a bit at the beginning and Kuvira lifts her hand away.

“Is it too much?” she murmurs. “I’m not pressing down too hard, am I?”

You shake your head adamantly. “No, not at all,” you respond. “You’re totally fine. Just stung at first. It feels good now, I promise.”

Kuvira nods in understanding, rubbing the last of the substance onto your skin and pulling open the small pouch. She pulls out a long strip of gauze that she untangles and starts folding over your arm, sealing the salve’s properties against the scars.

She moves smoothly, indicative of one who has done this many times before. You wonder how often she had tended to others’ wounds as a guard in Zaofu.

“You’re all set,” she affirms once she ties it all together. She rests her hand over her handiwork, stroking her thumb over the material and looking up at you concernedly. “What else do you need?”

“I hate to say it but I think you were right,” you chuckle. “I think...I just want to sleep now. Do you, uh...do you mind, er—holding me?”

Kuvira’s face brightens even in the darkness of the tent and she nods, guiding your bodies back down to the bed so she can curl her body around yours, mindful of where your injured arm rests. Your legs tangle with hers as Kuvira tugs a thick blanket over your shoulders, bringing you closer to her chest until your forehead touches her collarbone.

The silence is comfortable, soothing. Exactly what you need. But you can’t shake the slight degree of embarrassment that clings to your thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” Kuvira murmurs. “I know you want to...and I understand. I won’t scold you for it but just know you don’t have to. I’m glad you told me. That’s what we do, right? Honesty.”

You nod against her and swallow. “You’re right...I appreciate it,” you respond. And though you don’t exchange any more words for what remains of the evening before you fall asleep, you lose yourself in the calming silence that follows. Kuvira’s hands float up and down your back and your shoulders, guiding you into a dreamless sleep that welcomes you with warmth and safety.

[fandom-space-princess]

Every Day's Most Quiet Need

midam week prompt 5: whisper - (v) speak very softly using one's breath without one's vocal cords, especially for the sake of privacy/(n) a soft or confidential tone of voice; a whispered word or phrase

Rating: Teen [2.5k words, a tiny bit h/c, mostly just sort of sweet]

Some things can't be spoken aloud. The only way to get them out is to say them as softly as you can.

read below the cut, or on AO3

When Adam thinks of whispers, he thinks of Michael's wings.

-----

"Michael? Why are you shivering?"

Maybe a silly question. The Cage is cold. An understatement, of course, but trying to hyperbolize about it has never taken the sting out. No matter how Adam tries to wrap it up in description, thinking of it as frozen as the Arctic tundra or the original ice cube or goddamn Minneapolis in February is never enough to distract from bitter reality.

So: the Cage is cold.

Shouldn't matter, though, and usually it doesn't. Michael is an inferno inside his chest, and he runs hot even by angelic standards (at least, according to him; not that Adam has any basis for comparison). Adam barely registers the frigidity of the place, and as far as he knows the cold bothers Michael not at all, either from his vantage in Adam's head or, as he's taken to doing more and more lately, manifesting as a separate presence.

Not that he's really asked. They've been down here for close to two hundred years, and it's only the last fifty or so that the rapport between them has been something resembling friendly.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Michael curls himself up smaller near the wall of the Cage, knees clasped to his chest, and slips into what Adam has privately begun to refer to as his Stoic Angel Face. The juxtaposition strikes him as odd: this intense, commanding creature, tucked into the corner like a human child, tight with tension, but wearing an expression that would seem more at home on a commander of armies, or carved into a mountainside.

Adam has been looking at Michael for two centuries, though. He's getting good at spotting the cracks in his masks.

He settles himself down next to Michael, a bare few inches separating them. "Ok. Say I believe you. You're still pretty clearly uncomfortable right now. Can I... is there anything I can do to help?" He rests a hand cautiously on Michael's arm, watching his face closely. Doesn't miss the flicker of Michael's eyes to where they touch, then away again, tight and guilty like he doesn't want Adam to see.

He leans into it, though, and Adam shifts to press into his side, shoulder to shoulder.

This close, he can feel the fine shivers still running through Michael's frame. Can make out the shallowness of his breathing.

"Michael. Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't usually hang around out here when you want to be left alone. So what's up?"

Michael sighs. "As you say, I am merely uncomfortable. I — the last time we fought —" He nods across the Cage, at the far shadowy corner where Lucifer broods in solitude, "— I sustained a few... minor injuries. Injuries I am incapable of healing except by waiting for my grace to recover. In much the same way as your body would heal naturally."

Adam blinks. He doesn't know what he'd expected, but that — that wasn't it. Lucifer and Michael often scrap with each other. When they first arrived, it had been out of genuine fury. But as they have settled into a more permanent resignation to life in this place, Adam has come to suspect that their ongoing fighting is mostly out of habit, and frustration.

At least now they do it in their own forms. Being conscripted into participation on a physical level, especially when Sam had still been present, had not been among Adam's favorite activities.

He casts his gaze over Michael, critically. "You don't look injured anywhere that I can see. Is it �� it's an angel thing, isn't it."

"Yes." Michael fidgets against the wall. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

Another bitter sigh. With a face like he regrets ever consenting to participate in this conversation at all, Michael mutters, "My wings hurt."

"Your... oh." He understands, suddenly, why Michael is reluctant to talk about this. While there is no longer any aspect of each other that either of them is uncomfortable with, at least on a physical level (Adam's body has been home to both archangelic grace and human soul for an order of magnitude longer than he had ever occupied it alone), Michael's wings aren't entirely physical, even by his particularly lax definition of the term. They're tied up too closely with his grace, with his power, with his place in Heaven and the burdens that come with it. Adam has seen them, time to time, out of the corner of his eye. Knows that Michael can and does manifest them when he's coping with some severe emotion.

Usually violence. Or fear.

He fidgets again, and shivers, and the emotionless mask he tries to keep in place is betrayed by the tightness around his eyes. Adam realizes that he's never seen Michael look quite so shaky, quite so miserable. How much pain does it take, he wonders, to make the Sword of Heaven look like he wants nothing more than to sink into merciful unconsciousness?

Which is a good point, actually.

"I know you've gotten in fights before, bad ones. I've never seen you like this." He nudges Michael gently with his shoulder. "What's so different now? Is it that we're stuck here, something about the Cage?"

"No, it's... well. To be blunt: I have never injured part of my noncorporeal form this badly while also possessing a corporeal one." His voice has dropped to a low murmur, and Adam tilts his head closer. He's curled in on himself, as though making himself as small as he can. "If I were to leave you, I could tend to the problem much more quickly. Given our circumstances, that would likely be unpleasant for me, and fatal for you." His eyes dart to Adam, then away again.

Oh.

"You'd rather be in pain then risk hurting me?" Adam asks softly.

A scowl is all the acknowledgement he gets for his trouble, before Michael returns to staring fixedly off into the middle distance.

"I care about you too, you know," he says. He rests a hand on the archangel's arm again, in reassurance. Once again, he leans into the contact, a response which seems almost involuntary.

Interesting.

Testing a theory, Adam leans back against the wall of the Cage. Slowly, allowing Michael time to object if desired, he stretches an arm out and settles it lightly over his shoulders. Michael goes utterly still, and Adam wonders if he's made a mistake. He's about to draw back, offer an apology, when some measure of the tension leaves Michael's frame and he relaxes fractionally against Adam.

"You'd tell me if there was anything I could do to help, right? I want to know, if there is."

"I don't want to presume upon you further than I already have. Given time, I'll be fine."

"So there is something. Come on, halo, out with it. Let me help."

Michael frowns, then shivers again, appears to reach a decision.

"Fine." He uncoils himself from Adam's embrace, and moves to kneel a few feet away. Pointedly meets Adam's gaze, and holds it, as if in challenge.

A crackle like embers from a fire along his skin, raising goosebumps over his arms, and a soft displacement of air. And then —

— he's seen them before, of course, but never dead on like this. Michael's wings are gigantic, and beautiful: the soft grey of storm clouds, fading to a darker slate blue at the tips of the largest feathers. Threads of silver and steel grey etch through them, and they refract the dim light oddly, half-translucent, as though they only partially exist in this plane. Which, now that Adam thinks about it, they probably do.

They're also a mess. From where he sits, Adam can see patches of broken and scorched feathers, clumps of dried blood and sulfur, places where the flesh has started to heal badly. A pang of sympathy, like a lightning bolt through his chest, and he's extending one hand out toward Michael on impulse before he realizes what he's doing.

"You can't reach them, can you? While you're possessing me? That's what you meant."

Michael's eyes track his hand, the aborted gesture hanging in midair. His face and posture have gone closed-off, rigid, like Adam might change his mind at the last moment and strike him instead. "The metaphor is imperfect, but that's essentially accurate. In Heaven, I could tend my own form. Here, my options are... limited."

Adam slides closer, until he sits at his side, facing him. Watching Michael for any sign of distress or hesitation, he extends his hand until the tips of his fingers brush a patch of uninjured feathers over his shoulder. They're softer than they look, and they buzz faintly under his touch, a barely perceptible hum of bioelectric feedback.

Jaw clenched, Michael looks away. Nods once. Presses the wing forward against Adam's hand.

"I'm going to clean the injured parts as much as I can, ok?" Adam says gently, trying to catch Michael's gaze. When that fails, he reaches out to clasp a hand to his shoulder, squeezes once. "Let me know if I should stop."

He grazes his fingertips over one of the burned patches, and Michael hisses, flinching away.

"No," he responds immediately as Adam draws back by reflex. He catches Adam's hand in one of his own, lightning quick, and shakes his head. Deliberately presses the hand back against the scorched feathers. A wince, but his eyes lock on Adam's. "You won't hurt me." His voice falls to nearly a whisper, and his hand drops away. "Please."

This time, when Adam touches him, he is still.

The damage is extensive, and Michael's wings are... well, there's a lot of ground to cover. Adam suspects that he's not getting the whole picture, somehow; that what he sees are only the parts of himself that Michael has chosen (or, perhaps, is able) to bring forward into this plane. That there might, in truth, be more injuries over more of him — and in more dimensions — than Adam's mind is capable of perceiving.

He hums as he works, fingers combing careful through clumps of feathers. Straightening those healthy enough to be salvaged, pulling away bits of dried blood and occasionally tugging free those feathers too bent or broken to be saved. Michael makes a low, pained sound deep in his chest at the first one, and Adam presses his hands back to the space immediately, soothing.

To get his mind off it, Adam speaks. "So, what, you'd do this yourself in Heaven? Or the — I dunno, whatever the metaphysical equivalent of grooming your wings is for angels?"

Michael leans into him, hip pressed to thigh and shoulder against his arm. "Yes. They'd heal more quickly if I was, as you say, able to 'reach' them. But much of my grace is currently constrained within your form. The ways in which I can manifest and manipulate it are comparatively limited."

"But you'd always do that for yourself? Not that a ton of the angels I've met seemed too friendly —" He snorts, thinking of Zachariah. "I wouldn't blame you if you were picky about who you let get that close. But you must have had someone."

For a moment, Michael goes tense against him, and his face clouds. Then it passes, as though it had never been. "No," he says, clearly unwilling to elaborate.

Adam doesn't press the issue. He leans back on his heels, then stands, stretches. "You doing ok? I should do the back." Michael nods up at him, from his place on the floor, and Adam circles behind him. Taps him on the shoulder. "Stop kneeling there and sit down." His voice is light, teasing. "I'm going to need all the height advantage I can get on your ridiculous, massive wings."

It startles a chuckle out of Michael, and Adam grins to himself. Michael settles near his feet, and Adam resumes carding through the wings. He starts at the tips and works inward, down along the leading edge, gradually moving back toward Michael's body.

When he's close enough, Michael relaxes back against his legs. Almost like he doesn't realize he's doing it, Adam thinks. He doesn't mention it, and when he moves away to start on the outer edge of the other wing, the quality of the silence between them is different than before. The pain seems to be fading, and Michael no longer shivers, but some less definite emotion is rooting in its place, something quieter and almost sorrowful.

When Adam kneels behind him to reach the places closest to Michael's body, he can feel the difference. It's in the way the wings press eagerly into his hands, rather than shying away. In the way the angel tilts back into him, posture more relaxed than Adam has seen him — maybe ever.

Adam encourages him, pressing his weight in turn against Michael's back. As levelly and casually as he can, he says, "What about the others? I was under the impression that you guys were, well, close. A family. For whatever that means for you."

"Heaven is not —" Michael tenses, but Adam just leans more firmly against him, fingers moving soothingly over his wings, and after a moment he relents. His words sound fragile, hollow, and his voice is almost too quiet to hear. As though speaking this too loudly would be too much, would mean acknowledging something he was unwilling or unable to acknowledge. "We aren't like humans; we don't interact like you do. We don't — we don't touch each other. Except to fight." He glances furtively across the Cage. In that moment, Adam sees a glimpse of his deeper nature, the weight of an impossible stretch of time on this being as old as the universe. "Once, perhaps. But not for a very long time."

Adam says nothing. Nothing needs to be said.

He sits against the wall of the Cage, spreads his legs out, and tugs at Michael's waist. Michael's wings vanish, and he turns his head to speak, but Adam cuts him off.

"Don't argue with me, ok? Just come over here."

Michael lets himself be pulled along, until he rests between Adam's legs. He leans back against his chest, and fidgets for a few moments. Then Adam curls his arms around his waist, and he settles.

"You deserve to be touched in something other than violence," he murmurs, chin hooked over Michael's shoulder. He runs hands down his arms, until their fingers twine together, pressing close to Michael's body. "Don't give me that 'not like humans' line. Just stay here with me for a few minutes."

He has no power to hold Michael here against his will, he knows. He could vanish, fly off, simply stand up and walk away — he is far stronger than Adam will ever be.

But Adam holds him, the only comfort he has to offer.

And Michael, a silent weight against his chest, doesn't move away.

[thevoilinauttheory]

Winter Sound

[ FFxivWrite2021 Prompt 24: Illustrious ]

[ Content Warnings: None! ]

[  [ Maximiloix learning magic, something something title lol - Earth - Water - Fire - Lightning - Wind - Ice ]

==

They had camped out in the snow, huddled together in their small tent for warmth; all in the comfortable glow of each others’ company. Neither of them were early risers, and so they stayed curled up until the day had reached its warmest part. Or, as warm as winter could get. Then it was shaking out the shivering cold as they packed up their belongings to continue on their journey. Caromont had led them back through a passage to the Western Highlands, to avoid getting comfortable with the city before finishing Maximiloix’s training - though trudging through the deep snow to the northernmost part of the highlands proved difficult, even hazardous. Maximiloix was fairly used to it, and he gave what lessons of his own he could give to survive the harsh climate; this was typical of the winters of Coerthas, and nothing he hadn’t faced with less before. Of course, it was the trek into the Slate Mountains that gave them the most hardships - having barely been prepared for a journey up the steep slopes and rocky climbs (Caromont faced incessant nagging for that one).

It took them another two days to make it to their next destination, but once they were there, it was a sight to see. The skies were clear and free of clouds, offering a pristine view of the snow-draped fields of Coerthas; the sun glittering off of the ice in a rainbow of colors. All they had to do was turn their heads upwards to see the islands of the Sea of Clouds and the wondrous beauty of unknown flora growing upon the emerald grass. “Gods, ain’t this somethin’ else…” “I do not think I could have asked for a better vista than this, it is beautiful up here… if it were not so *swiving* cold, it would be perfect.” Maximiloix snorted - the temperature still bothered him little, though he was beginning to believe it was more than just growing acclimated to it - Caromont rarely cursed, being composed most of the time, though that was how he knew it was *truly* cold out.

“C’mere.” Maximiloix sat himself down on a sturdy rock, then reached his arms out for him; to which Caromont took without hesitation, curled up in a blanket and tucking himself against his husband for more warmth. “Tell me ‘bout th’ice while y’warm up.” “Ice is an Umbral aspected element, making it the closest to the dark element you can get… they tie hand in hand. Though… I have noticed that it ties closely to the light as well, and I believe it is the best balance between the two.” He lifted a finger. “I suppose I should start with… everyone has an innate affinity for certain elements, one more than others. It bolsters the potency of the spells of that element, as well as making it far easier to use with less. You would not think it, but my body has a natural affinity for the wind element - thus, if I *had* to cast a spell without a catalyst, I would attempt keeping my spells to wind-aspected. My body would be able to handle the strain easier and keep me from using too much aether at once, I would drain less for more.” “Mm… what’s that s’posed t’mean fer learnin’?” “Well… you have an affinity for ice.” “Do I?” “Let us start with the fact that you are hardly bothered nor inconvenienced by the cold temperatures - now, most with an affinity for ice would feel it still, but find it bearable. Maybe not *this* much, however. Which brings me to the next point: what you are.”

“...” Maximiloix let a huff out from his nose, pursing his lips and furrowing his brows - he was never a fan of the topic. The fact that it was being brought up so casually made him uncomfortable, to say the least. “A shield from the cold and ice in the form of scales - the fact that you are susceptible to the heat and fire solidifies that you are not Dravanian of origin, as dragon scales are resistant to them.” “Thanks, I guess.” He rolled his eyes. “If ice is a balance between light and dark, it would only make sense that you have an affinity for it. The dark of your scales, and the light of your blessing.” “So instead o’ bein’ heretic, M’full on blasphemous, is what yer sayin’?” Caromont laughed. “I suppose so! That does not mean anything bad, I assure you. Simply that you are different in your own way - it is not what the being is, but how they are; and you are far from a bad person.” “Y’never know!” “Maxie, we have been together for seven years now, and married for one! I think I would know, hm? *Especially* me.” Maximiloix rolled his eyes again, then huffed out a small laugh. “Fine, fine. Guess I gotta believe ya’. So… there’s more t’th’lesson, yeah?”

“Oh! Yes, there is. Ice is used in thaumaturgy to lean the caster’s aether towards an Umbral aspect, allowing them to recover while they are in a passive state - when charged towards an Astral aspect, it can cause just as much destruction as fire can. It shouldn’t be underestimated simply because it is typically used for the recovery of energy.” He pulled himself away from the warmth of his husband’s body, standing up to stretch out, then meandered over to the near completed lance to finish the job with one last crystal. “So. Let us practice.” Maximiloix nodded firmly, doing just the same - he stretched as he stood, then found himself at Caromont’s side to take the lance from him. He smoothed his hand over each one, now imbued with a myriad of colors and emotions, tiny memories stored within his weapon. He smiled at the thought of them. “This time, I *will* let you use your all.” “Heh?” “I wish if I was correct in your affinity, if it truly is as strong as I believe it to be.” “Then I certainly ain’t usin’ it on ya’ this time!” “Oh, hells no. I am not that ignorant nor foolhardy, you will make a target of that rock there, some distance away. Now, stance yourself as if you were to use a fire or lightning spell.” He did as he was told, positioning himself to draw the aether from the crystal itself - then focused from there. What was it that he was supposed to focus on? Destruction was the only thing that came to mind, since his spell was aimed for a target rather than his husband. He focused on that point as if it *were* a person, how the skin would feel, how the ice would cut and burn and blind.

He could feel the chill running through him, it froze his blood in its tracks, choked his breath as it found its way into his lance - as deadly as it should have been, it felt *free*. It felt so free and wild, tamable by only his hands; power was but an understatement. This feeling had nothing on power and force, it was so much *more*. He could feel the cold wind whip his hair about, give frost to the edges of his skin, crawling over the scales that formed on his face. Then there was the pulse, the fabric of his being drawn out by the thread; how the cold made a home in the dark, the air about him thickened with it, stifling the light of the sun. His foot shifted slightly back, bracing himself for the magic that he was about to expel. With a push of his lance, and a hand gripping towards the dark sky above, was that spell released - crushing and shattering the rock in just a blink. Once the ice and darkness had shrunk in on itself, did it implode instead - where there was once the suffocating dark, it was now a brilliant and violent light that blinded them. The force of such a spell - even if it was a distance away - pushed him back, sliding across the slickened pile of snow until he lost his footing completely. He let out a yelp as he found himself tumbling down the rocky slope with his only reflex to cast another spell about him - one that focused on his protection. Ice shattered too easily, and so he was left with the cushion of the perfect mingle between light and dark; it covered him, cradled him, kept him safe until he came to a stop a few yalms down from where he was originally.

“Ughh… ow…” “Maxie!” He could hear Caromont call for him, but his head was still spinning not only from the fall, but the excess of aether he had spent on one spell. He blinked as he tried to look up. “Caro?” “Oh, thank the gods, you are alright; hold on, I will be down in a moment!” Caromont clamored down the mountain side as quickly as he could without slipping up himself, jumping over and across jagged rocks until he reached the bed of snow Maximiloix had flopped down into. The sun was shining again, it reflected oil-stained rainbows off of his scales, and he stared at the sky as if *it* would be his salvation. “Gods! I was glad I had time to prepare, ‘else you would have flung me off the mountain with you! Are you okay?” Caromont knelt down beside him, checking over him for any injuries, and thankful to find none. “Maybe I should be careful of what I ask of you next time, hm?” Laughter bubbled out of Maximiloix’s throat, that same child-like glee as he had when he cast his first spell. “Did ya’ see that! Holy shite! I’d do it ‘gain if I could move!” He continued to laugh, but his body truly would not move no matter how hard he tried. “Love, I don’t think that’s a good idea, regardless of whether or not you could move.” Caromont laughed as well, plopping himself down beside his husband. “That *was* impressive, however. But maybe we should keep the impressiveness to a minimum from now on - I made the mistake of underestimating your all.”

[semi-imaginary-place]

the weight of time, the other side, enemy 6. webtoons up to the other side 10

alright back to kubera, timey wimey shenanigans and maruna growing a conscious.

so kuberas one of those series where spoilers dont change the experience so i knew yaksha was going to show up but ah im so excited yaksha and og airavata??? thank you currygom. oh yeah and we got more on brilith's soul's past i guess.

huh so the ancient human cycle of reincarnation is breaking down. ptsd is being inherited across lives. humans were suppose to regain memories of their past lives when their minds and bodies were fully matured but violent deaths are leading to them regaining their memories before their minds are ready to deal with the trauma and as a result instead trraging each life seperately like we saw with the humans maruna interacted with, the humans ran meets there is no seperation between one life and the next its bluring together and thr grudges are growing as people life out the past. I love it!

...thats ananta. damn currygom is going HARD this arc, all the big names are here. also i just love ananta, yaksha, and og airavata having a breakfast club. ananta is half way to having the dead anime mom hair but joking aside the two foofy braids are super cute. currygom.... why you keep killing off all the nice ones... oh no yaksha has bad regeneration doesnt he... ok i just spent a week with a literal toddler and yeah gandharva

ok i cant tell how much of this heart talk is metaphorical and how much is literal ie yaksha physical heart is effecting ran emotionally. now that i think about it why is hanuman in their female form in the current timeline. wait maruna couldnt interact with another alive in the current time but ran can? i love yaksha why are all my favorite characters doomed. LET ME PROTECT THE CUTE OLD MAN. he's even white haired, has a tail, and is fluffy! fluffy! ran is watee attribute like yaksha too. wait i just remembered samphati told maruna that ideally a natiska parent would mentor a 5th stage rakshasa since 5th stage vigor and what not works more like a natuska and isnt that what yaksha is doing for ran. oh so this is what they meant by suras natures are to destroy. natiskas take of their attribues and astika create

ah so ran's half phobia isn't just trauma from the cataclysm but being afraid of himself. yeah where'd the wind transcendendal come from, ran is water water water

oh wow that experiment was more important than i thought. everyone is there

ooh naver commenter pointed out how sura sometimes scheme names their kids and raltara's parents name might be taraka the natiska name kali took to make yuta

this cute old man is bad for my heart. also ananta is precious. maruna continues to underestimate people but i will say him mistaking to most powerful being to have ever exisged in the universe for a 4th stage rakshasa ia pretty funny.

yaksha is basically a catboy. that explains a lot actually.

im enjoying the characterization of sagara. to sagara power is everything. ananta just wants everyone to be happy, he's uncomfortable with exterminating the ancient humans but he'll do it for sagara. this isnt true to himself or what he wants but he'll be what those around him want him to be. oh wow so the name/role of ananta was designed to take on a portion of every sin ever in the universe. also callback to brilith's conversations on whether its better to have gods that are too weak to do anything or have the power but choose not to help. oh shit and by brahma asking his consent in the destruction of the ancient humans (and ensuring it via sagara) she ensured the sins of killing them would fall on to him.

oh and somethings up with tilda but we dont know what yet. shes going to be important

where is marunas coat? mmmm head hurts... so gods forget things so that they arent weighted down by desires and reach the top/enlightenment. but once they reach the top the dont have to keep forgetting? about doomed willarav(??) all the deaths are turning point in which the characters didin't choose compassion. this is also the outcome that kali averted. ok im with maruna ran is giving me bad vibes. oooooo the maruna ran raltara gandharva situation! the tension! the drama! i was so caught up if the eye of punishment was going to be used by maruna or shess that a couple years ago i didnt even consider the possibility of a new character.

we also see the payoffs of the weight of time and the other side as well ran and maruna have come to see things from the other side (sura and humans). as others have pointed out maruna has spent several millennia among humans and discarded the sura cultural mentalities taught to him (obey superiors, no compassion etc which we see directly in his confrontation with samphati but everywhere after this time adventure) and taken a mentality closer to that of the first ancient humans. if humans using silent magic is said to lessen their humanity and make them more like sura ruthless calculating and cold, the maruna has become more human. the opposite is true of ran having spent many years living as a rakshasa and living far beyond a human lifespn. literally he has become more in tune with his sura side coming to terms with his grand parent being hanuman, yaksha's heart within him, and his power which killed his mother and he attacked the two next most important people to him lutz and rana. silent magic was said to need a desire for power, a lack of compassion for ones enemies, and a willingness to give up everything for one's goals. and mentally his mindset has been shifting from that of a humans to the one we usually see in sura. remember when he was introduced ran was the nicest character in the cast after leez.

so god kubera put the konchez party in a transcendental to stop their minds from merging with the maruna and ran of the current chapter. but thats what made them too late to stop taraka dying and 4th stage yuta. unless they wouldn't have made it aahhhhhhhh my head hurts i infinite possibilities gah! time travel! anyways but im still not sure what god kubera wants to begin with. wait no the mental transcendental preserved the minds of their former selves. the merge did happen that's how the clothes got "restored". oh yeah i forgot former kubera drew the sword of re before giving it to leez.

one of the currygom afterwords or something mentioned it but there's many more characters recently that do not neatly fit into the established boxes. perhaps its because at the beginning and and ending of the universe reality is looser. we have confirmation that yaksha clan bunny girl petupan that ran met has a chaos attribute but other sura we have met has chaos-ish aspects to them like other bunnygirl sona who maybe could be petupan's daughter? curiosly hanuman has a weird left arm when ran met him but doesnt in the modern day. then there's taraka that maintained their minds and forms like samphati and makara. then we have ran whos a human rakshasa (hanuman wondering if they forgot about a child with yaksha is still funny)

3-195 the other side 13 is the last we see maruna with his red fluffy coat in a flashback with raltara. it isnt seen until maruna goes to the abandoned timeline or n23

its probably intentional on currygoms part that yaksha's source attribute is water and that the inheritor of his heart ran was born with 3 water attributes. the interesting part is when ran starts using wind transcendentals and hanuman's source attribute is wind. so its almost as if he were a rakshasa with light as a clan attribute and water and wind as heteditary attributes. what im not sure of is in the fight with maruna ran seems to use some sort of lightning based attack and i cant quite remember so he either mixed partial surification with divine magic, has a sky attribute???? or there's sky transcendentals that dont require an attribute?

the abyss is the water channel of th sura realm?? omg and maruna cant remember the thing in the abyss that was chasing them because its existence has been replaced with yuta.

[movie-magic]

How Superman & Lois Is Avoiding Falcon & Winter Soldier's Fatal Mistake

Superman & Lois is avoiding the storytelling and pacing issues that hurt The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by focusing on the characters.

Despite Superman & Lois featuring the Man of Steel as a lead, the Arrowverse show is keeping its story grounded, thus avoiding the biggest mistake the MCU made with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The CW's series focuses on Clark Kent and Lois Lane as a married couple raising two sons. Despite Clark being Superman — arguably the most powerful being on the planet, and likely Earth's most important hero — Superman & Lois uses conflict within the Kent household as its primary narrative conflict. In the Arrowverse, Clark already knows how to be a hero — but he's still learning how to be a dad.

So far, Superman & Lois has successfully distinguished itself from the rest of the DC titles — particularly other Superman-focused series like Smallville — by focusing on a different period in the hero's life. Superman & Lois season 1 centers on Jordan Kent developing powers, and the family moving from Metropolis back to the Kent farm in Smallville, giving the troubled teen a chance at a new start in a quieter environment. This comes at great personal cost to twin-brother Jonathan, who loses both his star quarterback status and his girlfriend. Still, the predominant theme of the series is family bonds, and although there is tension between the Kents, every person is incredibly supportive of their loved ones.

Superman & Lois is leaning into the CW's strengths: relationships. Rather than having each episode feature a "villain of the week," the Arrowverse show wisely reserves its action for small scenes — saving on the effects budget while still satisfying Superman fans — and lets the conflict between characters be the main narrative thrust. The Marvel show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier did the opposite: instead of focusing the short 6-episode series on the relationship of its two leads, the Disney+ show overcomplicated its story with the Flag-Smashers plot. That fatal mistake prevented Falcon and Winter Soldier from living up to its potential.

Falcon and Winter Soldier had a strong premise: Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes coming together, coping with the unexpected loss of Steve Rogers and grappling with Captain America's future. The show's initial marketing presented the series as something like Marvel's version of a buddy-cop story. However, just like so many of the MCU movies, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduced a global crisis for its heroes to solve: the increasingly violent terrorist group, the Flag-Smashers, and the resurgence of the Super Soldier serum. The stakes became much higher than the reluctant partnership of Sam and Bucky — and as a result, their interpersonal drama took a backseat in the story.

There were many aspects of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier that worked really well, and largely, these are tied to strong characterization. Bucky's at his best when he's being introspective and flawed: the show hints that he is still drawn to violence, but is deeply ashamed of the Winter Soldier's violent actions. With Steve Rogers' Captain America gone, Bucky is more alone now than ever, being a relic of the past. All of the people he grew up with are dead or much older than he appears to be — and while he's grown accustomed to this new world, he acts perpetually uncomfortable. It's a theme the show sets up in the premiere but doesn't adequately address.

Falcon and Winter Soldier was poised to give Sam and Bucky a relatable, complicated, and resonant relationship — but this never came to fruition. Instead of genuine conflict between the two, the show relied on forced quips and odd-couple banter. Sam Wilson's past as a PTSD counselor made him the perfect figure to help Bucky cope with Steve Rogers going back to the past: something Bucky no doubt wished for himself, and — given his history with Steve in the MCU and how close they were — may have felt resentful of. At the same time, Bucky could have helped Sam on his journey to becoming the new Captain America. Bucky, as a white man, is ill-equipped to help Sam grapple with issues like systemic racism in America — but as a friend, he could have offered quiet support.

There are hints at the show that could have been in Falcon and Winter Soldier: in the ending, for example, when Bucky helps Sam fix up the boat and joins in on the family celebration, or the scenes of Sam and Bucky training with the shield together. The action in the series is often exciting and is executed well — but any antagonist would have worked for those scenes. Sam feeling such an affinity with Karli Morgenthau never made sense — he literally held her in his arms after she shot Sharon Carter, his friend. In general, the character motivations in the show were underdeveloped, all because not enough screentime was spent on exploring the relationships that mattered. This was the fatal mistake Marvel made with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: not using the characters' relationships as the focus of the narrative.

How Superman & Lois Avoids Making The MCU's Biggest Mistake:

The CW was wise to make Superman & Lois largely about the Kent family adjusting to major changes: the death of Martha Kent, the children learning the truth about their father, the family moving from Metropolis to Smallville, and the realization that boys could have inherited their father's Kryptonian powers. While there is a larger conspiracy at the heart of Superman & Lois season 1, the Morgan Edge plot is secondary to the story of Jordan discovering his powers and Clark trying to balance being a hero with being a father. The show isn't about super-powered beings donning costumes to beat up bad guys. While other Arrowverse shows have dealt with similar themes, Superman & Lois is the first to do so without focusing on being a superhero. For example, Black Lightning dealt with similar family themes, but is still primarily about Jefferson Pierce fighting The 100, and his daughter begins crimefighting almost immediately after discovering her powers.

Superman does appear in Superman & Lois and is presumably still averting Nuclear disaster and catching criminals, but much of this happens either offscreen or in brief subplots. The best moments in the show are scenes with Clark trying to coach Jordan, like the moment when he quietly tells his son to let out the built-up eye energy on the football field. These moments work because they're so earnest. While the circumstance is fantastic, the parent-child dynamic and the coming-of-age allegory are incredibly relatable. Clark doesn't know what to do, but he's trying his best. Jordan, as a typical teenager, lacks the maturity to make smart choices. He struggles to understand and control his powers, and he reacts to situations impulsively. He has the concerns of a typical teenage boy: his interest in a potential romance with Sarah, his newfound popularity thanks to football, and his emerging sense of self as he navigates puberty. Instead of scenes with Clark and Jordan stopping bank robbers or flying, audiences get glimpses of their family life; it's a story where the character motivations always feel genuine.

The relationships in Superman & Lois are realistically complicated and nuanced. Jordan and Jonathan Kent break the CW's warring brothers trope by being supporting and caring about each other, even when they disagree. Clark and Lois clearly love each other while having their own separate lives, and the show wisely avoids using Lois as a damsel in distress figure for Superman to save. None of the characters are perfect, with Clark in particular struggling with parental choices and the twin boys making the kind of dumb decisions teenagers make. Unlike The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which overcomplicated its first season with unnecessary global stakes, Superman & Lois keeps the story grounded on its family dynamic, which is a refreshing new standard for superhero stories.

- Screen Rant

[infinite-insomniac]

Notes/Headcannons/Observations

Virgil rolls his eyes at Romans name the dark sides

Virgil’s eyeshadow is more intense during certain videos where there is more anxiety, example Dealing With Intrusive thoughts

Virgil bites his thumbnail when he is distressed or uncomfortable

High anxiety makes Virgil’s voice have the echo to it

Paranoid could be a word that is like Virgil’s trigger in a way

Virgil in a way is more connected to how Thomas feels than Patton, Logan specifically asks him not Patton on how Thomas feels. Virgil as an aspect of anxiety knows exactly what Thomas feels about everything and how he actually feels

Virgil raccoon, makeup, rather live in the garbage

In the puppet episode Logan seems put off or confused the first or second time Virgil does the lightning thing then after it seems to push Logan to continue his points

Virgil’s eyeshadow is very dark in SVS 1

In SvS it can be implied that Virgil lies about his name

In svs Virgil doesn’t sound like he’s enemies with Janus... kinda more like old friends who are absolutely done with each others BS

Every side but Virgil sinks out and rises up. Virgil just appears and disappears

Janus gets power from Thomas not Wanting to believe things. Things that he wants to believe, be true, or not true.

Janus is just fine with Patton and Roman’s shit

In the puppet episode after Logan gives his list of factors, what Patton says and how he says it kinda seems to diminish the meaning of it and bring it down

Even though Roman says he’ll learn to love himself and not shy away from the fact he’s not ok... what does he fucking do? Cover it up and act like he’s perfectly fine

Remus and Roman might be connected via intrusive thoughts at times, Roman in SvS said he was the one and lonely, then that it was a Freudian slip

Logan stutters when confused

When very serious he becomes very monotone

Logan occasionally raps/tells ballads when making a point

Logan as Logic is very powerful, when dealing with other sides he’s able to quite easily quiet them

Remus gets his power from Virgil and Patton

Remus is repressed creativity

Remus’ theme/background sounds like opera music maybe

In SvS 1, under Thomas’ eyes is a bit dark, he might be wearing eyeshadow

The sides names being revealed could relate to how open they are about what they represent fully and how quickly their basic representation is displayed fully

Each side may get power from another side or an aspect of Thomas

Theories about the sides ‘becoming’ dark while interesting, aren’t completely plausible in some ways. Dark sides is a name Roman came up with, as someone with black and white thinking. The sides are what they represent. The others are just currently unaccepted parts of Thomas. They aren’t evil or villains. They haven’t fallen and became bad

Virgil is afraid of the dark sides, a reason why he wanted to protect Thomas from them, he views them as bad as scary due to his being anxiety

[cinnamonanddean]

Wincestmas - Day 3

Alright, alright, let´s try this again and hope Tumblr is not eating it this time!

Today, I thought I´d try a different kind of Wincest flavor - you mentioned that you didn´t mind a little Daddycest, and my friend, I´m right there with you <3 I´m fairly certain you´ll like this one, but please let know if you´re not comfortable with any aspect of the story and I´ll hurry to write a replacement gift!

Warning: this story contains Dean/Unknown Male Character, underage sex, a bit of dubcon and a healthy dose of John/Dean UST.

(I stole this idea from the SPN Masquerade 2018: "John has a perfect scheme to make money between hunts: he lures men into a compromising position with his teenage son, and then trades the photos for cash." Whoever thought of this: you´re a genius and I love you!).

*************

“You even legal, kid?”

Dean has learned from experience that anyone asking that question, is never even all that interested in hearing a truthful answer.

“Legal enough,” is more information than most of his targets need, and this man is no exception, either.

“Good answer.” Business Guy whispers and cups Dean´s face with one hand, thumb slowly tracing the outline of his lips.

Dean´s chosen prey of the day is unusually young. Young, hot and goddamn loaded, if his expensive business suit is any indication. His shoes alone look like they cost more than the entire Winchester wardrobe combined.

This guy probably wipes his ass with 200 Dollar bills, and Dean is more than a little turned on by the thought of ridding him of some of that wealth. If he plays his cards right, they won´t need to worry about money for the next few months or so.

The hand on his jaw slides forward and Dean opens his mouth without hesitation, groaning when two fingers push in deep enough to make him gag.

They taste like salt and stale smoke and Dean sucks them with unabashed enthusiasm – lots of tongue, just a hint of teeth, point twelve on Cosmo´s “How to drive him wild”-list.

He´s rewarded with a heartfelt curse and a heated look, the faint squeak of leather that means that John is watching from the shadows and most likely already on the brink of losing his shit.

“Jesus, kid, your fucking mouth.”

There´s something akin to awe in the man´s voice, and it makes warmth pool in the pit of Dean´s stomach, makes him grab the stranger´s wrist, shove those fingers even deeper.

His eyes flick down to the man´s crotch, and Dean feels his own dick twitch when he sees the long line of the guy´s cock, thick and hard and all because of him. He idly wonders if watching this is making John hard, too.

“Gonna suck it, sweetheart?”

Business Guy is staring at him, eyes glued to the way Dean´s lips stretch around his fingers, and the steel in his voice makes it clear that this is not a question.

Luckily for him, Dean has always been good at following orders.

He drops to his knees with an eagerness that surprises even himself, hands at the other man´s belt before the pain of his fall even registers.

“Good boy.”

Dean shivers at the praise and his cheeks start to burn, pride and shame mingling in his gut until he can´t distinguish one from the other.

A hand slides into his hair and he lets himself be pulled, his own skinny fingers slipping beneath the expensive fabric of the man´s slacks, and then Dean´s hand closes around the length of him, all hot, sticky skin, thick veins and coarse hair where Dean´s still soft and boy-smooth.

It´s bigger than Dean anticipated, but he´s watched enough porn to know what he´s doing, doesn´t even hesitate before he leans in and flicks his tongue right over the head.

The man grunts in approval and it´s all the encouragements Dean needs. He starts licking it in earnest – long, broad stripes from root to tip, little kitten licks around the head until he guy´s dick is shiny with spit.

Dean pulls back. Licks his lips. Takes another peak at Business Guy from beneath his lashes. The man seems transfixed, all open-mouthed adoration, and Dean smiles up at him and slowly, deliberately sucks the head of the guy´s dick into his pink, eager teenage-mouth.

It´s a bit different from what Dean had expected, the weight of cock against his tongue even more intoxicating when it tastes of man instead of cheap silicone, the stretch a little wider than he´s used to, but not more than he can handle.

Dean pushes deeper, throat fluttering against the intrusion and he nearly gags himself in his eagerness.

He draws back. Swallows. Spreads his legs to give his own leaking dick more room. Jesus fucking Christ.

The next slide is easier, smoother. Almost all the way down. The hands in his hair tighten and the guy above him moans, low and wanton, entirely unashamed, head falling back against the brickwall behind them.

Any minute now, Dean thinks, as he slowly gets a good rhythm going. He knows that the lightning in this alley is shit, that John might have to get closer to get a quality pic or two, but this lack of action is making him nervous.

John never lets things get this far. Usually, he´s be up and at the other guy´s throat before Dean even gets a good grip on the dude´s zipper.

They´re way past that now, and to his own surprise, Dean doesn´t mind that one bit. He´s always been good with his mouth and judging from the shivers that go through the guy when Dean sucks his dick just right, Dean can proudly add “giving head” to his long list of talents.

Seconds pass, minutes, still no sign of John.

Dean knows he´s watching, though. Can feel his skin prickle under his father´s heavy gaze, and Jesus, fuck, he´s going to jerk off to this for weeks.

The moan tearing its way from somewhere deep in his chest is muffled around his mouthful of cock, and Dean feels himself tremble at the answering stream of curses above him.

He draws back, takes a minute to admire the wet, shiny mess he´s made, his fist sliding through spit and precum when he gives the guy a few slow strokes.

“Shit, baby, c´mon.” The man pleads and Dean grins, opens his mouth, prepared to draw him in deep again.

He doesn´t get very far.

The sound the guy makes when he´s slammed up the alley wall is fundamentally different to the ones Dean just pulled out of him.

Surprise, anger, fear. Mostly, shock.

“Get your fucking hands off my son!”

Dean can´t remember the last time John´s voice shook with that much fury. He´s terrifying, looming over the guy like an avenging god straight out of one of Bobby´s books.

Business Guy is trying to say something, but only manages to croak out hurt little sounds, hands grabbing uselessly at John´s forearm that is pressing against his throat and cutting off his air, toes trying and failing to find any purchase on the dirty street below.

It´s ten different kinds of hot and does nothing at all to improve the situation in Dean´s already uncomfortably tight jeans.

“Give me one, one, good reason not to cut off your dick right here and now!” John snarls, not even waiting for an answer before snapping his favorite switchblade wide open, the sharp knife gleaming dangerously in the low light of the alley.

The way the guy´s eyes bulge out at that, Dean´s sure he´s going to pass out any minute now.

“P-please, I - “

“Shut your fucking mouth, you sick little - “ John breaks off, the tense line of his shoulders trembling with barley checked violence. He´s five seconds away from cutting the guys throat, and all three of them know it.

"Dad?" Dean tries, not all that keen on disposing of yet another goddamn body tonight. "It´s okay, you can let him go. He´s not worth the trouble.”

His father doesn´t even twitch, no sign that he even heard him.

They balance right at the edge of disaster for another five seconds, and then John jumps back as if he´s been burned, knife still in his hand, but no longer ready to strike.

Business Guy crumbles to the floor in a mess of limbs, chest heaving with panicked breaths. He looks all kinds of ridiculous, soft cock still hanging out of his jeans, his face somehow both deadly pale and angry red all at once.

Yeah, Dean thinks idly, it probably is kinda difficult to stay hard when John fucking Winchester is at your throat, threatening to cut your balls off.

“Leave.” His father orders, as if on cue, the deadly calm of his voice even more terrifying than the anger from seconds ago. “And if you ever touch another kid, I´m going to come back and make you pay for every. single. one. of them.”

Without waiting for a reply, John turns around to face Dean, stares him down with the full force of his glare, something dark shifting in his gaze.

Suddenly, Dean is only too aware of the state he´s in, how his lips feel swollen and raw, of the way his face is still shiny with both drool and jizz.

He hesitates for a second and then slowly, provocatively, licks his lips. John´s swallows.

“We´ll talk when we get home.” He rasps, eyes glued to Dean´s mouth, the bulge in his jeans unmistakable.

Dean only smiles.

---------------------------------

Good God, Anon, you tryna kill me? There's so much to love here: teenage Dean getting off on his own power, John so focused that he forgets to pull the plug - did they even get the money? Ah, who cares! Amazing. Thank you!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

im gonna just keep punching thru my WIPs so here’s some ~ign gun stuff~. i know everyone wants to talk about the new trailer and calypso stuff, i mean i do at least, but `checks list` i still have a lot of old stuff to get thru 😵

god i’ve been working on this for *three days* (yes! im not dead!)

tl;dr: i mostly just wanted to talk about how the CoV is using slag to power their guns to give them infinite magazines and ended up getting more proof for my ‘the calypsos are using eridium/slag to quickly mutate their followers and give them special powers’ theory. Also some interesting stuff about troy’s sword and his tattoos and his lil necklace things at the very bottom, if you’re interested. mostly ties it all into the new Eridian glowing stuff we’ve been seeing. they’ve moved on from purple -> red. which brings up some interesting questions...

So first I’m going over the individual IGN weapon videos, which you can find on their site here and on youtube here through HayderHype (doing god’s work). i recommend checking out this version because the ign player is not spectacular.

now to be honest im here to talk about three things from this particular vid: the areas we see in the gameplay, the new funky alien parts, and the CoV guns. the manufacturer perks are cool and all, but we already know most of that stuff. so I won’t be showcasing every gun from the video, but instead the more interesting/important bits I’ve noticed as I watched it

cool? cool!

the first area we get is definitely space rocks, im imagining this is similar to the area we see Zane in on that one promo sheet, 

(this one)

and, more importantly, the area where we will find that bigass space laser gun thing. i do believe that giant-ass gun is somewhere within Promethea’s asteroid belt.

(this one)

i am curious why the planet below doesn’t appear to have any asteroids surrounding it. maybe the giant space laser destroyed them. which i do discuss in this post here, if you’re interested in a very long read.

it could be that we’re simply on the side of the asteroids. which then makes me wonder, why are they all clustered there? it’s probably because the fuckin moon was destroyed. maybe by the giant space laser. which is also discussed in the post above 👀

it could also be elpis! the rocks are definitely gray enough lol and we don't exactly have a very good frame of reference for ‘asteroid’ vs ‘moon’. the giant space gun is out of shot, afterall.

ah. alien guns. 

i don’t think these are related to the bl1 eridian guns- not the kind we’ve seen that look similar to the Guardians in-game

that is:

this is all the same sort material as the Guardians, with their bug bits and armor and shit and these new alien barrels are all organic and squishy. (oh also take note of that purple thing on the eridian lightning, im going to bring it back later)

these new ones are definitely fuckin creepy looking, but not very bug-like at all. if they are related to eridians, it’s not through the Guardians. (as for the ACTUAL Vault Guardians/Monsters, yeah, it’s possible. i’ll get to that in a secco)

for the tentacle stuff, i know the Destroyer (not a Vault Guardian- it was imprisoned) is all ‘tentacles and disappointment’, but tbh i don’t see the asphalt lookin chunks being part of the Destroyer. and i especially don’t see manufacturers themselves harvesting the Destroyer for gun parts (Hyperion aside lol)

i could see them tying it in with the Rampagers (both fleshy with the black armor bits) but also... they’re not very tentacle-y. and how would manufacturers be getting the rampager stuff anyway? i suppose if that really is a teleportation network, then they would be on all the planets we visit. making them more available for farming. but still.

and yeah, the rocks probably have some sort of relation to Eridians, i mean we’ve seen rocks like these at Eridian dig sites and we know of a Vault Monster made out of similar-looking rocks

plus

this shloot gun, which i will get to later, appears to be made out of the same rock. 

so wtf are these tentacle things? made by eridians specifically for weaponry? a different version of the eridian guns we find on Pandora? did the manufacturers find a whole stash of these things and start making their own? instructions on how to build them? we know eridian writing is stashed across the universe, afterall.

maybe they are meant to be something different...

i honestly don’t know, and im getting off topic here, so let’s move on.

not a crashed ship. i haven’t seen ALL the eden-6 gameplay, but i’ve seen a few and they had only gone through the ship AI quest with ice-t and the very uncomfortably long jabber section. seriously, tf was that? 

also i still don’t trust wainwright. that fucker is totally gonna betray us for the key once we get him the pieces. also did you know one piece of the promethean key is on Athenas? wildin’. wait this game is just One Piece in space... fairy vearth i am coming for you... oh god, do i have a type? i think i have a type when it comes to media. ... hm.

oh, but the facility. i wouldn’t be surprised if it were Atlas. the red stripes also got me like ‘old Hyperion’, but again tf would Hyperion be doing on Eden-6? plus that one shot with Hammerlock in the new Eden-6 video makes me think it is, in fact, Atlas. 

(side note, i love when i search my blog for a post with the word ‘eden-6′ in it and i get literally everything EXCEPT the post where the hyperlink is literally eden-6. tumblr! you suck! your search function is terrible!  https://cruddyborderlandstheories.tumblr.com/post/186858618497/eden-6. but yeah this is where that hammerlock shot is, if you’re interested)

specifically this little thing here

reminds me of this labeling system that we see on Promethea, which marks different parts of the city (red and blue are the 2 i’ve seen so far)

which then begs the question: what was ATLAS doing on eden-6? back when i thought this planet was promethea, that was fine. but... it’s not. so wtf are they doing here? 

personally, i think they were researching whatever Typhon Deleon found here (or thought he would find here). We see he has historical markers across the planet, so i would not be surprised if he found something. 

to add to that, we know there’s eridian things on planet, because a. we see a eridian log in the moze gameplay. 

and b, which is new info from the recent community Q&A: those purple crystals we see contain eridian writing, and we use a “special tool” to dig them out

so glad we finally know wtf these are for lol

“There’s Eridian Writing, and you need a certain tool to get the Eridian writing and once you do, you find this across there (the planets i assume) and this Eridian Writing opens up certain things for players”. which has certainly gotten me INTERESTED AS FUCK

i know i mentioned in my post about these crystals that maybe these were parts of eridian artifacts and stuff that tannis would help us with and turn into gear. but honestly given how vague he is by saying ‘opens up certain... things’... i almost want to say skill upgrades. 

i’ve mentioned before (and actually it’s come back recently in an ask) that I really, really, REALLY want our VHs to get bonus skill trees due to Siren powers being unlocked (cause like if we do graduate to Vault Guardian then who is to say... we won’t?) and, like, sure, if they can’t break the ‘6 Sirens in the universe at a time’ rule, then mayhaps we will get some sweet Eridian upgrades through these writings to our already available skills. maybe new standalone action skills, since they’ve made it very clear you can equip any action skill you want. lorewise, it could be like how Fl4k’s skag becomes an Eridian Skag (cough LostLegionEternal cough)

or, maybe, they actually are schematics and Tannis will help us build them and we’ll get cool gear out of it. maybe vehicle upgrades or something. maybe even something pertaining to Guardian Rank (which I still think is us graduating from Vault Hunter to Vault Guardian and if thats the case then i really hope siren = vault guardian becau- okay i’ll stop sorry.). I don’t think it will be something that we MUST do for the plot, so it can’t be THAT important to the lore. Like i said in the old post, we probably will break one or two for the main story after getting the stabby brass knuckles, then we will be let loose to collect the others on our own free time. 

but yeah, the wording of “opens up” is doing me a big thonk because... well, he’s making it sound like an entirely new aspect of the game we have yet to hear about. of course he could just be using a very literal sense of the word in that we are literally opening up the crystals by smashing them open and freeing whatever is locked inside. especially because he says that specifically the Eridian writing, which we acquire with the tool, is what opens up those certain things. 

also guessing we get this glowly stabby tool from Athenas now, instead of from Atlas. I’ll explain in the Athenas post!! I promise. we have LOTS of stuff to discuss there, i’m very excited to work on it.

jesus i got off topic.

but yeah. i imagine Atlas would be researching whatever Eridian stuff Typhon Deleon found here. there’s clearly writing all over the place, with lots of eridian logs

it could also be that this is like Supamax MFG or some other production facility that was shut down and abandoned. doesn’t always have to tie back into the deep lore, as much as i want it to lol

but moving on. because good lord im not even like 2 minutes in on the first video and i have 2 more to go after this.

this area feels like the inside of the asteroid base.

there’s nothing but rocks floating outside! so i guess the theory about this being on the side of the asteroids was correct! huzzah!

poor promethea. they didn’t deserve it. also may just be some way to link up the promethea teleport system (because yeah im still standing by that theory) to the rest of the planets. or this is some way to activate a temple, or a Vault, or something Rhys wants exploded like Maliwan HQ... so many possibilities. Maybe it’s just that Maliwan was sky-bombing Atlas-held areas and he sends us up here to stop it.

so many possibilities. so little time.

moving on

looks like the place amara visits in her character trailer. given we’ve also seen the area Fl4k visits, im excited to see if we’ll also be visiting the areas from Moze and Zane’s trailers.

eyy more looks at that facility. definitely feeling like this is Atlas.

also, this appears to be similar to the window brick, mordecai, and tina stand in front of in that one shot. i know i already mention this in that VERY old post where i organized all the areas of the dev and reveal trailers, but still. good to see it’s standing up

also, if you’re wondering why i have yet to mention or show any of the athenas clips, it’s because im saving those for my next post. athenas all day babey (i am trying to use self-restraint, it’s very hard for me to not just blather on about stuff i want to talk about lol)

this appears to be the tink stripper area lol

thanks gearbox i hate it

why

big varkid!! with what looks like the HBC in the background. possibly some named badass enemy we kill for hammerlock? i can’t imagine this is big enough to be vermi.

the area with the ferris wheel!! i hope we can ride it. also that rollercoaster in the claptrap presents pandora video? omg i want to ride it sooooo badly

ah this is the jakobs family thing. part of the ship from the eden-6 demo

iirc this was where Moze is using Iron Bear during the We Are Mayhem trailer. I wonder if that’s Rhys’s office in the back or smth. very fancy

okay. finally.

the Children of the Vault Weapons. I’m actually going to showcase a few of these, because I think it’s important.

remember, the CoV weapons have infinite magazines (not infinite ammo)

so if you’ve noticed the similarities between these weapons: they all seem to be powered by eridium/slag. some have the purple piping (and with the fire/corrosive/shock elements, i have to wonder if this is similar to how slag mutated enemies will get elemental affinities) and shards of eridium sticking out of the detailing. 

given the piping will change colors depending on the element used, i definitely don’t think the glowing purple is just for aesthetic purposes and i 100% believe this plays into their infinite magazine size. i think this is somewhat similar to the Eridian weapons, in which they have infinite magazines and rechargeable ammo

(using the eridian thunder storm as reference here)

the CoV weapons don’t have rechargeable ammo, but they definitely have infinite magazines, which i imagine is a step in the right direction to recreating these eridian weapons with slag/eridium

so is this the reason that slag pool we see is ‘Holy Holy Holy’?

^ this is a glimpse at the structure below in-game spewing out eridium/slag, so we know what the full version looks like

and below is a version without slag/eridium:

i mean, it’s not like there hasn’t already been a precedent for worshipping guns and what provides them. just take a look at the bloodshot ramparts, the bloodshots worshipping Marcus as a god for providing guns to them.

i mean, even the eyeball symbolism is pretty familiar here.

and yes, this could 100% replace my other theory that the twins are mutating their cultists with eridium/slag. but tbh, i think it proves it even further.

remember this?

that piping looks really familiar, doesn’t it?

and we know goliaths in bl2 were mutated by slag/eridium/ruin exposure- it’s explained that a lot of the bandits teetering on the verge on non-human were mutated because of eridian ruins/tech (the key in sledge’s mine). so why would it be hard to believe that the twins are accelerating or activating this process using their own store of eridium/slag?

i won’t go full theory on this, because you’ve already heard me rave about it, but i think this is very nice evidence, so long as our previous assumption about the slag/eridium powering the CoV guns is true. which i believe it is

(From the Eden-6 teaser trailer)

(from the We Are Mayhem trailer)

very similar

so what the hell is in those vials?

looking at them, it’s clear the first matches up with the slag gun and the second with the fire gun. all well and good. maybe they’re bottling up that elemental goodness as sort of an ‘oh shit’ button, or just as a way to stand out in the cult, show off your allegiance to them by mimicking Troy’s vials (which i suppose i’ll have to touch on in another post, because iit will derail everything)

so i imagine this is provided by the cult- maybe because they are powering up their cultists using slag, in a very similar way to how they’re powering up their guns. forcibly mutating them and all that- speeding up the process that normally happens somewhat slowly on Pandora. afterall, isn’t that what the cultists are being promised? ‘special powers’.

but there is more

we know Tyreen’s power is to absorb the powers of people. Phaseleech or something. and when she does it to lilith in the new cutscene, lilith simply has her Siren powers taken away and is left in a near-death state. 

which is all well and good, but when Tyreen does it to her cultists... hell, even the Sun Smashers, something different happens:

we’re even allowed to watch the process take place

even before he’s fully dead, this psycho is turning to stone, which doesn’t happen to lilith. there’s a few reasons this could happen

1. Tyreen didn’t have intent to kill. she wanted to leave Lilith for the dogs- the Eridium-tier cultists

2. Lilith’s Siren powers are sort of like a shield- instead of immediately turning to stone under the effects of Tyreen’s powers, she instead loses her abilities

3. the bandits are different from Lilith, and that is because of her abilities as a Siren.

im going to go for the 3rd option.

we know bandits on Pandora are mutated by the slag/eridium/eridian ruins surrounding them. Krieg, an off-worlder, is taken into a hyperion testing facility and tested on with slag, which turns him into the badass psycho we know today. that gives him the exposure to slag/eridium/eridian ruins/tech. you get the deal. (im just going to call it eridium in reference to all eridian ruins/tech/slag/eridium.) and like Krieg, we see badass psychos roaming the wastes, even before Hyperion slag testing began to take place. this is because of their exposure to eridian ruins/technology across pandora- eridium hadn’t appeared until after the first Vault opened. 

so i dont think it hard to believe that these bandits are still being affected by exposure, to the point that eridium had begun to build up in their bodies, leading to these physical mutations and new elemental powers. this happens to the wildlife of Pandora, too. Badass elemental skags, fire spiderants, even bloodwing shows (a speedrun version of) this in the WEP. some muted bandits include badass psychos, goliaths, burning psychos, slagged psychos. etc, etc.

i think Lilith, being a Siren, is protected from the effects of ‘background radiation’ of eridium. she’s able to process eridium without any byproduct, and we can assume she’s converting it fully into energy/power (as Sirens are able to charge Vault Keys with it). we could argue that her Siren skill gain in borderlands 1 is explained by her being near eridian ruins for a majority of the game (slow buildup of background ‘radiation’), then in bl2 her skills skyrocket to an entirely new level (teleportation) because of her direct contact with pure eridium. and since she’s able to convert eridium into power, she doesn’t turn to stone when Tyreen absorbs her lifeforce- she has no buildup in her body.

unlike her, the bandits who spent a long enough time (7 years is long enough for the Sun Smashers, I would imagine. also probably long enough for Vaughn to start losing it- just a little bit) on Pandora to continuously absorb this eridium have a significant build-up in their bodies, so when Tyreen absorbs their life forces, the eridium already inside them is drawn out, or reacts with her powers, and turns them to stone/eridium crystals.

anyway.

moving on to more gun stuff

Borderlands 3: Every Gun Maker and Their Perks

like the last vid, im just going to be going over some interesting areas and guns if i see any.

>hold down the trigger to charge the gun and release a powerful pulse shot

did they fix Maliwan guns??? iirc from the demo you had to charge them to shoot at all! that’s wonderful!

also

looks like Zane might have an ECHO log somewhere in the Meridian Metroplex, if the VHs don’t have ECHOs in their inventory as starting gear (im curious if the ones on Sanc-III are supposed to replace that, or if they’ve only been put there for the demo...)

the reason im assuming this is an ECHO is because ur character’s icon will only appear if ur coop player is speaking and they’re far away from you (no coop partner in this clip), or if you’ve activated an ECHO log. there may be a as-of-yet unrevealed option, like maybe the twins playing back a recording, but we’ll see.

so, ahhh if ur in this general location, be on the lookout for anything glowing like a quest item

also also im surprised there are players who are using Zane and not playing with 2 action skills. that’s like... sort of his biggest thing.

ah well, that’s literally the only interesting thing outta this video, so moving on

5 of the Craziest and Awesome Guns in BL3

yeah this is the one gun i wanna talk about- i said i was going to be bringing it back later on and i wasn’t joking

so it should be pretty obvious by now this thing is Eridian. if the symbol on the top didn’t convince you, and the rocks didn’t either, then the diamond should, bc apparently that’s just, like, an Eridian thing now. apparently. no im not salty this shape just started appearing only in the 3rd game. that’s ridiculous.

... okay, only a little, i guess.

personally, i think this gun exists to explain why the Vaults and Vault Monsters drop loot that is... from our world/time period. Feed it Eridium, get guns out. how does it actually make gun? iunno. looks like it’s powered by fire, though. or whatever is in Troy’s sword/the cool knife knuckles

this stuff

orrrr

this stuff.

which... makes me think Troy doesn’t use his sword in the intro fight because he doesn’t have it yet. he might be waiting to get it back (upgrade?) or until he’s strong enough to hold it- or he just hasn’t found it yet. 

i mean, the boy can’t even pick himself up off the ground and suddenly I’m supposed to believe he can wield a sword that’s probably heavier than he is? he’s probably waiting to be full strength to use the damn thing.

and if he doesn’t have it yet, i would imagine they find it on Athenas or in one of the other temples while using the teleportation network (i will die for this theory until im proven wrong) and yoink that shit. i mean, who wouldn’t?

which also is making me wonder if the stuff around his neck is the new (old? before/after eridium?) Eridian energy/power. which i guess means we’re looping all the way back around to theory #1: wtf are those things around troy’s neck lol

it would be interesting if he’s gotta hold onto this for his powers or something. double interesting if Tyreen is making him use it because he’s useful, even though it’s killing him- if he’s useful somehow (like thru distributing the powers Tyreen holds, like i’ve been saying with my input/output twins theory for quite some time now) then Tyreen NEEDS him to do this for the cult.

i mean, his tattoos do glow the same color as the Eridian tech when they’re transferring what i assume is energy between the two of them

so it's not too hard to believe that his tattoos are somehow tied to this eridian tech mess. 

i almost wonder if this is like... a new version of Siren we haven’t seen yet. one not linked to Eridium like the other Sirens are. maybe created before/after the eridians had access to eridium (before they discovered it/locked it away in the Vault of the Destroyer), or an artificial one produced by the red-based eridian tech- and that’s why his tattoos are the same color as all the new eridian stuff we’ve been seeing.

but, eh. it’s whatever. this is a gun post, not a Calypso post. i’ll go in depth in a later post :^) (i am trying to stay on topic now. we’ll see how long this lasts lol)

[rainy-rose]

Silver Serpent: Takeru and Vincent

Hullo, I needed to work a bit on Vincent and Takeru and their friendship before the plot and this snipped happened. I am not entirely pleased with it, but it id help me find out more about my boys. Enjoy! ^_^

TW: vague implication of a past suicide attempt

Waves came crashing on the rocks and shore. The air was thick with the smell of sea salt. The wind was lifting the sand and constantly moving it around, displeased with its position and frustrated that it could not dislocate larger chunks. On the horizon dark grey clouds were slowly making their way towards Rockcliffe Beach.

On a flat, light grey boulder, Takeru was laying on his side with his back to the water, a half-finished cigarette in the corner of his lips, and a black backpack with a small flashlight hanging from one of the zippers at the base of the rock. The rising gale was playing in his hair, long, thick, dark strands going all over the place, especially in his mouth and eyes. He shook his head. There were two black hairbands around his left wrist, but the intention of using them was nowhere to be found. Bored, seemingly uninterested dark brown, almost black eyes were slowly following the animals. Running around on his long slim legs, Schilo, the greyhound mix was snapping playfully at the peregrine falcon which was flying just a few inches above his muzzle. Hiei’s strong beak was open, short high pitched calls alternating with longer variously pitched ones. The dog was barking in response, an inviting delighted sound sometimes turning into a low, nonthreatening growl. They were fun to watch, their friendship always blooming despite their differences.

A short distance away, shoes and socks in hand, water lapping at his feet and ankles, Vincent was making his way towards the boulder. He had been walking for a while, listening to the calming sound of the waves. The last few weeks had been tiring, work piled up, urgent foreign requests for help keeping him up late into the night. He had been tired, stressed, sloppy and aggressive in conducting the training of his disciples. When his friend had suggested the quick getaway he was so quick to accept that he bumped his knees on the desk, cursing.

‘I’m going for a swim!’ he said in a monotone reaching the stone and taking off his light coat and shirt. It was cold, barely April, but Vincent did not feel it, his body temperature running higher than everybody else’s, his blood hot as the fires that were bending to his every whim and will. ‘I won’t be long!’ he added taking off the silver necklace he always wore and handing it over.

‘Careful!’ Takeru’s soft baritone rose slightly over the noise all around them. The cold metal of the zippo touched hardly touched the scrapped skin of his palm before long slender fingers closed around it and he was putting it around his neck for safe keeping.

And like that Vincent was gone, running into the water.  Growing up next to the sea in a small Romanian town, swimming came natural to him. The waves were getting higher, the clouds closer, a storm imminent. He did not care! With every stroke he was getting deeper and deeper, farther and farther his body welcoming the exercise, the resistance of the current. Holding his breath, he dived in. The water was murky, impossible to see through. Less than twenty seconds passed before he rose to the surface and in another ten he was going under again. Getting used to the temperature was easy, by the fifth dive, the water around him was warming up a little, steam spiraling from the surface. Relief washed all over him. Closing his eyes he floated on his back, arms moving lazily from time to time. The temptation of staying there for hours was growing with every minute. It was so pleasant! He had not done this in almost a year and he missed it greatly!

Diving again, he searched blindly for the bottom, arms outstretched, legs and feet moving in a precise rhythm. Despite having enough air, his lungs started to hurt a bit after a short while. The pressure and tiredness were taking a toll on him. He ignored them and kept going deeper and deeper. The bottom was nowhere to find, but the water was getting colder, the air running out. He ignored the sensation, putting more force towards his goal. A small ray of light breached the darkness over his shoulder. He blinked confused, dizziness creeping in on him.

Something strong and slim coiled around his middle pulling him upwards. Looking around, the light was dancing in a strange pattern. Instincts kicked it. Increasing the heat in his hands he grabbed the thing, trying to free himself. It didn’t bulge. He tried again, higher and higher. It was an arm connected to a body. Shit!

Two heads emerged from the restless waves. Both had slightly tanned skin, one’s hair was cut short, the other’s was long and flowing. One was freezing, teeth chattering, the other was caught between confusion and remorse. Bright blue eyes met black.

‘I- id – a - aho!’ Takeru grumble stuttered, swimming towards the beach. His moves were difficult and slow, pain was running up and down his body. Teeth sank into cold numbed lips. The salt water was making everything worse. With every move of his hands the flashlight was nowhere to be seen. ‘W- What were you t - thinking?’ he asked as soon as they were back on the dry sand and in warm trousers. The pain subsided a little, the burns not deep enough to bleed. ‘What w- were you thinking?’ he asked again, throwing him the lighter. His tone was flat, anger hidden under layers and layers of indifference. Cold was chipping away at his control.

Vincent stared at him, not giving an answer. Not immediately anyway. He finished getting dressed, put the harness on Schilo and handed Takeru his own shirt and coat together with the leather glove for Hiei. ‘I was swimming, trying to reach the bottom’ he shrugged touching his friend’s arm, a green, heeling glow at the tip of his fingers.

Takeru looked at him, analyzing, running the words through his head, sniffing out for lies. Power coated the words, searching, separating, extracting the tone in which they were spoken and the emotions behind it, deconstructing that even further, until the truth stood out clear in his mind, Vince’s truth.

They had been here before, a few times, and afterwards he had spent hours upon hours in an uncomfortable plastic or wooden chair in a hospital’s waiting room. ‘You’re not lying’ he sighed, a small twinge of relief in his voice.

‘No, I’m not.’

Their eyes met, unspoken apologies, reassurances, admissions and fears passing between them. Neither needed to hear them to know they existed. Vincent broke the contact first by moving his head towards the hotel. As he was walking the sand stuck to his feet bringing back childhood memories of long summer days. They walked in comfortable silence. Neither was a talker. They had Ingrid for that. When the older woman was not there they made do snuggling in the other’s quietness.

In their room, Takeru went first to shower, leaving Vincent to clean the animals and open the two windows, welcoming the storm. As he came out of his own, brief shower he found his friend sitting on the bed, dressed in oversized gray pajamas, damp hair pulled up in a bun, a jar of soothing muscle reliever in hand. It was almost dark outside, lightning, thunder and wind chasing each other.

‘The gods are having fun?’ Vincent asked, rubbing the water out of his short black hair.

Belief in the Shinto gods had been a part of the Matsuda family for countless generations. Takeru was not as devoted as the rest of his relatives, but he did hold the god of wind, Fujin and the thunder and lightning god Raiden in high regard. Few people outside his family knew about this aspect of his life, labeling his fascination with storms as just another quirk. Another strange thing to look at and gossip about.

‘Or sex’ he shrugged, vaguely amused, breathing in the clean humid air coming through the window.

‘Or both.’ There was a knowing smile on his face, blue eyes glinting. The invitation was missing however. They’d had their own fun, from time to time along the years.

Vincent took the jar reading the label. It was one of those ointments that heated up after application. It felt nice, smelled pleasant and made him sleepy. He took off his sleeping T-shirt, laying on the clean white sheets. Two red wrapping towels were stacked next to the pillow.

Takeru straddled his legs. Vincent was well built, his back muscles beautifully defined. This white scars took over most of the skin, the worst ones on the nape. That area was out of boundaries. The cream was think between his palms, but it was absorbed quickly, Vincent visibly relaxing under his touch. His breathing slower, more stable. He was working in precise sections, coating everything in an even, thin layer. It took quite some time, and he had to bend forward more than once to care for his upper arms as well. By the time he reached his lower back, Vincent had fallen asleep, light snores escaping thin parted lips. Takeru kept working, fingers playing over the skin as if it was they keys of a well-tuned piano.

The towels were soft and thick. Putting them around the sleeping man without waking him up was not easy. Vincent was a light sleeper, but Takeru had a lot of practice. He knew where to press, to guide his body. Vincent feeling comfortable around him helped a lot. The covers were left unused, unneeded. He settled beside him with a manga, not actually paying attention to the black and white panels or the strings of kanji that formed the dialogue. Instead he kept watch over his friend, ready to intervene in case of a nightmare or worse a night terrors.

Taglist: @inexorableblob

Please tell me if you want to be added or removed from the taglist.

[papikakashikahn]

Sunflower

This is a BakugoxOc story I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time. This will be a series so please expect more!

To say this was one of the most intimidating moments of my life would be an understatement.

My throat ran dry as I scanned over the familiar faces throughout the infamous class... I had seen them on the news so many times it was as if I knew everything about them already.

Being face to face... in person... was a completely different story though. Interesting how I practically knew everything about them, but to them, I still remained a mystery.

While you might be wondering how I encountered such an opportunity to join the infamous class 1A, I'll have you know it is not that crazy of a story-

My eyes flickered to a pair of crimson red ones who observed me indifferently. I swallowed discreetly to clear my throat.

-This, on the other hand, would seem to develop to be one of those stories.

If I can recall, there were not many parts in my life where I felt the spontaneous need to help people, and become a hero.

I simply thought of going into the hero career after my father, a moderately well-known hero who went by the name 'Judgement Day'.

We shared the same quirk, making it natural I would follow after him as his predecessor. It's slightly depressing to admit though, that I had no passion in joining this field. I was still finding my goal, my purpose in this life, like every other 16-year-old I'm sure...

Nevertheless, while it was never in my wildest dream to be standing before the Class 1A, it was one of my promises to myself in my life to do everything to my best and fullest ability. Therefore, it wouldn't have been right to follow in my father's footsteps without giving it my all.

He's not dead or anything guys, we're just not that close... it b like that sometimes :I

My quirk is ... interesting to say the least... but what I don't make up for physically I make up for mentally. What I'm trying to say is that my quirk isn't explicitly physically powerfully per se... my quirk rather relies on the mental aspects of defeating another person.

When I touch another person, I can hear what their thinking. That sounds really creepy I know...

*Y/N has left the chat*

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!! While I can control it well enough, when my emotions are high I tend kind loose grip of who it's directed act. But of course, every hero has to have some sort of defect right!?!

There's another sort of aspect of my quirk that's actually rather serious when I'm fighting another person.

When making a certain hand sign and directing it at someone, making eye contact with them I can make them go blind and deaf for about 3 minutes. This is something I don't use often though, as the person practically thinks they died, and I can't even imagine experiencing that. Therefore, there's not enough will power in my entire body to inflict such suffering on another person. It really makes me sick thinking about it. It reminds me of death, so you can probably see why my fathers called 'Judgement Day'.

A criminal once died from a heart attack under it... several criminals have gone for psychiatric therapy because of it as well. I mean, can you imagine practically dying? Shit, I'd need therapy too...

Often I question if I really am made out for this type of work at all.

I can understand that nowadays, the world is filled with tons of dangerous people trying to impend danger on other people. I guess it's a good thing that I have empathy for others, otherwise, I'd really have no place in this field of work. But often I can't help but worry about the person I'd be fighting against. Physical attacks are seemingly much easier to control. Someone with a quirk like mine could inflict a lot more harm to another person that just physical.

Not to mention a lot of people probably deserve to be in my place right now rather than me... I entered late into U.A. It took a lot of work to earn a spot here. Obviously, it's a competitive school. It's the best high school for heroes in Japan, if not the world.

Apparently, it's quite hard to get in when you have a more psychometric quirk like mine, rather than something flashy like Mina Ashido with her acid and stuff.

I got in late, thanks to an overwhelming amount of recommendations. My test scores were fairly impressive to U.A, but not only was I entering late, but I also hadn't taken the entrance exam with the other students at the beginning of the semester. Thanks to the nepotism of my father, I was given the physical test at least.

In short, I was asked to go against one of the teachers of U.A, Midnight. But considering I hadn't used my mind-numbing move throughout the entire fight, it dragged on rather long.

I was simply landing physical attacks while reading her next move, through her thoughts.

To my belief, my try-out wasn't quite impressive, yet here I am, currently standing in front of my newfound peers.

I was extremely surprised I wasn't placed in class 1B. Nothing against them at all, it just seems like their quirks are less physical as well. I mean just look at Monoma Neito or Shinso Hitoshi.

I naturally forgot to breathe I was so nervous being in front of them all. Each and every individual in Class 1A had the potential to be big name heroes... and here I was with a simple psychic quirk which I'm sure many other people on this earth had.

There was absolutely no reason why I was here. I didn't deserve it, and I DEFINITELY didn't want it. But honestly, there weren't many other options. This was what my entire life had been focused on. What else should I have been doing?

Everyone was clearly so much more passionate, qualified, and ready to be a hero. They were meant to be a hero.

As for myself? I simply don't know what my passion or qualifications for being here were. I feel like I'm completely and utterly late to this, yet I can't seem to remember what I missed along the way that made us different?

I bowed before them, my hair falling past my shoulders. Standing up again I pinched myself to speak.

"Hi, my name is Ketiomichi Hotaru, and I'm excited to learn with you," I spoke while lightly tapping the tip of my sandal behind me.

They all blinked once or twice, staring at me silently.

Was this a bad sign? I wish I could touch one of them to see what they're thinking... okay that sounded a little weird-

"Welcome to class 1A Hotaru!" A boy with glasses sitting toward the back exclaimed while raising his hand high in the air.

I smiled slightly as I nodded to him.

My eyes darted to the famous 'Eraser Head' who's eye bags were even darker in person, waiting for him to give me direction as to where I should sit.

"Hotaru, you can sit behind Shouji, in the second row, the second seat." he coughed out nonchalantly.

My eyes flickered to the empty seat, then to the two blondes on both sides of it. On the right facing the board was Denki Kaminari, famous for his lightning bolt quirk, which reminded me a lot of Pikachu from pokemon... his face too.

On the left was an "explosive" guy to say the least... Katsuki Bakugo, who won the sports festival just last month. He had to have a mussel on while accepting his award... so he's violent as well. His red eyes added to the rugged exterior.

I took Mr.Izowa's directions, sitting in between the two blondes making it a blonde trio, while uncomfortably fixing my skirt. I looked to the right, out of the corner of my to Pikachu, who I found staring at me in return. With a smirk on his face, he winked at me.

My eyes flashed back to the front of the room strictly with regret. Slowly my eyes wandered to the left of me, to the explosive blonde.

He too was staring.

I choked on my own breath as his red orbs seemed to look into my very soul, trying to decipher who I was.

I could have popped a blood vessel how fast my eyes went back to Mr.Izowa.

This was definitely going to be interesting.

[megareviews]

Spring 2019 First Impressions

The Spring list is late as usual (is it usual if it’s only the second instance?), but at least I’m closer to the beginning than last year. I’ve reached 50% completion on the doing this for an entire year consistently, so nice.

Aikatsu Friends!: Kagayaki no Jewel (Aikatsu Friends!: Jewel of Radiance): Aikatsu is relatively low on my priority list of magical girl megaseries.

Bakugan Battle Planet: This show actually premiered last semester, but in English, and this season is when the Japanese dub started. Either way it’s somewhere deep in the Bakugan series, which is based off of what are probably my least played children’s toys.

BAKUMATSU Crisis: Second season of an otome game adaption that looked okay when I started it, but I still haven’t watched past the first episode.

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai (Bokuben / We Never Learn): The main show that I know the source material of, and it is just about meeting my expectations. An average guy who has to study rigorously to maintain his average grades is put in charge of tutoring the two smartest people in his school. This might not make sense until it’s explained that he has to tutor them in their worst subjects, because those subjects are the ones they want to major in for college. It’s a nice theme of working hard for what you enjoy situated in a rom-com with some haremy aspects and an unusually high density of goofy faces, so watch it if you like those aspects.

Bungou Stray Dogs 3: I still need to see what they did with HP Lovecraft in season 2

Carole & Tuesday: What happens when a runaway rich girl and a poor orphan girl meet up on Mars? They form a band of course. A tale of two lonely souls finding each other and become a little less lonely in a big world, making music together. It looks great and it sounds amazing, so this is definitely a priority watch.

Chou Kadou Girl 1/6 (Amazing Stranger): Imagine Buzz Lightyear from the original Toy Story except in a 20 -something guy’s house and then failing the don’t move when humans are around rule almost immediately. That’s what this show is.

Cinderella Girls Gekijou CLIMAX SEASON (Cinderella Girls Theater CLIMAX SEASON): For somebody who doesn’t watch idol shows, the theater shorts are pretty fun, though I’m not nearly caught up in this one to say how this season is going.

Diamond no Ace Act II: Oh boy there’s so much baseball this season and a lot of it is sequels.

Fairy Gone: There’s a lot of things going on in this show but I think I can simplify it to military use of fairies to give soldiers super powers. The protagonist has been taking jobs as a mercenary to find her sister who was split from her after their village was burnt down. Then at an auction that she works as a guard, things start going wrong and the thief who appears is none other than that sister. The first episode ends with the end of a three way fight between security and the girls, so I’m not sure where the show’s going at all. Maybe if the show didn’t flash back to the protagonist’s village burning down three times, there would be a little more time to give direction.

Fruits Basket (2019): I never know how to deal with reboots for shows that I can remember, but haven’t seen the original. I know there’s people who turn into animals and a “do the carpets match the drapes” joke, and that’s about it from the 2001 anime.

Gunjou no Magmel (Magmel of the Blue Sea): After a new continent appears in the world, explorers flock to it, not always as prepared as they should be for venturing into the unknown. The main character works at a company to rescue explorers from mishaps along with a few others. The worldbuilding is interesting and the main character’s black lightning is pretty cool looking, but his attitude and decision making abilities kinda put me off for now. That and the comprehensibility of the subtitles I was watching fell off a cliff halfway through the episode.

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine (Cinderella Nine in August): So far it looks like a pretty standard club building show based around women’s baseball. It looks nice and we have 4 club members as of the first episode, so they should make it to at least full team of nine pretty quickly. It looks nice outside of an odd montage near the end of the episode when the club plays a game with some local kids, and the character designs are a bit more memorable than the usual baseball cast. I appreciate the fact that they’re playing hardball, but I’m not the type of person to watch anything sports ever.

Hangyaku-sei Million Arthur 2 (Operation Han-Gyaku-Sei Million Arthur): All I know about this show is that there’s a bunch of characters named Arthur and that it’s a sequel.

Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu (Hitori Bocchi's ○○ Lifestyle): When one of the most socially anxious kids in elementary school gets separated by her only friend when they go to different middle schools, her friend gives her a quest: to become friends with everybody in her new class. She’s got a real go-getter attitude, but from feeling physical pain from trying to talk to a stranger to fainting when somebody actually responds to her, she’s got a rough path ahead of her. It’s a really fun show that gets you rooting for the main character in her attempts of communicating with others in a normal manner.

Isekai Quartet: Four of the biggest isekai series in one short mash-up is a recipe for confusion. Especially since they’re all put together in a school setting where no fighting is allowed, even if there are holy gods and undead abominations in the same class. Anything can happen with all these people taken from their original normal lives, tossed into various fantasy worlds, and then slam dunked back into a relatively normal setting.

Jimoto ga Japan (I’m From Japan): I cannot find a trace of the anime anywhere online and I am glad of this having read the manga. It is just a really dumb comedy about Japanese prefectures that I struggled to read a few chapters of before giving up.

Joushikausei: A silent anime, as in there’s no spoken words, about a few high school girls. It’s an interesting concept, but I found it a bit uncomfortable to watch, mostly due to the whimpering and other nonverbal noises the girls were making.

Kedama no Gonjirou (Gonjiro the Yarn Ball): A children’s show that hasn’t been licensed and no group is fansubbing it, how unusual… It actually looks interesting though so I might search for the raws to check it out.

Kenja no Mago (The Magi’s Grandson): A child raised by a powerful wizard in the country reaches an age where he can move out to the city and attend a magical high school. Unfortunately for him, his parental figures only taught him combat and magic, so he doesn’t really know how to sustain himself in the reals world. It is a decent concept but there’s a 50/50 chance of any scene looking nice or looking awful, and the scene transitions all look like they were made in Powerpoint.

Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slaying Blade): A happy family of coal sellers is destroyed in a night when a demon strikes. The eldest son was out due to a combination of work and a blizzard, and when he returns he finds all but one of his family members completely cold and covered in blood. This last member is rushed down the mountainside for medical aid, only to turn into a demon on the way down. A meeting with a demon slayer turns tricky as he tries to protect his demonized sister who’s fighting between killing instincts and her love of her brother. The opening promises some beautiful animations and the overall show isn’t slacking either, so overall it’s a very promising show.

KING OF PRISM -Shiny Seven Stars-: It’s the TV version of a boy band movie tetralogy which is also a sequel I think?

Kiratto Pri☆chan Season 2: A sequel to a idol anime that I reviewed last year. I think this is one of the first times a sequel has shown up that I also reviewed the first season of, though unfortunately it was for  a show that I didn’t watch fully.

Kono Oto Tomare! (Stop this Sound!): One more club building show for this season, this one about a Japanese instrument called a koto. After all the upperclassmen of the club graduated in the previous year, only the main character is left in the club, and needs more members before the club gets closed, the usual. The first new member is a seemingly delinquent 1st year who is surprisingly diligent. There wasn’t too much interesting or unique other than the topic of the club, so music fans might find this more watchable than I.

Kono Yo no Hate de Koi wo Utau Shoujo YU-NO (YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World): The first episode for this kind of front-loaded introducing characters and pulled out its premise of parallel dimensions and a device to navigate them towards the end, which means I’d probably have to watch another episode to figure out how I feel about it. It’s nice to not have a giant exposition dump take up the first episode of a show, especially since it will have two cours to tell a story, but I didn’t feel any particular gravitation towards the characters by this point, so I won’t be prioritizing any follow-up on it.

Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin (Midnight Occult Civil Servants): With a job at a place called the Nocturnal Community Relations Division, the first thought of the type of people dealt with is most likely not going to be fairies. Our main character is taken from a world of the ordinary to being able to see and talk to the supernatural creatures that live locally, called Anothers. His co-workers are equipped with magically enchanted police tape and other trinkets to help solve issues that occasionally arise between Anothers. I like the modern fantasy setting, and the fairly low level fights with the supernatural so far, so there’s promise in where the show goes.

Midara na Ao-chan wa Benkyou ga Dekinai (Ao Can’t Study): While the name Ao is usually blue, or sometimes even moth, in this case, it stands for Adult Only, the 18+ rating in Japan. This is due to her father’s profession, an erotic writer, and surprisingly, the main character hates her father for naming her that and spends her entire life studying to get into a college far enough away from him. This is thwarted by a guy confessing to her and filling her mind with romance and lewder thoughts, with the help of her father. I hate this as a concept and don’t watch this.

Mix: A semi-sequel baseball anime. I say semi, because from what I’ve gathered it is recommended but not necessary to watch the original first.

Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!? (Why is my Teacher Here!?): It’s about a male student and his teacher, ending up in awkward situations together, like being trapped together in a men’s bathroom stall. A show of pure fanservice through and through, so there’s not much else to say.

Namu Amida Butsu!: Rendai Utena: What started out as an action about cleansing impurities from the world gives us a quick bait ‘n switch to a slice of life about gods bumbling about in the human world attempting to be competent humans. I found it irritating to watch, and it was very clearly based off of a gacha game, which do not have a good track record of making good shows.

Nobunaga-sensei no Osanazuma (Nobunaga’s Young Bride): A modern age middle school teacher way down the ancestral tree of Oda Nobunaga meets the bride of the man himself, who traveled to the present from the day of the original Nobunaga’s death. She’s no older than when she left her original time, which leaves her at 14 years old, with no knowledge of modern day Japan so she’s stuck with the main character’s family and decides to be the new Nobunaga’s bride anyways, which… is weird.

One Punch Man 2: A big sequel of the season, and one where people have been waiting with wary anticipation due to the change in animation studio and director. It definitely looks a lot stiffer than the first season, for action and non-fight scenes, but the story is a bit more interesting in my opinion, as the show starts working on fleshing out other heroes and why they fight.

RobiHachi: the first episode of this really is a springboard for setting up what the plot and cast will be, just about starting right at the very end.  We’ve got an ultra gullible man in debt, a genius teen with no sense of purpose, a robot rabbit helper, and their spaceship that blares its own theme song when it transforms into a mech. They set off to find a legendary planet that grants happiness after a couple of hijinks on their starting planet. It’s a very busy show, both visually and plot wise, but still an enjoyable experience if you can keep up.

Sarazanmai: 50% connecting with other people through oversharing with them, 50% kappas stealing souls from other people’s butts. It’s hard to describe the show but I’m having a good time, and the art is gorgeous, and special care is taken with little details in the show. I’d say watch the first episode definitely, and then decide whether or not to follow up on the rest of the show.

Senryuu Shoujo (Senryuu Girl): The focus of the show is on the Japanese poetry type of Senryuu, mostly because the main character can only communicate with others through writing these poems. Thankfully, she’s got some good friends and is in her school’s Literature Club, so she has plenty of practice and is around people who appreciate her work.

Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san (Meddlesome Fox Senko): The fox gods of the world have a duty to protect humans, and are becoming more proactive in seeking out humans with negative emotions before those emotions go out of control. In comes the male lead of the show, an overworked businessman who has basically just been going through the motions of life by this point. One of the fox gods appears in his house, doing the cooking, cleaning, and other tasks to help relieve the main guy’s stress. It’s comfy and there’s some funny moments, but I feel like the show would be better off as a more episodic show featuring various humans rather than just the one that it looks like the show will focus on. I’m also worried about the romance genre tag that the show has.

Shingeki no Kyojin 3 Part 2 (Attack on Titan 3 Part 2): I’m still on episode 5 of the original series, with no particular motivation to make it any further. More people die in bloody explosions probably.

Shoumetsu Toshi (Lost City): As the title of the show would imply there is a city that has been lost to humanity, as in, it just disappeared one day. The main female character is the only one who survived the city disappearing, and is targeted by a mysterious group due to that, and she tries to return to where the lost city used to be due to a message by her father who went missing with the city. In addition there was a monk with super powers who was standing on a motorcycle’s handlebars facing off against the main girl who could summon her Lost bodyguard with a bunch of guns but that was kinda just thrown in at the end.

Strike Witches 501 Butai Hasshin Shimasu! (Strike Witches 501st Join Fighter Wing Takes Off!): Oh god it’s been so long since I’ve consumed Strike Witches content. This is a slice of life spin off of the original series, so the context is recommended, but not necessary. The animation is also very much on the rough side for a ten minute long short. 

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki (Yatogame’s Observation Diary): After briefly being disappointed in the lack of heavy Nagoya dialects encountered in Nagoya, the main character runs into a classmate who happens to have one. In addition, all of her favorite foods and animals are popular or famous in Nagoya, so he sticks around with her for meeting his ideals of what a Nagoyan should be. They then travel the city as part of the photography club to see all the sights of the city.

Youkai Watch!: Despite what it looks like from the title, this is pretty deep in a line of sequels of Youkai Watch.

[padawanlost]

Well, the most simply answer to "wtf is a Sith" would be that they're people who have the same powers as the Jedi, but unlike them they solely use them for their own gain. Of course the Jedi would then be in the uncomfortable position to have to explain to both the Republic and the CIS why they kept the existence of such a dangerous sect secret, but that's something I'd actually be delighted to see as while the Jedi are certainly not evil, they do need to get off their high horse somewhat.

But here isthe problem: people don’t know about the Jedi either. The Jedi Order was soremoved from the rest of the galaxy most people didn’t know what the Jedi didor if they even existed.

Let’s takeBail Organa as an example. Bail was respected Senator and a member of theSenate’s Security Committee. And here is what he thought and knew about theJedi:

“If it’s Jedi business, why come to me? Youshould be speaking with them.” Ignoring his own tea, [Bail] shook his head. “I don’t know them, Padmé. At least, notwell. Not the way you do. And they don’t know me. There’s no reason to thinkthey’d believe what I have to say. Especially given the circumstances.” [KarenMiller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

“Padmé,” [Bail] said, and swung about to faceher. “Have you ever heard of the Sith?”Sith. The name alone was enough to raise her hackles. Twice their machinationshad nearly killed her. And because of the hurt inflicted upon Anakin, and themurder of Qui-Gon Jinn, and the sufferings of Naboo under Trade Federationoccupation, the Sith had earned her undying hatred. But she couldn’t tell Bailthat. As Naboo’s child-Queen, she’dpromised Master Yoda she would never reveal what she’d learned of them. She’drenewed that promise to Obi-Wan on the desperate flight from Geonosis toCoruscant, when she’d overheard things not meant for her ears. Sithlightning. Dooku. A dreadful betrayal. So with only the smallest twinge of conscience,she looked at Bail Organa and lied to him a second time. “Sith? No. Why?Who—what—are they?” “I don’t know,” hesaid, frustrated. [Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

“Padmé, please. I can’t do this without you.You’re the Jedi’s friend, a trusted ally. If you speak up for me, if you vouchfor me to them, then—” “They’ll trust you?” Though she was deeply disturbedby his news, she had to smile. “The friend of my friend is my friend?” His ownsmile was as brief. [Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

Padmécontacts Obi-wan and he goes to her home.

“I have a visitor, Obi-Wan. Senator BailOrgana of Alderaan. He claims to have received word of a planned attack againstyou … by the Sith.” Betweenbreaths he changed. She felt it. Felt the warmth of his humanity flash-freezeto ice. Felt the air surrounding them crackle with power. In the hangar onNaboo, facing the red-and-black Sith assassin—in her apartment bedroom, havingnarrowly escaped being murdered by the bounty hunter Zam Wessell—in the arenaon Geonosis, staring at monstrous, mechanical death—she’d felt it then, too:Jedi. She stepped back, her skin prickling. “I’ve told him nothing. Whatever he knows, his contact told him.” “Whatcontact?” Obi-Wan asked. “What precisely does Senator Organa know?” “You’llhave to ask him that,” she said. “He came to me because the Jedi don’t know himvery well. Because he trusts me, and he knows you trust me, too.” OutwardlyObi-Wan seemed to do nothing, but his terrible aspect eased. Her skin stoppedprickling. “And do you trust him?” he asked, mildly enough. “I do. He’s a goodman, Obi-Wan. He loves the Republic. He works as hard as any Jedi to see itkept safe.” There was the faintestderision in Obi-Wan’s clear blue eyes. “He’s a politician, Padmé.” [KarenMiller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

“Then what?Senator, if you have an observation to make about the Jedi, you should feelfree to make it. We are not some secret society, immune from publiccommentary.” Organa swallowed the rest of his ale in one gulp. “No. But you are pretty mysterious.”“Mysterious? I hardly think so.” “Ha,” said Organa. “Now who’s beingdisingenuous? Sure, you’ve got a publicface. Guardians of the peace. Upholders of the law. Protectors of the weak andhelpless. Wherever there’s trouble, there’s a Jedi trying to put out the fire.Everyone knows that. But you’re a bit spooky, too. You’ve got this mystique.This—this aura. You’re not like the rest of us, Master Kenobi. You’re beingsapart, with powers and abilities ordinary folk can’t understand. You getblown up and hey presto! You’re healed. Not a mark to show for it. Not a limp.Not anything. When normal people get hurt, there’s a consequence. But not foryou Jedi.” [Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

Thissituation changes after Bail befriends Obi-wan but senators like Bail and Padméwere only one of the very few in the galaxy who knew about the Jedi’s abilities.And Padmé knew a little more than Bail because Anakin told her. so if, BailOrgana, a man we know had close ties with the Jedi knew very little about theForce and its inner working, I doubt the average citizen would know enough tounderstand what a Jedi was capable of.

Even theclones didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a Jedi. they too had a lotof questions that went mostly unanswered. The Jedi were private. They callthemselves open to the galaxy but the truth is most people didn’t even knowexisted. And those who did, didn’t know how they worked or what they could do.as we all know, the Jedi were masters at keeping secrets and lying about the knowledgeand power they had.

So saying aSith is the equivalent of an evil Jedi wouldn’t mean much to a population thathad no idea what a Jedi was.

Btw…oh yeah…I would pay all the money in the world to see Yoda squirm trying to explain theCouncil’s lies to the entire galaxy!! Now THAT is what I’d call a good storylol